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ecKsBadBo
O.WPEC.
PECKS B^D BOy .^[ND mS YA
Peck's Bad Boy Abroad.
Peck^s Bad Boy
Abroad
HON. GEO. W. PECK
Mop of "PtA's 'Sad 'Sey muI IBs T*, 7%cA's Otdt Wm,
Hov) 7Wfu/e 9><cA 'Pat Domt die V^tOioa, 9e.
Bdns: a Humorous Description of tlie Bad B07 and Hta Dad in Theb
Journeys Througfh Forcig^n Lands» Their Visits to Crowoed
Heads, tfie Manoers and Customs of the Peo]^ and
the Bad Boy's Never Endii^ Efforts to Pro-
vide Fun No Hatter Where He Ifc
> Ptofuady Btttstrtiitd by Jk
E. S. Groesbeck and R. W. Taylob
THOMPSON & THOMAS.
CHICAGO.
Tv
Si3 ^
3C
OfyHght, W904
BY
JOSEPH B. BOWLES
Copyright, tgoj
BT
JOSEPH B. BOWLES
Copyright, rgoy
BT
THOMPSON, & THOMA;^
AU mghu Ru&rrtd.
• •
• ••
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Tlie Bad Boy and His Chum Call on the Old GrocdTinin
After Being Away at School— The Bad Boy's Dad in ft
Bad Way i?
CHAPTER II.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Ready for Their Travels— The
Bad Boy Labels the Old Uan's Suit Case— How the Cow-
boys Mode Him Dance Once ag
CHAPTER in.
The Bad Boy Writes About the Fun They Had Going to
Washington— He and His Dad Call on President Roose-
velt—The Bad toy Meets One of the Children and They
Disagree 39
CHAPTER IV.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Visit Mount Vernon— Dad
WeeiM at the Grave of the Father of Our Country 49
CHAPTER V.
The Bad hoy and His Dad Have Ditmer at the Waldorf-
Astoria— The Bad Boy Orders Dinner— The Old Man
Gets Stuck— Tries to Rescue a Countess in Distress 6i
CHAPTER VI.
The Bad Boy Writes the Old Groccryman About Ocean Voy-
ages—Hi* Dad Has an Argument Over a Steamer Chair. 7j
5
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VII.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Eat Fog— Call on Astor— A
Dynamite Outrage 85
CHAPTER VIII.
The Bad Boy Writes About the Craze for Gin in the White-
chapel District— He Gives His Dad a Scare in the Tower
of London 96
CHAPTER IX.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Call on King Edward and Almost
Settle the Irish Question 108
CHAPTER X.
The Bad Boy Writes of Ancient and Modem Highwaymen —
They Get a Taste of High Life in London and Dad Tells
the Story of the Picklemaker's Daughter 121
CHAPTER XL
The Bad Boy Writes About Paris— Tells About the Trip
Across the English Channel — Dad Feeds a Dog and Gets
Arrested 153
CHAPTER XII.
The Bad Boy's Second Letter from Paris — Dad Poses as a
Mormon Bishop and Has to Be Rescued — They Climb
the Eiffel Tower and the Old Man Gets Converted 146
CHAPTER XIIL
The Bad Bo/s Dad and a Man from Dakota Frame Up a
Scheme to Break the Bank, But They Go Broke — The
Party in Trouble 1ST
CHAPTER XIV.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Have an Automobile Ride— They
Run Over a Peasant— Climb " Glaziers "—Dad Falls Over
a Precipice, But Is Rescued by the Guides After a Hard
Time of It 169
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XV.
Dad Plays He Is an Anarchist— Tb^ (Htc Ainu to the Beg-
gars and the Bad Boy Ducks a GoodoUcr and His Dad in
the Grand Canal l8i
CHAPTER XVL
The Bad Boy Writes from Naples— Dad Sees Vesuvius and
Calls the Servants to Put Out the Fire— They Ha»e
Trouble with a "Dago" in Pompeii 193
CHAPTER XVII.
The Bad Bc^ and His Dad Qimb Vesuvius— A Chicago Lady
Joins the Party and Causes Trouble aos
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Bad Boy Makes Friends with Some Italian Children-
Dad is Chased by Lions from the Coliseum — " Not Any
More Rome for Papa," says Dad 917
CHAPTER XIX.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Visit the Pope— They Bow to
the King of Italy and His Nine Spots— Dad Finds That
"The Cttacombs" Is Not a Comic Opera aag
CHAPTER XX.
The Bad Boy Tells About the Land of the Czar and the
Trouble They Had to Get There— Dad Does a Sttmt and
Mixes It Up with the People and Soldiers 340
CHAPTER XXI.
Dad Sees a Russian Revolution and Faints— The Bad Boy
Arranges a Wolf Hunt— Dad Threatens to Throw the
Boy to the Wolves 359
CHAPTER XXII.
Dad Wears His Masonic Fez in Constantinople— Tbey Find
the Turks Sensitive on the Dog Question — A College
Veil for the SulUn Sends Him Into a Fit 064
7
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Meet the Cream of the Harem—
"Little Egypt" Docs a Dancing Stunt— The Sultan
Wants to Send Fifty Wives to the President 276
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Arrive in Cairo— At the Hotel
They Meet Some Egyptian Princesses — Dad Rides a
Camel to the Pyramids and Meets with Difficulties 290
CHAPTER XXV.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Climb the Pyramids— The Bad
Boy Lights a Cannon Cracker in Rameses' Tomb — They
Flee from Egypt in Disguise 502
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Bad Boy Writes About Gibraltar^-The Irish-English
Army — ^How He Would Take the Fortress — Dad Wants
to Buy the "Rock" 314
CHAPTER XXVII.
The Bad Boy Writes of Spain— They call On the King and
the Bad Boy Is At It Once More—They See a Bull
Fight and Dad Does a Turn 325
CHAPTER XXVIIL
The Bad Boy and His Dad at Berlin— They Call On Emperor
William and His Family and the Bad Boy Plajrs a Joke
on Them AIL 340
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Bad Boy Writes from Brussels — He and Dad See the
Field of Waterloo and Call on King Leopold, and Dad
and the King Go in for a Swim— The Bad Boy, a Dog
aad Some GoaU Do the Rest 354
CHAPTER XXX.
The Bad Boy's Delayed Letter About Holland and Cuba —
Dad and the Boy Go for a Drive in a Dog-Cart— They
Have a Great Time— Land in Cnba and See the Island
We Fought For 368
8
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXXI.
Tbe Bad Bor Calls m tbe Otd Gnx mrr mt a and Geti Ac-
Qoainted with His New Doff— 09 Again U> See America. .380
CHAPTER XXXn.
The Bad Bar Relates the Automobile Ride He and Did
Took— Tbejr Sneak Out of Town 391
CHAPTER XXXm.
The Bad Bojr Writes Hts Chum Not to Get so G^r— DatTs
Experience with the Peccaries 404
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The Bad Bojr and His Dad Have Trouble with a New Break-
fact Food— Dad Rides a Bucking Broncho 416
CHAPTER XXXV.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Return from Texas— The Bojr
Tells the Groceryman About the Excitement at San
Antonio 4a8
CHAPTER XXXVl.
The Bad Boy's Joke with a Stuffed Rattlesnake— He Tells
tbe Old Groceryman About His Dad's Morbid Appetite. .438
CHAPTER XXXVH.
The Bad Boy Tells the Story of the Bears in Yellowstone
Paik and How Brave Dad Was 449
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The Bad Boy and the Groceryman Illastrate the Russia-
Japanese Wai^-The Bad Bc^ Tells Abont Dad's Efforts
to Raise Hair by the "Snnshine" Method 400
EXUSTRATIONS.
"Don't shoot! gentlefBen, pleaat'' 19
Believes the doctors left a monkey wrench in him 35
Went out just ahead of the old man's shoe 27
Labeled his Dad's valise 31
"He began to dance all around the platform'* 37
" I thought I would bust when Dad fished oat a nickel and
gave it to the porter" 41
The President began to curl up his lip and show his teeth. .. . 45
"I was starting to give him a swift punch" 47
"You couldn't look through that fence at what remains of
the Father of His Country without thinking good things "..50
" I slipped it down the back of Dad's pants " 57
"The waiter brought Dad the check" 63
Wanted Dad to cash a check because the bank was closed. .. . 67
And then the night-watchman came in with the house police-
man and choked Dad off 71
"I'm sorry about Dad, cause he holds more than I do, and
he is slow about giving up meals he paid for " 74
^Started in to make a speech, thanking his fellow-country-
men for coming to see him off " 78
Dad got on his knees and said : " Now I lay me " 94
''Do you mean to tell me you atood around and let Richard
kill those princes?" g6
The Beef-Eaters' SUmpede. 105
"Everyone in Oshkosh said was out of sight and was good
enough for any King" 109
Dad and Kmg Edward settling the Irish Question 113
Dad sang "My Country, Tis of Thee/' and the King sang
"God Save the King" 117
" Went over backwards and stmck on his pants " 119
Call again, Mr. Duval; always |^ to serve any of the de-
scendants of the heroes • 124
A policeman fished Dad out of tiie dMi 126
10
ILLUSTRATIONS
Dad drove the Dukes out 131
Looked ai Dad in a tone of voice that meant trouble 134
And now he coughs up a tip every time he sees a servant )ook
al him 139
"Don't cry, dear; I won't hurt the little runt" 141
The waiter was waiting for his money, and Dad tried to ex-
plain he had been buncoed 144
I put a big red badge on Dad's breast with the word " Bishop "
on it 149
Dad was a sight when we found him in jail 151
Dad went up to her, took out a live-dollar bill, and put it tn
the tambourine of the lassie 155
Dad and the man from Dakota going to break the Bank 15B
" Began to dance like they had seen the people dance at the
show where (hey had passed the evening" 160
There was to be some fun besides the winning of money, be-
cause they lalked of going out in the park and on the
terraces — and seeing the poor devils who had gone broke
commit suicide ite
He would reach out to Dad for more money, and Dad would
reach into another pocket and dig up another roll 167
Started in on a Democratic speech 171
Dad got down on his knees 174
Dad dropped about a hundred feet with the rope on him. ...177
Dad and the Anarchists reveled till almost morning 182
"Dad coughed up over $40 the first day, just giving to
beggars" 185
One yell in the English language, and one in Eyetalian 187
"Then you don't blame your little boy, do you?" 191
Dad pointed out of the window toward Vesuvius 195
And I threw a pail of ashes over the fence igS
"And the man rolled Dad over and he was a sight" aot
It was a picture to see Dad "go up Old Baldhead" ao6
And she was stroking his hair 309
Her husband pulled 3 long, blue gun 311
"Dad's tongue was run out and he was yelling for water". ..31$
If
ILLUSTRATIONS
"When I put my arm around her and Idttai her on tke
pouting 1^ it brought on a revolution'' aig
What Dad wanted to see aas
"I fell and pushed Dad and he went over in the sand and
struck his pants on a cactus " .305
" You'd a died to see Dad take the lead for good old Rome ". .aajr
"I had to kiss anybody they brought to me" 210
"Say, for awhile Dad dassent go up" 233
Told Dad if he didn't stay where he belonged he would
break him up into bones and throw him on a pile 2j8
Told Dad that Nicholas just doted on Americans 242
Shaking dice for our money 245
A Cossack rode right up to him and lashed him over the
back 248
Dad stood up in the sledge and looked back 257
And piled os out on top of Dad 259
" My God, we are pursued by a pack of ravenous wolves, and
there is no help for us" 261
When Dad put his hand on her shoulder 266
Get out, you hounds! 270
Another Turk took me by the ear and stretched it out 273
The President said he must bring his folks 277
He was just getting warmed up to "Balance to Partners **. .281
Of all the stampedes you ever saw 267
It takes nine baths to get down to American Epidermis 292
Like a frog on a pond lily leaf 296
Started on a stampede 299
Wanted him to pay for the camel 304
I was ashamed of Dad myself 307
Dad is disguised as a shiek 311
The natives look at it and keep away from the Bank 317
Dad got up on his hind legs and sang so loud you would
think he would split hisself 321
He handed her a five-dollar gold piece and went out doora lor
a breath of fresh air j^
Dad started to run for the fence 331
The King got one piece of the cayenne pepper can4y 335
19
ILLUSTRATIONS
TotHd him over the fence SSf
Every man smiles or laughs out lotx) Ml
So this ii the champion Little Devil of Amerioi 345
Dad and Emperor William stood scratching themtelvei 340
Dad leaned against a lamppost and scratched his back 35a
"B^an to Bell Dad relics of the Battle of Waterloo" .356
"The King began to peel off his clothes and Dad took off
his " 360
" 111 swim you a malch to the other side," said the King 363
"When the goats began to chew the clothes I took the dog
and went back" 366
"More fan than I ever had outside of a circus " 370
"And the dog got up and grabbed a mouthful of Dad's ample
pants" 374
Any woman could whip four nwn at the drop of the hat 376
"Dog does kinder act as though he had something on his
mind" 383
"Jerusalem, but you are a sight," said the old groceryman, .39a
Dad said, " Good shot, Hennety" -■•'394
" It rained bananas and ihe Dago came down on his head ". -39?
"The farmer had grabbed hold of a wire sign across the
street" 4OO
"Hennery, this attempt on your part to murder me was not
the success you expected" 403
** Dad sat in the parlor with a widow tmtil the porter had to
tell him to cut it out' 4fl6
" I got a gambler to look cross at Dad ". 409
"Dad was up on a limb and the wild animals were jumtung
up to eat hit shoes" 4II
" Dad was up on a limb praying, his gun on the ground and
his coat-taili chewed by the wild pigs" 413
" Hennery, I h^ as though your Dad was not long for this
world " 418
tM among the Cowboys 431
"Dad began to pose as a r^uhr old Rough Rider" 4^3
Dad on a bucking broncho 436
"ThBfs B Prairie Dog from Tuai" 430
13
«
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Dad heard something at night and rose up in bed" 432
"Dad stepped on my prarie dog and yelled murder" 434
"We left under escort of the police" 436
Arrest that boy with the rattlesnake," said the groceryman..442
Each oyster was as big as a pie plate " 445
Landed with his head in a basket of strictly fresh eggs 451
*' You ought to have seen Dad's short legs carry him to a
tree" 455
" Studied the bears for awhile and let Dad yell for the police "458
Come to present arms 461
When the fireworks went off in the grocery 463
Dad said if Rockefeller could raise hair by the sunshine
method, he could " 469
M
14
Peck's Bad Boy Abroad.
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD.
CHAPTER I.
The Bad Boy and His Chum Call on the Old Grocery-
man After Being Away at School — ^The Bad
Boy's Dad in a Bad Way.
The bad boy had been away to school, but the
illness of his father had called him home, and for
some weeks he had been looking about the old
town. He had found few of his old friends. His
father had recovered somewhat from his illness,
and one day he met his old chum, a boy of his own
age. The bad boy and the chum got busy at once,
talking over the old times that tried the souls of
the neighbors and finally the bad boy asked about
the old groceryman, aJid found that the old man
still held out at the old sta^d, with the same old
stock of groceries, and they decided to call upon
him, and surprise him. So after it began to be
dark they entered the store, and found the old
groceryman sitting on a cracker box by the stove,
stroking the back of an old tnaltese cat that had a
yellow streak on the back, where it had been
singed by crawling under the red-hot stove. As
17
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
the boys entered the store the cat raised its back,
its tail became as large as a rolling pin, and the
cat began to spit, while the old groceryman held
up both hands and said :
" Don't shoot, please, but one of you go behind
the counter and take what there is in the cash
drawer, while the other one can reach into my
pistol pocket and release my pocketbook. This
is the fifth time I have been held up this year, and
I have got so if I am not held up about so often I
can't sleep nights."
" O, put down your hands and straighten out
that cat's back," said the bad boy, as he slapped
the old groceryman on the back so hard his spine
cracked like a frozen sidewalk. " Don't you know
us, you old geezer ? We are the only and original
Peck's Bad Boy and his Chum, come to life, and
ready for business," and the two boys danced a
jig on the floor, covered an inch thick with the
spilled sugar of years ago, the molasses that had
strayed from barrel, and the general refuse of the
dirty place, which had become as hard as asphalt.
" O, dear, it is worse than I thought," said the
old groceryman as he laughed a hysterical laugh
through the long whiskers, and he hugged the
boys as though he had a liking for them, notwith-
standing the suffering they had caused him. " By
i8
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
gosh, I thought you were nothing but common
robbers, who just wanted my money. You are
old friends, and can have the whole place," and
he poured some milk into a basin for the cat, but
Dott'l shocil genllemen^ pUote.
2 animal only looked at the two boys as though
she knew them, and watched them to see what
was coming next.
The bad boy looked around the old grocery,
19
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
which had not changed a particle during the time
he had been away, the same old box of petrified
prunes, the dried apples that could not be cut with
a hatchet, the canned stuff on the shelves had be-
come so old that the labels had curled up and
fallen off, so it must have been a guess with the
old groceryman whether he was selling a can of
peas or tomatoes, and the old fellow standing
there as though the world had gone off and left
him, as his customers had.
"Well, wouldn't this skin you," said the bad
boy, as he took up a dried prune and tried to crack
it with a hatchet on a two-pound weight, turning
to his chum who was stroking the singed hair of
the old cat the wrong way. " Say, old man, you
ought to get a hustle on you. Why don't you
clean out this shebang, and put in a new stock
of goods, and have clerks with white aprons on,
and a girl bookkeeper, and goods that people will
buy and eat and not get sick ? There is a grocery
down street that is as clean as a whistle, and I
notice all your old customers go there. Why
don't you keep up with tlie times ? "
" O, I ain't running a dude place," said the
old man, as he took a piece of soft coal and put it
in the old round stove, and wiped the black off
his hands on his trousers. " I am trying to get
20
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
rid of my customers. I have got money enough
to live on, and I just stay here waiting for the
old cat to die. I have only got six customers left,
and one of them has got pneumonia, and is going
to die, then there will be only five. When they
are all gone I shall sit here by the stove until the
end comes. There is nothing doing now to keep
me awake, since you boys quit getting me mad.
Say, boys, do you know, I haven't been real mad
since you quit coming here. The only fun I have
had is swearing at my customers when they stick
up their noses at my groceries. It's the funniest
thing, when I tell an old customer that if they
don't like my goods they can go pium to thunder,
they get mad and go somewhere else to trade.
Times must be changing. Years ago, the more I
abused customers the more they liked it, and
I just charged the goods to them with a pencil on
a piece of brown wrapping paper. I had four
cracker boxes full of brown wrapping paper with
things charged on the paper against customers,
but when anybody wanted to pay their account it
made my head ache to find it, and so one day I bal-
anced my books by using the brown wrapping
paper to kindle the fire. If you ever want to get
even with the world, easy, just pour a little kero-
sene on your accounts, and put them in the stove.
i
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
I have never been so free from worry as I have
since I balanced my books in the stove. Well, I
suppose you have come home on account of your
dad's sickness," said the old groceryman, turn-
ing to the bad boy, who had written a sign, " The
Morgue," and pinned it on the window. " I un-
derstand your dad had an operation performed
on him in a hospital. What did the doctors take
out of him ? "
" Dad had an operation all right," said the bad
boy, " but he is not as much interested in what
they took out of him, as what he thinks they left
in. They said they removed his appendix, and I
guess they did, for dad showed me the bill the
doctors rendered. The bill was big enough so
they might have taken out a whole lot more. If
I had been home I would never have let him
be cut into, but ma insisted that he must have
an operation. She said all the men on our street,
and all that moved in our set, had had operations,
and she was ashamed to go out in society and be
forced to admit that dad never had an operation.
She told dad that he could afford it better than
half the people that had operations, and that a
scar criss-cross on the stomach was a badge of
honor. He never got a scar in the army, and she
simply would not be able to look people in the
\ 22 -
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
face unless dad was operated on. Dad always
was subject to stomach ache, but until appendi-
citis became fashionable he had always taken a
mess of pills, and come out all right, but ma diag-
nosed the case the last time he was doubled up
like a jack-knife, and dad was hustled off to the
hospital, and they didn't do a thing to him.
" He told me about it since I came home, and
now he lays the whole thing to ma, and I have to
stand between them. He is going to get even
with ma, though. The first time she complains
of anything going on inside of her works, he is
going to send her right to a hospital and have the
doctors do their worst. Dad said to me, says he:
" ' Hennery, if you ever feel anything like a
caucus being held inside you, don't you ever go to
a hospital, but just swallow a stick of dynamite
and light the fuse, then there won't be anything
left inside to bother you afterwards. When I
got to the hospital they stripped me for a prize
fight, put me on a table made of glass, and rolled
me into the operating room, gave me chloroform
and when they thought I was all in, they took an
axe and chopped me. I could feel every blow, and
it is a wonder they left enough of your old dad
for you to hug when you came home.'
23
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
" Say, it is kind of pitiful to hear dad talk about
the things they left in him.'*
" What things does he think they left in him/'
asked the old groceryman, as he looked fright-
ened, and felt of his stomach, as though he mis-
trusted there might be something wrong with
him, too.
" O, dad has been reading in the papers about
doctors that perform operations leaving sponges,
forceps, and things inside of patients, when they
close up the place, and since dad has got pretty
fussy since his operation he thinks they left some-
thing in him. Some days he thinks they left a
roll of cotton batting, or a pillow, or a bale of hay,
but when there is a sharp pain inside he thinks
they left a carving knife, but for a week he has
settled down to the belief that the doctors left a
monkey wrench in him, and he is just daffy on
that subject. Says he can feel it turning arotmd,
as though it was miscrewing machinery, and he
wants to consult a new doctor every day as to
what he can take to dissolve a monkey wrench,
so it will pass off through the blood and pores of
the skin. He has taken it into his head that noth-
ing will save his life except to travel all over the
country, and the world. I am to go with him to
look after him,
?4
^BB^^H^^I
1
^^^^
_^i^^^^^^^
>-'i^^^^^;;.
4
l^mj^^^
^
i
^^M
1
^H
^^^^^H Belines Ihf Coders tefl a monkey wrcnfli in him:
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
" By ginger, it's great ! Just think of it. Trav-
eling all over the world and nothing to do but
nurse my old dad who thinks he is filled with hard-
ware and carpenter's tools. Gee ! but I wish you
could go/' said the bad boy, as he put him arm
around his chum. " Maybe we wouldn't make
these foreigners sit up and take an interest in
something besides Royalty and Riots."
" Well," said the groceryman, " they will have
my sympathy with you alone over there."
" But before you start on the road with your
monkey-wrench show, you come in here and let
me put up a package of those prunes to take
along. They will keep in any climate, and there
is nothing better for iron in the blood, such as
your dad has, than prunes. Call again, bub, and
we will arrange for you to write to your chum
from all the places you go with your dad, and he
can come in here and read the letters to me and
the cat."
" All right, old Father Time," said the bad boy,
as he drew a mug of cider out of the vinegar
barrel, and took a swallow. " But what you want
to do is to get a road scraper and drive a team
through this grocery, and clean the floor," and
the boys went out just ahead of the old man's
arctic overshoes, as he kicked at them, and then
26
1
1
^
I
^^KfrnM.
L^^^P
r^^
t
^^^^B ^^S^\^
■
^^r \\
■
^^^^^L^^^ tfeni oul jmt ahtad of the old mai'i that.
1
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
he went back and sat down by the stove and
stroked the cat, which had got its back down level
again, after its old enemies had gone down the
street, throwing snowballs at the driver of a
hearse.
" It is a solemn occupation to drive a hearse,"
said the bad boy.
" Not so solemn as riding inside," . said the
chiun.
^
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER 11.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Ready for Their 1
The Bad Boy Labels the Old Man'a Suit Case-
How the Cowboys Made Him Dance Once.
The old groceryman was in front of the gro-
cery, bent over a box of rutabagas, turning the
decayed sides down to make the possible customer
think all was not as bad as it might be, when a
shrill whistle down the street attracted his atten-
tion. He looked in the direction from which it
came, and saw the had boy coming with a suit
case in one liand and a sole leather hat box in
the other, and the old man went in the store to
say a silent prayer, and to lay a hatchet and an
ax handle where he could reach them if the worst
came.
" Well, you want to get a good look at me
now," said the bad boy, as he dropped the valise
on the floor, and put the hat box on the counter,
" for it will be months and maybe years, before
you see me again."
" Oh, joy ! " said the old groceryman, as he
heaved a sigh, and tried to look sorry. " What
is it, reform school, or have the police ordered
29
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
you out of town ? I have felt it coming for a long
time. This is the only town you could have plied
your vocation so long in and not been pulled.
Where are you going with the dude suit case and
the hat box?*'
" Oh, dad has got a whole mess more diseases,
and the doctors had a conversation over him Sun-
day, and they say he has got to go away again,
right now, and that a sea voyage will brace him
up and empty him out so medicine over in Europe
can get in its work and strengthen him so he can
start back after a while and probably die on
the way home, and be buried at sea. Dad says he
will go, for he had rather die at sea than on land,
'cause they don't have to have any trouble about
a funeral, 'cause all they do is to sew a man up
in a piece of cloth, tie a sack of coal to his feet,
slide him off a board, and he goes kerplunk down
into the salt water about a mile, and stands there
on his feet and makes the whales and sharks think
he is a new kind of fish."
" Gee ! but that is a programme that appeals
to me as sort of uncanny," said the old man. *' Is
your dad despondent over the outlook? What
new disease has he got ? "
" All of 'em," said the boy, as he took a label
off a tomato can and pasted it on the end of the
30
hit V«d's t'otisf.
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
suit case. " You take an almanac and read about
all the diseases that the medicine advertised in
the almanac cures, and dad has got the whole lot
of them, nervous prostration, rheumatism, liver
trouble, stomach busted, limgs congested, dia-
phragm turned over, heart disease, bronchitis,
corns, bunions, every darn thing a man can catch
without costing him anything. But he is not de-
spondent. He just thinks it is an evidence of gen-
ius, and a certificate of standing in society and
wealth. He argues that the poor people who have
only one disease are not in it with statesmen and
scholars. Oh, he is all right. He thinks if he
goes to Europe all knocked out, he will class with
emperors and dukes. Oh, since he had that opera-
tion and had his appendix chopped out, he thinks
there is a bond of sympathy between him and
King Edward that will cause him to be invited to
be the guest of royalty. He is just daffy," and
the bad boy took a sapolio label out of a box and
pasted it on the other end of the valise.
" What in thunder and lightning are you past-
ing those labels on your valise for ? " said the
old man, as the boy reached for a Quaker oats la-
bel and a soap advertisement and pasted them on.
" Oh, dad said he wished he had some foreign
labels of hotels and things on his valise, to make
32
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
fellow travelers believe he had been abroad be-
fore, and I told him I could fix it all right. You
see, if I paste things all over the valise he will
think it is all right, 'cause he is near sighted," and
the boy pasted on a label for 37 varieties of
pickles, and then put on an advertisement for hair
restorer on the hat box.
" Say, here's a fine one, this malted milk label,
with a New Jersey cow on the corner," said the
old man, as he began to take interest in the boy's
talent as an artist. " And here, try one of these
green pea can labels, and the pork and beans
legend, and the only soap. Say, if you and your
dad don't create a sensation from the minute you
take the train till you get back, you can take it
out of my wages. When are you going? "
" To-morrow night," said the boy, as he put
more labels on the hat box, and stood off and
looked at them with the eye of an artist. " We
go to New York first to stay a few days and see
things, and then we take a steamer and sail
away, and the sicker dad is the more time I will
have to fill up on useful noUig."
" Hennery," said the old groceryman, as his
chin trembled, and a tear came to his eye. " I
want to ask you a favor. At times, when you
have been unusually mean, I have thought I
33
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
•lated you, but when I have said something ugly
to you, and have laid awake all night regretting
it, it has occurred to me that you were about the
best friend I had. I think it makes an old man
forget his years, to be chummy with a live boy,
full of ginger, and I do like you, condemn you,
and I can't help it. Now I want you to write me
every little while, on your trip, and I will read
your letters to the customers here in the store,
who will be lonely until they can hear that you are
dead. The neighbors will come in to read your
letters, and it will bring me custom. Will you
write to me, boy, and pour out your heart to me,
and tell me of the different troubles you get your
dad into, for surely you cannot help finding trou-
ble over there if you go hunting for it. Promise
me, boy.*'
" You bet your life I will, old pard," said the
bad boy. " I shall have to have some escape
valve to keep from busting. I was going to write
to my chum, but he is in love with a telephone girl,
and he don't take any time for pleasure. I will
write»you about every dutch and duchess we meet,
every prince and pauper, and everything. You
watch my smoke, and you will think there is a
train afire. I hope dad will try and restrain him-
self from wanting to fight everybody that belongs
34
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
to any country but America. He has bought one
of these little silk American flags to wear in his
button hole, and he swears if anybody looks cross-
eyed at that flag he will simply cut his liver out,
and toast it on a fork, and eat it. He makes me
tired, and I know there is going to be trouble."
" Don't you think your dad's mind sort of wan-
ders?" said the old groceryman, in a whisper,
" It wouldn't be strange, after all he has gone
through, in raising you up to your present size,
if he was a little off his base."
" Well, ma thinks he is bug-house, and the
hired girl is willing to go into court and swear to
it, and that experience we had coming home from
the Yellowstone park some time ago, made me
think if he was not crazy he would be before long.
You see, we had a hot box on the engine, and had
to stay at a station in the bad lands for an hour,
and there were a mess of cow boys on the plat-
form, and I told dad we might as well have some
amusement while we were there, and that a brake-
man told me the cow boys were great dancers,
but you couldn't hire them to dance, but if some
man with a strong personality would demand that
they dance, and put his hand on his pistol pocket
they would all jump in and dance for an hour.
That was enough for dad, for he has a microbe
35
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
that he is a man of strong personality, and that
when he demands that anybody do something
they simply got to do it, so he walked up and down
the platform a couple of times to get his draw
poker face on, and I went up to one of the cow
boys and told him that the old duffer used to be
a ballet dancer, and he thought everybody ought
to dance when they were told to, and that if the
spell should come on him, and he should order
them to dance, it would be a great favor to me if
they would just give him a double shuffle or two,
just to ease his mind.
" Well, pretty soon he came along to where the
cow boys were leaning against the railing, and,
looking at them in a haughty manner, he said:
' Dance, you kiotes, dance,' and he put his hand to
his pistol pocket. Well, sir, I never saw so much
fun in my life. Four of the cow boys pulled re-
volvers and began to shoot regular bullets into
the platform within an inch of dad's feet, and
they yelled to him : ' Dance your own self, you
ancient maverick ; whoop 'er up ! ' and by gosh !
dad was so frightened that he began to dance all
around the platform, and it was like a battle, the
bullets splintering the boards, and the smoke fill-
ing the air, and the passengers looking out of the
windows and laughing, and the engineer and fire-
36
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
man looking on and yelling, and dad nearly
exhausted from the exertion. I guess if the
conductor had not got the hot box put out and
yelled all aboard, dad would have had apoplexy,
"He began la dance all around the platform."
hut he let up, the cow boys quit shooting, and he
got aboard the train and started. I stayed in the
smoking car with the train butcher for more than
an hour, 'cause I was afraid if I went in the car
37
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
where dad was he would make some remark that
would offend my pride, and when I did go back to
the car he just said : * Somebody fooled you.
Those fellows couldn't dance, and I knew it all
the time/ Yes, I guess there is no doubt dad is
crazy sometimes, but let me chaperone him
through a few foreign countries and he will stand
without hitching all right. Well, goodby, now,
old man, and try and bear up under it, till you
get a letter from me.'' and the bad boy took his
labeled valise and hat box and started.
38
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER III.
The Bad Boy Writes About the Pun They Had Gotng
to Washington — He and His Dad Call on Presi-
dent Roosevelt— The Bad Boy Meets One
of the Children and They Disagree.
Washington, D. C— My Dear Old Skate: I
didn't tell you in my last about the fun we had
getting here. We were on the ocean wave two
days, because the whole country was flooded from
the rains, and dad walked the quarter deck of
the Pullman car, and hitched up his pants, and
looked across the sea on each side of the train
with a field glass, looking for whales and por-
poises. He seems to be impressed with the idea
that this trip abroad is one of great significance to
the country, and that he is to be a sort of min-
ister plenipotentiary, whatever that is, and that
our country is going to be judged by the rest of
the world by the position he takes on world af-
fairs. The first day out of Chicago dad corraled
the porter in a section and talked to him until the
porter was black in the face. I told dad the only
way to get respectful consideration from a n^gro
was to advocate lynching and burning at the
39
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
Stake, for the slightest things, so when our porter
was unusually attentive to a young woman on
the car dad hauled him over the coals, and scared
him so by talking of hanging, and burning in
kerosene oil, that the negro got whiter than your
shirt, and when he got away from dad he came
to me and asked if that old man with the red
nose and the gold-headed cane was as dangerous
as he talked. I told him he was my dad, and
that he was a walking delegate of the Amalga-
mated Association of Negro Lynchers, and when
a negro did anything that he ought to be pun-
ished for they sent for dad, and he took charge
of the proceedings and saw that the negro was
hanged, and shot, and burned up plenty. But I
told him that dad was crazy on the subject of
giving tips to servants, and he must not fall dead
when we got to Washington if dad gave him a
$50 bill, and he must not give back any change,
but just act as though he always got $50 from
passengers. Well, you'd a dide to see that negro
brush dad 50 times a day, and bring a towel
every few minutes to wipe off his shoes, but he
kept one eye, about as big as an onion, on dad
all the time, to watch that he didn't get stabbed.
The next morning I took dad's pants from un-
der his pillow, and hid them in a linen closet, and
40
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
dad laid in his berth all the forenoon, and had
it out with the porter, whom he accused of steal-
ing them. The doctors told me I must keep dad
interested and excited, so he would not dwell on
his sickness, and I did, sure as you are a foot high.
Dad stood it till almost noon, when he came out
of his berth with his pajamas on, these kind with
great blue stripes like a fellow in the penitentiary,
and when he went to the wash room I found his
pants and then he dressed up and swore some at
everybody but me. We got to Washington all
right, and I thought I would bust when dad
41
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
fished out a nickel and gave it to the porter, and
we got out of the car before the porter came to,
and the first day we stayed in the hotel for fear
the negro would see us, as I told dad that porter
would round up a gang of negroes with razors
and they would waylay us and cut dad all up into
sausage meat. Dad is the bravest man I ever saw
when there is no danger, but when there is a
chance for a row he is weak as a cat. I spect
it is on account of his heart being weak. A man's
internal organs are a great study. I spose a
brave man, a hero, has to have all his inside
things working together, to be real up and up
brave, but if his heart is strong, and his liver
is white, he goes to pieces in an emergency, and
if his liver is all right, and he tries to fight just
on his liver, when the supreme moment arrives,
and his heart jumps up into his throat, and wab-
bles and beats too quick, he just flunks. I would
like to dissect a real brave man, and see what con-
dition the things inside him are in, but it would be
a waste of time to dissect dad, 'cause I know all
his inner works need to go to a watchmaker and
be cleaned, and a new main spring put in.
Well, this morning dad shaved himself, and
got on his frock coat, and his silk hat, and said
we would go over to the white house and have a
42
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
talk with Teddy, but first he wanted to go and
see where Jefferson hitched his horse to the fence
when he came to Washington to be innogerated,
and where Jackson smoked his corn cob pipe, and
swore and stormed around when he was mad, and
to walk on the same paths where Zachariah Tay-
lor Zacked, Buchanan catched it, and Lincoln put
down the rebellion, and so we walked over toward
the white house, and I was scandalized. I stopped
to pick up a stone to throw at a dog inside the
fence, and when I walked along behind dad, and
got a rear view of his silk hat, it seemed as though
I would sink through the asphalt pavement, for
he had on an old silk hat that he wore before the
war, the darnedest looking hat I ever saw, the
brira curled like a minstrel show hat, the fur
rubbed off in some places, and he looked like one
of these actors that you see pictures of walking
on the railroad track, when the show busts up at
the last town. I think a man ought to dress so
his young son won't have a fit. I tried to get dad
to go and buy a new hat. but he said he was going
to wait till he got to London, and buy one just like
King Edward wears, but he will never get to Lon-
don with that hat, 'cause to-night I will throw it
out of the hotel window and put a piece of stove
pipe in his hat box.
43
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
Well, sir, you wouldn't believe it, but we got
into the white house without being pulled, but it
was a close shave, 'cause everybody looked at dad,
and put their forefingers to their foreheads, for
they thought he was either a crank, or an am-
bassador from some furrin country. The detec-
tives got around dad when we got into the ante-
room, and began to feel of his pockets to see if
he had a gun, and one of them asked me what the
old fellow wanted, and I told them he was the
greatest bob cat shooter in the west, and was on
his way to Europe to invite the emperors and
things to come over to this country and shoot
cats on his preserve. Well, say, you ought to
have seen how they stepped one side and waltzed
around, and one of them went in the next room
and told the president dad was there, and before
we knew it we were in the president's room, and
the president began to curl up his lip, and show
his teeth like some one had said "rats." He got
hold of dad's hand, and dad backed off as though
he was afraid of being bitten, and then they sat
down and talked about mountain lion and cat
shooting, and dad said he had a 22 rifle that he
could pick a cat off the back fence with every time,
out of his bedroom window, and I began to look
around at the pictures. Dad and the president
44
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
talked about all kinds of shooting, from mudhens
to moose, and then dad told the president he was
going abroad on account of his liver, and wanted
The President began lo curl up his Up and show his teeth,
a letter of introduction to some of the kings and
emperors, and queens, and jacks, and all the face
cards, and the president said he made it a prac-
tice not to give any personal letters to his friends,
45
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
the kings, but that dad could tell any of them
that he met that he was an American citizen, and
that would take him anywhere in Europe, and
then he got up and began to show his teeth at dad
again, and dad gave him the grand hailing sign
of distress of the Grand Army and backed out,
dropped his hat, and in trying to pick it up, he
stepped on it, but that made it look better, any-
way, and we found ourselves outside the room,
and a lot of common people from the country were
ready to go in and talk politics and cat shoot-
ing.
Well, we looked at pictures, and saw the state
dining room where they feed 50 diplomats at a
time on mud turtle and champagne, and a boy
about my size looked sort of disdainful at me, and
I told him it he would come outside I would mash
his jaw, and he said I could try it right there if
I was in a hurry to go, and I was starting to give
him a swift punch when a detective took hold of
my arm and said they couldn't have any scrap
there, 'cause the president's son could not fight
with common boys, and I asked him who he called
a common boy, and then dad said we better go
before war broke out in a country that was illy
prepared for hostilities on a large scale, and then
I told a detective that dad was liable to have one
46
PECK'S BAD HOY ABROAD
of his spells and begin shooting any minute, and
then the detectives all tlinn^lit dnrl was; one of
1
"/ was starting to give him a swift punch."
these president assassinationists, and they took
him into a room and searched him, and asked liim
a whole lot of fool questions, and they finally let
47
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
US out, and told us we better skip the town before
night. Dad got kind of heavy-hearted over that
and took a notion he would like to see ma again
before crossing the briny deep, so you came near
having your little angel again soon. This weak-
ness of dad's didn't last long, for we're lookimv
for a warm time in New York and old Lunnop.
So long, Hejinerv,
S|»
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER IV.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Visit Mount Vemon — Dad
Weeps at the Grave of the Father of Our Countiy.
New York City. — My Dear Uncle Ezra : I got
a letter from my chum this morning, and he says
he was in the grocery the day he wrote, and you
were a sight. He says that if I am going to be
away several months you wjll never change your
shirt till I get back, for nobody around the gro-
cery seems to have any influence over you. I
meant to have put you under bonds before I left,
to change your shirt at least quarterly, but you
ought to change it by rights every month. The
way to do is to get an almanac and make a mark
on the figures at the first of the month, and when
you are studying the almanac it will remind you
of your duty to society. People east here, that is,
business men in your class, change their shirts
every week or two. Try and look out for these
little matters, insignificant as they may seem,
because the public has some rights that it is dan-
gerous for a man to ignore.
Dad and I have been down to Mount Vernon,
and had a mighty solemn time. I think dad ex-
49
"Von cotiUn't look through thai fence at -what remains of tht
Father of His Cnunlry xvithout thinking good things,"
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
pected that we would be met at the trolley car by
a delegation of descendants of George Washing-
ton, by a four-horse carriage, with postilions and
things, and driven to the old house, and received
with some distinction, as dad had always been an
admirer of George Washington, and had pointed
with pride to his record as a statesman and a
soldier, but all we saw was a bunch of negroes,
who told us which way to walk, and charged us
ten cents apiece for the information.
At Mount Vernon we found the old house
* where George lived and died, where Martha told
him to wipe his feet before he came in the house,
and saw that things were cooked properly. We
saw pictures of revolutionary scenes and men of
that period, relics of the days wlien George was
the whole thing around there. We saw the bed
on which George died, and then we went down
to the icehouse and looked through the fence and
saw the marble coffins in which George and Mar-
tha were sealed up. Say, old man, I know you
haven't got much reverence, but you couldn't look
through that fence at what remains of the father
of his country without taking off your hat and
thinking good things while you were there.
I was surprised at dad; he cried, though he
never met George Washington in all his life. I
51
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
have seen dad at funerals at home, when he was
a bearer, or a mourner, and he never acted as
thought it affected him much, but there at Mount
Vernon, standing within eight feet of the remains
of George Washington, he just lost his nerve,
and bellered, and I felt solemn myself, like I had
been kept in after school when all the boys were
going in swimming. If a negro had not asked
dad for a quarter I know dad would have got
down on his knees and been pious, but when he
gave that negro a swift kick for butting in with
a commercial proposition, in a sacred moment,
dad come to, and we went up to the house again.
Dad said what he wanted was to think of
George Washington just as a cotmtry farmer, in-
stead of a general and a president. He said we
got nearer to George, if we thought of him get-
ting up in the morning, putting on his old farmer
pants and shirt, and going downstairs in his
stocking feet, and going out to the kitchen by
the wooden bench, dipping a gourd full of rain
water out of a barrel into an earthen wash basin
and taking some soft soap out of a dish and wash-
ing himself, his shirt open so his gjeat hairy
breast would catch the breeze, his suspenders,
made of striped bed ticking, hanging down, his
hair touseled up tmtil he had taken out a yellow
52
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
pocket comb and combed it, and then yelling to
Martha to know about how long a workingman
would have to wait for breakfast. And then dad
said he liked to think of George Washington sit-
ting down at the breakfast table and spearing
sausages out of a platter, and when a servant
brought in a mess of these old-fashioned buck-
wheat cakes, as big as a pieplate, see George, in
imagination, pilot a big one on to his plate, and
cover it with sausage gravy, and eat like he didn't
have any dyspepsia, and see him help Martha to
buckwheat cakes, and finally get up from break-
fast like a full Christian and go out on the farm
and count up the happy slaves to see if any of
them had got away during the night.
By ginger, dad inspired me with new thoughts
about the father of his country. I had always
thought of Washington as though he was con-
stantly crossing the Delaware in a skitT, through
floating ice, with a cocked hat on, and his coat
flaps trimmed with buff nankeen stuff, a sort of a
male Eliza in " Uncle Tom's Cabin." getting
away from the hounds that were chasing her to
chew her pants. I was always thinking of George
either chopping cherry trees, or standing on a
(wdestal to have his picture taken, but here at the
old farm, with dad to inspire me, I was just min-
53
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
gling with Washington, the planter, the neigh-
bor, telling the negroes where they would get off
at if they didn't pick cotton fast enough, or break-
ing colts, or going to the churn and drinking
a quart of buttermilk, and getting the stomach
ache, and calling upstairs to Martha, who was
at the spinning wheel, or knitting woolen socks,
and asking her to fix up a brandy smash to cure
his griping pains. I thought of the father of
his country taking a severe cold, and not being
able to run into a drug store for a bottle of cough
sirup, or a quinine pill, having Martha fix a tub
of hot mustard water to soak those great feet of
his, and bundle him up in a flannel blanket, give
him a hot whisky, and put him to bed with a hot
brick at his feet.
Then, when I looked at a duck blind out in the
Potomac, near the shore, I thought how George
used to put on an old coat and slouch hat and take
his giui and go out in the blind, and shoot can-
vas-back ducks for dinner, and paddle his boat out
after the dead birds, the way Grover Cleveland
did a century later. I tell you, old man, the way
to appreciate our great statesmen, soldiers and
scholars is to think of them just as plain, ordinary
citizens, doing the things men do nowadays. It
does cUd and I more good to think of Washing-
54
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
ton and his friends camping out dovm the Poto-
mac, on a fishing trip, sleeping on a bed of pine
boughs, and cooking their own pork, and roasting
sweet potatoes in the ashes, eating with appetites
like slaves, than to think of him at a state dinner
in the white house, with a French cook disguis-
ing the food so they could not tell what it was.
O, I had rather have a picture of George Wash-
ingtcm and Lafayette coming up the bank of the
Potomac toward the house, loaded down with
ducks, and Martha standing on the porch of
Mount Vernon asking them who they bou^t
the ducks of and how much they cost, than to
have one of those big paintings in the white house
showing George and Lafayette looking as though
they had conquered the world. If the phonograph
had been invented then, and we could listen to the
conversation of those men, just as they said
things, it would be great. Imagine George say-
ing to Lafayette, so you could hear it now:
" Lafe, that last shot at that canvasback yow
made was the longest shot ever made on the Po-
tomac. It was a Jim dandy, you old frog eater,"
and imagine Lafayette replying: " You bet your
life, George, I nailed that buck canvasback with
a charge of number six shot, and he never knew
what struck him." But they didn't have any pho-
55
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
nographs in those days and so you have got to
imagine things.
How would Washington's farewell address
sound now in a phonograph, or some of George's
choice swear words at a slave that had ridden a
sore-backed mule down to Alexandria after a jug
of rum. I would like to rim a phonograph show
with nothing in the machine but ancient talk from
George Washington, but we can have no such luck
unless George is born again.
Old man, if you ever get a furlough from busi-
ness, you go down to Mount Vernon and revel in
memories of the father of his country. If you
go, hunt up a negro with a hair lip, that is a ser-
vant there, and who used to be Washington's
body servant, unless he is a liar, and tell him I sent
you and he won't do a thing to you, for a dollar or
so. I told that negro that dad was a great gen-
eral, a second Washington, and he wore all the
skin off his bald head taking off his hat to dad
every time dad looked at him, and he bowed until
his back ached, but when we were going away,
and dad asked me what ailed the old monkey to
act that way, the old negro thought these new
Washingtons were a pretty tough lot.
All the time at Mount Vernon I couldn't get
up meanness enough to play any trick on dad, but
56
7 tUfpti it iovn tht back of Dwft pat^t,"
PEOCS BAD BOY ABROAD
I picked up a sort of a horse chestnut or some-
thing, with prickers, on it as sharp as needles, and
as we were getting on the trolley I slipped it down
the back of dad's pants, near where his suspen-
ders button on, and by the time we sat down in
the car the horse chestnut had worked down
where dad is the largest, and when he leaned back
against the seat he turned pale and wiggled
around and asked me if he looked bad. I told
him he looked like a corpse, which encouraged
him so he almost fainted. He asked me if I had
heard of any contagious diseases that were prev-
alent in Virginia, 'cause he felt as though he had
caught something. I told him I would ask the
conductor, so I went and asked the conductor
what time we got to Washington, and then I went
back to dad and told him the conductor said there
was no disease of any particular account, except
smallpox and yellow fever, and that the first
symptom of smallpox was a prickling sensation
in the small of the back.
Dad turned green and said he had got it all
right, and I had the darndest time getting him
back to the hotel at Washington. Say, I had to
help him undress, and I took the horse chestnut
and put it in the foot of the bed, and got dad in,
and I went downstairs to see a doctor, and then
58
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
I came back and told him the doctor said if the
prickly sensation went to his feet he was in no
danger from smallpox, as it was an evidence that
an old vaccination of years ago had got in its
work and knocked the disease out of his system
lengthwise, and when I told dad that he raised up
in bed and said he was saved, for ever since I
went out of the room he had felt that same dread-
ed prickling at work on his feet, and he was all
right.
I told dad it was a narrow escape and that it
ought to be a warning to him. Dad has to wear
a dress suit to dinner here and cough up money
every time he turns around, 'cause I have told
the bell boys dad is a bonanza copper king, and
they are not doing a thing to dad.
O, I guess I am doing just as the doctors at
home ordered, in keeping dad's mind occupied.
Well, so long, old man, I have got to go to
dinner with dad, and I am going to order the
dinner myself, dad said I could, and if I don't
put him into bankruptcy, you don't know your
little Hennery.
59
PECK'S BAb BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER V.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Have Dinner at the Wal-
dorf-Astoria — The Bad Boy Orders Dinner — ^The
Old Man Gets Stuck — Tries to Rescue a
Countess in Distress.
Waldorf-Astoria, New York. — Dear Uncle
Ezra: We are still at this tavern, but we don't
do anything but sleep here, and stay around in the
lobby evenings to let people look at us, and dad
wears that old swallow-tail coat he had before
the war, but he has got a new silk hat, since we
got here; one of these shiny ones that is so slick
it makes his clothes look offul bum. We about
went broke on the first supper we had, or dinner
they call it here. You see, dad thought this was
about a three-dollar-a-day house, and that the
meals were included, like they do at Oshkosh, and
so when we went down to dinner dad said we
wouldn't do a thing to old Astor. He let me or-
der the dinner, but told me to order everything
on the biU-of-sale, because we wanted to get the
worth of our three dollars a day. Well, honest,
I couldn't order all there was, 'cause you couldn't
have got it all on a billiard table. Say, that list
61
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
they gave me had everything on it that was ever
et or drunk, but I told dad they would fire us out
if we ordered the whole prescription, so all I or-
dered was terrapin, canvasback duck, oysters,
clams, crabs, a lot of new kinds of fish, and some
beef and mutton, and turkey, and woodcock, and
partridge, and quail, and English pheasant, and
lobster and salads and ices, and pie and things,
just to stay our stomachs, and when it came to
wine, dad weakened, because he didn't want to
set a bad example to me, so he ordered hard
cider for hisself and asked me if I wanted any-
thing to drink, and I ordered brown pop. You'd
a been tickled to see the waiter when he took that
order, 'cause I don't s'pose anybody ever ordered
cider and brown pop there since Astor skinned
muskrats for a living, when he was a trapper
up north. Gosh, but when they brought that din-
ner in, you ought to have seen the sensation it cre-
ated. Most of the people in the great dining hall
looked at dad as though he was a Crases, or a
Rockefeller, and the head waiter bowed low to
dad, and dad thought it was Astor, and dad
looked dignified and hurt at being spoken to by a
common tavern keeper. Well, we et and et, but
we couldn't get away with hardly any of it, and
dad wanted to wrap some of the duck and lobsters
62
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
and things in a newspaper and take it to the
room for a lunch, but the waiter wouldn't have it.
But the cyclone struck the house when dad and I
got up to go out of the dining-room, and the
waiter brought dad the check.
" What is this ? " said dad, as he put on his
glasses and looked at the check which was $43
and over.
" Dinner check, sir," said the waiter, as he
straightened back and held out his hand.
" Why, ain't this house run on the American
plan ? " said dad, as his chin began to tremble.
" No, sir, on the Irish plan," said the waiter.
" You pays for what you borders," and dad began
to dig up. He looked at me as though I was to
blame, when he told me to order all there was
in sight. Well, I have witnessed heart-rending
scenes, but I never saw anything that would draw
tears like dad digging down for that $43. The
doctors at home had ordered excitement for dad,
but this seemed to be an overdose, and I was
afraid he v/ould collapse and I offered him my
glass of brown pop to stimulate him, but he told
me I could go plumb, and if I spoke to him again
he would maul me. He got his roll half out of his
pistol pocket, and then talked loud and said it
was a damoutridge, and he wanted to see Astor
64
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
himself before he would allow himself to be held
up by highwaymen, and then all the other diners
stood up and looked at dad, and a lot of waiters
and bouncers surrounded him, and then he pulled
out the roll, and it was pitiful to see him wet his
trembling thumb on his trembling dry tongue
and begin to peel off the bills, like you peel the
layers off an onion, but he got oflf. enough to pay
for the dinner, gave the waiter half a dollar, and
smiled a sickly smile at the head waiter, and I led
him out of the dining-room a broken-down old
man. As we got to the lobby, where the horse
show of dress-suit chappies was beginning the
evening procession, I said to dad ; " Next time
we will dine out, I guess," and at that he rallied
and seemed to be able to take a joke, for he said:
" We dined out this time. We dined out $43,"
and then we joined the procession of walkers
around, and tried to look prosperous, and after
awhile dad called a bell boy, and asked him if
there wasn't a good dairy lunch counter near the
Waldorf, where a man could go and get a bowl
of bread and milk, and the bell boy gave him the
address of a dairy lunch place, and I can see my
finish, 'cause from this out we will probably live
on bread and milk while we are here, and I hate
bread and milk.
65
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
It got all around the hotel, about the expensive
dinner dad ordered for himself and the little heir
to his estate, and everybody wanted to get ac-
quainted with dad and try to get some stock in his
copper mine. I had told dad about my telling the
boys he was a bonanza copper miner, and he nev-
er batted an eye when they asked him about his
mine, and he looked the part. One man wanted
dad to cash a check, 'cause the bank was closed,
and he was a rich-looking duke, and dad was just
going to get his roll out and peel off some more
onion, when I said : " Not on your tintype, Mr.
Duke,'' and dad left his roll in his pocket, and the
duke gave me a look as though he wanted to
choke me, and went away, saying: "There is
Mr. Pierpont Morgan, and I can get him to cash
it." I saved dad over a hundred dollars on that
scheme, and so we are making money every min-
ute. We went to our room early, so dad could
digest his $43 worth of glad food.
Gee, but this house got ripped up the back be-
fore morning. You remember I told you about
a countess, or a duchess, or some kind of high-
up female that had a room next to our room.
Well, she is a beaut, from Butte, Mont., or Cuba,
or somewhere, for she acts like a queen that has
just stepped off her throne for a good time. She
66
tVanled Dad to cash a check, caute the bank was closed.
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
has got a French maid that is a peacharino. You
know that horse chestnut, with the prickers on,
that I put in dad's pants at Washington. Well, I
have still got it, and as it gets dry the prickers
are sharper than needles, sharper even than a
servant's tooth, as it says in the good book. I
thought I would give dad a run for his money,
'cause exercise and excitement are good for a
man that. dined heartily on $43 worth of rich
food, so when we went to our room I told dad
that I was satisfied from what a bell boy told me
that the countess in the next room, who had gold
cords over her shoulders for suspenders, was
stuck on him, because she was always inquiring
who the lovely old gentleman was with the sweet
little boy. Dad he got so interested that he for-
got to cuss me about ordering that dinner, and he
said he had noticed her, and would like real well
to get acquainted with her, 'cause a man far away
from home, sick as a dog, with no loving wife to
look after him, needed cheerful company. So I
told him I had it all arranged for him to meet
her, and then I went out in the hall, sort of whist-
ling around, and the French maid came out and
broke some English for me, and we got real chum-
my, 'cause she was anxious to learn English, and
I wanted to learn some French words ; so she in-
68
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
vited me into the room, and we sat on the sofa
and exchanged words quite awhile, until she was
called to the telephone in the other room. Say,
you ought to have seen me. I jumped up and put
my hand inside the sheets of the bed, and put that
chestnut in there, right about the middle of the
bed, and then, after learning French quite a spell,
with the maid, we heard the countess getting off
the elevator, and the maid said I must skip, 'cause
it was the countess' bed-time, and I went back
and told dad the whole thing was arranged for
him to meet the countess, in a half an hour or
so, as she had to write a few letters to some kings
and dukes, and when she gave a little scream,-
as though she was practicing her voice on an
opera, or something, dad was to go and rap at
the door. Gosh, but I was sorry for dad, for
he was so nervous and anxious for the half hour
to expire that he walked up and down the room,
and looked at himself in the mirror, and acted
like he had indigestion. I had told the maid that
she and the countess must feel perfectly safe, if
anything ever happened, 'cause my dad was the
bravest man in the world, and he would rush to
the rescue of the countess, if a burglar got in in
the night, or the water pipes busted, or anything,
and all she had to do was to screech twice and dad
69
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
would be on deck, and she must open the door
quicker-n scat, and she thanked me, and said she
would, and for me to come, too. Say, on the dead,
wasn't that a plot for an amateur to cook up?
Well, sir, we had to wait so long for the countess
to get on the horse chestnut that I got nervous
myself, but after awhile there came a scream that
would raise your hair, and I told dad the countess
was singing the opera. Dad said : " Hennery,
that ain't no opera, that's tragedy," but she gave
two or three more stanzas, and I told dad he bet-
ter hustle, and we went out in the hall and rapped
at the door of the countess' room, and the maid
opened it, and told us to send for a doctor and a
policeman, 'cause the countess was having a fit.
Well, say, that was the worst ever. The countess
had jumped out of bed, and was pulling the lace
curtains around her, but dad thought she was
crazy, and was going to jump out of the window,
and he made a grab for her, and he shouted to her
to " be cam, be cam, poor woman, and I will res-
cue you." I tried to pacify the maid the best I
knew how, and dad was getting the countess
calmer, but she evidently thought he was an as-
sassin, for every little while she would yell for
help, and then the night watchman came in with
a house policeman, and one of them choked dad
70
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
off, and thc}' asked the countess what the trouble
was, and she said she had just retired when she
was stabbed about a hundred times in the small
of the back with a poniard, and she knew con-
And then the nigh
spirators were assassinating her, and she
screamed, and this old bandit, meaning dad, came
in, and the little monkey, meaning me, had held
his hand over her maid's mouth, so she could not
make any outcry.
71
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
Well, I got my horse chestnut all right, out of
the bed, and the policeman told the countess not
to be alarmed, and go back to l^ed, and they took
dad and I to our room, and asked us all about it.
Gee, but dad put up a story about hearing a wom-
an scream in the next room, and, thinking only of
the duty of a gentleman under the circumstances,
rushed to her rescue, and all there was to it was
that she must have had a nightmare, but he said if
he had it to do over again, he would do the same.
Anyway, the policeman believed dad, and they
went off and left us, and we went to bed, but dad
said : " Hennery, you understand, I don't want
to make any more female acquaintances, see,
among the crowned heads, and from this out we
mingle only with men. The idea of me going in-
to a woman's room and finding a Floradora with
fits and tantrums, and me, a sick man. Now,
don't write to your ma about this, 'cause she nev-
er did have much confidence in me, aroimd wom-
en with fits." So, Uncle Ezra, you must not let
this get into the papers, see ?
Well, we have bought our tickets for Liverpool,
and shall sail to-morrow, and while you are mak-
ing up your cash account Saturday night, we
shall be on the ocean. I s'pose I will write you
on the boat, if they will tie it up somewhere so it
will stand level. Your dear boy. Hennery.
72
PECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
CHAPTER VI.
The Bad Boy Writes the Old Groceryman About
Ocean Voyages — His Dad Has an Argument
Over a Steamer Chair.
On Board the Lucinia, Mid-ocean.
Dear Old Geezer.
I take the first opportunity, since leaving New
York, to write you, "cause the boat, after three
days out, has got settled down so it runs level,
and I can write without wrapping my legs around
the table legs, to hold me down. I have tried a
dozen times to write, but the sea was so rough
that part of the time the table was on top of me
and part of the time I was on top, and I was so
sick I seem to have lost my mind, over the rail,
with the other things supposed to be inside of
me. O, old man, you think you know what sea-
sickness is, 'cause you told me once about cross-
ing Lake Michigan on a peach boat, but lake
sickness is easy compared with the ocean mal-
ady. I could enjoy common seasickness and think
it was a picnic, but this salt water sickness takes
the cake. I am sorry for dad, because he holds
more than I do, and he is so slow about giving up
n
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
meals that he has paid for, that it takes him
longer to commune with nature, and he groans
so, and swears some. I don't see how a person
can swear when he is seasick on the ocean, with
no sure thing that he will ever see land again,
and a good prospect of going to the bottom, where
you got to die in the arms of a devil fish, with
a shark biting pieces out of your tender loin and
a smoked halibut waiting around for his share of .
your corpse, and whales blowing syphons of
water and kicking because they are so big that
they can't get at you to chew cuds of human gum,
and porpoises combing your damp hair with their
fine tooth comb fins, and sword fish and saw-
tooth piscatorial carpenters sawing off steaks.
Gee, but it makes me crawl. I once saw a dead
dog in the river, with bull heads and dog-fish
ripping him up the back, and I keep thinking I
had rather be that dog, in a nice river at home,
with bullheads that I knew chewing me at their
leisure, than to be a dead boy miles down in the
ocean, with strange fish and sea serpents quar-
reling over the tender pieces in me. A man told
me that if you smoke cigarets and get saturated
with nickoteen, and you are drownded, the fish
will smell of you, and turn up their noses and go
away and leave your remains, so I tried a cigaret,
75
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
and, gosh, but I had rather be et by fish than
smoke another, on an ocean steamer. It only
added to my sickness, and I had enough before.
I prayed some, when the boat stood on its head
and piled us all up in the front end, but a chair
struck me on the place where Fitzsimmons hit
Corbett, and knocked the prayer all out of me,
and when the boat stood on her butt end and we
all slid back the whole length of the cabin, and
I brought up under the piano, I tried to sing a
hymn, such as I used to in the Tiscopal choir,
before my voice changed, but the passengers who
were alive yelled for some one to choke me, and
I didn't sing any more. Dad was in the state-
room when we were rolling back and forth in
the cabin, and between sicknesses he came out to
catch me and take me into the stateroom, but he
got the rolling habit, too, and he rolled a match
with an actress who was voyaging for her health,
and they got offully mixed up. He tried to rescue
her, and grabbed hold of her belt and was reeling
her in all right, when a man who said he was her
husband took dad by the neck and said he must
::eep his hands off or get another nose put on be-
side the one he had, and then they all rolled under
;i sofa, and how it came out I don't know, but the
next morning dad's eye was blacked, and the fel-
76
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
low who said he was her husband had his front
teeth knocked out, and the actress lost her back
hair and had to wear a silk handkerchief tied
around her head the rest of the trip, and she
looked like a hired girl who has been out to a
saloon dance.
The trouble with dad is that he butts in too
much. He thinks he is the whole thing and
thinks every crowd he sees is a demonstration
for him. When the steamer left New York, there
were hundreds of people on the dock to see
friends off, and they had flowers to present to the
friends, and dad thought they were all for him,
and he reached for every bunch of roses that was
brought aboard, and was going to return thanks
for them, when they were jerked away from him,
and he looked hurt. When the gang plank was
pulled In, and the boat began to wheeze, and
grunt, and move away from the dock, and dad
saw the crowd waving handkerchiefs and laugh-
ing, and saying bon voyage, he thought they
were doing it all for him, and he started in to
make a speech, thanking his fellow countrymen
for coming to see him off, and promising them
that he would prove a true representative of his
beloved country in his travels abroad, and that
he would be true to the stars and stripes where-
77
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
ever fortune might place him, and all that rot,
when the boat got so far away they could not
hear him, and then he came off his perch, and said,
"Hennery, that little impromptu demonstration
to your father, on the eve of his departure from
his native land, perhaps never to return, ought
to be a deep and lasting lesson to you, and to
show you that the estimation in which I am held
by our people, is worth millions to you, and you
, can point with pride to your father." I said
"rats" and dad said he wouldn't wonder if the
boat was full of rats, and then we stood on deck,
and watched the objects of interest down the bay.
As we passed the statue of Liberty, which France
gave to the republic, on Bedloe's Island, dad
started to make a speech to the passengers, but
one of the officers of the boat told dad this was
no democratic caucus, and that choked him off,
but he was loaded for a speech, and I knew it was
only a matter of time when he would have to fire
it oflF, but I thought when we got outside the
bar, into the ocean, his speech would come up with
the rest of the stuff, and I guess it did, for after
he began to be sea sick he had to keep his mouth
shut, which was a great relief to me, for I felt
that he would say something that would get this
country in trouble with other nations, as there
79
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
were lots of foreigners on board. I heard that
J. Pierpont Morgan was on board, and I told
everybody I got in conversation with that dad
was Pierpont Morgan, and when people began to
call him Mr. Morgan, I told dad the passengers
thought he was Morgan, the great financier, and
it tickled dad, and he never denied it. Anyway,
the captain put dad and I at his own table, and he
called me "Little Pierp," and everybody dis-
cussed g^eat financial questions with dad, and
everything would have been lovely the whole
trip, only Morgan came amongst us after he had
been sea sick for three days, and they gave him
a seat opposite us, and with two Morgans at the
same table it was a good deal like two Uncle
Tom's in an Uncle Tom's Cabin show, so dad
had to stay in his stateroom on account of sick-
ness, a good deal. Then dad got to walking on
deck and flirting with the female passengers.
Say, did you ever see an old man who was stuck
on hisself, and thought that every woman who
looked at him, from curiosity, or because he had
a wart on his neck, and watch him get busy mak-
ing 'em believe he is a young and kitteny thing,
who is irresistible? Gee, but it makes me tired.
No man can mash, and make eyes, and have a love
scene, when he has to go to the rail every few
80
PECK'S BAD BOy ABROAD
minutes and Iiump hisself with something in him
that is knocking at the door of his palate, to
come out the same way it went in. Dad found a
widow woman who looked back at him kind of
sassy, when he braced up to her, and when the
ship rolled and side-stepped, he took hold of her
arm to steady her, and she said maybe they better
sit down on deck and talk it over, so dad found
a couple of steamer chairs that were not in use,
and they sat down near together, and dad took
hold of her hand to see if she was nervous, and
he told me I could go any play mumbletypeg in
the cabin, and I went in the cabin and looked
out of the window at dad and the widow. Say,
you wouldn't think two chairs could get so close,
and dad was sure love sick, and so was she.
The difference between love sick and sea sick is
that in love sick you look red in the face and
snuggle up, and squeeze hands, and look fondly,
and swallow your emotion, and try to wait pa-
tiently until it is dark enough so the spectators
won't notice anything, and in sea sickness you
get pale in the face, and spread apart, and let go
of hands, and after you have stood it as long as
you can you rush to the rail and act as though you
were going to jump overboard, and then stop
sudden and let-'er-go-gallagher, right before
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
folks, and after it is over you try to look as
though you had enjoyed it. I will say this much
for dad, he and the widow never played a duet
over the rail, but they took turns, and dad held
her as tenderly as though they were engaged,
and when he got her back to the steamer chair he
stroked her face and put camphor to her nose, and
acted like an undertaker that wasn't going to let
the remains get away from him. They were hav-
ing a nice convalescent time, just afore it broke
up, and hadn't either of them been sick for ten
minutes, and dad had put his arm aroimd her
shoulders, and was talking cunning to her, and
she was looking lovingly into dad's eyes, and
they were talking of meeting again in France in
a few weeks, where she was going to rent a villa,
and dad was saying he would be there with both
feet, when I opened the window and said, "The
steward is bringing around a lunch, and I have
ordered two boiled pork sandwiches for you two
easy marks." Well, you'd a dide to see 'em jump.
What there is about the idea of fat pork that
makes people who are sea sick have a relapse, I
don't know, but the woman grabbed her stum-
mix in both hands and left dad and rushed into
the cabin yelling "enough," or something like
that, and dad laid right back in the chair and
82
PECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
blatted like a calf, and said he would kill me dead
when we got ashore. Just then an Englishman
came along and told dad he better get up out of
his chair, and dad said whose chair you talking
about, and the man said the chair was his, and if
dad didn't get out of it, he would kick him in the
pants, and dad said he hadn't had a good chance
at an Englishman since the Revolutionary war.
and he just wanted a chance to clean up enough
Enghshmen for a mess, and dad got up and stood
at "attention," and the Englishman squared off
Hke a prize fighter, and they were just going to
fight the battle of Bunker Hill over again, when
I run up to an officer with gold lace on his coat
and lemon pie on his whiskers, and told him an
old crazy Yankee out on deck was going to mur-
der a poor sea sick Englishman, and the officer
rushed out and took dad by the coat collar and
made him quit, and when he found what the
quarrel was about, he told dad all the chairs were
private property belonging to the passengers,
and for him to keep out of them, and he apol-
ogized to the Englishman and they went into the
saloon and settled it with high balls, and dad
beat the Englishman by drinking two high balls
to his one. Then dad set into a poker game, with
ten cents ante, and no limit, and they played along
83
I^ECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
for a while until dad got four jacks, and he bet
five dollars, and a Frenchman raised him five
thousand dollars, and dad laid down his hand
and said the game was too rich for his blood,
and when he reached in his vest pocket for mon-
ey to pay for his poker chips he found that his
roll was gone, and he said he wotdd leave his
watch for security until he could go to his state
room and get some money, and then he found
that his watch had been pinched, and the Eng-
lishman said he would be good for it, and dad
came out in the cabin and wanted me to help him
find the widow, cause he said when she laid her
head on his shoulder, to recover from her sick-
ness, he felt a fumbling around his vest, but he
thought it was nothing but his stomach wiggling
to get ready for another engagement, but now
he knew she had robbed him. Say, dad and I
looked all over that boat for the widow, but she
simply had evaporated. But land is in sight, and
we shall land at Liverpool this afternoon, and
dad is going to lay for the widow at the gang
plank, and he won't do a thing to her. I guess
not. Well, you will hear from me in London
next, and FU tell you if dad got his money and
watch back. Hennery.
84
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER VII.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Eat Fog — Call on Astor —
A Dynamite Outrage.
London, England.
Dear Old Man :
Well, sir, if a court sentenced me to live in
this town, I would appeal the case, and ask the
judge to temper his sentence with mercy, and
hang me. Say. the fog here is so thick you have
to feel around like a blind goddess, and when you
show up through the fog you look about eighteen
feet high, and you are so wet you want to he run
through a clothes wringer every little while. For
two days we never left the hotel, but looked out
of the windows waiting for the fog to go by, and
watching the people swim through it, without
turning a hair. Dad was for going right to the
Lord Mayor and lodging a complaint, and de-
manding that the fog be cleared off, so an Ameri-
can citizen could go about town and blow in his
money, but I told him he could be arrested for
treason. He come mighty near being arrested on
tiie cars from Liverpool to London. When we
got off the steamer and tried to find the widow
85
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
who robbed dad of his watch and roll of money,
but never found her, we were about the last pas-
sengers to reach the train, and when we got
ready to get on we found these English cars
that open on the sides, and they put you into a
box stall with some other live stock, and lock you
in, and once in a while a g^ard opens the door
to see if you are dead from suflFocation, or have
been murdered by the other passengers. Dad
kicked on going in one of the kennels the first
thing, and said he wanted a parlor car; but the
guard took dad by the pants and gave him a
shove, and tossed me in on top of dad, and two
other passengers and a woman in the compart-
ment snickered, and dad wanted to fight all of
'em except the woman, but he concluded to mash
her. When the door closed dad told the guard he
would walk on his neck when the door opened,
and that he was not an entry in a dog show, and
he wanted a kennel all to himself, and asked for
dog biscuit. Gee, but that guard was mad, and
he gave dad a look that started the train going.
I whispered to dad to get out his revolver, be-
cause the other passengers looked like hold up
men, and he took his revolver out of his satchel
and put it in his pistol pocket, and looked fierce,
and the woman began to act faint, while the pas*
86
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
sengers seemed to be preparing to jump on dad
if he got violent. When the train stopped at
the first station I got out and told the guard that
the old gentleman in there was from Helena,
Montana, and that he had a reputation from St.
Paul to Portland, and then I held up both hands
tlie way train robbers make passengers hold up
their hands. When I went back in the car dad
was talking to the woman about her resembling a
woman he used to know in the states, and he
was just going to ask her how long she had been
SO beautiful, when the guard came to the side
door and called the woman out into another stall,
and then one of the passengers pulled out a pair
of handcuffs and told dad he might as well sur-
render, because he was a Scotland yard detective
and had spotted dad as an American embezzler,
and if he drew that gun he had in his pocket
there would be a dead Yankee in about four min-
utes. Well, I thought dad had nerve before, but
he beat the band, right there. He unbuttoned his
overcoat and put his finger on a Grand Army
button in his buttonhole, and said, "Gentlemen,
I am an American citizen, visiting the crowned
licads of the old world, with credentials from the
President of the United Slates, and day after to-
morrow I have a date to meet your king, on offi-
87
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
cial business that means much to the future peace
of our respective countries. Lay a hand on me
and you hang from the yard arm of an American
battleship." Well, sir, I have seen a good many
bluffs in my time, but I never saw the equal of
that, for the detective turned white, and apol-
ogized, and asked dad and I out to luncheon at
the next station, and we went and ate all there
was, and when the time was up the detective dis-
appeared and dad had to pay for the luncheon,
but he kicked all the way to London, and the
guard would not listen to his complaints, but told
him if he tried to hold up the train he would be
thrown out the window and run over by the train.
We had the compartment to ourselves the rest of
the way to London, except about an hour, when
the guard shoved in a farmer who smelled like
cows, and dad tried to get in a quarrel with him,
about English roast beef coming from America,
but the man didn't have his arguing clothes on,
so dad began to find fault with me, and the man
told dad to let up on the kid or he would punch
his bloody 'ed off. That settled it, when the man
dropped his "h," dad thought he was one of the
nobility, and he got quite chummy with the Eng-
lishman, and then we got to London, and dad had
a quarrel about his baggage, and after thrcaten-
88
PECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
ing to have a lot of fights he got his trunk on the
roof of a cab, and in about an hour we got to the
hotel, and then the fog began an engagement. If
the fog here ever froze stiff, the town would look
like a piece of ice with fish frozen in. Gee, but I
would like to have it freeze in front of our hotel,
so 1 could take an ax and go out and chop a frozen
girl out, and thaw her till she came to.
Say, old man, if anybody ever wants to treat
you to a trip to Europe, don't come here, but go
to some place where they don't think they can
speak English. You can understand a Nitalian or
a Frenchman, or a Dutchman, who can't speak
English, and knows he can't, better than you can
an Englishman who thinks he can speak Eng-
lish, and can't, "don't you know." Everything is
"don't you know." If a servant gives you an
evening paper, he says, '"Ere's your paiper, don't
you know," and if a man should — I don't say they
would, but if a man should give you a civil an-
swer, when you asked him the name of a street,
he would look at you as though you were a canni-
bal, and say, "Regent street, don't you know,"
and then he would act as though you had broken
him of his rest. Dad asked more than a dozen
men where Bill Astor lived, and of all the popu-
lation of London I don't believe anybody knows,
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
except one newsboy. We rode half a day on top
of a bus, through streets so crowded that the
horses had to creep, and dad hung on for fear the
bus would be tipped over, and finally we got out
into the suburbs, where the rich people live, and
dad said we were right on the trail of King Ed-
ward, and we got oflF and loitered around, and
dad saw a beautiful place, with a big iron fence,
and a gate as big as a railroad bridge, and dad
asked a newsboy who lived there, and the boy
made up a face at dad and said, "H'astor, you
bloke," and he put out his hand for a tip. It was
the first civil answer dad had received in Lon-
don, so he gave the boy a dollar. The boy fell
over on the sidewalk, dead, and dad started to go
away for fear he would be arrested for murder,
but I kicked the boy on the pants, and he got -up
and yelled some kind of murdered English, and
more than a dozen newsboys came on a gallop,
and when the boy told them what had happened
they all wanted dad to ask them questions. I told
the boys dad was Andrew Carnegie, and that he
was giving away millions of dollars, so when dad
got to the gate of the beautiful H'astor place, the
boys yelled Andrew Carnegfie, and a flunkey
flunked the gate open and dad and I went in, and
walked up to the house. Astor was on the vcr-
90
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
anda, smoking a Missouri corn cob pipe, and
drinking American beer, and seemed to be wish-
ing he was back home in America. Dad marched
right up to the veranda, hke a veteran soldier,
and Astor could see dad was an American by
the dandruff on his coat collar, and Astor said,
"You are an American citizen and you are wel-
come. Once I was like you, and didn't care a
continental dam for anybody, but in a moment of
passion I renounced my country, swore allegiance
to this blawsted country, and everybody hates me
here, and I don't dare go home to collect my rent
for fear I will be quarantined at Ellis Island and
sent back to England as an undesirable emigrant
who has committed a crime, and is not welcome
in the land where I was born. Old man, have a
glass of Milwaukee beer and let's talk of your
home and my birthplace, and forget that there is
such a country as England." Dad sat down on
the porch, and I went out on the lawn chasing
peacocks and treeing guinea hens, and setting
dogs on the swans, until a butler or a duke or
something took me by the collar and shook me
till my teeth got loose, and he took me back to
the veranda and sat me down on the bottom step
so hard my hair raised right up stiff, like a porcu-
pine. Then I listened to dad and Astor talk about
91
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
America, and I never saw a man who seemed to
be so ashamed that he was a brevet Englishman,
as he did. He said he had so much money that
it made his headache to hear the interest accum-
ulate, nights, when he couldn't sleep, and yet he
had no more enjoyment than Dreyfus did on
Devil's Island. He had automobiles that would
fill our exposition building, horses and carriages
by the score, but he never enjoyed a ride about
London, because only one person in ten thou-
sand knew him, and those who did looked upon
him with pity and contempt because he had re-
nounced his cotmtry to get solid with the Eng-
lish aristocracy, and nobody would speak to him
unless they wanted to borrow money, and if they
did borrow money from him he was afraid they
would pay it back, and make him trouble count-
ing it. He told dad he wanted to get back into
America, and become a citizen again of that
grand old country of the stars and stripes, and
asked dad how he could do it, for he said he had
rather work in a slaughter house in America
than be a grand duke in England. I never saw
dad look so sorry for a man as he did for Astor,
and he told him the only way was to sell out his
ranch in London and go back on an emigrant
ship, take out his first papers, vote the democratic
92
PECK'S BAD BOY ASrOAD
ticket and eventually become a citizen. Astor
was thinking over the proposition, and dad had
asked him if he was not afraid of dynamiters,
when he shuddered and said every day he ex-
pected to be blown sky high, and finally he
snielled something burning and said the smell re-
minded him of an American 4th of July. You
see, I had been sitting still on the step of the
veranda so long I got nervous, for something ex-
citing, so I took a giant firecracker out of my
pocket and lit the long tail, and shoved it under
the porch and looked innocent, and just then one
of the flunkies with tlie tightest pants you ever
saw came along and patted me on the head and
said I was a nice boy, and that made me mad,
and when he went to sit down beside me on the
step I took my horse chestnut out of my pocket
and put it on the step just where he sat down, and
how it happened to come out so I don't know, it
must have been Providence. You see just as the
flunkey flunked on the chestnut burr, the fire
cracker went off, and the man jumped up and
said ""Ells-fire, h'am blowed," and he had his
hands on his pants, and the air was full of smoke,
and dad got on his knees and said, "Now I lay
me," and Mr. Astor fainted all over a rocking
chair and tipped beer bottles on the veranda and
93
Ihsy^iMi-^ I
D«i ,01 <.« hii *«" <"' "^ """" ' '"'
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
more than forty servants came, and I told dad to
come on, and we got outside the gate, ahead of
the police, and got a cab'and drove quicker than
scat to the hotel, and I ast dad what he thought
it was that went off, and he said "You can search
me," but he said he had got enough of trying to
reform escaped Americans, and we got in the
hotel and laid low, and the newspapers told about
a dynamite outrage, and laid it to anarchists.
Well I must close, cause we are going to see the
American minister and get a date to meet King
Exiward. We won't do a thing to Edward.
Yours, Hennery.
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER VIII.
The Bad Boy Writes About the Craze for pin in tiie
Whitechapel District — He Gives His Dad a
Scare in the Tower of Londcm.
London, England. — My Dear Chum: I re-
ceived your letter yesterday, and it made me
homesick. Gee, but if I could be home there with
you and go down to the swimming hole and get
in all over, and play tag in the sand, and tie some
boy's pants and shirt in knots, and yell that the
police are coming, and all grab our clothes under
our arms and run across lots with no clothes on,
and get in a barn and put on our clothes, and dry
our hair by pounding it with a stick, so we would
not get licked when we got home, life would be
worth living, but here all I do is to dodge people
on the streets and see them look cross when they
step on me.
Say, boy, you will never know your luck in be-
ing a citizen of good old America, instead of a
subject of Great Britain, because you have got
to be rich or be himgry here, and if you are too
rich you have got no appetite. You have heard
of the roast beef of old England, but nobody eats
96
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
it but the dukes and bankers. The working men
never even saw a picture of a roast beef, and yet
we look upon all Englishmen as beef-eaters, but
three-fourths of the people in this town look hun-
gry and discouraged, and they never seem to know
whether they are going to have any supper.
I went down to a market this morning where
the middle class and the very poor people buy
their supplies, and it would make you sick to see
themJ They buy small loaves of bread and a
penny's worth of tea, and that is breakfast, and
if a man is working he takes some of the bread to
work for lunch, and the wife or mother buys a
carrot or a quarter of a cabbage, and maybe a
bone with a piece of meat about as big as a fish
bait, and that makes supper, with a growler of
beer.
Say, the chunk of meat with a bone that an
American butcher would throw at a dog that he
had never been introduced to would be a ban-
quet for a large family over here.
I have been down into the White Chapel dis-
trict, which is the Five Points of London, and
of the thousands of tough people I saw there
was not a man but looked as though he would
cut your liver out for a shilling, and every woman
was drunk on gin. What there is about gin that
97
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
makes it the national beverage for bad people
beats me, for it looks like water, tastes like medi-
cine and smells like cold storage eggs. At home
when a person takes a drink of beer or whisky
he at least looks happy for a minute, and maybe
he laughs, but here nobody laughs unless some-
body gets hurt, and that seems to tickle every-
body in the White Chapel district.
The people look mad and savage when they
are not drinking, as though they were only look-
ing for an opportunity to commit murder, and
then when they take a drink of gin, instead of
smiling and smacking their lips as though it
was good and braced them up, they look as
though they had been stabbed with a dirk and
they put on a look of revenge, as though they
would like to wring a child's neck or cut holes in
the people they meet.
Two drinks of gin makes a man or woman
look as though they had swallowed a buzz saw. I
always thought drinking liquor made people think
they were enjoying themselves, or that they took
it to drive away care and make them forget their
sorrows, but when these people drink gin they
seem to do it the way an American drinks car-
bolic acid, to end the whole business quick.
At home the drinker drinks to make him feel
99
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
like he was at a picnic. Here every drinker acts
like a suicide, who only hopes that he may com-
mit a murder before the gin ends his career. And
there are hundreds of thousands of people in
this town who have no ambition except to get a
bit of bread to sustain them till they can get a
drink of gin, and gradually they let up on bread
entirely and feed on gin, and look like mad dog^
and snarl at everybody they see, as much as to
say: " What are you going to do about it? "
A good square American meal would give them
a fit, and they would go to a hospital and die if
the meal could not be got out of them.
Gosh, but I was glad to get out of the White
Chapel district, and I kept looking back for
fear one of the men or women would slit me up
the back with a butcher knife, and laugh like an
insane asylum inmate.
Do you know, those people who drink gin and
go hungry are different from our American mur-
derers. Our murderers will assault you with a
smile, rob you with a joke on their tongue's end,
and give you back car fare when they hold you
up, and if they murder you they will do it easy
and lay you out with your hands across on your
breast and notify the coroner, but your White
Chapel murderer wants to disembowel you and
100
■ fc
•
j
-^
WJ
^
r - ^
w^
1
- , r i
"They look like mad dogs and snarl at everybody."
*
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
cut you up into chunks, and throw your remains
head first into something nasty, and if you have
money enough on your person to buy a bottle of
gin your murderer is as well satisfied as though
he got a roll. Some men in our country commit
murders in order to get money to lay away so
they can live a nice, respectable life and be good
ever afterwards, but your slum murderer in Lon-
don just kills because his stomach craves a drink,
and when he gets it he is tame, like a tiger that
has eaten a native of India.
You may think this letter is a solemn occasion
because I tell you about things that are not funny,
but if you ever traveled abroad you will find that
there is no fun anywhere except in America un-
less you make it or buy it.
We are taking in the solemn things first in
order to get dad's mind in a condition so he can
be cured of things he thinks ail him. I took dad
to the Tower of London, and when we got out of
it he wanted to have America interfere and have
the confounded place burned down and grass
sown on the site and a park made of it.
The tower covers 13 acres of ground, and
there are more things brought to a visitor's atten-
tion that ought to be forgotten than you ever
thought about.
lOI
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
I remember attending the theater at home and
seeing Richard the Third played, and I remem-
ber how my sympathies were aroused for the two
little boy princes that were murdered by Richard
the Third, but I thought it was a fake play, and
that there was nothing true about it, but, by gosh,
it was right here in the Tower of London that
the old hump-backed cuss murdered those little
princes, and dad and I stood right on the spot,
and the beef-eater who showed us around told us
all the particulars. Dad was indignant, and said
to the beef-eater:
" Do you mean to tell me you stood aroimd
and let Richard kill those princes without utter-
ing a protest or protecting them or ringing for
the police? By the great hornspoon, you must
have been accessory to the fact, and you ought to
be arrested and hung," and dad pounded his cane
on the stone floor and looked savage.
The beef-eater got red in the face and said:
" Begging your pardon, don't you know, but h*I
was not *ere at the time. This 'istory was made
six 'undred years ago."
Dad begged the man^s pardon and told him he
supposed the boys were murdered a year or two
ago, and he gave the beef -eater a dollar, and he
was so gratified I think he would have had a mur-
102
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
der committed for dad right there and -.then -ii ■
dad had insisted on it . ..• :" v\ . ■
You feel in going throtag^.&ie tower Hke you
was in an American slaughter house, for it was
here that kings and queens were beheaded by the
dozen. They showed us axes that were used to
behead people, and blocks that the heads of the
victims were laid on, and the places where the
heads fell on the floor. It seemed that in olden
times when a king or a queen got too gay, the
anti-kings or queens would go to the palace and
catch the king or queen in the act, and take them
by the neck and hustle them to the tower, and
when a king or queen got in the tower they went
out on the installment plan, and after being
thrown in the gutter for the mob to recognize, and
walk on the bodies, they would bring them back
in the tower, and seal them up in a pigeon hole for
future generations to cry over.
All my life I have had in our house to look at a
picture of beautiful Anne Boleyn, and here I stood
right where her head was cut off, and I couldn't
help thinking of how we in America got our civili-
zation from the descendants of the English people
who cut her head off.
By ginger, old chum, it made me hot. I didn't
care to look at the old armor, or the crown jewels,
103
I
■ • • •
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
' Whiohin^ke you think of a cut glass factory, but I
reveled ih' the scenes of the beheading. I never
was stuck mueh*'an kin^-^id queens, but it seems
to me if they had to murder them they oug-ht to
have given 'em a show, and let them fight for
their lives, instead of getting into a trap, like you
would entice a rat with cheese, and then cut their
heads off.
I suppose it is right here that we inherited the
desire to lynch and burn at the stake the negroes
that commit crime and won't confess at home.
When anything is born in the blood you can't g-et
rid of it without taking a dose of patriotism and
purifying the blood, and I advise you never to
visit the Tower of London, unless you want to
feel like going out and killing some one that is
tied up with a rope.
Hearing of these murders and seeing the place
where they were committed does not give you an
idea of fair play and you don't feel like taking
some one of your size when you fight, but you get
to thinking that if you could catch a cripple who
couldn't defend himself you would like to take a
baseball club and maul the stuffing out of him.
You become imbued with the idea that if you went
to war you would not want to stand up and fight
fair, but that you would like to get your enemy
104
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
in a bunch and drop dynamite down on him from
a balloon, and kill all in sight, and sail away with
an insane laugh.
Gee, but another day in this tower, and I would
Tht Beef-Eaters' stampede.
want to go home and murder ma, or the neigh-
t>ors.
The only tiling we have got in America that
compares with the Tower of London and its asso-
ciates is the Leiitgert sausage factory in Chicago,
where Leutgert got his wife into the factory, mur-
105
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
dered her, and is alleged to have cut her up in
pieces and made sausage of the meat, given the
pieces with gristle in to his dogs, boiled the bones
imtil they would run into the sewer, dissolved the
remnants in concentrated lye, and sold the saus-
age to the lumber Jacks in the pine woods.
I expect Chicago will buy that sausage factory
and make a show of it, as London does the tower,
and you can go and see it, and feel that you are
as full of modern history as I am of ancient his-
tory, here in London.
I could see that dad was getting nervous every
time a new beheading was described to us, and I
thought it was time to wake him up. In going
through the room where the old armor was dis-
played the beef eater told us who wore the dif-
ferent pieces of armor, and he said at times the
spirit of the dead came back to the tower and
occupied the armor, and I noticed that dad shied
at some of the pieces of armor, so when we got
right into the midst of it, and there was armor
on every side, and dad and the beef eater were
ahead of me, and dad was walking fast in order
to get out quick, I pushed over one of the pieces,
and it went crashing to the floor and the noise
was like a boiler factory exploding, and the dust
io6
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
of centuries rose up, and the noise echoed down
the halls.
Well, you'd a died to see dad and the beef eater.
Dad turned pale and got down on his knees, and
I think he began to pray, if he knows how, and
he trembled like a leaf, and the beef eater got
behind a set of armor that Cromwell or some old
duck used to wear, and said. " Wot in the bloody
'ell is the matter with the h'armor? " and then a
lot of other beef eaters came, and they thought
dad was the spirit of King John, and they stam-
peded, and finally I got dad to stop praying, or
whatever it was that he was doing, and I led
him out, and when he got into the open air he re-
covered and said. " "Ennery, 'hi have got to get
out of Lunnon, don't you know, because me 'eart
is palpitating." and we went back to the 'otel, to
see if otir invitation to visit King Hcdward had
arrived.
Say, we are getting so we talk just like English
coachmen, and you won't hundredstand us when
we get 'ome. Yours, with a haccent.
'Ennehy.
K»7
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER IX,
The Bad Boy and His Dad Call on King Edward and
Almost Settle the Irish Question.
London, H-england. — Dear Uncle Ezra: The
worst is over, and dad and I have both touched a
king. Not the way you think, touching a king for
a hand-out, or borrowing his loose change, the
way you used to touch dad when you had to pay
for your goods, but just taking hold of his hand
and shaking it in good old United States fashion.
The American minister arranged it for us. He
told somebody that Peck's Bad Boy and his dad
were in town, and just wanted to size up a king
and see how he averaged up with United States
politicians, and the king set an hour for us to call.
Well, you'd a dide to see dad fix up. Every-
body said, when we showed our card at the hotel,
notifying us that we were expected at Marlboro
House at such a time, that we would be expected
to put on plenty of dog. That is what an Ameri-
can from Kalamazoo, who sells breakfast food,
said, and the hotel people said we would be obliged
to wear knee breeches and dancing pumps and
silk socks, and all that kind of rot, and men's
io8
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
furnishers began to call upon us to take our meas-
ure for clothes, but when they told us how much
it would cost, dad kicked. He said he had a golf
suit he had made in Oshkosh at the time of the
tournament, that every one in Oshkosh said was
out of sight, and was good enough for any king,
and so he rigged up in it, and I hired a suit at a
masquerade place, and dad hired a coat, kind of
red, to go with his golf pants and socks, and he
wore canvas tennis shoes. I looked like a picture
out of a fourteenth century book, but dad looked
like a clown in a circus. One of dad's calves made
him look as though he had a milk leg, cause the
padding would not stay around where the calf
ought to be, but worked around towards his shin.
We went to Marlboro House in a hansom cab,
and all the way there the driver kept looking down
from the hurricane deck, through the scuttle hole,
to see if we were there yet, and he must have
talked with other cab drivers in sign language
about us, for every driver kept along with us,
looked at us and laughed, as though we were a
wild west show.
On the way to the king's residence it was all
I could do to keep dad braced up to go through
the ordeal. He was brave enough before we got
the invitation, and told what he was going to say
no
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
to the king, and you would think he wasn't afraid
of anybody, but when we got nearer to the house
and dad thought of going up to the throne and
seeing a king in all his glory, surrounded by his
hundreds of lords and dukes and things, a crown
on his head, and an ermine cloak trimmed with
red velvet, and a six-quart milk pan full of dia-
monds, some of them as big as a chunk of alum,
dad weakened, and wanted to give the whole
thing up and go to a matinee, but I wouldn't have
it, and told him if he didn't get into the king row
now that I would shake him right there in Lon-
don and start in business as a Claude Duval high-
wayman and hold up stage coaches, and be hung
on Tyburn Tree, as I used to read about in my
history of Sixteen-String Jack and other English
highwaymen. Dad didn't want to see the family
disgraced, so he let the cabman drive on, but he
said if we got out of this visit to royalty alive, it
was the last tommyrot he would indulge in.
Well, old man, it is like having an operation
for appendicitis, you feel better when you come
out from under the influence of the chloroform
and the doctor shows you what they took out of
you, and you feel that you are going to live, un-
less you grow another vermiform appendix We
were driven into a sort of Central park, and up
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
to a building that was big as a lot of exposition
buildings, and the servants took us in charge and
walked us through long rooms covered with pic-
tures as big as side show pictures at a circus, but
instead of snake charmers and snakes and wild
men of Borneo and sword swallowers, the king's
pictures were about war, and women without
much clothes on from the belt up. Grosh, but
some of those pictures made you think you could
hear the roar of battle and smell gun powder, and
dad acted as though he wanted to git right down
on the marble floor and dig a rifle pit big enough
to git into.
They walked us arotmd like they do when you
are being initiated into a secret society, only they
didn't sing, " Here comes the Lobster,'' and hit
you with a dried bladder. The servants that
were conducting us laffed. I had never seen an
Englishman laff before, and it was the most in-
teresting thing I saw in London. Most English-
men look sorry about something, as though some
dear friend died every day, and their faces seem
to have grown that way. So when they laff it
seems as though the wrinkles would stay there,
imless they treated their faces with massage.
They were laughing at dad's dislocated calf, and
his scared appearance, as though he was going
112
Dad and King Bdwtrd seltlttts the Irish question.
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
to receive the thirty-second degree, and didn't
know whether they were going to throw him over
a precipice or pull him up to the roof by the hind
legs. We passed a big hall clock, and it struck
just when we were near it, and of all the " Hark,
from the tombs '' sounds I ever heard, that clock
took the cake. Dad thought it sounded like a
death knell, and he would have welcomed the
turning in of a fire alarm as a sound that meant
life everlasting, beside that doleful sound.
After we had marched about three mile heats,
and passed the chairs of the noble grand and the
senior warden, and the exalted ruler, we came
to a bronze door as big as the gate to a cemetery,
and the grand conductor gave us a few instruc-
tions about how to back out fifteen feet from the
presence of the king, when we were dismissed,
and then he turned us over to a little man who
was a grand chambermaid, I understood the fel-
low to say. The door opened, and we went in,
and dad's misplaced calf was wobbling as though
he had locomotor attacks-ye.
Well, there were a dozen or so fellows standing
around, and they all had on some kind of uni-
forms, with gold badges on their breasts, and in
the midst of them was a little, sawed-oflF fat fel-
low, not taller than five feet six, but a perfect pic-
114
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
ture of the cigar advertisements of America fer
a cigar named after the king. I expected to see
a king as big as Long John Wentworth of Chi-
cago, a great big fellow that could take a small
man by the collar and throw him over a house,
and I felt hurt at the small size of the king of
Great Britain, but, gosh, he is just like a Yankee,
when you get the formahty shook off.
We bowed and dad made a courtesy like an
old woman, and the king came forward with a
smile that ought to be imitated by every English-
man. They all imitate his clothes and his hats
and his shoes, but he seems to be the only Eng-
lishman that smiles. Maybe it is patented, and
nobody has a right to smile without paying a
royally, but the good-natured smile of King Ed-
ward is worth more than stomach bitters, and the
English ought to be allowed to copy it. There is
no more solemn thing than a party of English-
men together in America, unless it is a party of
speculators that are short on wheat, or a gather-
ing of defeated politicians when the election re-
turns come in. But the king is as jolly as though
he had not a note coming due at the bank, and
you would think he was a good, common citizen,
"5
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
after working hours, at a round beer table, with
two schooner loads in the hold and another
schooner on the way, frothing over the top of the
stein. That is the feeling I had for the king when
he came up to us and greeted dad as the father
of the bad boy and patted me on the shoulder and
said : " And so you are the boy that has made
more trouble than any boy in the world, and
had more fun than anybody, and made them all
stand around and wonder what was coming next
You're a wonder. Strange the American people
never thought of killing you.'' I said yessir, and
tried to look innocent, and then the king told dad
to sit down, and for me to come and stand by his
knee, and by ginger, when he patted me on the
cheek, and his soft hand squeezed my hand, and
he looked into my eyes with the most winning ex-
pression, I did not wonder that all the women
were in love with him, and that all Englishmen
would die for him.
He asked dad all about America, its institu-
tions, the president, and everything, and dad was
just so flustered that he couldn't say much, until
the king said something about the war between
the States, in which the southern states achieved
ii6
4
pad tang "Uy Country, 'Tit of Thee," and the King tang "Goi
Save the Kin j."
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
a vctory. I don't know whether the king said
thai just to wake dad up, 'cause dad had a grand
army button on his coat, but dad choked up a lit-
tle, nd then began to explode, a little at a time,
lik' a bunch of firecrackers, and finally he went
oflf all in a bunch. Dad said : " Look a here, Mr.
King, some one has got you all balled up about
that war. I know, because I was in it, and now
the north and the south are United, and can whip
any country that wants to fight a champion, and
will go out and get a reputation, by gosh ! "
The king laughed at touching dad oflF, and
asked dad what was the matter of America and
Great Britain getting together and making all
nations know when they had better keep their
places, and quit talking about fighting. Dad
said he never would consent to America and Great
Britain getting together to fight any country until
Ireland got justice and was ready to come into
camp on an equality, and the king said he would
answer for the Irishmen of Ireland if dad would
pledge the Irishmen of America, 'cause we had
about as many Irishmen in America as he had
in Ireland, and dad said if the king would give
Ireland what she asked for, he would see that the
ii8
PECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
Irishmen in America woult' sing God Save the
King. I guess dad and *V king would have set-
tled the Irish quest ioi; in about fifteen minutes,
and signed a treaty, only a servant brought in a
nvo-quart bottle of champagne, and dad and the
"Went over backwards and struck on his pmMs."
king hadn't drank a quart apiece before dad
started to sing " My Country 'Tis of Thee, Sweet
Land of Liliertee," and the king sang " God Save
the King," and, by thunder, it was the same tune,
and tears came into dad's eyes, and the king took
out his handkerchief and wiped his nose, and I
119
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
bdlered right out,. and the king rose and offered
a toast to America and everybody in it, and they
swallered it, and dad saiJ there was enough juice
left in the bottle for one more round, and he pro-
posed a toast to all the people of Great Britain,
including the Irish and the king who loved them,
and down she went, and they were standing up.
And I told dad it was time to go.
Say, it was great. Uncle Ezra, and I wish you
could have been there, and there had been an-
other bottle. The only thing that happened to
mar the reunion of dad and the king was when
we were going out backwards, bowing. There
was a little hassock back of me, and I kicked it
back of dad, and when dad's heels struck it he
went over backwards and struck on his golf pants,
and dad said : " El, 'Ennery, I'ave broken my
bloomink back, but who cares/' and when the
servants picked dad up and took him out in the
hall and marched us to the entrance, dad got in
the cab, gave the grand hailing sign of distress,
started to sing God save something or other, and
went to sleep in the cab, and I took him to the
hotel Yours, Hennery.
120
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER X.
The Bad Boy Writes of Ancient and Modem H^h-
waymen — They Get a Taste o£ High Lt£e in
London and Dad Tells the Story of the
Piddemaker's Daughter.
London, England. — My Dear Old Skate :
Well, if we are going to see any of the other coun-
tries on this side of IJie water before our return
ticket expires, we have got to be getting a move
on, and dad says in about a week we will be doing
stunts in Paris that will bring about a revolution,
and wind up the republic of France, and seat some
nine-spot on the throne that Napoleon used to
wear out his buckskin pants on.
Dad asked me tother day what I cared most
to see in London, and I told him I wanted to
visit Newgate prison, and the places made fa-
mous by the bold highwaymen of a century or two
ago. He thought I was daffy, but when I told
him how I had read " Claude Duval " and " Six-
teen- String Jack " and all the highway litera-
ture, in the haymow, when dad thought I was
weeding the garden, he confessed that he used
S) hunt those yellow covered books out of the
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
manger when I was not reading them, and that
he had read them all himself, when I thought he
was studying for his campaign speeches, and so
he said he would go with me. So we visited
Homestead Heath, where Claude Duval used to
ride " Black Bess,'* and hold up people who trav-
eled at night in post chaises, and we found splen-
did spots where there had been more highway
robbery going on than any place east of Missouri,
but I was disgusted when I thought what chumps
those old highway robbers were, compared to the
American highway robbers and hold up men of
the present day.
In Claude Duval's time he had a brace of flint-
lock pistols, which he had to examine the prim-
ing every time a victim showed up, and while he
was polite when he robbed a duchess, he used to
kill people all right, though if they had had cam-
eras at that time the flash from the priming pan
would have taken a flash-light picture of the
robber, so he could have been identified when he
rode off in the night to a roadside inn and filled
up on beer, while he cotmted the ten shillings he
had taken from the silk purse of the victim. Why,
one of our American gangs that hold up a train,
and get an express safe full of greenbacks, and
shoots up a mess of railroad hands and pauen-
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
gers with Winchesters and automatic pistols, and
blows up cars with dynamite and gets away and
has to have a bookkeeper and a cashier to keep
their bank accounts straight, could give those old
Claude Duvals and Sixteen-String Jacks cards
and spades.
But civilization, dad says, has done much for
the highway robbery business, and he says we in
America have arrived at absolute perfection.
However, I was much interested in looking over
the ground where my first heroes lived and died,
and did business, and when we went to the pris-
ons where they were confined, and were shown
where Tyburn Tree stood, that so many of them
were hung on, tears came to my eyes at the
thought that I was on the sacred ground where
my heroes croaked, and went to their deaths with
smiles on their faces, and polite to the last. The
guard who showed us around thought that dad
and I were relatives of the deceased highwaymen,
and when we went away he said to dad: " Call
again, Mr. Duval. Always glad to serve any of
the descendants of the heroes. What line of rob-
bery are you in, Mr. Duval? " Dad was mad,
but he told the guard he was now on the stodc
exchange, and so we maintained the reputatimi of
the family.
133
I'ECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
Tlien we hired horses and took a horse back
ride through Rotten Row, where everybody in
London that has the price, rides a horse, and no
carriages arc allowed. Dad was an old cavalry
man forty years ago, and he is stuck on his shape
when he is on a horse, but he came near breaking
up the horse back parade the day we went for the
ride. The liveryman gave us two bob-tailed nags,
a big one for dad and a small one for me, but
they didn't have any army saddle for dad, and he
had to ride on one of these little English saddles,
such as jockeys ride races on, and dad is so big
where he sits on a saddle that you couldn't see
the saddle, and I guess they gave dad a hurdle
jumper, because when we got right amongst the
riders, men and women, his horse began to act
up. and some one yelled, " Tally-ho," and that is
something about fox hunting, not a coach, and
the horse jumped a fence and dad rolled off over
the bowsprit and went into a ditch of dirty water,
and the horse went off across a field, and the po-
liceman fished dad out of the ditch, and run him
through a clothes wringer or something, and got
him dried out, and sent him to the hotel in an
express wagon, and I rode my horse back to the
liveryman and told him what happened to dad,
and they locked me up in a box stall until some-
125
PEOrS BAD POY ABROAD
body found the horse, 'cause the>' thoi^t dad
was a horse thief, and the}- held me for Taasom.
But dad came around before night and paid my
ransom, and we were released. Dad says Rotten
Row is rotten, all right enough, and by ginger
A policeman Ailied Dad out of the iitcK.
it is, 'cause he has not got the smell of that ditdi
off his clothes yet.
Now he has got a new idea, and that is to go
to some country where there are bandits, different
frcnn the bandits here in London, and be cj^
126
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
tured and taken to the mountain fastnesses, and
held for ransom until our government makes a
fuss about it, and sends warships after us. I tell
dad it would be just our luck to have our govern-
ment fail to try to get us, and the bandits might
cut our heads off and stick them on a pole as a
warning to people not to travel unless they had
a ransom concealed about their clothes. But dad
says he is out to see all the sights, and he is going
to be ransomed before he gets home, if it takes
every dollar our government has got. I think he
is going to work the bandit racket when we get
to Turkey, but, by ginger, he can leave me at a
convent, because I don't want one of those crooked
sabers run into me and turned around like a
corkscrew. Dad says I can stay in a harem
while he goes to the mountains with the bandits,
and I don't know as I care, as they say a harem is
the most interesting place in Turkey. You know
the pictures we have studied in the old grocery,
where a whole bunch of beautiful women are
practicing using soap in a marble bath.
Well, don't you say anything to ma about it,
but dad has got his foot in it clear up to the top
button. It isn't anything scandalous, though
there is a woman at the bottom of it. You see, we
used to know a girl that left home to go out into
127
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
the world and earn her own living. She elocuted
some at private parties and sanitariums, to enter-
tain people that were daffy, and were on the
verge of getting permanent bats in their bdfry,
and after a few years she got on the stage, and
made a bunch of money, and went abroad. And
then she had married a titled person, and every-
body supposed she was a duchess, or a countess,
and ma wanted us to inquire about her when we
got over here. Ma didn't want us to go and hunt
her up to board with her, or anything, but just
to get a glimpse of high life, and see if our poor
little friend was doing herself proud in her new
station in life.
Gee, but dad found her, and she ain't any more
of a duchess than I am. Her husband is a
younger son of a titled person, but there isn't
money enough in the whole family to wad a gun,
and our poor girl is working in a shop, or store,
selling corsets to support a lazy, drunken hus-
band and a whole mess of children, and while
she is seven removes from a duchess, she does
not rank with the woman who washes her moth-
er's clothes at home. Gosh, but dad was hot when
he found her, and after she told him about her
128
PECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
situation in life he gave her a yellow-backed fifty-
dollar bill, and came back to the hotel mad, and
wanted to pack up and go somewhere else, where
he didn't know any titled persons.
That night a couple of dukes came around to
the hotel to sell dad some stock in a diamond mine
in South Africa, and they got to talking about
how English society held over our crude Ameri-
can society, until dad got an addition to the mad
he had when he called on our girl, and when one
of the dukes said America was being helped so-
cially by the marriage of American women to
titled persons, dad got a hot box, like a stalled
freight train.
Says dad, says he : "You Johnnies are a lot of
confidence men, who live only to rope in rich
American girls, so you can marry them and have
their dads lift the mortgages on your ancestral
estates, and put on tin roofs in place of the mort-
gages, 'cause a mortgage will not shed rain, and
you get their money and spend it on other wom-
en." One of the dukes turned red like a lobster,
and I think he is a lobster, anyway, and he was
going to make dad stop talking, but the duke
didn't know dad, and he continued. Says dad,
129
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
says he : "I know a rich old man in the States,
who made ten million dollars on pickles, or break-
fast food, and he had a daughter that was so
homely they couldn't keep a clock going in the
house.
"She came over here and got exposed to a duke,
and she had never been vaccinated, and the first
her father knew she caught the duke, and came^
home, and he followed her. Say, he didn't know
enough to pound sand, and the old man got sev-
eral doctors for her, but they couldn't break up
the duke fever, and finally the old pickle citizen
asked him how much the mortgage was, and how
much they could live on, and he bought her the
duke, and sent them off, and the duke covered his
castle with building paper, so it would hold water,
and they set up housekeeping with a hundred ser-
vants. Then the duke wanted a racing stable,
after the baby came, and the old pickle man went
over to see the baby, and it looked so much like
the old man that he invested in a racing stable,
and the servants bowed low to the old man and
called him 'Your 'ighness,' and that settled the
old pickle person, and he fell into the trap of
building a townhouse in London.
"Then he went home and made some more
pickles, and the daughter cabled him to come
130
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
right over, as they had been invited to entertain
the king and a lot of other face cards in the pack.
And the old man thought it would be great to get
in the king row himself, so he shoveled a lot of
big bills into some packing trunks and went over
to fix up for the king. The castle had to be re-
Dai drove the dukes out.
decorated for about six miles, up one corridor
and down the other, but Old Pickles stood the
raise, because he thought it would be worth the
money to be on terms of intimacy with a king.
"Then when it was all ready, and the old man
was going to stand at the front door and welcome
the king, they made him go to his room, back
131
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
about a half a mile in the rear of the castle, and
for two weeks old Pickles had his meals brought
to his room, and when it was over, and his sen-
tence had expired, he was let out, and all he saw
of the grand entertainment to the crowned heads
was a ravine full of empty wine bottles, a case
of jimjams for a son-in-law, a case of nervous
prostration for a daughter, and hydrophobia for
himself. My old pickle friend has got, at this
date, three million good pickle dollars invested
in your d — d island, and all he has to show for it
is a sick daughter, neglected by a featherhead of
a husband, who will only speak to old pickles
when he wants more money, and a grandchild
that may die teething at any time. You are a
nice lot of ducks to talk to me about your English
society being better than our American civiliza-
tion. You get,'' and dad drove the dukes out.
I think they are going to have dad arrested for
treason. But don't tell ma, 'cause she may think
treason serious. Yours,
Hennery.
132
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XI.
The Bay Boy Writes About Paris— Tells About the
Trip Across the English Channel — Dad Feeds
a Dog and Gets Arrested.
Paris, France. — My Dear Uncle Ezra: Dad
is in an awful state here, and I do not know what
to do with him. We struck this town all in a
heap, and the people seemed to be paralyzed so
they couldnH speak, except to make motions and
make noises that we could not interpret. This is
the first time dad and I have been in a place where
nobody understood our language. Ordinarily we
would take pleasure in teaching people to speak
the English language, but in coming across the
English channel dad and I both got something
we never got on the water before. Ordinary sea-
sickness is only an incident, that makes you wish
you were dead — ^just temporary, but when it
wears oflf you can enjoy your religion and victuals
as well as ever, but the seasickness that the Eng-
lish channel gives you is a permanent investment,
like government bonds that you cut coupons off
of. I 'spect we shall be sick always now, and
worse every other day, like chills and fever.
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
Say, a boat on the English channel does not
roll, or pitch, at intervals, like a boat on ordinary
water, but it does stunts like a broncho that has
Looked at Dad in a lone of voice Ihat meant trouble.
been poisoned by eating loco-weeds, and goes into
the air and dives down under, and shakes itself
like a black bass with a hook in its mouth, and
J
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
rolls over like a trained dog, and sits up on its
hind legs and begs, and then walks on its fore
paws, and seems to jump through hoops, and dig
for woodchucks, and all the time the water boils
like 'pollinarius, full of bubbles, and it gives you
the hiccups to look at it, and it flows every way
at the same time, and the wind conies from the
fourteen quarters at once, and blows hot if you
are too hot and want a cool breeze, and if you
are too cold, and want a wann breeze to keep you
alive, it comes right from the north pole, and you
just perish in your tracks.
Gee, but it is awful. When you get seasick on
an ordinary ocean, you know where to locate the
disease, and you know where to go for relief, and
when you have got relieved you know that you
are alive, but an English channel seasickness is as
different from any other as an alcohol jag is dif-
ferent from a champagne drunk. This EngHsh
channel seasickness begins on your toes, and you
feel as though the toenails were being pulled out
with pincers, and the veins in your legs seem to
explode, your arms wilt like lettuce in front of a
cheap grocery, your head seems to be struck with
a pile-driver and telescoped down into your spine,
and your stomach feels as though you had swal-
lowed a telephone pole with all of the cross arms
135
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
and wires and glass insulators, and you wish
lightning would strike you. Gk)sh, but dad was
hot when he found that he was sick that way,
and when we got ashore he wanted to kill the
first man he met.
He thinks that it is a crime for a man not to
understand the English language, and when he
tells what he wants, and the man he is talking
to shrugs his shoulders and laughs, and brings
him something else, he wants to pull his gun and
begin to shoot up the town, and only for me he
would have killed people before this, but now he
takes it out in scowling at people who do not un-
derstand him. Dad seems to think that if he
cannot make a man understand what he says, all
he has to do is to swear at the man, but there is
no universal language of profanity, so the more
dad swears the more the nervous Frenchman
smiles, and acts polite.
I think the French people are the politest folks
I ever knew. If a Frenchman had to kick a
person out of doors, he would wear a felt slipper,
and after he had kicked you he would place his
hand on his heart, and bow, and look so sorry,
and hurt, that you would want to give him a
tip.
O, but this tipping business is what is breaking
136
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
dad's heart. I think if the servants would ar-
range a syndicate to rob dad of two or three dol-
lars a day. by pocket picking, or sneak thieving,
he would overlook it, and say that as long as
it wfas one of the customs of the country we
should have to submit to it, but when he has paid
his bill, with everj'thing charged extra, and the
servants line up and look appealingly, or mad, as
the case may be, dad is the hardest man to loosen
that ever was, but if they seem to look the other
way, and not, apparently, care whether they get
a cent or not, dad would go and hunt them up,
and divide his roll with them. Dad is not what
you would call a "tight wad." if you let him shed
his money normally, when he feels the loosening
coming on, but you try to work him by bowing
and cringing, and his American spirit gets the
better of him, and he looks upon the servant as
pretty low down. I have told him that the tip-
ping habit is just as bad in America as in France,
but he says in America the servant acts as though
he never had such a thought as getting a tip. and
when you give him a quarter or other tip he
looks puzzled, as though he did not just recall
what he had done to merit such treatment, but
finally puts the money in his pocket with an air
as though he would accept it in trust, to be given
137
n
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
to some deserving person at the first opportunity,
and then he smiles, and gets away, and blows in
the tip for something wet and strong.
I told dad if he would just ignore the servants^
as though he did not understand that they ex-
pected a tip, that he would be all right, so when
we got ready to move from the hotel to private
rooms dad never gave any servant a tip. Well,
I don't know what the servants did to our bag-
gage, but they must have marked it with a small-
pox sign, or something, for nobody would touch
it for several hours, but finally a baggage man
took it and started for our apartments, and got
lost and didn't show up for two days, and when
it was finally landed on the sidewalk nobody
would carry it upstairs, and dad and I had to lug
it up two flights, and I thought dad would have
apoplexy.
We found a guide who could talk New Orleans
English and he said it would cost three dollars to
square it with the servants at the hotel, and have
the boycott removed from our baggage, and dad
paid it, and now he coughs up a tip every time
he sees a servant look at him. He pays when he
goes in a restaurant and when he comes out, and
says he is cured of trying to reform the customs
of anybody else's coimtry.
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PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
We have engaged a guide to stay with us day
and night. The guide took us out for a bat
last night, and dad had the time of his life. Dad
has drank a good deal of spiritous and malt liq-
uors in his time, but I don't think he ever indulged
1
1
much in champagne at three or four dollars a
bottle at home. Maybe he has been saving him-
self up till he got over here, where champagne
is cheap and it takes several quarts to make you
see angels. The guide took us to one of these
bullyvards, where there are tables out on the side-
139
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
walk, and you can eat and drink and look at the
dukes and counts and dutchesses and things prom-
enading up and down, flirting like sin, and we sat
down to a table and ordered things to eat and
drink, and dad looked like Uncle Sam, and felt his
oats.
When he had drank a few thimblefuls of ab-
sinthe, and some champagne, and eat a plateful
of frogs, he was just ripe for trouble. A woman
and a man at an adjoining table had one of these
white dogs that is sheared like a hedge fence, with
spots of long hair left on in places, and dad coaxed
the dog over to our table and began to feed him
frogs' legs, and the woman began to talk French
out loud, and look cross at dad, and the count that
was with her came over to our table and looked
at dad in a tone of voice that meant trouble, and
said something sassy, and the guide said the man
wanted to fight a duel because dad had contam-
inated the woman's dog, and dad got mad and
offered to wipe out the whole place, and he got up
with a champagne bottle and looked defiance at
the count, and the waiters began to scatter, when
the woman came up to dad and begged him not to
hurt the count, and as she spoke broken English
dad could understand her, and she looked so beau-
tiful, and her eyes were filled with tears, and dad
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
relented and said : " Don't cry, dear, I won't
hurt the little runt'* She was so glad dad was
not going to kill the count that she threw her-
self into his arms and thanked dear America for
producing such a grand citizen, such a brave man
as dad, who could forego the pleasure of killing a
poor, weak man who had insulted him, particular-
ly as dad's wild Indian ancestry made it hard
for him to refrain from blood.
Well, dad's face was a study, as he braced up
and held that 150 potmds of white meat in his
arms, with all the people looking on, and he
seemed proud and heroic, and he stroked her hair
and told her not to worry, and finally she hied her-
self away from dad and the count took her away,
and they went up the buUyvard, and after all was
quiet again dad said : " Hennery, let this be a
lesson to you. When you are tempted to com-
mit a rash act and avenge an insult in blood, stop
and think of the sorrow and shame that will come
to you if you draw your gun too quick, and have
a widow on your hands as the result. Suppose
I had killed that shrimp, the face of his widow
would have haunted me always, and I would have
wanted to die. Don't ever kill anybody, my boy,
if you can settle a dispute by shaking the dice."
Well, dad ordered some more wine, and as he
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
drank it, he allowed the populace to admire him
and say things about the great American million-
aire, who spent money like water and was too
brave to fight. Then dad called for his check to
pay his bill, and when he felt in his pocket for his
roll of bills, he hadn't a nickel and the woman,
when she was in his arms, weeding with one hand,
had gone through dad's pockets with the other.
Dad felt for his watch, to see what time it was,
and his watch was gone, and the waiter was wait-
ing for the money and dad tried to explain that he
had been buncoed, and the head waiter came and
begun to act sassy, and then they called a police-
man to stay by us till the money was produced,
and everybody at the other tables laughed, and
dad turned blue, and I thought he would have a
fit. Finally, the guide began to talk, and the re-
sult was that a policeman went home with us, and
dad found money enough to pay the bill, but he
talked language that caused the landlady to ask
us to find a new place.
The next morning tlie guide showed up with
an officer who had a warrant for dad for hugging
a woman in a public cafe, and it seemed as though
we were in for it, but the guide said he could set-
tle the whole business by paying the officer $20,
and dad paid it and I think the guide and the offi-
143
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
cer divided the money. Say, this is the greatest
town we have struck yet for excitement, and I
guess dad will not have a chance to think of his
sickness.
This morning we went into a big department
store, and, by gosh ! we found the count that dad
was going to fight was a floor-walker, and the
covmtess was behind a counter selling soap. When
dad saw the count leering at him, he put his hand
on his pistol pocket and yelled a regular cowboy
yell, and the count rushed down into the base-
ment, the soap countess fainted, and the police
took dad to the police station, and all day the
guide and I have been trying to get him out on
bail. If we get dad out of this we are going to
put a muzzle on him. Well, if anyone asks you
if I am having much of a time abroad, you can
tell them the particulars.
P. S. — ^We got dad out for $20 and costs, and
he says he will blow Paris up before night. We
are going up to the top of the Eiffel tower this
afternoon, to count our money, as dad dassent
tak? out his pocketbook anywhere on the ground
for fear of being robbed. Yours full of frogs,
Hennery.
I4S
t>£CK'S BAD fiOV ABROAD
CHAPTER XII.
The Bad Boy's Second Letter from Paris — Dad Poses
as a Mormon Bishop and Has to Be Rescued —
They Climb the Eiffel Tower and the
Old Man Gets Converted
Paris, France. — Old Pardner in Crime : I got
your letter, telling me about the political cam-
paign that is raging at home, and when I read it
to dad he wanted to go right out and fill up on
campaign whisky and yell for his presidential can-
didate, but he couIdn^t find any whisky, so he has
not tried to carry any precincts of Paris for our
standard-bearer.
There is something queer about the liquor here.
There is no regular campaign beverage. At home
you can select a drink that is appropriate for any
stage of a campaign. When the nominations are
first made you are not excited and beer and cheese
sandwiches seem to fit the case A little later,
when the orators begin to come out into the
open and shake their hair, you take cocktails
and your eyes begin to resemble those of a caged
rat, and you are ready to quarrel with an oppon-
ent. The next stage in the campaign is the
146
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
whisky stage, and when you have got plenty ot"
it the campaign may be said to be open, and you
wear black eyes and lose your teeth, and you
swear strange oaths and smell of kerosene, and
only sleep in the morning. Then election comes
and if your side wins you drink all kinds of things
at once for a week, shout hoarsely and then go
to the Keeley cure, but if your party loses you
stay home and take a course of treatment for ner-
vous prostration and say you will never mix up in
another campaign.
Here in France it is different. The people have
nervous prostration to start on, start a campaign
on champagne, wind up on absinthe, and after the
votes are counted go to an insane asylum. I do
not know what first got dad to drink absinthe
and I don't know what it is. but it looks like soap
suds, tastes like seed cookies and smells like
vermifuge. But it gets there just the same and
the result of drinking it is about the same as the
result of drinking anything in France — it makes
you want to hug somebody.
At home when a man gets full of whisky, he
wants to hug the man he drinks with and weep on
his collar, and then hit him on the head with a
bottle ; but here every kind of drink puts the drink-
er in condition to want to hug. Dad says he
147
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
never knew he had a brain until he learned to
drink absinthe, but now he can close his eyes and
see things worse than any mince pie nightmare,
and when we go out among people he never sees
a man at all, but when a woman passes along,
dad's eyes begin to take turns winking at them
and it is all I can do to keep him from proposing
marriage to every woman he sees.
I thought I would break him of this woman
foolishness, so I told everybody dad was a Mor-
mon bishop, and had a grand palace at Salt Lake
City, and owned millions of gold mines and tab-
ernacles and wanted to marry a thousand women
and take them to Utah and place them at the head
of homes of their own, and he would just call once
or twice a week and leave bags of gold for his
wives to spend. A newspaper reporter, that could
talk English, wrote a piece for a paper about
dad wanting to marry a whole lot and he said
life in Utah was better than a Turkish harem,
cause the wives of a Mormon bishop did not have
to be locked up and watched by unix, but could
flirt and blow in money and go out to dances and
have just as much fun as though they lived in
Newport, and had got divorces from millionaires,
and he said any woman who wanted to marry a
148
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
Mormon bisliop could meet dad on the bullyvard
near a certain monument, on a certain day.
I was on to it, with the reporter, and we hired
/ pul a big red badge on Dad's bn'ast a/iih the word "Bishop"
a carriage and went to the bullyvard, just at the
cime the newspaper said and I put a big red badge
on dad's breast, with the word "Bishop" on it.and
149
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
dad had been drinking absinthe and he thought
the badge was a kind of sign of nobility. Well,
you'd adide to see the bunch of women that were
there to meet dad. " What's the matter here ? "
said dad, as he saw the crowd of women, looking
like they were there in answer to an advertise-
ment for nurses. I told dad to stand up in the
carriage, like Dowie does in Chicago, and hold
out his hands and say : " Bless you, my chil-
dren," and when dad got up to bless them, the re-
porter and I got out of the carriage, and the re-
porter, which could talk French, said for all the
women who wanted to be Mormon wives to get
into the carriage with the bishop and be sealed
for life.
Well, sir, you'd a thought it was a remnant
sale! More than a dozen got into the carriage
with dad, and about 400 couldn't get in, but when
the scared driver started up the horses, they all
followed the carriage, and then the mounted po-
lice surrounded the whole bunch and moved them
off towards the police station, and dad under the
wagonload of females, each one trying to get the
nearest to him, so as to be his favorite wife.
It got noised arotmd that a foreign potent-ate
had been arrested with his whole harem for con-
duct tmbecoming to a potent-ate, and so when we
150
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
■ got to the jail dad had to be rescued from his
wives, and they were driven into a side street by
the police, and dad was locked up to save his life.
The reporter and I went to the jail to get him
out, but we had to buy a new suit of clothes for
him, as everything was torn off him in the Mor-
mon rush. Dad was a sight when we found him
in jail, and he thought his bones were broken,
and he wanted to know what was the cause of
his sudden popularity with the fair sex. and I
told him it all came from his looking so con-
founded distinguished, and his flirting with wom-
en. He said he would swear he never looked at
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
one of those women in a tone of voice that would
deceive a Sunday school teacher, and he felt as
though he was being mistmderstood in France.
We told him the only way to get out of jail was to
say he was a crowned head from Oshkosh, trav-
eling incog, and when he began to stand on his
dignity and demand that a messenger be sent for
the president of France, to apologize for the
treatment he had received, the jailer and police
begged his pardon and we dressed him up in his
new clothes and got him out, and we went to
the Eiffel tower to get some fresh air.
I suppose you have seen pictures of the Eiffel
tower, on the advertisements of breakfast food in
your grocery, but you can form no idea of the
height and magnificence of the tower by studying
advertisements. You may think that the pictures
you see of world events on your cans of baked
beans and maple syrup and soap, give you the
benefit of foreign travel, but it does not. You
have got to see the real thing or you are not fit
to even talk about what you think you have seen.
You remember that Ferris wheel at the Chicago
world's fair, and how we thought it was the great-
est thing ever made of steel, so high that it made
us dizzy to look to the top of it, and when we
went up on the wheel we thought we could see
I
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
the world, from Alaska to South Africa, and we
marveled at the work of man and prayed that we
be permitted to get down off that wheel alive, and
not be spilled down through the rarified Chicago
atmosphere and flattened on the pavement so thin
we would have to be scraped up off the pavement
with a case knife, like a buckwheat cake that
sticks to the griddle.
You remember, old man, how you cried when
our sentence to ride in the Ferris wheel expired,
and the jailer of the wheel opened the cell and
let us out, and you said no one would ever get you
to ride again on anything that you couldn't jump
out of if it balked, or you got wheels in your head
and chunks of things came up to your Adam's
apple and choked you. Well, cross my heart, if
that Ferris wheel, that looked so big to us, would
make a main spring for the Eiffel tower. The
tower is higher than a kite, and when you get near
it and try to look up to the top, you think it is
a joke, and that really no one actually goes up
to the top of it. You see some flies up around the
top of it, and when the guide tells you the flies
crawling around there are men and women, you
think the guide has been drinking.
But dad and I and the guide paid our money,
got into an elevator and began to go up. After
153
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
the thing had been going up awhile dad said he
wouldn't go up more than a mile or so at first, and
asked the man to let him off at the 3,000-foot
level, but the elevator man said dad had got to
take all the degrees and dad said : " Let her
went," and after an hour or so we got to the
top.
Gee! but I thought dad would fall dead right
there, when he looked off at Paris and the world
beyond. The flies we had seen at the top before
starting had changed to human beings, all look-
ing pale and scared, and the human beings on
the ground had changed into flies and bugs, for
all you could see of a man on the ground was his
feet with a flattened plug hat someway fastened
on the ankles, and a woman looked like a spoon-
ful of raspberry jam dropped on the pavement,
or a splash of current jelly moving on the ground
in a mysterious way. I do not know as the Eiffel
tower was intended to act as a Keeley cure, but
of the 50 people who went up with us, half of them
were so full their back teeth were floating, in-
cluding dad and the guide, but when we got to
the top and they got a view of the awful height
to which we had come, it seemed as though every
man got sober at once, and their tongues seemed
to cleave to the roof of their mouths. All they
154
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
could do was to look off at the city and the view
in the distance, and choke up, and look sorry
about something.
I couldn't help thinking of what sort of a pulp
a man would be if he fell off the top of the tower
and struck a fat woman on the pavement, cause
it seemed to me you couldn't tell which was fat
woman and which was man. I never saw such a
change in a man as there was in dad, after he
got his second wind and got his voice working.
He looked like a man who had made up his mind
to lead a different life and begin right there.
155
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
There was a Salvation Army man and woman in
the crowd and dad went up to them. He took out
a five-dollar bill and put it in the tambourine of
the lassie, and said to the man and woman:
" Now, look a Here, I want to join your church,
and if you have got the facilities for giving me
the degrees, you can sign me as a Christian right
now. I have been a bad man, and never thought
I needed the benefits of religious training, but
since I got up here, so near Heaven, in an eleva-
tor which I will bet $io will break and kill us all
before we get down to Paris, I want you to pre-
pare me for the hereafter quick."
Some of the other fellows laughed at dad, and
the Salvation Army people looked as though dad
was drunk, but he continued: *' You can laugh
and be jammed, but Til never leave this place un-
til I am a pious man, and you Salvation Army
people have got to enlist me in your army, for I
am scared plum to death. Gro ahead and convert
me, while we wait." The Salvation Army cap-
tain put his hand on dad's head, the girl held out
the tambourine for another contribution, and dad
felt a sweet peace come over him, and we went
down in the elevator and took a hack to the hotel,
and dad's lips worked as though in pain. H,
156
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XIII.
The Bad Boy's Dad and a Man from Dakota Frame
Up a Scheme to Break the Bank, But They Go
Broke— The Party in Trouble.
Monte Carlo. — Dear Uncle: I blusli to write
the name, Monte Carlo, at the head of a letter
to anyone that is a Christian, or who believes in
honesty and decency, and earning a living by the
sweat of one's brow, for this place is the limit.
If I should write anybody a letter from South
Clark street, Chicago, the recipient would know
I had gone wrong, and was located in the midst
of a bad element, and the inference would be
that I was the worst fakir, robber, hold-up man
or assassin in the bunch.
The inference you must draw from the head-
ing of this letter is that dad and I have taken
all the degree of badness and are now winding
up our career by taking the last degree, before
passing in our chips and committing suicide. Do
you know what this place is. old man? Monaco
is a principality, about six miles square, ruled by
a prince, and the whole business of the country,
157
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
for it is a " country " the same as though it had a
king, is gambling. They have all the different
kinds of gambling, from chuck-a-luck at two bits
to roulette at a million dollars a minute. What
started dad to come to Monte Carlo is more than
1 know, unless it was a new American he has got
acquainted with, a fellow from North Dakota,
that dad met at a sort of dance that he did not
take me to. It seems there is a place in Paris
where they go to see men and women dance — one
of those dances where they kick so high that their
feet hit the gas fixtures.
Well, all I know about it is that one Wednes-
day night dad said he felt as though it was his
duty to go to prayer meeting, so he could say
when he got home that in all the frivolities of a
trip abroad, even in wicked Paris, he never neg-
lected his church duties. I never was stuck on
going to prayer meeting, so dad let me stay at
the hotel and play pool with the cash register boy
in the barroom, and dad took a hjtnn book and
went out. looking pious as I ever saw him.
My, what a difference there was in dad in the
morning. I woke up about daylight, and dad
came into the room with a strange man, with
spinach on his chin, and they began to dance, like
they had seen the people dance at the show where
159
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
they had passed the evening. They were un-
dressed, except their underclothes, which were
these combination suits, so when a man gets into
them he is sealed up like a bologna, and he has
to have help when he wants to get out to take a
bath, and he has to have an outsider button him
in with a button hook. Gee, I would rather be a
sausage and done with it! Well, dad and this
man from Dakota kicked high until dad caught by
the ankle on a gas bracket, and the strange man
got me up out of bed to help unloosen dad and
get him down before he was black in the face.
Finally we got dad down and then the two old
codgers began to discuss a proposition to go to
Monte Carlo to break the bank.
The Dakota man agreed that Americans had
no right to be spending their own money doing
Europe, when their genius was equal to the task
of acquiring the money of the less intelligent for-
eigners. He said they could go to Monte Carlo
and by a system of gambling which he had used
successfully in the Black Hills they could carry
away all the money they could pile into sacks.
The man said he would guarantee to break the
bank if dad would put his money against the Da-
kota man's experience as a gambler, and they
would divide the proceeds equally. Dad bit like
i6i
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
a bass. He said he had always had an element
of adventure in his make-up, and had always liked
to take chances, and from what he had heard of
the fabulous sums won and lost at Mmite Carlo,
Tktre mat to ht tome fim betides the winning of monty, btemte
Ikey talked of going out ih the pork and on the terraeet
* * * and seeing the poor devilt urho had gone broke
he could see that if a syndicate could be formed
that would win most of the time, he could see that
there was more money in it than in any manu-
162
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
facturing enterprise, and he was willing to finance
the scheme.
The Dakota man fairly hugged dad, and he
told dad in confidence that they two could divide
up money enough to make them richer than they
ever dreamed of, and all the morning they dis-
cussed the plan, and made a list of things they
would need to get away with the money. They
provided themselves with canvas sacks to carry
away the gold, and dad drew all his money out
of the bank, and that evening we took a train
for Monte Carlo. All the way here dad and his
new friend chuckled over the sensation they would
make among the gamblers, and I became real in-
terested in the scheme. There was to be some
fun besides the winning of the money, because
they talked of going out in the park and on the
terraces when they were tired of winning mon-
ey, and seeing the poor devils who had gone broke
commit suicide, as that is said to be one of the
features of the place.
Well, we got a suite of rooms and the first day
we looked over the place, and ate free banquets
and saw how the people dressed, and just looked
prosperous and showed money on the slightest
provocation, and got the hang of things. Dad
was to go in the big gambling room in the after-
■63
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
noon with his pockets fairly dropsical with mon-
ey, and the Dakota man was to do the betting,
and dad was to hold one of the canvas bags, and
when it was full we were to take it to our room,
and quit gambling for awhile, to give the bank a
chance to raise more money. Dad insisted that
his partner should lose a small bet once in awhile,
so the bank should not get on to the fact that we
had a cinch.
After luncheon we entered the big gambling
room, in full-dress suits, and, by gosh ! it was like
a king's reception. There were hundreds of men
and women, dressed for a party, and it did not
seem like a gambling hell, except that there werQ
piles of gold as big as stoves, on all the tables, and
the guests were provided with silver rakes, with
long handles, to rake in the money. Dad said in
a whisper to the Dakota man : " What is the use
of taking the trouble to run a gold mine, and get
all dirtied up digging dirty nuggets, when you
can get nice, clean gold, all coined, ready to spend,
by betting right? " And then dad turned to me
and he said: " Hennery, don't let the sight of
this wealth make you avaricious. Don't be purse-
proud when you find that your poor father, after
years of struggle against adversity, and the
machinations of designing men, has got next to
164
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
the Pierpont Morgan class and has money to buy
railroads. Don't get excited when we begin to
bag the money, but just act as though it was a
regular thing with us to salt down our gold for
winter, the same as we do our pork."
A count, or a duke, gave us nice seats, and
rakes to haul in the money ; a countess, with a low-
necked dress, winked at dad when he reached
into his pistol pocket and brought out a roll of
bills and handed them to the Dakota man, who
bought $500 worth of red chips, and when the
man looked the roulette table over and put about
a pint of chips on the red, dad choked up so he
was almost black in the face, and began to per-
spire so I had to wipe my face with a handker-
chief; the gambler rolled the wheel and when the
ball stopped on the red, and dad did the raking
and raked in a quart of chips, and dad shook
hands with the Dakota man and said: " Pard,
we have got 'em on the run," and reached for his
sack to put in the 6rst installment of acquired
wealth, and the low-necked countess smiled a
ravishing smile on dad, and dad looked as though
he owned a brewery, and the Dakota man twisted
his chin whiskers and acted like he was sorry
for the Monte Carlo bank, I just got so faint with
joy that I almost cried.
"65
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
To think we had skinned along as economical-
ly as possible all our lives, and^never made much
money, and now, through this Dakota genius, and
this Monte Carlo opportunity, we had wealth rak-
ing in by the bushel, made me feel great, and I
wondered why more people had not found out
this faraway place, where people could become
rich and prosperous in a day, if they had the
nerve. I tell you, old man, it was great, and I
was going to cable you to sell out your grocery
for what you could get at forced sale and come
here with the money, gamble and become a mil-
lionaire.
Monte Carlo (the next day). — My Dear Uncle
Ezra : I do not know how to write you the sequel
to this tragedy. After our Dakota partner, with
the Black Hills system of beating a roulette game,
had won the first bet, he never guessed the right
color again, and dad had no more use for the
rake. Every time he bet and lost, he would reach
out to dad for more money, and dad would reach
into another pocket and dig up another roll, and
the countess would laugh and dad had to act as
though he enjoyed losing money.
It was about dark when dad had fished up the
last hundred dollars and it was gone before dad
could wink back talhe countess, then the Dakota
i66
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
man looked at dad for more, and dad shook his
head and said it was all off, and they looked at
each other a minute, and then we all three got up
and went out in the park to see the people who
had gone broke commit suicide, but there was
not a revolver shot and dad and the Dakota man
sat down on a seat and I looked at the moon.
Dad looked at the Dakota man and said: " You
started me in all right. What happened to your
system?" The Dakota man was silent for a
moment, and then he pointed to me and said:
" That imp of yours crossed his fingers every
time I bet, except the first time." Dad called me
to him, and he said: " Hennery, let this be a
167
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
lesson to you. Never to cross your fingers. You
have ruined your dad," and he turned his pockets
inside out, and hadn't change for a dollar note,
and he gave me the empty sack to carry, and we
went to our suite of rooms, knowing we would be
fired out into the cold world.
It will take a week to get money from the
states, and we may be sent to the work house, as
we are broke, and haven't got the means even to
commit suicide. Don't tell ma. Yours,
Hennbry.
t68
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XIV..
The Bad Boy and His Dad Have an Automobile
Ride— They Run Over a Peasant— Climb "G!a-
riers" — Dad Falls Over a Precipice, But
Is Rescued by the Guides After a
Hard Time of It.
Geneva, Switzerland. — My Dear Old Man; By
ginger, but I would like to be home now. I have
had enough of foreign travel; I don't see what is
the use of traveling, to see people of foreign coun-
tries, when you can go to any large city in Amer-
ica, and find more people belonging to any for-
eign country than you can find by going to that
country, and they know a confounded sight more.
Take the Russians in New York, the Norwegians
of Minnesota, the Italians of Qiicago, and the
Germans of Milwaukee, and they can talk Eng-
lish, and you can find out all about their own
countries by talking with them, but you go to
their countries and the natives don't know that
there is such a language as the United States
language, and they laugh at you when you ask
questions. I am sick of the whole business, and
169
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
would give all I ever expect to be worth, to be
home right now, with my skates sharp.
I would like to open the door of your old gro-
cery, and take one long breath and die right there
on the doorstep, rather than to live in luxury
in any foreign coimtry. Do you know, I some-
times go into a grocery store abroad, and smell
arotmd, in order to get my thoughts on dear old
America, but nothing abroad smells as the same
thing does in our coimtry. If I could get one
more smell of that keg of sauerkraut back of your
counter, when it is ripe enough to pick, I think I
would break right down and cry for joy. Of
course I have smelled sauerkraut over here, but
it all seems new and tame compared to yours.
It may be the kraut here is not aged enough to
be good, but yours is aged enough to vote and
sticks to your clothes. Gee, but I just ache to get
into your grocery and eat things, and smell smells,
and then lay down on the counter with the cat
with my head on a pile of wrapping paper and
go to sleep and wake up in America, an Ameri-
can citizen, that no king or queen can tell to
" hush up " and take off my hat when I want my
hat on.
You may wonder how we got out of Monte
Carlo, when we had lost every cent we had gam-
170
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
bling. Well, we wondered about it all night, and
had our breakfast sent up to our room, and had
it charged, expecting that when the bill came in
we would have to jump into the ocean, as we
had no gun to kill ourselves with. Just after
breakfast a duke, or something, came to our
m
Started in on a Democratic speech.
' room, and dad said it was all off, and he called
upon the Dakota man to make a speech on poli-
tics, while dad and I skipped out. We thought
the duke, who was the manager of the hotel,
would not understand the speech, and would think
we were great people, who had got stranded.
171
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
The Dakota man started in on a democratic
speech that he used to deliver in the campaign of
'96, and in half an hour the duke held up his
hands, and the Dakota man let up on the speech.
Then the duke took out a roll of bills and said:
" Ze shentlemen is what you call bust. Is it not
so?" Dad said he could bet his Hfe it was so.
Then the duke handed the roll of bills to dad, and
said it was a tribute from the prince of Monaco,
and that we were his guests, and when our stay
was at an end, automobiles would be furnished
for us to go to Nice, where we could cable home
for funds, and be happy.
A\^ell, when the duke left us, dad said:
" Wouldn't that skin you? " and he gave the Da-
kota man one of the bills to try on the bartender,
and when he found the money was good we or-
dered an automobile and skipped out for Nice.
The chauffeur could not understand English, so
we talked over the situation and decided that the
only way to be looked upon as genuine automo-
bilists would be to wear goggles and look pros-
perous and mad at everybody. We took turns look-
ing mad at everybody we passed on the road, and
got it down so fine that people picked up rocks
172
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
after we had passed, and threw them at us, and
then we knew that we were succeeding in being
considered genuine, rich automobile tourists.
After we had succeeded for an hour or two in
convincing the people that we were properly
heartless and purse proud, dad said the only thing
we needed to make the trip a success was to run
over somebody. He said nearly all the American
automobile tourists in Europe had killed some-
body and had been obliged to settle and support
a family or two in France or Italy, and they
were prouder of it than they would be if they en-
dowed a university, or built a church, and he said
he trusted our chauffeur would not be too care-
ful in running through the country, but would
at least cripple some one.
Well, just before we got to Nice, and darkness
was settling down on the road, the chauffeur blew
his horn, there was a scream that would raise hair
on Horace Greeley's head, the automobile stopped,
and there was a bundle of dusty old clothes, with
an old woman done up in them, and we jumped
out and lifted her up, and there we were, the
woman in a faint, the peasants gathering around
us with scythes and rakes and clubs, demanding
173
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
our lives. The bloody-faced woman was taken
into a home, the crowd held us, until finally a
doctor came, and after examining the woman
said she might live, but it would be a tight
squeeze. We wanted to go on, but we didn't want
to be cut open with a scythe, so finally a man,
Dad got down on his knees.
who said he was the husband of the woman, came
out with a gun, dad got down on his knees and
tried to say a prayer, the Dakota man held up
both hands like it was a stage being held up, and
I cried. Finally the chauffeur said, in broken
English, that the husband would settle for $400,
174
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
because he could pay the funeral expenses, get
another wife for half the money and have some-
thing left to lay up for Christmas. As the man's
gun was pointed at dad, he quit praying and gave
up the money and agreed to send $50 a month for
II years, until the oldest child was of age.
Well, we got away alive, got into Nice, and the
chauffeur started back and we cabled home for
money to be sent to Geneva. Switzerland. But,
say; you have not heard the sequel. A story that
has a sequel is always the best, and I hope to die
if the police of Nice didn't tell us that we were
buncoed by that old woman and that the chauffeur
was in the scheme and got part of dad's money.
The way they do it is to wait till dark, and then
roll the woman in the dust and put some red ink
on her face, and she pretends to be run over, and
the doctor is hired by the month, and they aver-
age $500 a night, playing that game on automo-
bile tourists from America. After the woman
is run over every night, and the money is col-
lected, and the victims have been allowed to go on
their way, the whole community gathers at the
house of the injured woman and they have a cele-
bration and a dance, and probably our chauffeur
got back to the house that night in time to enjoy
the celebration. I suppose thousands of Ameri-
175
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
cans are paying money for killing people that
never got a scratch.
Say, we think in America that we have plenty
of ways to rob the tenderfoot, but they g^ve us
cards and spades aiid little casino and beat us
every time. Dad wanted to hire a hack and go
back and finish that old woman with an ax, be-
cause he said he had a corpse coming to him, but
the police told him he could be arrested for think-
ing murder, and that he was a dangerous man,
and that they would give him 12 hours to get out
of France, and so we bought tickets for Switzer-
land, though what we came here for I don't know,
only dad said it was a republic like America and
he wanted to breathe the free air of motmtains in
the home of the Switzerkase.
Well, anybody can have Switzerland if they
want it. I will sell my interest cheap. The first
three days we were here everybody wanted us to
go out on the lake, said to be the most beautiful
lake in the world, and we sailed on it, and rowed
on it, and looked down into the clear water where
it is said you can see a corpse on the bottom
of the lake 100 feet down. We hadn't lost any
corpse, except the corpse of that old woman we
nm over at Nice, but we wanted to get the worth
of our money, so we kept looking for days, but
176
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
the search for a corpse becomes tame after awhile,
and we gave it up. All we saw in the bottom of
the lake was a cow, but no man can weep properly
over the remains of a cow, and dad said they
could go to the deuce with their corpses, and we
Dmd dropped about a hundred feel with ikt rof* o» Mm.
just camped at the hotel till our money came. Say,
that lake they talk so much about is no better than
lakes all over Wisconsin, and there are no black
bass or muskellunges in it.
The tourists here are just daffy about climbing
mountains and glaziers, and they talk about it all
177
I
4
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
the time, and I could see dad's finish. They told
him that no American that ever visited Switzer-
land would be recognized when he got home if he
had not climbed the glaziers, so dad arranged for
a trip up into the sky. We went loo miles or
so on the cars, passing along valleys where all
the cows wear tea bells, and it sounds like chimes
in the distance. It is beautiful in Switzerland,
but the cheese is something awful. A piece of
native Swiss cheese would break up a family.
At night we arrived at a station where we hired
guides and clothes, and things, and the next
morning we started. Dad wanted me to stay at
the station a couple of days, while he was gone,
and play with the goats, but I told him if there
were any places in the mountains or glaziers any
more dangerous than Paris or Monte Carlo, I
wanted to visit them, so he let me go. Well, we
were rigged up for discovering the north pole,
and had alpenstocks to push ourselves up with,
and the guides had ropes to pull us up when we
got to places where we couldn't climb. I could
get along all right, but they had dad on a rope
most of the time pulling him until his tongue
run out and his face turned blue. But dad was
game, and don't you forget it.
Before noon we got on top of a glazier, which
178
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
is the ice of a frozen river, that moves all the
time, sliding towards the sea. There was noth-
ing but a hard winter, in summer, to the experi-
ence, and we would have gone back the same
night, only dad slipped down a crevice about lOO
feet with the rope on him, and the two guides
couldn't pull him up, and we had to send a lunch
down to him on the rope and one of the guides
had to go back to the village for help to get dad
up. Well, sir. I think dad was nearer dead than
he ever was before, but they sent down a bottle
of brandy, and when he drank some of it the snow
began to melt and he was warm enough to use bad
language.
He yelled tQ me that this was the limit and
wanted to know how long they were going to keep
him there. I yelled to him that one of the guides
had gone for help to pull him out, and he said for
them to order a yoke of oxen. I told him that
probably he would have to remain there until
spring opened and that I was going back to Amer-
ica and leave him there, and he better pray. I
don't know whether dad prayed, down there in
the bowels of the mountains, but he didn't pray
when help came, and they finally hauled him up.
His breath was gone, but he gave those guides
some language that would set them to thinking
179
4
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
if they could have understood him, and finally
we started down the mountain. They kept the
rope on dad and every little while he would slip
and slide loo feet or so down the mountain on
his pants, and the snow would go up his trousers
legs clear to his collar, and the exercise made him
so hot that the steam came out of his clothes, and
he looked like a locomotive wrecked in a snow
bank blowing off steam.
It became dark and I expected we would be
killed, but before midnight we got to the station
and changed our clothes and paid off the guides
and took a train back. Dad said to me, as we got
on the cars : " Now, Hennery, I have done this
glazier stunt, just to show you that a brave man,
whatever his age, is equal to anything they can
propose in Europe, but by ginger, this settles it,
and now I want to go where things come easier.
I am now going to Turkey and see how the Turks
worry along. Are you with me ? " " You bet
your life," says I. Yours truly.
Hennery.
i8o
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER X V.
Dad Plays He Is an Anarchist — ^They Give Alms to
the Beggars and the Bad Boy Ducks a Gon-
dolier and His Dad in the Grand CanaL
Venice, Italy. — My Dear Old Chumireno: Dad
couldn't get out of Switzerland quick enough
after he got thawed out the day after we climbed
the glaziers. We found that almost all the tour-
ists in Geneva were there because they did not
want to go home and say they had not visited
Switzerland, so they just jumped from one place
to another. The people who stay there any length
of time are like the foreign residents of Mexico,
who are wanted for something they have done at
home, that is against the law. There are more
anarchists in Geneva than anything else, and they
look hairy and wild eyed, and they plot to kill
kings and drink beer out of two quart jars.
When we found that more attention was paid
to men suspected of crime in their own countries,
and men who were believed to be plotting to as-
sassinate kings, dad said it would be a good joke
if a story should get out that he was suspected
of being connected with a syndicate that wanted
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
to assassinate some one, so I told a fellow that I
got acquainted with that the fussy old man that
tried to ride a glazier witliout any saddle or stir-
rup was wanted for attempting to blow up the
president of the United States by selling him
reveled til! almost morning.
baled hay soaked in a solution of dynamite and
nitro-glycerine.
Say, they will believe anything in Switzerland.
It wasn't two hours before long-haired people
were inviting dad to dinners, and the same night
he was taken to a den where a lot of anarchists
were reveling, and dad reveled till almost morn-
ing. When he came back to tlie hotel he said his
182
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
liosts got all the money he had with him, through
some game he didn't understand, but he under-
stood it was to go into a fund to support deserv-
ing anarchists and dynamiters. He said when
they found out he was a suspected assassin noth-
ing was too good for him. He said they wanted
to know how he expected to kill a president by
soaking baled hay in explosives, and dad said it
came to him suddenly to tell them that the presi-
dent rode on horseback a good deal, and he
thought if a horse was filled with baled hay and
nitro-glycerine and the president spurred the
horse and the horse jumped in the air and came
down kerchunk on an asphalt pavement, the horse
would explode, and when the rider came down
covered with sausage covers and horse meat, he
would be dead, or would want to be. Dad said
the anarchists went into executive session and
took up a collection to send a man to Berlin to
fill the emperor's saddle horse with cut feed like
dad suggested.
Well, the anarchist story was too much for
Switzerland, and the next morning dad was told
by a policeman that he had to get out of the
country quick, and it didn't take us 15 minutes
to pack up, and here we are in Venice.
Well, say, old friend, this is tlie place where
■83
4
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
you ought to be, because nobody works here, that
is, nobody but gondoliers. We have been here
several days, and I have not seen a soul doing
anything except begging, or selling things that
nobody seems to want If anybody buys any-
thing but onions, it is for curiosity, or for souvr
enirs, and yet the whole population sits around
in the sun and watches the strangers from other
lands price things and go away without buying,
and then everybody looks mad, as though they
would like to jab a knife into the stranger. The
plazas and the places near the canal are filled with
hucksters and beggars, and you never saw beg-
gars so mutilated and sore and disgusting. I nev-
er supposed human beings could be so deformed,
without taking an ax to them, and it is so pitiful
to sec them that you can't help shedding yotu*
money.
As hard hearted as dad is, he coughed up over
$40 the first day, just giving to beggars, and he
thought he had got them all bought up, and that
they would let him alone, but the next day when
he showed up there were ten beggars where there
was one the day before, and they followed him
O^erywhere, and all the loafers in the plazas
laughed and acted as if they would catch the
cripples when dad got out of sight and rob the
184
" Pgd cottghe4 Hp over $40. the 6rsi day, juil givrng to btggars."
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
beggars. Dad thinks the way the people live is
by dividing with beggars. A man who has a de-
formity, or a sore that you can see half a block
away, seems to be considered rich here, like a
man in America who owns stock in great corpora-
tions. These beggars pay more taxes than the
dukes and things who live in style.
I suppose dad never studied geography, so he
didn't know how Venice was situated, so he told
me to go out and order a hack the first morning
we were here, and we would go and see the town.
When I told dad there were no hacks, no horses
and no roads in Venice, he said I was crazy in
my head and wanted me to take some medicine
and stay in bed for a few days, but I convinced
him, when we got outdoors, that everything run
by water, and when I showed him the canal and
the gondolas, he remembered all about Venice,
and picked out a gondalier that looked like one
dad sarw at the world's fair^ and we hired him be-
cause he talked English. All the English the
gonddier could use were the words " you bet your
life,'* and " you're dam right,*' but dad took him
because it seemed so homelike, and we have been
riding in gondolas every day.
On the water you can get away from the bqg-
gars. This is an ideal existence. You just get
x86
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
in the gondola, under a canopy, and the gondolier
does the work, and you glide along between build-
ings and wonder who lives there, and when they
wake up, as all day long the blinds arc closed, and
everybody seems to be dead. But at night, when
the canals are lighted, and the moon shines, the
Omt yell m tke English langwtze, and ome
people put on their dress clothes and sit on veran-
das, or eat and drink, and talk Eyetalian, and ride
in gondolas, and play guitars, and sraoko cigar-
ettes, and talk love. It is so warm you can wear
your summer pants, and the water smells of clams
that died long ago. It is just as though Chi-
>87
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
cago was flooded by the bursting of the sewers,
and people had to go around State street, and
all the cross streets, and Michigan avenue, in
fishing boats, with three feet of water on top of
the pavements. Imagine the people of Chicago
taking gondolas and riding along the streets,
landing at the stores and hotels, just as they do
now from carriages.
We had been riding in gondolas for two days,
getting around in the mud when the tide was out,
and going to sleep and waiting for the tide to
come in, when it seemed to me that dad needed
some excitement, and last night I gave it to
him.
We were out in our gondola, and the moon
was shining, and the electric lights made the canal
near the Rialto bridge as light as day. The Rial-
to bridge crosses the Grand canal, and has been
the meeting place for lovers for thousands of
years. It is a grand structure, of carved mar-
ble, but it wouldn't hold up a threshing machine
engine half as well as an iron bridge. Well, the
canal was filled with thousands of gondolas, load-
ed with the flower of Venetian society, and the
music just made you want to fall in love. Dad
said if he didn't fall in love, or something, before
morning, he would quit the place. I made up my
l88
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
mind he should fall into something, so I began by
telHng dad it seemed strange to me that nobody
but Eyetalians couid run a gondola. Dad said
he could run a gondola as well as any foreigner,
and I told him he couldn't run a gondola for
shucks, and he said he would show me, so he
got out of the hen house where we were seated,
and went back on to the pointed end of the gon-
dola, and grabbed the pole or paddle from the
gondolier, and said: " Now, Garibaldi, you go
inside tlie pup tent with Hennery, and let me
punt this ark around awhile."
Garibaldi thought dad was crazy, but he gave
up the pole, and just then, when they were both
on the extreme point of the gondola, and she
was wabbling some, I peeked out through the
curtains and thought the fruit was about ripe
enough to pick, so I threw myself over to one
side of the gondola, and, by gosh, if dad and Gari-
baldi didn't both go overboard with a splash, and
one yell in the English language, and one in Eye-
talian, and I rushed out of the cabin and such a
sight you never saw.
Dad retained the paddle, and had his head out
of water, but nothing showed above the water
where Garibaldi was except a red patch on his
black pants. Dad was yelling for help, and final-
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
ly the gondolier got his head out of the water, and
said something that sounded like grinding a
butcher knife on a grindstone, and I yelled, too,
and the gondolas b^an to gather around us, and
the two men were rescued. The gondolier had
been gondoling all his life and he had never been
in the water before, and they thought it would
strike in and kill him, so they wrapped him up in
blankets and put him aboard his canoe, and he
looked at me as though I was to blame. They got
a boat hook fastened in dad's pants and landed
him in the gondola, and he dripped all the way to
our hotel, and he smelled like a fish market.
I asked Garibaldi, on the way to the hotel, if
he was coimting his beads when he was down tm-
dcr the water with nothing but his pants out of
the water, and he said : " You're dam right," but
I don't think he knew the meaning of the words,
because he probably wouldn't swear in the pres-
ence of death. Dad just sat and shivered all the
way to the hotel, but when we got to our room I
asked him what his idea was in jumping over-
board right there before folks, with his best
clothes on, and he said it was all Garibaldi's fault,
that just as dad was getting a good grip on the
190
Tktn 3<m don't blame your lillU boy, da youf
i
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
paddle, the gondolier heaved a long sigh, and the
onions in his breath paralyzed dad so he fell over-
board.
"Then you don't blame your little boy, do
you? " says I, and dad looked at me as he was
hanging his wet shirt on a chair. " Course not ;
you were asleep in the cabin. But say, if I ever
hear that you did tip that gondola, it will go hard
with you," but I just looked innocent, and dad
went on drying his shirt by a charcoal brazier and
never suspected me. But I am getting the worst
of it, for dad and his clothes smell so much like a
clam bake that it makes me sick.
Well, old friend, you ought to close up your
grocery and come over here and go to Vesuvius
and Pompeii with us, where we can dry our
clothes by the volcano, and dig in the city that
was buried in hot ashes 2,000 years ago. They
say you can dig up mummies there that are dead
ringers for you, old man.
O, come on, and have fun with us.
Your friend, Hennery.
192
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XVI.
The Bad Boy Writes from Naples — Dad Sees Vesuvius
and Calls the Servants to Put Out the Fire — They
Have Trouble with a "Dago" in Pompeii.
Naples, Italy. — Dear Old Partner in Crime:
Well, sir, we have struck a place that reminds us
of home, and your old grocery store. The day
we got here dad and I took a walk into the poorer
districts, where they throw all the slops and refuse
in the streets, and where nobody ever seems to
clean up anything and burn it. The odor was
something that you cannot describe without a
demonstration, and after we had turned pale and
started to go away, dad said the smell reminded
him of something at home, and finally he remem-
bered your old grocery in the sauerkraut season,
early in the morning, before you had aired out
the place. Your ears must have burned when
we were talking about you.
If you want to get an idea of Naples, at its
worst, go down into your cellar and round up all
the codfish, onions, kraut. limburger cheese, kero-
sene, rotten potatoes, and everything that is dead,
put it all in a bushel basket, and just before the
193
4
PECK^ BAD BOY A^OAD
health officers come to pull your i^ace, get down
on your knees and put your head down in the
hadcet, and let some one sit on your head all the
forenoon, and you will have just such a half day
as dad and I had in the poor quarter of Naples,
and it will not cost you half as much as it did
us, unless, after you have enjoyed yourself in
your cellar with your head in the basket, you de-
cide to have a run of sickness and hire a doctor
who will charge you the price of a trip to Rtxropc
Well, sir, Naples is a dandy, in its clean part.
The bay of Naples is a dead ringer for Milwaukee
bay, in shape and beauty, but Milwaukee lacks
Vesuvius and Pompeii, for suburbs, and she lacks
the customary highwaymen to hold you up.
Every man, woman and child we have met makes
a living out of the tourists, and nobody that I
have seen works at any other business.
We woke up the first morning and dad looked
out the window and saw Vesuvius belching forth
flame and lava and stone fences, and wanted to
turn in a fire alarm, but I told him that that fire
had been raging ever since the Christian era, and
was not one of these incendiary barn burnings,
but he opened the window and yelled fire, and
the porters and chambermaids came rimning to
our room, with buckets of water, and wanted to
194
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
know where the fire was. Dad pointed out of the
window towards Vesuvius and said : " Some
hired girl has been starting a fire with kerosene,
in that shanty on the knoll out there, and the
whole ranch will bum if you don't turn out the
fire department, you gosh blasted lazy devils.
Get a move on and help carry out the furniture."
Well, they calmed dad, and then I had to go
to work and post dad up on the geography he had
forgotten, and finally he remembered seeing a
picture of a volcano or burning moimtain in his
geography 50 years ago, but he told me he never
believed there was a volcano in the world, but
that he always thought they put those pictiu^es in
geographies to make them sell. How a man can
attain the prominence and position in the business
world that dad has, and not know any more than
he does, is what beats me.
Of course, you know, having kept a grocery
since the war, and having had opportunities to
study history, by the pictures on the soap boxes
and insurance calendars, that Nero, the Roman
tyrant, after Rome was burned, while he fiddled
for a dance in a bam, got so accustomed to fire
and brimstone that he retired to Naples and
touched oflF Vesuvius, just so he could look at it.
But Vesuvius, about 2,000 years ago, got to bum-
196
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
ing way down in its bowels, and the fire got be-
yond control, and I suppose now the fire is away
down in the center of the earth, and you know
when you get down in the earth below the crust,
on which we hve and raise potatoes, everything is
melted, like iron in a foundry, and Vesuvius is
the spigot through which the fluid comes to the
surface. You see, don't you?
Just imagine that this earth is a barrel of beer,
which you can understand better than anything
else, and it is being shaken up by being hauled
around on wagons and cars, and is straining to
get out, then a bartender drives a spigot into the
bung, turns the thumb piece, and the pent-up beer
comes out foaming and squirting, and there you
are.
Instead of beer, Vesuvius is loaded with lava,
that runs like molasses, and when it is cold it is
indigestible as a cold buckwheat cake, and you
can make it up into jewelry, that looks like maple
sugar and smells like a fire in a garbage crema-
tory. Besides the lava there are stones as big as
a house that are thrown up by the sea-sickness of
the earth, as it heaves and pants, and then the
ashes that come out of the crater at times would
make you think that what they need there is to
197
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
have a dunmey sweep go down and brush out the
flues.
To get an idea of what a nuisance the ashes
from the crater are to the cities on the i^am be-
low, yon remember the time you were oat in yoar
Amd I tkrew a fml of ukes ovtr tkt ftmet.
back yard splitting boxes for kindling wood and
my chum and I threw a pail of ashes over the
fence, and accidentally it went all over yoti, about
four inches thick. That time you got mad and
threw cucumbers at us, when we ran down the
alley. Keep that in your mind and you can un-
198
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
derstand the destruction of Pompeii, when Ve-
suvius, thousands of years ago, coughed up hot
ashes and covered the town 40 feet deep with
hot stuff, and killed every hving thing, and pet-
rified and preserved the whole business, and
made a prairie on top of a town, and everybody
eventually forgot that there had ever been a town
there, for about 2,000 years. If my chum and I
had not run out of ashes we would have buried
you so deep in your back yard that you would
have been petrified with your hatchet, and when
they excavated the premises a thousand years
later they would have found your remains and
put you in a nniseuni.
Well, a couple of hundred years ago a peasant
was sinking a well down in the ashes, and he
struck a petrified barroom, with a bartender
standing behind the bar in the act of serving some
whisky 2,000 years old, and the peasant located
a claim there, and the authorities took possession
of the prairie and have been digging the town
out ever since, looking for more of that 2,000-
year-old whisky.
When I told dad about what they were finding
at the ruins of Pompeii, and how you were liable
to find gold and diamonds and petrified women,
he wanted to go and dig in the ashes, as he said
199
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
it would be more exciting than raking over the
dumping grounds in Chicago for tin cans and
lumps of coal, and so we hired a hack and went
to the buried town, but dad insisted on carrying
an umbrella, so if Vesuvius belched any more
ashes he could protect himself. Gee, but. from
what I have seen at that old ruin, a man would
need an umbrella made of corrugated ircm to
keep from being buried.
Well, when we got to Pompeii dad was for
going right where they were digg^g, but I got
him to look over the streets and houses that had
been uncovered first, and he was paralyzed to
think that a town could be covered with ashes all
these thousands of years, and then be uncovered
and find a town that would compare, in many
respects, with cities of the present day, with resi-
dences complete with sculpture, paintings and cut
marble that would skin Chicago to a finish.
We went through residences that looked as rich
as the Vanderbilt houses in New York, baths that
you could take a plunge and a swim in, if they
had the water, paintings that would take a pre-
mium at any horse show to-day, pavements that
would shame the pavements of London and Paris,
and petrified women that you couldn't tell from
a low-necked party in Washington, except that
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
the ashes had eaten the clothes off. I guess most
of the people in Pompeii got away when the ashes
began to rain down, for they must have seen that
it wasn't going to be a liglit shower, but a deluge,
'cause they never have found many corpses. They
must have run to Naples, and maybe they are
running yet, and you may see some of them at
your grocery, and if you do see anybody covered
with ashes, looking for a job, give them some
crackers and cheese and charge it to dad, for they
must be hungry by this time.
Say, do you know that some of those refugees
from Pompeii went off in such a hurry that they
left bread baking in the ovens, and meat cooking
in the pots? It seems the most wonderful thing
to me of anything I ever saw. We went all
through the streets and houses and saw ball-
rooms that beat anything in San Francisco, and
when we went into a building occupied by the
officers in charge of the excavations, and dad saw
a telephone and an electric light, he thought those
things had been dug up. too, and he claimed that
the men who were receiving millions of dollars
in royalties on telephones and electric lights were
frauds who were infringing on Pompeii patents
2,ooo years old, and he wouldn't believe me when
I told him that telephones and electric lights were
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
not dug Up; he said then he wouldn't believe any-
thing was dug up, but that the whole thing was
a put-up job to rob tourists. But when we got
to a locality where the dagoes were digging the
ashes away from a house and were uncovering
nd he was a sight."
a parlor, where rich things were being discovered,
he saw that it was all right.
I suppose I never ought to have played such a
thing on dad, but I told him that anybody who
saw a thing first when it came out of the ashes
could grab it and keep it, and just as I told him
a workman threw out a shovel full of ashes, just
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
as yOU would throw out dirt digging for angle-
worms, and there was a little silver urn with a
lot of coins in it, and you could not hold dad. He
grabbed for it, the workman grabbed for it, and
they went down together in the ashes, and the
man rolled dad over and he was a sight, but the
workman got the silver urn. and dad wanted to
fight. Finally a man with a uniform on came
along and was going to arrest dad, but they finally
compromised by the man offering to sell the silver
urn and the gold coins to dad for a hundred dol-
lars, if he would promise not to open it up until
he got out of Italy, and dad paid the money and
wrapped the urn up in a Chicago paper, and we
took our hack and went back to Naples on a
gallop.
Dad could hardly wait till we got to the hotel
before opening up his prize, but he held out until
we got to our room, when he unwrapped the urn
to count his ancient gold coins. Well, you'd a-
died to see dad's face when he opened that can.
It was an old tomato can that had been wrought
out with a hammer so it looked like hammered
silver, and when he emptied the gold coins out
on the table there was a lot of brass tags that
looked like dog license tags, and baggage checks
and brass buttons. I had to throw water on dad
203
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
to bring him to, and then he swore he would kill
the dago that sold him the treasure from the
ruins of Pompeii. It was a great blow to dad,
and he has bought a dirk knife to kill the dago.
To-morrow we take in Vesuvius, and when we
come down from the crater we go to Pompeii and
kill the dago in his tracks. Dad may cause Ve-
suvius to belch again with hot ashes, and cover
the ruins of Pompeii, but if he can't turn on the
ashes, the knife will do the business. Yours,
Hennery.
304
PECK'S BAD EOV ABROAD
CHAPTER XVII.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Climb Vesuvius— A Chi-
cago Lady Joins the Party and Causes Trouble.
Naples, Italy. — Siegnor ze Grocerino: I guess
that will make you stand without hitching for a
little while. Say, I am getting so full of dead
languages, and foreign palaver, that I shall have
to have an operation on my tongue when I get
home before I can speel the United States lan-
guage again so you can make head or tail of it.
You see, I don't stay long enough in a country
to acquire its language, but I get a few words
into my system, so now my English is so mixed
with French words, Italian garlic and German
throat trouble that I cannot understand myself
unless I look in a glass and watch the motions
of my lips. Dad has not picked up a word of
any foreign language, and says he should con-
sider himself a traitor to his country if he tried
to talk anything but English. He did get so
he could order a glass of beer by holdi'ng up his
finger and saying " ein," but he found later that
just holding up his finger without saying "ein"
205
n
^
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
would bring the beer all the same so he cut out the
language entirely and works his finger until it
needs a rest.
When I used to study my geography at the lit-
tle red schoolhouse, and look at the picture of the
/( was a puture to see Dad "Go vp Old Baldhead."
volcano Vesuvius, and read about how it would
throw up red-hot lava, and ashes, and rocks as big
as a house, and wipe out cities, it looked so ter-
rible to me that I was glad when we got through
with the volcano lesson, and got to Greenland's
icy mountains, where there was no danger except
206
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
being frozen to death, or made sick by eating
blubber sliced off of whales.
Then I never expected to be right on the very
top of that volcano, throwing stones down in the
lava, and sailing chips down the streams of hot
stuff, just as I sailed chips on ice water at home
when the streets were flooded by spring rains.
Say, there is no more danger on Vesuvius than
there is in a toboggan slide, or shooting the
chutes at home. I thought we would have to hire
dagoes to carry us up to the top, and be robbed
and held up, and may be murdered, but it is just
as easy as going up in the elevator of a skyscrap-
er, and no more terrifying than sitting on a 50-
cent seat in a baseball park at home and wit-
nessing the " Destruction of Pompeii " by a fire-
works display
The crater looks sort of creepy, like a big caul-
dron kettle boiling soap on a farm, only it is big-
ger, and down in the earth's bowels you can well
believe there is trouble, and if you believe in a
hell, you can get it. illustrated proper, but the
rivulets of lava that flow out of the wrinkles
around the mouth of the crater are no more ap-
palling than making fudges over a gas stove.
When the lava cools you would swear it was
207
1
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
fudges, only you can't eat the lava and get indi-
gestion as you can eating fudges.
It was hard work to get dad to go up on the
volcano, because he said he knew he would fall
into it, and get his clothes burned, and he said he
couldn't climb clear to the top, on account of his
breath being short, but when I told him he could
ride up on a trolley car, and have the volcano
brought right to him, he weakened, and one morn-
ing we left Naples early and before two hours had
passed we were on a little cogwheel railroad go-
ing up, and dad was looking down on the scenery,
expecting every minute the cogs would slip and
we would cut loose and go down all in a heap and
be plastered all over the vineyards and big trees
and be killed.
I don't know what makes dad so nervous, but
he wanted a woman from Chicago, who was on
the car with us, to hold his hand all the way up.
but she said she was no nurse in a home for the
aged, and she said she would cuff dad if he didn't
let go of her. I told her she better not get dad
mad if she knew what was good for her, for he
was a regular Bluebeard, and wouldn't take no
slack from no Chicago female, 'cause he had
buried nine wives already. So she held his hand,
208
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
and I guess she thinks she will be my stepmother,
but I bet she don't.
Well, after we got almost to the top the car
stopped, and we had to walk the rest of the way,
several hundred feet, and we had to have a oush-
er and a putter for dad, a dago to go ahead and
pull him up, and another to put his shoulder
against dad's pants and shove. Gee, but it was a
picture to see dad " go up old baldhcad," with
the dagoes perspiring and swearing at dad for
being so heavy, and the Chicago woman laugh-
ing, and me pushing her up.
209
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
One thing that scared dad was that every littie
way there was a shrine, where the guides left
dad lying on the ground, blocked with a piece of
cold lava, so he wouldn't roll down, like you would
block a wagon wheel, and they would go to the
shrine and kneel and say some prayers.
Dad was afraid they were going to charge the
prayers in the bill for pushing him up, but I told
dad that these people expected every time they
went up to the top that it would be their last trip,
as they knew that some day the volcano would
open in a new place and swallow them whole, with
all the tourists. Then he gave them a dollar
apiece to pray for him, and wanted to go back
down the mountain and let Vesuvius run its own
fireworks, but the Chicago lady told dad to brace
up and she would protect him, and so the guides
gave a few more pushes, and we were on top of
the volcano, and dad collapsed and had to be
brought to with smelling salts and whisky that
the woman carried in her pistol pocket.
Gee, but it was worth all the trouble to get up
the mountain, to see the sight that opened up.
The hole in the mountain filled with boiling stuff
was worth the price of admission, and the roaring
of the boiling stuff, and the explosions way down
cellar, and the flying stones, the smoke going into
2IO
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
the air for a mile, like the burning of an oi! well,
the red-hot lava finding crevices to leak through,
and flowing down the side of the mountain in
streams Hke hot maple sirup, made a scene that
caused us to take off our hats and thank the good
Lord that the thing hadn't overflowed enough
to hurt us. But I could see dad was scared,
'cause when I wanted him to go around the edge
of the crater with me, and see the hell-roaring
free show from other points of view, and see
where the hot ashes years ago rolled down and
covered Pompeii and Herculaneum, he balked
and said he had seen all he wanted to, and if he
could stay alive until the next car went down
the mountain, they could all have his interest in
Vesuvius, and be darned to them, but he said if
I wanted to go around looking for trouble, he
would stay there under a big rock, with the Chi-
cago lady, and wait for me to come back. She
said she knew dad was all tired out, and needed
rest, and she would stay with him, and keep him
cheered up; so I left them and went off with one
of the dagoes, to slide down hill on some flowing
lava, and pick up specimens.
Well, sir, I wish I could get along some way
without telling the rest of this sad story, but if
PECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
I am going to be a historian I have got to tell
the whole blame thing.
When I left dad and the Chicago woman she
had produced a lunch from somewhere about her
person, and_a small bottle, and they were eating
Hrr liuibatid pulled
and drinking, and dad was laughing more natur-
al than I had seen him laugh since we run over
the old woman with tlie automobile at Nice, and
she was smiling on dad just as though she was
his sweetheart. (As I went around the crater, a
couple of blocks away. I looked back and dad had
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
laid his head in her lap, and she was stroking his
hair.)
Well, I picked up specimens, burned the soles
off my shoes wading in the lava, and took in the
volcano from all sides, and after an hour I went
back to where dad and the woman were lunching,
but the woman was gone, and dad acted as though
he had been hit by an express train, his eyes were
wild, his collar was gone, his pocketbook was on
the ground, empty, his coat was gone, his scarf-
pin had disappeared and the $i i watch he bought
when he was robbed the other time was missing,
and dad's tongue was run out, and he was yelling
for water. I thought he had been trying to drink
some lava.
" Dad, what in the world has happened to
you.'' " said I, as I rushed up to him.
" That woman has happened to me, that is all,"
said dad, as he took a swallow of water out of a
canteen one of the dagoes had.
" Tell me about it, dad," said I, trying to keep
from laughing, when I saw that he was not hurt.
" Say, let this be a lesson to you," said dad,
" and don't you steer another woman to me on
this trip. Do you know you hadn't more than got
around that big rock when she said she was tired
^d was going to faint, for the altitude was top
313
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
high for her, and I tried to soothe her, and she
did look pale, and, by gosh, I thought she was
going to die on my hands, and I would have to
carry her corpse down the mountain. I heard a
scuffling on the rocks, and she looked up and saw
a man not ten feet away, and she said : * Me
husband ! ' and then she fainted and grabbed me
aroimd the neck, and I couldn't get her loose.
She just froze to me like a person drowning, and
that husband of hers, who had come up on the
last car, hunting for his wife, who had eloped,
pulled a long blue gun and told me he would give
me five minutes to pray, and then he would kill
me and throw my body down in the creater, to
sizzle.
" I told him I could pay up enough ahead in
three minutes, and he could take all I had if he
would loosen up his wife, and bring her to, and
take her away, and let me die all alone, and let
the buzards eat me, tmcooked. He took the bet,
pulled her arms away from my throat, took my
money and coat, brought her to, and said he was
going to throw her into the crater, but I told him
she had certainly been good to me, and if he
would spare her life, and t^e her away in the
cars, he could have my watch and scarfpin, and
he took them, and they went to the c^rs.
^14
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
" She looked back at me with the saddest face
I ever saw, and said : * O, sir, it is all a terrible
dream, and I will see you in Naples, and explain
all/ and now, by Christmas, I want to go back to
town and find her, and rescue her from that
jealous husband,'* and dad got up and we started
for the car.
The man and his wife went down on the car
ahead of us, and dad wouldn't believe they were
regular bunko people, who play that game every
day on some old sucker, but the man that rims
the car told me so.
I can be responsible for dad in everything ex-
cept the women he meets. When it comes to
w(Hnen, your little Hennery don't know the game
at all. Yotu-s,
HSNNERY.
2i6
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Bad Boy Makes Friends with Some Italian Chil-
dren — Dad Is Chased by LiiHis from the Coli-
seum — ^"Not Any More Rome for
Papa," Says Dad.
Rome, Italv>— My Dear Old " Pard:" Well,
sir, if you could see me now, you wouldn't
know me, because foreig^n travel has broadened
me out so I can talk on any subject, and people
of my age look upon me as an authority, and
they surround me everywhere I go and urge me
to talk. The fact that the boys and girls do not
understand a word I say makes no difference.
They do not wear many clothes here, and there
is no style about tliem, and when they see me
with a whole suit of clothes on, and a hat and
shoes and socks, and a scarf-pin on my necktie,
they think I must be an Americano that is too
rich for any use, or something that ranks with a
prince at least, and the boys delight to be with
nie and do errands for me, and the girls seem to
be in love with me.
There is no way you can tell if a girl is in love
with you, except that she looks at yo« with eyes
217
4
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
that are as black as coal, and they seem to burn
a hole right into your insides. and when they
take hold of your hand they hang on and squeeze
like alamand-left in a dance at home, and they
snug up to you and are as warm and cheerful as
a gas stove.
Say, I sat on a bench in a plaza with a girl
about my age, for an hour, while the other girls
and boys sat on the ground and looked at us in
admiration, and when I put my arm around her
and kissed her on her pouting lips, it brought on
a revolution. An ItaHan soldier policeman took
me by the neck and threw me across the street,
the girl scratched me with her finger nails and
bit me, and yelled some grand hailing sign of dis-
tress, her brother and a ragged boy that was in
love with the girl and was jealous, drew daggers,
and the whole crowd yelled murder, and I started
for our hotel on a run, and the whole population
of Rome seemed to follow me, and I might as
well have been a negro accused of crime in the
states. I thought they would burn me at the
stake, but dad came out of the hotel and threw a
handful of small change into the crowd, and it
was all oflF.
After they picked up the coin they beckoned me
to come out and play some more, but not any
3l8
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
more for little Hennery. I have been in love in
all countries where we have traveled, and in all
languages, but this Italian love takes the whole
bakery, and I do not go around any more with-
out a chaperone. The girls are ragged and wear
i
the potUimg
shawls over their heads, and there are holes in
their dresses and their skin isn't white, like
American girls', but is what they call olive com-
plexion, like stuffed olives you buy in bottles,
stuffed with cayenne pepper, but the girls are just
like the cayenne pepper, so warm that you want
219
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
to throw water on yourself after they have
touched you. Gee, but I wouldn't want to live
in a climate where girls were a torrid zone, 'cause
I should melt, like an icicle that drops in a stove,
and makes steam and blows up the whole house.
Well, old man, you talk about churches, but you
don't know anything about it. Dad and I went to
St. Peter's in Rome, and it is the grandest thing
in the world. Say, the Congregational church at
home, which we thought so grand, could be put
in one little corner of St. Peter's, and would look
like 30 cents. St. Peter's covers ground about
half a mile square, and when you go inside and
look at grown people on the other side of it, they
look like flies, and the organ is as big as a block
of buildings in Chicago, and when they blow it
you think the last day has come, and yet the music
is as sweet as a melodeon, and makes you want to
get down on your knees with all the thousands of
good Christians of Italy, and confess that you
are a fraud that ought to be arrested.
Dad and I have been to all kinds of churthes,
everywhere, and never turned a hair, but since
we got to this town and got some of the prevail-
ing religion into our systems, we feel guilty, and
it seems as though everybody could see right into
oSy sui4 that they knew we were he^thw th^
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
never knew there was a God. Sure thing, I
never supposed there were so many people in the
world that worshiped their Maker, as there are
here, and I don't wonder that all over the world
good people look to Rome for the light. Dad
keeps telling me that when we get home we will
set an example that will make people pay atten-
tion, but he says he does not want to join the
church until he has seen all the sights, and then
he will swear off for good.
He said to me yesterday: " Now, Hennery, I
have been to all the pious places with you, the
pope's residence, the catacombs and St. Peter's,
where tliey preach from 40 different places and
make you feel like giving up your sins, and I have
looked at carvings and decorations and marble
and jewels and seen the folly of my ways of Ufe,
and I am ripe for a change, but before I give up
the world and all of its wickedness, I want blood.
I want to go to the other extreme, and see the wild
beasts at the Coliseum tear human beings limb
from limb, and drink their blood, and see gladi-
ators gladiate, and chop down their antagonists,
and put one foot on their prostrate necks, like they
do in the theaters, and then I am ready to leave
this towTi and be good."
Weil, sir, I have been in lots of tight places
ijui rhis -IK "*at :ne ?anc Mere was my
t^g aia K-i kiK'w rhar the Rcn:ar. :jiaiiiator
'zd%i 'xKii orT :!itf boards for rver j.ooo
tx "-i*i '-*w eating of human pri:?or.er> by wild
! .Mrstftior or the Roman populace «a>
Ic
of
yoi
is a
gett
good
are a
Da.
ever)'
we gc:
ing reh,
it seems
as» an^ tl
Viat CW Wiiua to see.
' ' ^t the Coliseum was a ruin and
plice of amusement. He
if he had read about the
■ty was running to-day,
'.ed to see it, and I had
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
encouraged him in his ideas, because he was
nervous, and I didn't want to undeceive him. He
had come to Rome to see things he couldn't find
at home, and it was up to me to deliver the goods.
Gee. but it made me sweat, 'cause I knew if dad
did not get a show for his money he would lay
it up against me, so I told him we would go to
the Coliseum that night and see the hungry lions
and tigers eat some of the leading citizens, just
as they did when Caesar run the show. Then I
found an American from Chicago at the hotel,
who sells soap in Rome, and told him what dad
expected of me in the way of amusement, and
he said the only way was to take dad out to the
Cohseum, and in the dark roll a barrel of broken
glass down the tiers of seats and make him be-
lieve tliere was an earthquake that had destroyed
the Coliseum, and that the lions and tigers were
all loose, looking for people to eat, and scare dad
and make a run back to town.
I didn't want to play such a scandalous trick
on dad, but the Chicago man said that was the
only way out of it, and he could get a barrel of
'tVuken glass for a dollar, and hire four ruffians
i ' '^ like lions for a few dollars, ami
: good exercise, and may be save
■^^^« ;ui] ui "^.oman fever, 'cause there was
!23
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
nothing like a good sweat to knock the fever out
of a fellow^s system. The thing struck me as not
only a good experience for dad, but a life saver,
so I whacked up the money, and the Chicago soap
man did the rest.
After dark we went out to the ruin of the Coli-
seum, where a great many tourists go to look at
the ruins by moonlight, and dad was as anxious
and bloodthirsty as a young surgeon cutting up
his first " stiflF/' When we got to the right place,
and I told dad we were a little early, because the
nobility were not in their seats, the villains began
to roar three dollars' worth like hungry lions,
and dad turned a little pale and said that sounded
like the real thing.
I told him we better not get too near, because
we were not accustomed to seeing live men
chewed up by beasts, and dad said he didn't care
how near we got, as long as they chewed and
tore to pieces the natives ; so we started to work
up a little nearer, when there was a noise such as
I never heard before, as the hogshead of broken
glass began to roll down the tiers of stone seats,
and I fell over on the ground, and pushed dad,
and he went over in the sand and struck his pants
on .a cactus, and yelled that he was stabbed with
a dirk, and I got up and fell down again, and
224
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
just then the Chicago soap man came up on a
gallop, followed by the villains playing lion and
tiger, and dad asked the Chicago man what
seemed to be the matter, and he said : " Matter
enough; there has been an earthquake, and the
Coliseum has fallen down, killing more than lo,-
OOD Romans, and the animals' cages are busted
and the animals are loose, looking for fresh meat,
and we better get right back to Rome, too quick,
or we will be eaten alive. Come on if you are
with me. Do you hear the lions after us?" said
he, as the hired villains roared.
Well, you'd a died to see dad get up out of
that prickly cactus and take the lead for good old
Rome. I didn't know he was such a sprinter,
but we trailed along behind, roaring like lions
and snarling like tigers and yip-yapping like hy-
enas and barking like timber wolves, and we
couldn't see dad for the dust, on that moonlight
night.
We slowed up and let dad run ahead, and he
got to the hotel first, and we paid off the villains,
and finally we went in the hotel and fotmd dad
in the bar-room puffing and drinking a high-ball.
" Pretty near hell, wasn't it," said dad, to the
soap man. " Did the lions catch anybody ?" " O,
a few of the lower classes," said the soap man,
226
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
" but none of the nobility. The nobility were in
the boxes and that part of the Coliseum never
falls during an earthquake," and the soap man
joined dad in a high-ball.
After dad got through puffing and had wiped
about two qaarts of perspiration off his head and
4
4
" Yov'd a died lo see dad take the kad for good old Rome."
neck, and the soap man had told him what a great
thing it was to perspire in Rome, on account of
the Roman fever, that catches a man at night
and kills him before morning, dad turned to me
and said: " Hennery, you go pack up and we
get out of this in the morning, for I feel as though
I had been chewed by one of those hyenas. Not
227
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
any more Rome for papa/' and the high-ball party
broke up, and we went to bed to get sleep enough
to leave town.
Do you know, the next morning those hired
villains made the soap man and I pay ten dollars
extra on account of straining their lungs roar-
ing like lions? But we paid for their lungs all
right, rather than have them present a bill to dad.
Well, good-by, old man. We are getting all
the fun there is going. Your only,
Hennery.
228
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XIX.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Visit the Pop&— They Bow
to the King of Italy and His Nine Spots — Dad
Finds That "The Catacombs" Is Not a
Comic Opera.
Rome, Italy. — Dear Old Friend: You remem-
ber, don't you when you were a boy, playing " tag,
you're it," and " button, button, who's got the but-
ton ? " that one of the trying situations was to
be judged to " go to Rome," which meant that
you were to kiss every girl in the room.
I never got enough " going to Rome " when I
attended church sociables and parties, but always
got blindfolded, and had to kiss anybody they
brought to me, which was usually a boy or a col-
ored cook, so I teased dad to take me to Rome,
and when he got over his being rattled and
robbed and burned by lava at Vesuvius, he said he
didn't care where he went, and, besides, I told
him about the Roman Coliseum, where they
turned hungry tigers and lions and hyenas loose
among the gladiators, and the people could see
the beasts eat them alive, and dad said that was
something like it, as the way he had been robbed
229
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
and misued in Italy, he would enjoy seeing a good
share of the population chewed by lions, if the
lions could stand it. I didn't tell dad that the
wild animal show had not been running for a
I
couple of thousand years, 'cause I thought he
would find it out when we got here.
Say, old man, I guess I can help you to locate
Rome. You remember the time I spoke a piece at
the school exhibition, when I put my hand inside
my flannel shirt, like an orator, and said : " And
230
^
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
this is Rome, that sat on her seven hills, and from
her throne of beauty ruled the whole world."
Well, this is it, where I am now, but the seven
hills have been graded down, and Rome don't rule
the whole world a Httle bit; but she has got relig-
ion awful.
The pope lives here, and he is the boss of more
religious people than anybody, and though you
may belong to any other kind of church, and
when you are home you don't care a continental
for any religion except your own, or your wife's
religion, and you act like an infidel, and scoff at
good people, when you get to Rome and see the
churches thicker than saloons In Milwaukee, and
everybody attending church and looking pious,
you catch the fever, and try to forget bad things
you have done, and if you get a chance to see the
pope, you may go to his palace just 'cause you
want to see everything that is going on, and you
think you don't care whether school keeps or
not, and you feel independent, as though this re-
ligion was sonietliing for weak people to indulge
in, and finally you come face to face with the pope,
and see his beautiful face, and his grand eyes,
and his every movement is full of pious meaning,
you " penuk " right there, and want to kneel down
and let him bless you, by gosh.
231
4
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
Say, I never saw dad weaken like he did when
the pope came in. We got tickets to go to his
reception, but dad said he had rather go to the
catacombs, or the lion show at the Coliseum. He
said he didn^t want to encourage popes, because
he didn't believe they amounted to any more than
presiding elders at home. He said he had always
been a Baptist, and they didn't have any popes in
his church, and he didn't believe in 'em, but some
other Americans were going to see the pope, and
dad consented to go, under protest, it being im-
derstood that he didn't care two whoops, anyway.
Well, sir, we went, and it was the grandest
thing you ever saw. There were guards by the
thousand, beautiful gardens that would make
Central Park look like a hay marsh, hundreds of
people in church vestments, and an air of sanctity
that we never dreamed; jewels that are never
seen outside the pope's residence, and we lined up
to see the holy father pass.
Gee, but dad trembled like a dog tied out in the
snow, and the perspiration stood out on his face,
and he looked sorry for himself. Then came the
procession, all nobles and great people, and then
there was a party of pious men carrying the most
beautiful man we ever saw on a platform above
us, and it was the pope, and he smiled at me, and
232
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
the tears came to my eyes, and I couldn't swallow
something which I s'pose was my sins, and then
he looked at dad, and held up one hand, and dad
was pale, and there was no funny business about
dad any more, and then they set the platform
"Soy. for mvhile dad datscnt go tip."
down and the pope sat in a chair, and those who
wanted to went up to him, and he IMessed them.
Say, for awhile dad dassent go up, 'cause he
thought t!ie pope could see right through him,
and would know he was a Baptist, but the rest of
the Americans were going up, and dad didn't
233
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
want to be eccentric, so he and I went up. The
pope put out his hand to dad, and instead of shak-
ing it, as he would the hand of any other man on
earth, and asking how his folks were, dad bent
over and kissed the pope's hand, and the pope
blessed him. Dad looked hke a new man, a good
man, and when the pope put his hand on my head,
and blessed me, my heart came up in my throat,
'cause I thought he must know of all the mean
things I had ever done, but I can feel his soft,
beautiful hand on my head now, and from this
out I would fight any boy twice my size that ever
said a word against the pope and his religion.
When we got outside dad says to me : "Hennery,
don't you ever let me hear of your doing a thing
that would make the good man sorry if he was
to hear about it." And we went to our hotel and
stayed all the afternoon, and all night, and just
thought of that pope's angelic face, and when one
of the Americans came to our room and wanted
dad to play cinch, he was indignant, and said ; " I
would as soon think of robbing a child's bank,"
and we went to bed, and if dad wasn't a converted
man I never saw one.
Well, sir, trouble, and sorrow, and religion,
don't last very long on dad. The next morning
we talked things over, and I quoted all the Ro-
234
PECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
man stuff I could think of to dad, such as "In that
elder day, to be a Roman was greater than a
king," but before I could think twice there was a
commotion In the streets and a porter came and
made us take ofiE our hats, because the king was
riding by, and we looked at the king, and dad
was hot. He said that fellow was nothing but a
railroad hand, disguised in a uniform, and, by
ginger, if we had seen that king out west work-
ing on a railroad, with canvas clothes on, he
would not have looked like a king, on a bet. There
was nothing but his good clothes that stood be-
tween llie king and a dago digging sewers in Chi-
cago.
After the king and his ninespots had passed,
dad said: "When you are in Rome, you must do
as the Romans do," and he said he wanted to get
that heavy feeling off his shoulders, which he got
at the religious procession, and wanted me to sug-
gest something devilish that we could do, and I
told him we better go and see the "Catacombs."
He wanted to know if it was anything like "a'
trip to Chinatown," or the "Black Crook," and
I told him it was worse. Then he asked me if
there was much low neck and long stockings in
the '■Catacombs," and I told him there was a
plenty, and he said he was just ripe to see that
235
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
kind of a show, and so we took a carriage for the
"Catacombs," and dad could hardly keep still till
we got there.
I suppose I ought to be killed for fooling dad,
but he craved for excitement, and he got it. The
"Catacombs" are where Roman citizens have
been buried for thousands of years, in graves
hewn out of solid rock, and they are petrified, and
after they have laid in the graves for a few him-
dred years, the mummified bodies are taken out
and stood up in corners, if the bodies will hang
together, and if not the bones are piled up arotmd
for scenery.
We had to take torches to go in, and we wan-
dered through corridors, gazing at the remains,
until dad asked one of the men with us what it
all meant, and the man said it was the greatest
show on earth. Dad began to think he was nutty,
and when I laughed, and said : "That is great,"
and clapped my hands, and said: "Encore," dad
stopped and said : "Hennery, this is no leg show,
this is a morgue," but to cheer him up I told him
his head must be wrong, and I pointed to about
a hundred dried corpses, a thousand years old, in
a corner, with grinning skulls all around, and told
him that was the ballet, and told him to look at the
leading dancer, and asked him if she wasn^t a
236
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
beaut, from Butte, Mont., and that killed dad.
He leaned against me, and said his eyes must
have gone back on him, because everything looked
dead to him. I told him he would get over it
after awhile, and to stay where he was while I
went and spoke to one of the ballet that was beck-
oning to me, and I left him there, dazed, and went
around a corner and hid.
People were coming along with torches all the
time, looking at the catacombs and reading the
inscriptions cut in the rock, and after awhile I
went back to where I left dad, and he was gone,
but after awhile I found him standing up with
the stiffs. He was glad to see me, and wanted to
know if I thought he was dead. I told him I was
sure he was alive, though he had a deathly look
on his face. "Well, sir," says dad. "I thought it
was all over with me, after you left, for a man
came along and moved me around, and took hold
under my arms and jumped me along here by
these stiffs, and told me if I didn't stay where I
belonged he would break me up into bones, and
throw me into a pile, and I thought I would have
to do as the Romans do and stay here, and before
the man left me he reached into my pocket and
took my money, and said I couldn't spend any
money in there where I was going to stay for a
237
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
million years, and, by gosh, I was so petrified I
couldn't stop him from robbing me. Say, Hen-
nery, they will rob you anywhere, even in the
grave, and if this Catacomb show is over, and
the curtain has gone down, I want to get out of
here, and go to the Coliseum or the Roman am-
phitheater, where the wild beasts eat people
alive." And so we left the Catacombs and went
back to town, and dad began to show life again.
Say, you tell the folks at home that dad is gain-
PECfCS BAD BOY ABROAD
ing every day, and his vacation is doing him
good. He has promised to kill me for taking him
to the Catacomb show, but dad never harbors
revenge for long, and I guess your little nephew
will pull through. I wi^ I had my skates, cause
dad wants to go to Russia. Yours,
Hknueky.
a.r>
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XX.
The Bad Boy Tells About the Land of the Czar and
the Trouble They Had to Get There— Dad Does
a Stunt and Mixes It Up with the
People and Soldiers.
St. Petersburg, Russia. — My Dear Groceryow-
ski: Well, sir, I 'spose you will be surprised to
hear from me in Russia, but there was no use talk-
ing when Dad said he was going to St. Peters-
burg if it was the last act of his life. He got talk-
ing with a Japaneser in Rome and the Jap said the
war in the far east would last until every Russian
was killed, unless America interfered to put a stop
to it, and as Roosevelt didn't appear to have sand
enough to offer his services to the czar, what it
needed was for some representative American
citizen who was brave and had nerve to go to St.
Petersburg and see the czarovitch and give him
the benefit of a good American talk. The Jap said
the American who brought about peace, by a few
well chosen remarks, would be the greatest man
of the century, and would live to be bowed down
to by kings and emperors and all the world would
doff hats to him.
240
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
At first dad was a little leary about going ort
such a mission without credentials from Wash-
ington, but as luck would have it, he met an exiled
Russian at a restaurant, who told dad that he re-
minded him of Gen.' Grant, because dad had a
wart on the side of his nose, and he told dad that
Russia would keep on fighting until every Japan-
ese was killed unless some distinguished Ameri-
can should be raised up who deemed it his duty
to go to St. Petersburg and see the Little Father,
and in the interest of humanity advise the czar
to call a halt before he had exterminated the
whole yellow race. Dad asked the Russian if he
thought the czar would grant an audience to an
American of eminence in his own country, and
the Russian told dad that Nicholas just doted on
Americans, and that there was hardly ever an
American ballet dancer that went to Russia but
what the czar sent for her to come and see him
and dance before the grand dukes, and he always
gave them jewels and cans of caviar as souvenirs
of their visit.
Dad thought it over all night, and the next
morning we started for Russia and I wish we had
joined an expedition to discover the North Pole
instead of coming here. Say, it is harder to get
into Russia than it would be to get out of a peni-
241
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
tentiary at home. At the frontier we were met
by guards on horseback and on foot, policemen,
detectives and other grafters, who took our pass-
ports and money, and one fellow made me ex-
change my socks with him. Then they impris-
oned us in a stable with some cows until they
ToU Dad that Nicholas just doled on Americaiu.
could hold a coroner's inquest on our passports
and divide our money. We slept with the cows
the first night in Russia, and I do not want to
sleep again with animals that chew cuds all night,
and get up half a dozen times to hump up their
backs and stretch and bellow. We never slept a
wink, and could look out through the cracks in the
342
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
Stable and see the guards shaking dice for our
money.
Finally they looked at the great seal on our
passports and saw it was an American document,
and they began to turn pale, as pale as a Russian
can get without using soap, and when I said,
" Washington, embassador, minister plenipoten-
tiary, Roosevelt, Hot Time in the Old Town To-
night, E Pluribus Unum. whoopla, San Juan
Hill." and pointed to dad, who was just coming
out of the stable, looking like Washington at Val-
ley Forge, the guards and other robbers bowed to
dad, gave him a bag full of Russian money in
place of that which they had taken away, and let
us take a freight train for St, Petersburg, and
they must have told the train men who we were,
because everybody on the cars took off their hats
to us, and divided their lunch with us.
Dad could not understand the change in the
attitude of the people towards us until I told him
that they took him for a distinguished American
statesman, and that as long as we were in Russia
he must try to look like George Washington and
act like Theodore Roosevelt, so every little while
dad would stand up in the aisle of the car and pose
like George Washington and when anybody gave
him a sandwich or a cigarette he would show his
243
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
teeth and say, " Deelighted/' and all the way to
St. Petersburg dad carried out his part of the pro-
gramme and we were not robbed once on the trip,
but dad tried to smoke one of the cigarettes that
was given him by a Cossack, and he died in my
arms, pretty near.
They make cigarettes out of baled hay that has
been used for beddings and covered with paper
that has been used to poison flies. I never smelled
anything so bad since they fumigated our house
by the board of health after the hired girl had
smallpox.
Well, we got to St. Petersburg in an awful
time, and went to a hotel, suspected by the police,
and marked as undesirable guests by the Cos-
sacks, and winked at by the walking delegates
and strikers, who thought we were non-union
men looking for their jobs.
The next day the religious ceremony of " bless-
ing the Neva " took place, where all the popula-
tion gets out on the bank of the river, with over-
shoes on, and fur coats, and looks down on the
river, covered with ice four feet thick, and the
river is blessed. In our country the people would
damn a river that had ice four feet thick, but in
Russia they bless anything that will stand it. We
got a good place on the bank of the river, with
244
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
about a million people who had sheepskin coats
on, and who steamed like a sheep ranch, and were
enjoying the performance, looking occasionally
at the Winter palace, where the czar was peeking
out of a window, wondering from which direc-
tion a bomb would come to blow him up, when a
battery of artillery across the river started to fire
a salute, and then the devil was to pay. It seems
that the gentlemen who handled the guns, and
who were supposed to fire blank cartridges into
the air, put in loaded cartridges, filled with grape
shot, and took aim at the Winter palace, and cut
loose at Mr. Czar.
Well, you would have been paralyzed to see the
change that came over that crowd, blessing the
river one minute and damning the czar and the
grand dukes the next. The shot went into the
Winter palace and tore the furniture and ripped
up the ceiling of the room the czar was in, and
in a moment all was chaos, as though every Rus-
sian knew the czar was to be assassinated at that
particular moment, and all rushed toward the
Winter palace u though they expected pieces of
the Little Father would be thrown out the win-
dow for them to play football with. For a people
who are supposed to be lawful and law-abiding,
and who love their rulers, it seemed strange to
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with the butt of a revolver."
1
FELK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
see them all so tickled when they thought he was
blown higher than a kite by iiis own soldiers.
Dad and I started with the crowd for the Win-
ter palace, and then we had a taste of monarchial
government. The crowd was rushing over us
and dad got mad and pulled off his coat and said
he could whip any confounded foreigner that
rubbed against him with a sheepskin coat on, and
he was just on the point of smiting a fellow with
whiskers that looked like scrambled bristles oflf a
black hog when a regiment of Cossacks came
down on the crowd, riding horses like a wild west
show, and with whips in their hands, with a dozen
lashes to each whip, and they began to lash the
crowd and ride over them, while the people cov-
ered their faces with their arms, and run away,
afraid of the whips, which cut and wound and
kill, as each lash has little lead bullets fastened
to them and a stroke of the whip is like being shot
with buck shot or kicked with a frozen boot.
Well, sir, dad was going to show the Cossacks
that he was pretty near an American citizen and
didn't propose to be whipped like a school boy by
a teacher that looked like a valentine, so he tried
to look like George Washington defying the Brit-
ish, but it didn't work, for a Cossack rode right
up to him and lashed him over the back (and
247
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
about 15 buck shot in his whip took dad right
where the pants are tight when you bend over to
pick up something) and the Cossack laughed
when dad straightened up and started to run.
I never saw such a change in a man as there
"A Couach rode right up to him and lashed him
was in dad. He started for our hotel, and as
good a sprinter as I am I couldn't keep up with
him, but I kept him in sight. Before we got to
the hotel a sledge came along, not an " old
■sledge," such as you play with earda,' high-low-
348
b
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
Jack-game, but a sort of a sleigh, with three
horses abreast, and I yelled to dad to take a hitch
on the sledge, and he grabbed on with his feet on
the runners, and a man in the sledge with a uni-
form on, who seemed to be a grand duke, 'cause
everybody was chasing him and yelling to head
him off, hit dad in the nose with the butt of a re-
volver, and dad fell off in the snow and the crowd
that was chasing the grand duke picked dad up
and carried him on their shoulders because they
thought he had tried to assassinate the duke, and
we were escorted to our hotel by the strikers.
We didn't know what they were, but you can
tell the laboring men here because they wear
blouses and look hungry, and when they left us
the landlord notified the police that suspiciqus
characters were at the hotel, and came there es-
corted by tlie mob, and the police surrounded the
house and dad went to our room and used witch
hazel on himself where tlie Cossack hit him with
the loaded whip. He says Russia will pay pretty
dear for that stroke of the whip by the Cossack,
and I think dad is going to join the revolution
that is going to be pulled off next Sunday.
They are going to get about. a million men to
lake a petition to the czar, workingmen and an-
archists, and dad says he is going as an American
249
PECK-S BAD BOY ABROAD
anarchist who is smarting from injustice, and I
guess no native is smarting more than dad is,
'cause he has to stand up to- eat and lie on his
stummick to sleep. There is going to be a hades
of a time here in St. Petersburg this next week,
and dad and I arc going to be in it clear up to our
necks.
Dad has given up trying to see the czar about
stopping the war and says the czar and the whole
bunch can go plum (to the devil) and he will die
with the mob and follow a priest who is stirring
the people to revolt.
Gee, I hope dad will not get killed here and be
buried in a trench with a thousand Russians,
smelling as they do.
I met a young man from Chicago, who is here
selling reapers for the harvester trust, and he
says if you are once suspected of having sym-
pathy with the working people who are on a strike
you might just as well say your prayers and take
rough on rats, 'cause the Cossacks will get you,
and he would advise me and dad to get out of
here pretty quick, but when I told dad about it he
put one hand on his heart and the other on his
pants and said "Arnica, arnica, arnica!" and
the police that were on guard near his room
250
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
thought he meant anarchy, and they sent four
detectives to stay in dad's room.
The people here, the Chicago young man told
me. think the Cossacks are human hyenas, that
they have had their hearts removed by a surgical
operation when young, and a piece of gizzard put
in in place of the heart, and that they are natural
murderers, the sight of blood acting on them the
same as champagne on a human being, and that
but for the Cossacks Russia would have a popu-
lation of loving subjects that would make it safe
for the Little Father to go anywhere in Russia
unattended, but with Cossacks ready to whip and
murder and laugh at suffering the people are be-
coming like men bitten by rabid dogs, and they
froth at the mouth and have spasms and carry
bombs up their sleeves, ready to blow up the mem-
bers of the royal family, and there you are.
If you do not hear from me after next Sunday
you can put dad's obituary and mine in the local
papers and say we died of an overdose of Cossack.
If we get through this revoluticHi alive you will
hear from me, but this is the last revolution I am
going to attend. Yours,
HENNEftV.
A5I
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXI.
Dad Sees a Russian Revolution and Faints — ^The Bad
Boy Arranges a Wolf Hunt — Dad Threatens
to Throw the Boy to the Wolves.
St. Petersburg, Russia. — My Dear Grocery-
witz : Well, sir, dad and I have got too much of
Russia the quickest of any two tourists you ever
heard of. That skirmish we saw, the day the
Russians blessed the Neva, and shot blank car-
tridges filled with old iron at the czar, was not a
marker to the trouble the next Sunday, when the
working people marched to the Winter Palace, to
present a petition to the " Little Father.''
We thought a revolution was like a play, and
that it would be worth going miles to see. Dad
was in South America once when there was a
revolution, where more than a dozen greasers,
with guns that wouldn't shoot, put on a dozen
different kinds of uniforms, and yelled : " Down
with the government," and frothed at the mouth,
and drank buttermilk and yelled Spanish swear
words, and acted brave, until a native soldier with
white pajamas came out with a gun and shot one
of the revolutionists in the thumb, when the revo-
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
lutioii was suppressed and the next day the revo-
lutionists were pounding stone, with cannon balls
chained to their legs ; and dad thought a revolu-
tion in Russia would be something like that, and
that we could get on a front porch and watch it
as it went by, and joke with the revolution, and
throw confetti, like it was a carnival, but that
Sunday that the Russian revolution was begun,
we had enough blood to last us all our lives.
We got a place sitting on an iron picket fence,
and we saw the people coming up the street to-
wards the Winter Palace, dressed mostly in
blouses, and looking as innocent as a crowd of
sewer diggers at home going up to the city hall
to ask for a raise in wages of two shillings a day.
Nobody had a gun, and no one would have known
how to use a gun. and all looked like poor people
going to prayers. There were troops everywhere,
and every soldier acted as though he was afraid
something would happen to spoil their chance of
killing anybody. The snow on the streets was
clean and as white as the wings of a peace dove,
and dad said the show was no better than a
parade of laboring men at home on Labor day.
Suddenly some officer yelled to the parade to
stop, and the priest at the head of the procession,
who was carrying a cross, slowed up a little, like
253
I
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
the drum major of a band when the populace at
home begins to throw eggs, but they kept on, and
then the shooting began, and in a minute men,
women and children were rolling in the snow,
bleeding and dying, the marchers were too
stunned to nm, and the deadly guns kept on spit-
ting fire, and the street was full of dead and
dying, and then the Cossacks rode over the dead
and sabered and knouted the living, and as the
snow was patched with red blood, dad fainted
away and fell off the picket fence, and hung by
one pant leg, which caught on a picket, and
crowds rushed in every direction, and it was an
hour before I could get a drosky to haul dad to
the hotel.
Dad collapsed when he got to the hotel, and I
got a doctor and a nurse, and for two days I had
to watch the revolution alone, while dad had fits
of remorse 'cause he brought me to such a charnel
house, he said.
Well, if you ever go anywhere, traveling for
pleasure, do not go to Russia, because it is the
saddest place on earth. I have seen no person
smile or laugh in all the ten days we have been
here, except a Cossack when he run a saber
through a little girl, and his laugh was like the
coyote on the prairie when he captures a little
254
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
lamb. The people look either heart-broken, or
snarly, like the people confined in an insane
asylum at home.
The czar, who a week ago was loved by the
people, who believed if they went to him,, as to
their God, and appealed for guidance, is to-day
hated by all, and instead of ** Nicholas the Good,"
since he scampered away to a castle in the coun-
try, and crawled under a bed, all the people call
him " the Little Jack Rabbit," and his fate is
sealed, as a bomb will blow him into pieces so
small they will have to be swept up in a dustpan
for burial, maybe before dad and I can get out of
Russia.
Going to St. Petersburg for a pleasant outing
is a good deal like visiting the Chicago stockyards
to watch the bloody men kill the cattle, and the
butchers in the stockyards, calloused against any
feeling for suffering animals, are like the sol-
diers here who shoot down their neighbors be-
cause they are hired to do so. The murder of
those unarmed working men, that Sunday, has
changed a helpless, pleading people into anar-
chists with deadly bombs in their blouses, where
they were accustomed to carry black bread to sus-
tain life, and with the menace of Japan in the
far east and an outraged people at home, Russia
256
PECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
is in a bad way, and if I was the czar or a grand
duke. I would find a woodchuck hole and arrange
with the woodchuck for a furnished flat.
I didn't think there was going to be anything
going on in Russia except bloodshed and bombs,
and things to make you sorry tliat you were here,
Dad tlood tip in the sledge and looked back.
and I was wiUing to take chloroform and let them
carry me home in a box, with my description on
the cover, until the doctor told me that dad was
in a condition of nervousness, tliat he needed
something to happen to get his mind off of the
awful scenes he had witnessed, and aeked me if
I couldn't think of something to excite him and
257
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
wake him up, and then dad said, after he got so
he could go out doors : " Hennery, you have al-
ways been Johnny on the spot when I needed di-
version, and I want you to take your brain apart,
and oil the works, and see if you can't conjure
up something to get my blood circulating and my
pores open for business, and anything you think
of goes, and I swear I will not kick if you scare
the boots off of me."
Well, that was right into my hand, and I set
my mind to strike at four p. m. I had been out
riding once with the Chicago man, in a sledge,
with three horses abreast, all runaway horses,
and the driver was a Cossack who lashed the
horses into a rtm every smooth place he found
in the road, and it was like running to a fire, so
I got the Chicago fellow to go with me and we
found the Cossack, and he was drunker than
usual. There is a kind of liquor here called vodka,
which skins wood alcohol and carbolic acid to a
finish, and when a man is full of it he is so mad
he wants to cut his own throat. This driver had
put up sideboards on his neck and had two jags
in one, and we hired him by the hour.
I told the Chicago man the circumstances and
that I had got to get dad out of his trance, and
he said he would help me. When I was out rid-
258
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
ing the day before I noticed that the road was
full of great dane dogs, wolf hounds and stag
hounds, which followed their master's sledges
out in the country, and the dogs loafed around,
hungry, looking for bones, and fighting each
other, so I decided to get the dogs to chase our
i
4
And piled us ohI on lop of Dad.
sledge and make dad think we were chased by
wolves. I thought that would make dad stand
without hitching, and it did.
The Chicago man bought some cannon fire-
crackers, and I bought a cow's liver, and hitched
it to a rope, and hid it in the back seat, and my
Chicago friend and I took the back seat, and we
259
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
a
got dad in the seat behind the driver, and started
about an hour before dark out in the country,
through a piece of woods that looked quite wolf y.
On the way out the driver let his horses riin away
a few times, like you have seen in Russian pic-
tures, and dad was beginning to sit up and take
notice, and seemed to act like a man who expects
every minute to be thrown over a precipice and
mixed up with dead horses. Dad touched the
driver once on the coat-tail and told him not to
hurry so confounded fast, and the driver thought
he was complaining because it was too slow, and
he gave a Comanche yell and threw the lines into
the air, and the horses just skedaddled, and run
into a snow bank and tipped over the sledge, and
piled us out on top of dad, but dad only said:
" This is getting good."
We righted up, and dad wanted to know where
all the pups came from that we had passed. I
had been throwing out pieces of meat into the
road for a mile or so, and the dogs were having
a picnic. It was getting pretty dark by this time,
and we started back to town, and I threw out my
liver, fastened to the rope, and the Chicago man,
who had given the driver a drink of vodka when
we tipped over, told him, in Russian, that when
the dogs began to follow us, to get hold of the
260
4
" Uy Cod, vie art punned by a pack of ravenous wolves, and
there it no hope for lul "
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
liver, to yell " wolves," and give the team the
rein, for a five-mile run, and yell all the time,
because we wanted to give the old gentleman a
good time.
Well, uncle, I would have given anything if
you could have seen dad, when the dogs began
to chase that liver, and bark and fight each other.
The driver yelled something in Russian, and
pointed back with his whip, the Chicago man
said : " My God, we are pursued by a pack of
ravenous wolves, and there is no hope for us,'*
and I began to cry, and implored dad, if he loved
me, to save me. Dad stood up in the sledge and
looked back, and saw the wolves, and he was
scared, but he said the only thing to do was to
throw something overboard for them to be chew-
ing on while we got away, but he sat down and
pulled a robe over his head and his lips were
moving, but I do not know whom he was address-
ing.
The Chicago man touched oflF a couple of can-
non firecrackers behind the sledge, but that only
kept the dogs back for a minute, and dad said
probably the best thing to do was to throw me
overboard and let them eat me, and I said : " Nay,
nay, Pauline," and then I think dad fainted away,
for he never peeped again until the team had rtm
262
PECKS BAD BOV ABROAD
away a tot more, and I cut my liver rope, and
when we got into the suburbs of St. Petersburg
the dogs had overtaken the liver, and were fight-
ing over It.
The driver had to pull up his horses as we
struck the town, and dad must have got a whiff
of the driver's vodka, because he come to, and
we got to the hotel all right, and I thought dad
would simply die in his tracks, but the ride and
the excitement did him good, and he wanted to
buy a gun and go out wolf hunting the next day,
but our tickets were bought and we shall get out
of this terrible country to-morrow.
Dad woke me up in the night and wanted to
know if I saw him when he pulled his knife and
wanted to get out and fight the pack of wolves
single-handed. I am not much of a liar, but I
told hira I remembered it well, and it demon-
strated to me that he was as brave a man as the
czar, " the Little Jack Rabbit," as his people call
him.
Well, thanks to my wolf hunt, dad is all right
again, and now we shall go to some country
where there is peace. I don't know where wc
will find it, but if such a country exists, your lit-
tle Henry will catch on, if dad's money holds ont.
Yours, covered with Gore. Hennery.
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PKCK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXII.
Dad Wears His Masonic Pes in Constantinople^-They
Find the Turks Sensitive on the Dog Question —
A College Yell for the SulUn Sends Him
Into a Fit.
Constantinople, Turkey. — My Dear Old
" Shriner" — ^We got out of Russia just in time
to keep from being arrested or blown up with a
bomb. Dad wanted to go to Moscow, because he
saw a picture once of Moscow being destroyed
by fire by Napoleon, or somebody, and he wanted
to see if they had ever built the town up again,
but I felt as though something serious was going
to happen in that country if we didn't look out,
and so I persuaded dad to go to Turkey, and the
day we started for Constantinople we got the
news that the Nihilists had thrown a bomb under
the carriage of the Grand Duke Sergius and
blew him and the carriage into small pieces not
bigger than a slice of summer sausage, and they
had to sweep his remains up in a dustpan and
bury them in a two-quart fruit jar. Wouldn't
that jar you?
264
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
When dad heard about that you couldn't have
kept him in Russia on a bet, and so we let the
authorities have all the money we had, g^iving
some to each man who held us up, until we got
out of the country, and then we took the first long
breath we had taken since we struck the God-
forsaken country of the czar. If the bombs hold
out I do not think there will be a quorum left
in Russia in a year, either czars, dukes or any-
thing except peasants on the verge of starvation
and workingmcn who have not the heart to work.
I wouldn't take the whole of Russia as a gift,
and have to dodge bombs night and day.
Say, old man, you never dreamed that I knew
all about you and dad joining the Masons that
time, but I watched you and dad giving each
other signs and grips, and whispering passwords
into each other's ears, in the grocery, nights,
after you had locked up. I thought, at the time,
that you and dad were planning a burglary, but
when you both went to the lodge one night and
stayed till near morning, and dad came home
with a red Turkish fez and told ma that you and
he had joined the shrine, which was the highest
degree in Masonry, and you and he were nobles,
and all that rot, I was on to you bigger than a
house, and you couldn't fool me when you and
26s
,,^ >"'>•""■''"
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
dad winked at each other and talked about cross-
ing the hot sands of the desert.
Well, dad brought his red fez along, 'cause I
think he expected he would meet shriners all over
the world, that he could borrow money of. When
we struck Constantinople and dad saw that every
last one of the Turks wore a red fez, he felt as
though he had got among shriners, and he got
his fez out of his trunk and he wears it all the
time.
Dad acts as familiar with the Turks here as
though he owned a harem. We go to the low
streets, about as wide as a street car, where
Turks are selling things, with dad wearing his
fez, and he begins to make motions and give
grand hailing signs of distress, and the Turks
look at him as though lie had robbed a bank, and
they charge enormous prices for everything, and
dad pays with a smile, thinking his brother Ma-
sons are fairly giving things away. He looks
upon all men who wear the fez as his brothers,
and they look at him as though he was crazy in
the head.
The only trouble is that dad insists on talking
to the women here without an introduction, and
a woman in Turkey had rather die than have a
Christian dog look at her. Dad was buying some
267
•I
4
-■w .^i =:=;=:=s^s^intB
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
wormy figs of a merchant, who was seated on
the floor of his shop, and giving him signs, when
a curtain behind the Turk was pulled one side
and a woman with beautiful eyes and her face
covered with a veil, came out with a cup of coffee
for the Turk. Dad shook hands with her, and
said : " Your husband and I belong to the same
lodge,'' and he was going to go inside and visit
the family, when the woman drew a small dag-
ger out of the folds of her dress, and the Turk
drew one of these scimeters, and it looked for a
moment as though I was going to be a half or-
phan, particularly when dad put his hand on her
shoulder and petted it, and smiled one of those
masher smiles which he uses at home, and said:
" My good woman, you must not get in the habit
of jabbing your husband's friends with this
crooked cutlery, though to be killed by so hand-
some a woman would indeed be a sweet death,"
but the bluff did not go, and the woman disap-
peared behind the curtain, and dad had the fran-
tic husband to deal with.
I have never seen a human being look as mur-
derous as that Turk did as he drew his thumb
across the blade of his knife, drew up his lip and
snarled like a dog that has been bereaved of a
promising bone by a brother dog that was larger,
26S
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
The Turk looked through his teeth, and his eyes
seemed to act like small arc lights, that were to
show him where to cut dad, and dad began to
turn pale, and looked scared.
" Give him the grand hailing sign of distress,"
said I as dad' leaned against a barrel of dried
prunes. Dad said he had forgotten the sign, and
then I told him the only way out of it, alive,
would be to buy something, so dad picked up a
little jim-crack worth about ten cents, and gave
the Turk a five-dollar gold piece, and while the
Turk went in behind the curtain to get the change
I told dad now was the time to skip, and you
ought to have seen dad make a sprint out the
door and around a corner, and up another street,
while I followed him, and we got away from the
danger of being stabbed, but dad got his foot
into it again before we had gone a block.
Nobody in Constantinople ever hurries, or
goes off a walk, so when the people saw an old
man, with a fez on his head, running amuck, as
they say here, followed by a beautiful boy, they
began to crawl into their holes, thinking dad was
crazy, but when we were passing a sausage store,
where about 20 dogs were asleep in the street,
and dad kicked half a dozen dogs and yelled, " get
out, you hounds," that settled it, and they knew
269
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
he was wrong in the head, and they yelled for the
police, and we were pulled for fast driving, and
taken before a Turkish justice of the peace, fol-
lowed by the whole crowd.
The justice did not wear a fez, but had on a
turban, so dad did not give him any signs, but
after jabbering a while they sent for an inter-
preter, who could talk pigeon English, and then
dad had a trial, and I acted as his lawyer. I told
about how dad had tried to be kind and genial
270
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
to another man's wife, and how, in his hurry to
get away from the murderous husband he fell
over a mess of dogs, and that he was a distin-
guished American, who was in Turkey to nego-
tiate a loan to the sultan.
Say, that fixed them, and they all made salams
to dad, and bowed all over themselves, and the
justice of the peace prayed to Allah, and the in-
terpreter said we could go, but to be careful about
touching a Turkish woman or a dog, particu-
larly a dog, as the Turks were very sensitive on
the dog qyestion. So we went out of the court-
room and wandered around the town, and you
can bet that dad didn't look at any more women,
though they were everywhere with veils that cov-
ered their faces so nothing but their eyes could
be seen.
Gee, but you never saw such eyes as these
Turkish women have. They are big and black,
and they go right through you. and clinch on the
other side. Dad says the facilities for getting
into trouble are better in Constantinople than
any place we have been, as the men look like
bandits and the women look like executioners.
Dad thanked me for helping him out of that
scrape by claiming he was the agent of a financial
syndicate that wanted to lend money to the sul-
271
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
tan. If I had said dad was a collecting agency,
to make the sultan pay up, they would have sen-
tenced him to be boiled in oil.
Well, we thought we had been in trouble be-
fore, but we are in it now worse than ever. We
heard at the hotel that at 1 1 o'clock in the morn-
ing the sultan would pass by in a carriage, with
an escort, on the way to a mosque, to pray to
Allah, and everybody could see the sultan, so
we got a place on a balcony, and at the appointed
time the procession came in sight. It was impos-
ing, but solemn, and the people on both sides of
the street acted like they do in America when
the funeral of a great man is passing. No man
spoke, and all looked as though they expected, if
they moved, to be arrested and have a stone tied
to their feet and thrown into the Bosphorus, the
way they kill one of the sultan's wives when she
flirts with a stranger.
We watched the soldiers, and finally the car-
riage of the sultan came, and in it was a dried
up man, with liver complaint, with a nose like
an eagle, and eyes like shoe buttons. He looked
as though death would be a relief, and yet he
seemed afraid of it, and there was no sound of
welcome, such as there would be if Roosevelt was
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
riding down Michigan avenue at Chicago, on the
way to the stockyards to pray to Armour, in-
stead of to Allah.
You could have heard a pin drop. I said:
" Dad, this is too solemn, even for a sultan. Let's
Another Turk took
give him the university yell, and show that
mummy that he has got two friends in Constan-
tinople, anyway." " Here she goes," says dad,
and we leaned over the railing, just as the sul-
tan's carriage was right in front of us and not
ten feet away, and in that oppressive silence dad
and I opened up, " U-Rah-Rah-Wis-Con-Sin, zip-
273
PECk'S BAD BOY ABROAD
boom- Ah ! " and then we started to sing,
" There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-
Night/'
Well, if any man in the crowd had touched off
a bomb, there could have been no greater con-
sternation. The sultan turned pale, as pale as
so yellow a man could, and became faint, and fell
over into the arms of a general who sat beside
him, the Bazi Bazouks on horseback began to
ride up and down the street, the crowd scattered,
the sultan's carriage was turned around and
rushed back to the palace, with the ruler of Tur-
key having a fit, and about a hundred soldiers
came up on the veranda, where dad and I had
broke up the procession, and they lit on dad like
buzzards on a dead horse, and took possession
of the hotel, and began to search our baggage.
One Turk choked dad until his tongue hung
out of his mouth, and another took me by the
ear and stretched it out so it was long as a mule's
ear, and they took us to a bastile and dad says
it is all up with us now, because they will drown
us like a mess of kittens in a bag, and all because
we woke them up with a football yell in the wrong
place.
Well, we might as well wind up our career here
274
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
as an3rwhere. Good-by, old man. You will see
our obituary in the papers.
Your repentant
Henhbky.
m
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Meet the Cream of the
Harem — ^"'Little Eg3rpt" Does a Dancing Stunt —
The Sultan Wants to Send Fifty Wives to
the President.
Constantinople, Turkey. — My Dear Grocer-
pasha: When I wrote you last I thought you
would be in mourning for dad and I before this,
as there seemed nothing for the Turks to do but
to kill us after we had stampeded the sultan and
all his soldiers by giving them a imiversity yell,
but after we had been confined in a sort of jail
over night, dad and I had a heart to heart talk,
and my diplomacy saved us for the time being. I
told dad that what we wanted to do was to tell
the Turks that dad represented the American peo-
ple, and had a communication to make to the sul-
tan personally, which would make him rich and
happy.
Well, say, they bit like a bass, and the next
day they took us before the sultan at the palace.
Dad dug up a package of blank gold mining
stock in a mine that he was going to promote,
though the mine was only a small hole in the
276
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
gfround, and the stock had been offered for one
cent a share, the par value being a hundred dol-
lars, so a man who got a share for a cent would,
when the mine got to paying, get a hundred dol-
lars for every cent he invested.
The Presidcnl said he mutt bring hit folks.
Dad filled out one of the stock certificates for
1 ,000,000 shares, which would represent a capita!
equal to all the debts of Turkey, and we went be-
fore the sultan, and we couldn't have been treated
better if we had owned a brewery. Dad told his
story to the sultan through an interpreter, while
277
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
I looked around at the gorgeous surroundings
and tried to think of something to do to wake
them up.
Dad said he came right fresh from the Ameri-
can people, and was authorized by his mining
company to present the sultan with untold mil-
lions, for pure love of the Turkish people, whom
they had seen riding and leading camels at the
Chicago world's fair, and dad produced the stock
certificate for 1,000,000 shares of stock in the
Golden Horn Grold Mining and Smelting com-
pany, and took out a handful of $20 gold pieces
and showed them to the crowd as specimens of
gold that came from our mine.
He said our people did not expect anything in
return, but just desired the good will of the Turk-
ish empire. He said that President Roosevelt de-
sired him to present his warmest regards to the
sultan, and to invite him to visit America, and if
he would consent to do so, an American war ves-
sel would be furnished for him and the white
house would be turned over to him for his harem,
and dad said the president wanted him particu-
larly to impress upon the sultan that if he came
he must bring his folks, all his wives that would
be apt to size up for beauty with our American
women.
27S
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
Veil, you ought to have seen that sickly look-
ing sultan brace up when dad handed him the
millions of mining stock, and he grabbed the
paper like an old clothes buyer would grab a
dress suit that a wife had sold for 60 cents, be-
longing to her husband. He also wanted to see
the gold that dad had shown as coming from the
mine, and when dad showed him the yellow boys
he took them as souvenirs and put them in his
girdle, and then I thought dad would faint, but
he kept his nerve like a poker player betting on
a bobtail flush.
The sultan asked so many questions about
America that I was afraid dad would get all
balled up, but he kept his nerve, and lied as though
he was on the witness stand trying to save his
life. Dad told the sultan he was authorized by
the American people to inquire into the indus-
tries of Turkey, and what he particularly desired
was an insight into the harems, as a national
institution, because many American people were
gradually adopting the customs of the orient, and
he desired to report to congress as to whether
we should adopt the customs of Turkey with her
dried prunes and dates with worms in. and her
attar of roses made of pig's lard; her fez, to cure
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
baldness, and her outlandish pants and peaked
red Morocco shoes, and her harems.
The sultan said he would like to show us a little
bunch of the cream of the harem, who would do
a stunt in the way of dancing, to celebrate the
good feeling of the American people, and the
visit of the distinguished statesman and gold
miner to his realm, and dad said the sultan
couldn't turn his stomach with no cream of the
harem, only they must keep their hands off him,
and the sultan promised he should be as safe as a
" unique,*' whatever that is.
Dad and I had hired knee breeches and things
of a masquerade ball store, and we didn't look
half bad when the crowd of shieks and things
formed a crescent around the sultan, who sat in
a sort of barber's chair with an awning over it,
and they sounded a hewgag or something, and
about a dozen pretty fine looking females, dressed
like the ballet in a vaudeville show, came in and
began to dance before the sultan.
Dad stood it first rate until a girl got on the
carpet barefooted and began one of those willowy
sort of dances that nearly broke up the Chicago
fair, when people left the buildings filled with
the work of the world's artists, in all lines of
progress, and went to the Midway in a body to
280
He taos just gelling warmed up lo "tolatwr to partnert."
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
s« " Little Egypt," but when this dancer waltzed
up to dad and wiggled in a foreign language, dad
sashayed up to her and I couldn't hold him back.
He was just getting warmed up to " balance
to partners," when a frown came over the sul-
tan's face and he looked cross at dad, and then
the hewgag sounded, and the girls scattered out
of a side door and dad wanted to follow, but I
held him by the coat, and it was over. I think
those girls were the only ones in the whole harem
that were good looking.
Dad breathed hard a little from his exercise,
and said he was ready to inspect the stock, and
the sultan detailed a tall negro, with a face dried
up like a mummy, and we started out through
the harem, dad pulling the long hair on the side
of his head over his bald spot, and throwing his
shoulders back and drawing in his stomach to
make him look young.
Well, say, there is nothing about a harem,
much different from keeping house at home, ex-
cept that there is more of it. The idea people
get of harems is that the women are all young
and beautiful, and that they sit around a swim-
ming tank and play guitars and keep the flies off
the man who owns the place, while he smokes
the vile Turkish tobacco burning in a jardiniere,
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
through a section of rubber hose, and goes to
sleep like a Chinaman smoking opium, and that
they drink rare wines and dance with bangles on
their legs and ropes of pearls on their necks and
arms.
I have seen alleged imitations of a Turkish
harem on the stage, with American girls doing
the acting, and it would make you feel as though
you would invest in a harem when you got old
enough, but, gee, when you see a regular harem,
run by an up-to-date Turk, you think of the Mor-
mon apostle who has 40 wives of all ages, from
70 down to a 16-year-old hired girl, with a hair-
lip and warts on her thumbs. This harem was
like a big stock bam in the states, with a big
room to exercise the colts, and box stalls for the
different wives and their families to live in and
do their own cooking and washing.
Instead of sitting by a bath playing a harp,
the poor old wives stand by a washtub and play
tunes on the washboard, and scrub, and take care
of children. I thought the custom of spanking
children was an American institution, but it is
as old as the ages, for I saw a Turkish mother
grab up a child that had lifted a kitten by the
tail, and take it across her knee and give it a few
with a red hand covered with soapsuds, and the
4
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
young Turk yelled bloody murder, just like an
American kid, and then sat down on its knees, so
the spanking wouldn't hurt, and called its mother
names in a language I couldn't understand, but
I knew what the child said, by instinct. Dad
started to interfere, because he is a member of
the humane society, but the unique that was show-
ing us around saved dad's life by pushing him
along, before the woman got a chance to brain
him with the washboard.
The women mostly had on these baggy Turk-
ish trousers, like the Zouaves wear, and a jacket,
and a cloth around their heads, and they acted
as though if the next meal came along all right
they would be in luck. We saw a few women
pretty white, and they were Circassian slaves,
with big eyes and hoops in their ears, and a little
different clothes on, but there were none that dad
would buy at an auction, or at a bargain sale, if
they were marked down to 99 cents.
We passed one woman running an American
sewing machine, and dad said he'd bet she was
an American, and he went up to her and said:
" Hello, sis ! " She stopped the machine, looked
up at dad with a sort of Bowery expression, and
said: " Gwan, Chauncey Depew, you old peach,
or ril have you pinched," and the unique took
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PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
dad by the arm and pulled him along real spry,
but he hung back and looked over his shoulder
at the woman, but she went on sewing, and dad
said to me: "Well, wouldn't that frost you?"
And we went on making the inspection.
I don't think I ever saw so many children, out-
side of an orphan asylum, all about the same size
and all looking exactly alike. They all had the
same beady black eyes that look as though they
were afraid of getting caught in a trap, like
nmskrats, and their noses had the same inquiring
appearance, as though the o\vner was speculating
as to how much money the visitors had in their
pockets, and whether it was fastened in. Race
suicide is impossible in Turkey, but a race of
bandits is growing up that will let no foreigners
with a pocketbook escape.
It took us an hour to go through the harem,
and it was more like going through the quarters
of the working women of a home laundry in the
tenement district of a large city, than a comic
opera, as we had been led to expect by what we
had read of harems. When we went into the
harem I think dad was going to insist on having
the women dance for him, while he sat on a
throne and threw kisses at the most beautiful
women in all the world, but before we had got
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
around all the box stalls I think if any of them
had started to dance dad would have stampeded
in a body.
We finally got back to the great marble room,
where the sultan was sleeping in a stuflfed chair,
surrounded by his staflf, and one of them woke
him up, and he asked dad what he thought of the
home life of a crowned head, and dad said it beat
anything he had ever seen, and he should recom-
mend to his government that the harem system
be adopted in America, and actually the sultan
seemed pleased. He said as an evidence of his
love for America he wanted to present to the
president, through dad, 50 of his wives, and if
dad would indicate where he wanted them deliv-
ered, they would be there, Johnny on the spot, or
words to that effect.
At first I thought dad would faint away, but
I whispered to him that it would be discourteous
to decline a present, after giving the sultan a
gold mine, and that may be the old man would
be so mad, if he declined the wives, that he would
tie stones to our legs and sink us in the Bosphor-
ous, so dad rallied and said, on behalf of his gov-
ernment, he would accept the kindly and thought-
ful g^ft of his highness, and that he would cable
for a war vessel to take the wives to his own
286
Of alt Ihr slamfifdts you ever saw.
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
America, and he would notify the sultan when
to round them up and load them on the vessel.
Well, sir, I do not know what possessed me to
make a scene, before we got out of the presence
of the sultan, but it all came to me sudden, like
an inspiration comes to a poet. I had been eat-
ing some fruit that I bought in a paper bag, and
when I had eaten the last of it, I wondered what
I would do with the bag, and then I thought what
fun it would be to blow the bag up, and suddenly
burst it, when all was still. So I blowed up the
bag, so it was as hard as a bladder, and tied a
string around the neck, and waited. I did not
think how afraid everybody in these old coun-
tries is of bombs, or I never would have done it,
honestly.
The sultan was signing some papers, and look- .
ing out of the corners of his eyes to see if any-
body was present who was suspicious, and dad
was getting ready to make a salam, and back
out of the presence of the ruler of Turkey, when
I got behind some of the officials who were watch-
ing the sultan, and I laid my paper bag on the
marble floor, and it was as still as death, and all
you could hear was the scratching of the pen^
when I jumped up in the air as though I had a
fit, and yelled " Allah," and came down with my
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
whole weight on the paper bag, and of all the
stampedes you ever saw, that was the worst.
You know what a noise it makes to bust a paper
bag. Well, this was the toughest old bag 1 ever
busted, and it sounded like a cannon fired down
cellar somewhere, and the air was full of dust,
and before I could get up the sultan had tipped
over the table and run yelling into another room,
praying to " Allah," and all the staff had ht out
for tall timber, and there was nobody left but
dad and the unique and myself, and the. unique
took dad by the arm and started for the door,
and we were fired out.
As I went out of the room I looked around,
and there was a Turk's head sticking out of every
door to see how many had been killed by the
bomb, and as we got out doors, dad said " Now
we have to get out of Turkey before night, or
we die. Me for Egypt, boy, if we can catch a
boat before we are drawn and quartered." So
here goes for Cairo, Egypt. Yours only,
Henneky.
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Arrive in Cairo— -At
Hotel They Meet Some Egyptian Princei a e>
Dan Rides a Camel to the Pyramida and
Meets with Difficulties.
Cairo, Egypt. — My Dear Old Irish Vegetable :
Gee, but you ought to see dad and I right now at
a hotel, waiting for a chance at a room, when a
bride and groom get ready to vacate it, and go
somewhere else. This hotel is full of married
people who look scared whenever there is a new
arrival, and I came pretty near creating a panic
by going into the parlor of the hotel, where a
dozen couples were sitting around making goo-
goo eyes at each other, and getting behind a
screen and, in a disguised voice, shouting, " I
know all ! Prepare to defend yourself ! "
The women turned pale and some said, " At
last ! At last ! " while others got faint in the head,
and some fell on the bosoms of their husbands and
said : " Don't shoot ! " You see, most of these
wives had husbands somewhere else that might
be looking for them. I have warned dad not to
be seen conversing with a woman, or he may be
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
shot by a husband who is on her trail, or by the
husband she has with her.
Well, sir, of all the trips we have had any-
where, the trip from Constantinople here was
the limit. For two or three days we were on
dinky steamboats with Arabs, Turks, negroes and
all nationalities camping on deck, full of fleas, and
with cholera germs on them big enough to pick
like blueberries, and all of the passengers were
dirty and eat things that would make a dog in
America go mad. The dog biscuit that are fed
to American dogs would pass as a delicate con-
fection on the menu of any steamboat we struck,
and I had rather lie down in a barn yard with
a wet dog for a pillow and a cast-off blanket from
a smallpox hospital for a bed, than to occupy the
bridal chamber of any steamboat we struck.
And then the ride across the desert by rail to
reach Cairo was the worst in the world. Pas-
sengers in rags, going to Mecca, or some other
place of worship, eating cheese a thousand years
old made from old goat's milk, and dug from the
Pyramids too late to save it, was what surrounded
us, and the sand storm blew through the cars
laden with germs of the plague, and stuck to us
so tight you couldn't get it oE with sandpaper,
29 1
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
and when we got here all we have had to do is
to bathe the dirt oflf in layers.
It takes nine baths to get down to American
epidermis, and the last bath has a jackplane to
go with it, and a thing they scale hsh with. But
It fakes nine baths to get down to American epidermu.
we are all right now, with rooms in the hotel, and
rested, and when we go home we are going to be
salted down and given chloroform and shipped
as mummies. Dad insists that he will never cross
a desert or an ocean again, and I don't know
what is to become of us. Anyway, we are going
to enjoy ourselves until we are killed off.
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PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
The first two days we just looked about Cairo,
and saw the cong;ress of nations, for there is
nothing just like this town anywhere. There are
people from all quarters of the globe, the most
outlandish and the most up-to-date. This place
is an asylum for fakirs and robbers, a place where
defaulters, bribers, murderers, swindlers and
elopers are safe, as there seems to be no extradi-
tion treaty that cannot be overcome by paying
money to the officials. I found that out the first
day, and told dad we should have no standing in
the society of Egypt unless the people thought
he had committed some gigantic crime and fled
his country.
Dad wanted to know how it would strike me
if it was noised about the hotel that he had robbed
a national bank, but I told him there would be
nothing uncommon or noticeable about robbing
a bank, as half the tourists were bank defaulters,
so he would have to be accused of something
startling, so we decided that dad should be
charged with being the principal thing in the
Standard Oil Company, and that he had under-
ground pipe lines running under several states,
gathering oil away from the people who owned
it, and that at the present time he was worth a
billion dollars, and his income was $9,000,000
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TECICS BAD BOY ABROAD
every little while, and, by ginger, you ought to
see the people bow down to him. Say, common
batik robbers and defaulters just fell over them-
selves to get acquainted with da3, and to carry
out the joke, I put some kerosene oil on dad's
handkerchief, and that clinched it, for everybody
loves the smell of a perfume that represents a bil-
lion dollars.
All the women wanted to dance with dad in
the hotel dance, and because they thought I must
be heir to all the oil billions, they wanted to hold
me on their laps, and stroke my hair, as though
I was it. I guess we are going to have every-
thing our own way here, and if dad does not get
eloped with by some Egyptian princess, I shall
be mistaken. The Egyptians are pretty near
being negroes, and wear bangles in their ears,
and earrings on their arms. You take it in the
dark, and let a princess put her arms around you,
and sort of squeeze you, and you can't tell but
what she is white, only there is an odor about
them like " Araby the blessed,'* but in the light
they are only negroes, a little bleached, with red
paint on theif cheeks. If I was going to marry
an Egyptian woman, I would take her to Nor-
way, or up towards the north pole, where it is
night all day, and you wouldn't realize that you
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PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
were married lo a colored woman. To be around
among these Egyptians is a good deal like having
a pass behind tlie scenes at the play of Ben Hur
in New York, only here the dark and dangerous
women are the real thing, instead of being white
girls with black paint on.
We have just got back from the pyramids, and
dad is being treated for spinal meningitis, on ac-
count of riding a camel I never tried harder to
get dad to go anywhere on the cars than I did to
get him to go to the pyramids by rail, as a mil-
lionaire should, but he said he was going to break
a camel to the saddle, and then buy him and take
him home for a side show. So we went down to
the camel garage and hired a camel for dad,
and four camels for the arabs and things he
wanted for an escort, and a jackass for me.
There were automobiles and carriages, and trol-
leys, and everything that we could have hired,
and been comfortable for the ten-mile ride, but
dad was mashed on the camel, and he got it.
Well, sir, it was not one of these world's fair
camels that lay down for you to get on, and then
got up on the installment plan, and chuck you
forward and aft, but a proud Egyptian camel that
stands up straight and makes you climb up on a
step ladder.
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PBCirS BAD BOY ABROAD
Dad got aloi^ up the camel's ribs, when the
stepladder fell, and he grabbed hold of the hair
on the two humps, and the humps were loose and
they lopped over on the side, and it must have
hurt the camel's feelings to have his humps pulled
down, so he reached around his head and took a
mouthful out of the seat of dad's pants, and dad
yelled to the camel to let go, and the Arabs ampu-
tated the camel from dad's trousers, and pushed
dad up on top with a bamboo pole with a crotch
296
PEWC'S BAD BOY ABROAD
in it, and when dad got settled between the humps
he said, " Let 'er go," and we started.
Dad could have had a camel with a platform
on top, and an awning, but he insisted on taking
his camel raw, and he sat there between those
humps, his trousers worked up towards his knees,
showing his red socks and blue drawers, and his
face got pale from sea sickness, and the red, white
and blue colors made me think of a fourth of July
at home. We went out of town like a wild west
show, and dad seemed happy, except that every
time an automobile went whizzing along, dad's
camel got the jumps and waltzed sideways out
into the sandy desert, and chewed at dad's socks,
so part of the time dad had to draw up his legs
and sit on one hump and put his shoes on the
other hump. The Arabs on the other cam-
els would ride up alongside and steer dad's
camel back into the road, by sticking sharp sticks
into the camel, and the animal would yawn and
groan and make up faces at me on my jackass,
and finally dad wanted to change works with me
and ride my jackass, but I told him we had left
the stepladder back at Cairo, so dad hung to his
mountainous steed, but the dust blew so you
couldn't see, and it was getting monotonous when
the queerest thing happened.
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
You have heard that camels can fill up with
water and go for a week without asking for any
more. Well, I guess the week was up, and it
was time to load the camels with water, for as
we came to the Nile every last camel made a rush
for the river, and they went in like a yoke of oxen
on a stampede, and waded in clear up to the
humps, and began to drink, and dad yelled for
a life preserver and pulled his feet up on top and
sat there like a frog on a pond lily leaf.
My jackass only stepped his feet in the edge,
and dad wanted me to swim my jackass out to
the camel and let him fall off onto the jack, but
I knew dad would sink my jack in a minute, and
I wouldn't go in the river. Well, the camels
drank about an hour, with dad sitting there medi-
tating, and then the dragomen got them out, and
we started off for the pyramids, which were in
plain sight like the pictures you have seen, with
palm trees along the Nile, and Arabs camping
on the bank, and it looked as though everything
was going to be all right, when suddenly dad's
camel stopped dead still and wouldn't move a
foot, and all the rest of the camels stopped, closed
their eyes and went to sleep, and the Arabs went
to sleep, and dad and the jackass and I were ap-
29S
i
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
parently the only animals in Egypt that were
awake.
Dad kicked his camel in the ribs, but it wouldn't
budge. He asked me if I could't think up some
way to start the procession, and I stopped my
jackass and thought a minute, and told dad I had
it. I had bought some giant fire crackers and
roman candles at Cairo, with which I was going
to fire a salute on top of the biggest P3rramid, to
celebrate for old America, and I told dad what
I had got, and I thought if I got off my jackass
and fired a salute there in the desert it would wake
them up.
Dad said, " all right, let 'er go, but do it sort
of easy, at first, so not to overdo it," and I got
my artillery ready. Say, you can^t fire off fire-
works easy, you got to touch a match to 'em and
dodge and take your chances. Well, I scratched
a match and lit the giant fire cracker, and put
it under the hind legs of dad's camel, and when
it got to fizzing I lit my roman candle, and as the
fire cracker exploded like a 1 6-inch gun, my
roman candle began to spout balls of fire, and I
aimed one at each camel, and the whole push
started on a stampede for the pyramids, the cam-
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
els groaning, the Arabs praying to Allah, dad
yelling to stop 'er, and my jackass led the bunch,
and I was left in the desert to pick up the hats.
I guess I will have to tell you the rest of the
tragedy in my next letter.
Yours with plenty of sand.
Hennery.
yw
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXV.
The Bad Boy and His Dad Climb the Pyramids— The
Bad Boy Lights a Cannon Cracker in Rameses'
Tomb— They Flee from Egypt in Disguise.
Cairo, Egypt. — My Dear Old Geezer : I broke
off my last letter in sight of the pyramids, when
I was left alone on the desert, my jackass having
stampeded with the camels, on account of my fire-
works, and I presume you think I was all in,
but I got to the pyramids before the stampeded
caravan did. I saw a car coming along, and I just
got aboard and in ten minutes I was at the base
of the big pyramid, and the camel with dad on
between the humps, was humping himself half a
mile away, trying to get there, and the other cam-
els, with the Arabs, were stretched out like horses
in a race, behind, and my jackass was right next
to dad's camel, braying and occasionally kicking
dad's camel in the slats.
There were about a hundred tourists around
the stampede of the camels, and I told them my
the base of the big pyramid, all looking towards
dad, the great American millionaire, was on the
runaway camel in advance, and asked them to
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
form a line across the trail and save dad, but
when the camel came nearer I was ashamed of
dad. He had his arms around the front himip
of the camel, and he was yelling for help to stop
his menagerie, and his legs were flying in the
air, and every time they came down they kicked
a hole in the side of the camel.
Well, sir, I thought dad was a brave man, but
he blatted like a calf, and when the camel stopped
and went to eating a clump of grass dad opened
his eyes, and when he saw that the procession
had stopped he rolled off his camel like a bag o£
wheat, and stuck in the sand and began to say
a prayer, but when he saw me standing there,
laughing, he stopped praying, and said to me:
"I thought you were blown up when that jackass
kicked the can of dynamite. You have more lives
than a cat. Now, get a hustle on you and we will
climb that pyramid, and then quit this blasted
country," and dad sat down on a hummock and
began to pull himself together, after the most
fearful ride he ever had. He said the camel loped,
trotted, galloped, single-footed and shied all at
the same time, and when one hump was not jam-
ming him in the back the other hump was kick-
ing him in the stomach, and if he had a gun he
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would shoot the camel, and the Arabs, and bust
up the show.
By the time dad got so he could stand up with-
out leaning against a pyramid the Arabs came
up and they all talked at once, and drew knives.
i
Wanted him to pay for tkt cameL
and it seemed as though they were blaming dad
for something. We found an interpreter among
the tourists, and he talked with the Arabs, and
pointing to the came! dad had ridden, which was
stretched out on the sand like he was dead, he
told dad the Arabs wanted him to pay for the
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
camel he had ridden to death, and foundered by
letting it drink a wagon load of water, and then
entered in a race across the desert, and the inter-
preter said dad better pay, or they would kill
him.
Dad settled for the camel for a hundred dol-
lars, and a promise of the skin of the camel, which
he was going to take home and have stuffed.
Then a man who pretended to be a justice of the
peace had dad arrested for driving off of a walk,
and he was fined $io and costs for that, and then
all the Arabs stuck him for money for one thing
and another, and when he had settled all around
and paid extra for not riding back to Cairo on
the camel, we got ready to climb up the pyramid.
Dad said he wouldn't ride that camel back to
Cairo for a million dollars, for he was split up
so his legs began where his arms left off, and
he was lame from Genesis to Revelations.
But I never saw such a lot of people to pray as
these pirates are. Just before they rob a man
they get down on their knees on a rug, and mum-
ble something to some god, and after they have
got you robbed good and plenty, they get down
and pray while they are concealing the money
they took from you. Gee. but when I get home
I am going to steer the train robbers and burglars
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
onto the idea of always being on praying grounds.
Well, I told dad he hadn't better try to climb
up the pyramid, that I would go up, 'cause I
could climb like a goat, and when I got up to
the top I would fire a salute, so everybody would
know that a star spangled American was on deck,
but dad said he would go up or quit the tourist
business. He said he had come thousands of
miles to climb the pyramids, and sit in the shad-
ow of the spinks, and by ginger he was going
to do it, and so we started.
Well, say, each stone is about four feet high,
and dad couldn't get up without help, so an Arab
would go up a stone ahead, and take hold of
dad's hands, and two more Arabs would get
their shoulders under dad's pants, and shove, and
he would get up gradually. We got about half
way up when dad weakened, and said he didn't
care so much about pyramids as he thought he
did, and he was ready to quit, but the guide and
some of the tourists said we were right near
the entrance to the great tomb of the kings, and
that we better go in and at least make a formal
call on the crowned heads, and so we went in,
through dark passages, with little candles that the
guides carried, and up and down stairs, until fin-
ally we got into a big room that smelled like a
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PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD 1
morgue, with bats and evil looking things all J
around, and I felt creepy. ■
The guides got down on their knees to pray, 1
and I thought it was time to be robbed again. 1
I do not know what made me think of making a |
■ ^ 4
^P / wtu ashamtd of Dad myself.
H sensation right there in the bowels of that pyra-
1 mid, where there were corpses thousands of years
H old, of Egypt's rulers. I never felt that way at
H home, when I visited a cemetery, but I though I
H would shoot my last roman candle and fire my
^^H 307 ^1
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
last giant firecracker right there in that mos-
eleum, and take the chances that we would get
out alive. So when the tourists were lined up be-
side a tomb of some Rameses or other, and the
guides were praying for strength and endurance,
probably, to get away with all the money we
had, I picked out a place up toward the roof that
seemed full of bats and birds of ill omen, and I
sneaked my roman candle out from tmder my
shirt, and touched the fuse to a candle on the
turban of a guide who was on his knees, and just
as the first fire ball was ready to come out I
yelled "Whoop-la-much-a wano, epluribus un-
um," and the fire balls lighted up the gloom and
knocked the bats gaily west
Holy jumping cats, but you ought to have seen
the guides, yelling Allah ! Allah ! and groveling on
the floor, and the bats were flying around in the
faces of the tourists, and everybody was simply
scared out of their boots. I thought I might as
well wind the thing up glorious, so I touched the
tail of my last giant firecracker to the sparks that
were oozing out of my empty roman candle, and
threw it into the middle of the great room, and
when it went oflf you would think a cannon had
exploded, and everybody rushed for the door, and
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
we fell over each other getting out through the
passage towards the door.
I was the first to get out on to the side of the
pyramid, and I watched for the crowd to come
out. The tourists got out first, and then dad
came out, puffing and wheezing, and the last to
come out were the Arabs, and they came on their
hands and knees, calling to Mr. Allah and every
one of them actually pale, and I think they were
conscience-stricken, for they began to give back
the money they had robbed dad of. and an Arab
must be pretty scared to give up any of his hard-
earned robberies. I think dad was about the
maddest man there was, until he got some of his
money back, when he felt better, but he gave me
a talking to that I will never forget.
He said: "Don't you know better than to go
around with explosives, like a train robber, and
fire them off in a hole in the ground, where there
is no ventilation, and make people's ears ring?
Maybe you have woke up those kings and queens
in there, and changed a dynasty, you little idiot."
The rest of the crowd wanted to throw me down
the side of the pyramid, but 1 got away from
them and went up on top of the pyramid and hoist-
ed a small American flag, and left it floating
there, and then came back to where the crowd
309
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
was discussing the explosion in the tomb, and
then we all went down the side of the pyramid.
The guides got their nerve back after they got
out in the air, because they wouldn't help dad
down unless he paid them something every stone
they helped him climb down, so when he got down
he didn't have any money, and hardly any pants,
because what pants the Arabs didn't tear were
worn off on the stones, so when he showed up in
front of the spinks he was a sight, and he bought
a turban of a guide and unwound it and wound
it around him in place of pants. I was ashamed
of dad myself, and it is pretty hard to make me
ashamed.
We went back to Cairo on the cars, and what
do you think, that dead camel that the Arabs
made dad pay for was with the caravan going
back to town, 'cause we saw him out of the car
window with the hair wore off where dad kicked
him in the side. The tourists say the Arabs have
that camel trained to die every day when they get
to the pyramids, and they make some tenderfoot
pay for him at the end of each journey. Dad is
going to try to get his money back from the Egyp-
tian government, but I guess he will never realize
on his claim.
Well, sir, after dad had doctored all night to
310
ZM it Hitguitfd M o ihttk.
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
get the camel rheumatism and spinal meningitis
out of his system, we took a trip by boat on the
Nile, and saw the banks where the people grow
crops by irrigation, and where an English syndi-
cate has built a big dam, so the whole valley can
be irrigated, and I tell you it will not be long be-
fore Egypt will raise everything used in the world
on that desert, and every other country that raises
food to sell will be busted up in business, but it is
disgusting to take a trip on the Nile, 'cause all the
natives are dirty and sick with contagious dis-
eases, and they are lazy and crippled, and beg for
a living, and if you don't give them something
they steal all you got. You are in luck if you get
away without having leprosy, or the plague, or
cholera, or fleas.
So we went back to Cairo, and there was the
worst commotion you ever saw, about my fire-
works in the tomb. The papers said that an
American dynamiter had attempted to blow up
the great pyramid, and take possession of the
country and place it under the American flag, and
that the conspirators were spotted and would be
arrested and put in irons as soon as they got
back from a trip on the Nile.
Well, sir, dad found his career would close
right here, and that he would probably spend the
312
PECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
balance of his life in an Egyptian prison if we
didn't get out, so we made a sneak and got into
our hotel, bought disguises and are going to get
out of here tonight, and try to get to Gibraltar, or
somewhere in sight, of home. Dad is disguised
as a shiek, with whiskers and a white robe, like
a bath robe, and I am going to travel with him
as an Egyptian girl till we get through the Suez
canal.
Gee, but I wouldn't be a nigger girl only to
save dad. Your innocent,
Henneey.
313
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Bad Boy Writes About Gibraltar— The IriA-
English Army— How He Would Take the Fort-
ress—Dad Wants to Buy the "Rock."
Gibraltar, in Spain and England.
My Dear Foster Uncle:
It seems good to get somewhere that you can
hear the English language spoken by the Irish,
and the English soldiers are nearly all Irish.
When you think of the way the British govern-
ment treats the Irish, and then you look on while
an orderly sergeant calls the roll of a company,
and find that nine out of ten answer to Irisn
names, and only one out of ten has the cockney
accent, you feel that the Irish ought to rule Eng-
land, and an O'Rourke or a O'Shaunnessy should
take the place of King Edward. It makes a boy
who was brought up in an Irish ward in Ameri-
ca feel like he was at home to mix with British
soldiers who come from the old sod. Dad says
that there is never an army anywhere in the
world, except the armies of Russia and Japan,
that the bravest men are not answering to Irish
S8, and always on the advance in a fight, or
314
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
in the rear when there is a retreat. Dad says
that in our own army, when the North and South
were fighting, the Irish boys were the fellows who
saved the day. They wanted to fight nights and
Sundays, and never struck for an eight-hour
day, or union wages. When the fighting was
over, and soldiers were sick, or discouraged, and
despondent, an Irish soldier would come along,
maybe on crutches, or with a hullet in his inwards,
and tell funny stories and make the discouraged
fellows laugh in spite of themselves, and when
another fight was on, you had to tie the wounded
Irish soldiers to their cots in the hospital, or put
them in jail to keep them from forgetting their
wounds, and going to the front for one more
fight. Dad says if there was an Irish nation with
an army and navy, the whole world would have to
combine to whip them, and yet the nation that has
the control of the Irish people treats them worse
than San Francisco treats Chinamen, makes them
live on potatoes, and allows landlords to take
away the potatoes if they are shy on the rent
Gosh, if I was an Irishman I would see the coun-
try that walked on my neck in hell before I would
fight for it. (Gee, dad looked over my shoulder
and saw what I had written, and he cuffed me on
the side of the head, and said I was an incendiary
315
4
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
and that I ought to have sense enough not to write
treason while a guest on British soil.) Well, I
don't care a darn. It makes me hot under the
collar when I think of the brave Irish fellows,
and I wonder why they don't come to America in
a body and be aldermen and policemen. When
I get home I am going to join the Fenians, and
raise thunder, just as quick as I am old enough.
Well, sir, we have been through the Suez canal,
and for a great modem piece of engineering it
doesn't size up with a sewer in Milwaukee, or a
bayou in Louisiana. It is just digging a railroad
cut through the desert, and letting in the water,
and there you are. The only question in its con-
struction was plenty of dredging machines, and
a place to pile the dirt, and water that just came in
of its own accord, and stays there, and smells
like thunder, and you see the natives look at it,
and keep away from the banks for fear the banks
will cave in on them, and give them a bath before
their year is up, cause they don't bathe but once
a year, and when they skip a year nobody knows
about it, except that they smell a year or so more
frowsy, like butter that has been left out of the
ice box. Our boat went right along, and got out
of the canal, because it was a mail boat, but the
most of the boats we saw were tied up to the
$16
PECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
bank, waiting for the millennium. We saw some
Russian boats waiting for the war to blow over,
and as we passed them every Russian on board
looked scared, as though we were Japs that were
going to fire a torpedo under them, or throw a
bomb on deck, and when our boat got by the Rus-
The natives look o( li and ktefi away from the bank.
sian boat, the crew was called to prayers, to tliank
the Lord, or whoever it is that the Russians thank,
because they had escaped a dire peril. I guess
the Russians are all in, and that those who have
not gone to the front are shaking hands with
themselves, and waiting for the dove of peace to
alight on their guns. The Suez canal probably
pays, and no wonder, cause they charge what
317
PECICS BAD BOY ABROAD
they please to boats that go through, and if they
don't pay all they have to do is to stay out, and go
around a few thousand miles. It is like a ferry
across a little stream out west, where there is no
other way to cross, except to wade or go around,
and the old ferryman sizes up the wagon load that
wants to cross, and takes all they have got loose,
and then the travelers are ahead of the game,
cause if they didn't cross the stream they would
have to camp on the bank until the stream dried
up. Some day an earthquake will split that des-
ert wide open and the water in the Suez canal
will soak into the sand and the steamboats will
lay in the mud, and be covered with a sand storm,
and future ages will be discovering full rigged
ships down deep on the desert. Dad says we bet-
ter sell our stock in the canal and buy air ship
stock. And talk about business, there is more
tonnage goes through the Soo canal, between
Michigan and Canada than goes through the Suez
and we don't howl about it very much.
Well, sir, I have studied Gibraltar in my geog-
raphy, and read about it in the papers, and seen
its pictures in advertisements, but never real-
ized what a big thing it was. Now, who ever
thought of putting that enormous rock right there
on that prairie, but God. I suppose the English,
318
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
when they saw that rock, thought the good Lord
had put it there for the EngHsh to drill holes in,
for giins, and when the Lord was busy some-
where else, the English smoughed the rock away
from Spain, by playing a game with loaded dice,
and when England got it, that country decided
to arm it like a train robber, and hold up the
other nations of the earth. When a vessel passes
that rock it has to hold up its hands and salute
the British flag, or get a mess of hardware fired
into its vital parts, but that is all it amounts to,
cause it couldn't win any battle for England,
and could only sink trading vessels. The walls
of the rock are perforated from top to bottom,
with holes big enough for guns to squirt smoke
and shells, but if the enemy should stay away
from right in front of the holes, they might shoot
till doomsday and never hit anything hut fishing
smacks and peddlers of oranges. Gibraltar is like
a white elephant in a zoological garden. It just
eats and keeps ofiE the flies with its short tail, and
visitors feed it peanuts and wonder what it was
made for, and how much hay it eats. Gibraltar is
like a twenty-dollar gold piece that a man carries
in his watch pocket for an emergency, which he
never intends to spend until he gets in the tightest
place of his life, and it wears out one pocket after
319
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAf)
another, and some day drops through on to the
sidewalk, and a tramp finds it and goes on a bat
and gets the worth of his money, and has a good
time, if he saves enough to buy a bromo seltzer
the next morning after. It is like the Russian
war chest, that is never to be opened as long as
they can borrow money. If Gibraltar could be put
on castors, and rolled around from one country
to another, England could whip all Europe and
Asia. It would be a Tro Jane horse on a larger
scale, and be a terror ; but, say, if it got to Amer-
ica we wouldn't do a thing to it. We would rim
a standpipe up the side, and connect it with an
oil pipe line, fill Gibraltar's tunnels and avenues,
and magazines and barracks with crude oil, and
touch a match to it, and not an Englishman would
live to tell about it. Gee, but I would be sorry
for the Irish soldiers, but I guess they wouldn't
be there, cause they wouldn't fight America.
Well, if England ever has a big war, and she gets
chesty about Gibraltar, and says it is impregnable,
and defies the world to take it, I bet you ten
dollars it could be taken in twenty-four hours.
If I was a general, or an admiral, I would have
about forty tank steamers, loaded with kerosene,
and have them land, innocent like, right up be-
side Gibraltar, ostensibly to sell oil for perfum-
320
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
ery to the natives, who would all be improved by
using kerosene on their persons. Then I would
get on a barrel, on deck of my flag ship, and com-
mand the English general to surrender uncondi-
tionally, and if he refused I would set a slow
match on every oil vessel, and have the crews
get in skiffs and pull for the opposite shore, and
when the oil got on fire, and rolled up all over
Gibraltar, and burned every living thing, I would
throw water from a fire department boat on the
rock, and she would split open and roll all over
the prairie, and then I would bury .the cremated
dead out on the desert, and seek other worlds to
conquer, like Alexander the Great. But don't be
afraid. I won't do it imless they make me mad,
but you watch my smoke if they pick on your little
Hennery too much, when he grows up.
But I haven't got any kick coming about Gib-
raltar, cause they treated dad and I all right,
and the commander detailed an ensign to show
us all through the fortress. Now don't get an
ensign mixed up with a unique, such as showed
us through the Turkish harem. An English en-
sign is just as different from a Turkish unique
as you can imagine. Every man to his place.
You couldn't teach a Turkish unique how to show
visitors around an English fortress, and an Eng-
322
PECKS RAD BOY ABROAD
lish ensign in a Turkish harem would bring on
a world's war, they are so different. Well, we
went through tunnels in the rock, and up and
down elevators, and all was light as day from
electric lights, and we saw ammunition enough
to sink all the ships in the world, if it could be
exploded in the right place, and they have provi-
sions enough stored in the holes in the rock to
keep an army for forty years if they didn't get
ptomaine poisoned from eating canned stuflF. Tt
was all a revelation to dad. and when we got all
through, and got out into the sunlight, we
breathed free, and when dad got his second wind
he broke up the English officers by taking out a
pencil and piece of paper, and asked them what
they would take for the rock and its contents, and
move out, and let the American flag float over it.
Well, say, they were hot, and they told dad to
go plum to 'ell, but dad wouldn't do it. He said
America didn't want the old stone quarry, any-
way, and if it did tt could come and take it.
I guess they would have had dad arrested for
treason, only when we got out info the town
there was the whole British Atlantic squadron
lined up, with the men up in the rigging like mon-
keys, and every vessel was firing a salute, as a
yacht came steaming by. Dad thought war had
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
surely broke out, or that some rich American
owned the yacht, but it turned out to be Queen
Alexandria and a party of tourists, and when
the band played "God Save the Queen," dad got
up on his hind legs and sang so loud you would
think he would split hisself, and a fellow went
up and threw his arms around dad, and began to
weep, and the tears came in dad's eyes, and an-
other fellow pinched dad's watch, and the cele-
bration closed with everybody getting drunk, and
the queen sailed away. Say, we are going to
Spain, on the next boat, and you watch the pa-
pers. We will probably be hung for taking Cuba
and the Phillipines.
Yours, Hennery.
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PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXVII.
The Bad Boy Writes of Spain — They Call on the King
And the Bad Boy is at it Once More — They See a
Bull Fight and Dad Does a Turn.
Madrid, Spain. — My Dear Uncle: You prob-
ably think we are taking our lives in our hands by
coming to Spain, so soon after the Cuban war, in
which President Roosevelt charged up San Juan
Hill, in the face of over thirty bloodthirsty Span-
iards, and captured the blockhouse on the sum-
mit of the hill, which was about as big as a
switchman's shanty, and wouldn't hold two
platoons of infantry, of twelve men to the pla-
toon, without crowding, and which closed the
war, after the navy had everlastingly paralyzed
the Spanish vessels, and sunk them in wet water,
and picked up the crews and run them through
clothes-wringers to dry them out ; but we are as
safe here as we would be on South Clark street,
in Chicago. Do you know, when I read of that
charge of our troops up San Juan hill, headed
by our peerless bear-hunter, I thought it was
like the battle of Gettysburg, where hundreds of
325
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
thousands of men fought on each side, and I
classed Roosevelt with Grant, Sheridan, Sher-
man, Meade and Thomas, and all that crowd, but
one day I got talking with a veteran of the Span-
ish-American war, who promptly deserted after
every pay day, and re-enlisted after he had spent
his money, and he didn't do a thing to my ideas of
the importance of that battle. He told me it was
only a little skirmish, like driving in a picket post,
and that there were not Spaniards enough there
to have a roll call, not so many Spanish soldiers
as there were American newspaper correspond-
ents on our side, that only a few were killed and
wotmded, and that a dozen soldiers in an army
wagon could have driven up San Juan hill with
firecrackers and scared the Spaniards out of the
country, and that a part of a negro regiment did
pretty near all the shooting, while our officers did
the yelling, and had their pictures taken, caught
in the act. So I have quit talking of the heroism
of our army in Cuba, because it makes everybody
laugh and they speak of Shafter and Roosevelt,
and hunch up their shoulders, and say, " bah,**
but when you talk about the navy, and Schley,
and Sampson, and Clark, and Bob Evans, they
take off their hats and their faces are full of ad-
miration, and they say, " magnificent," and ask
326
" He kandrd her a live dollar gold pieet aitd wtnt out doort for
a brwatk of freth air."
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
you to take a drink. Gee, but dad got his foot in
it by talking about the blowing up of the Maine,
and looking saucy, as though he was going to get
even with the Spaniards, but he found that every
Spaniard was as sorry for that accident as we
were, and they would take off their hats when
the Maine was mentioned, and look pained and
heart-sick. I tell you the Spaniards are about as
good people as you will find anywhere, and dad
has concluded to fall back on Christopher Colum-
bus for a steady diet of talk, cause if it had not
been for Chris we wouldn't have been discovered
to this day, which might have been a darn good
thing for us. But the people here do not recall
the fact that there ever was a man named Chris-
topher Columbus, and they don't know what he
ever discovered, or where the country is that he
sailed away to find, unless they are educated, and
familiar with ancient history, and only once in
a while will you find anybody that is educated.
The children of America know more about the
history of Spain than the Spanish children. This
country reminds you of a play on the stage, the
grandees in their picturesque costumes, though
few in number, compared to the population, are
the whole thing, and the people you see on the
stage with the grandees, in peasant costtune,
3««
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
peddling oranges and figs, you find here in the
hfe of Spain, looking up to the grandees as
though they were gods. Every peasant carries
a knife in some place, concealed about him, and
no two carry their toad stabbers in the same
place. If you see a man reach his finger under
his collar to scratch his neck, the chances are his
fingers touch the handle of his dagger, and if he
hitches up his pants, his dagger is there, and if
he pulls up his trousers leg to scratch for a flea,
you can bet your hfe his knife is right handy, and
if you have any trouble you don't know where
the knife is coming from, as you do about an
American revolver, when one of our citizens
reaches for his pistol pocket. Spaniards are
nervous people, on the move all the time, and it
is on account of fleas. Every man, woman and
child contains more than a million fleas, and as
they can't scratch all the time, they keep on the
move, hoping the fleas will jump ofT on somebody
else. When we came here we were flealess, but
every person we have come near to seems to have
contributed some fleas to us, until now we are
loaded down with them, and we find in our room
at the hotel a box of insect powder, which is
charged in with the candles. The king, w^ho is a
boy about three years older than I am, is full of
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
fleas, too, and he jtimps around from one place
to another, like he was shaking himself to get
rid of them. He gets up in the morning and goes
out horseback riding, and jumps fences and rides
up and down the marble steps of the public build-
ings, as though he wanted to make the fleas feel
in danger, so they will leave him. Seems to me
if every man kept as many dogs as they do in
Constantinople, the fleas would take to the dogs,
but they say here that fleas will leave a dog to
get on a human being, because they like the smell
of garlic, as every Spaniard eats garlic a dozen
times a day. They are trying to teach dogs to
eat garlic, but no self-respecting dog will touch
it. We have had to fill up on garlic in order to
be able to talk with the people, cause dad got sea
sick the first day here, everybody smelled so
oniony. Dad wanted a druggist to put up onions
in capsules, like they do quinine, so he could take
onions and not taste them, but he couldn't make
the man understand. There ought to be a law
against any person eating onions, tmless he is
imder a death sentence. But you can stand a
man with the onion habit, after you get used to it.
It is a woman, a beautiful woman, one you would
like to have take you on your lap and pet you, that
ought to know better than to eat onions. Gee,
330
"pad siarltd lo rtm for Iht fenct"
4
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
but when you see a woman that is so beautiful it
makes her ache to carry her beauty around, and
you get near to her and expect to breathe the
odor of roses and violets, that makes you tired
when she opens her mouth to say soft words of
love, and there comes to your nostrils the odor of
onions. Do you know, nothing would make me
commit suicide so quick as to have a wife who
habitually loaded herself with onions. Dad was
buying some candy for me at a confectioner shop,
of a beautiful Spanish woman, and when he asked
how much it was, she bent over towards him in
the most bewitching manner and breathed in his
face and said, " Quatro-realis, seignor," which
meant " four bits, mister," and he handed her a
five-dollar gold piece, and went outdoors for a
breath of fresh air, and let her keep the change.
He said she was welcome to the four dollars and
fifty cents if she would not breathe towards him
again.
Well, we have taken in the town, looked at the
cathedrals, attended the sessions of the cortcz,
and the gambling houses, saw the people sell the
staple products of the country, which are prunes,
tomatoes and wine. The people do not care what
happens as long as they have a quart of wine. In
some countries the question of existence is bread,
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
but in Spain it is wine. No one is so poor they
cannot have poor wine, and with wine nothing
else is necessary, but a piece of cheese and bread
helps the wine some, though either could be dis-
pensed with. In some countries " wine, women
and song " are all that is necessary to live. Here
it is wine, cheese and an onion. We went to see
the king, because he is such a young boy, and
dad thought it would encourage the ruler to see
an American statesman, and to mingle with an
American boy who could give him cards and
spades, and little casino, and beat him at any
game. I made dad put on a lot of badges we had
collected in our town when there were conven-
tions held there, and when they were all pinned
on dad's breast he looked like an admiral. There
was a badge of Modern Woodmen, one of the
Hardware Dealers' Association, one of the
Wholesale Druggists, one of the Amalgamated
Association of Railway Trainmen, one of the
Farmers' Alliance, one of the Butter and Cheese-
men's Convention, one of the State Undertakers'
Guild, and half a dozen others in brass, bronze
and tin, on various colored ribbons. Say, do you
know, when they ushered us into the throne room
at the palace, and the little king, who looked like
a student in the high school, with dyspepsia from
333
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
overstudy and cake between meals, saw dad, he
thought he was the most distinguished American
he had ever seen, and he invited dad up beside
him on the throne, and dad sat in the chair that
the queen will sit in when the boy king gets mar-
ried, and I sat down on a front seat and watched
dad. Dad had read in the papers that the boy
king wanted to marry an American girl who was
the possessor of a lot of money, so dad began to
tell the king of girls in America that were more
beautiful than any in the world, and had hun-
dreds of millions of cold dollars, and an appetite
for raw kings, and that he could arrange a match
for the king that would make him richer than
any king on any throne. The boy king was be-
coming interested, and I guess dad would have
had him married off all right, if the king had not
seen me take out a bag of candy and begin to eat,
when he said to me, " Come up here, Bub, and
gfive me some of that." Gk)sh, but I trembled like
a leaf, but I went right up the steps of the throne
and handed him the bag, and said, "Help your-
self. Bub/* Well, sir, the queerest thing hap-
pened. I had bought two pieces of candy filled
with cayenne pepper, for April fool, and the king
handed the bag to the master of ceremonies, a big
Spaniard all covered over with gold lace, and if
334
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
you will believe me the king got one piece of the
cayenne pepper candy, and that spangled prime
minister jot the other, and the king chewed his
piece first, and he opened his mouth like a dog
that has picked up a hot boiled egg and he blew
out his breath to cool his tongue and said,
"Whoosh,*' and strangled, and sputtered, and
then the prime minister he got his, and he yelled
murder in Spanish, and the king called for water,
and put his hands on his stomach and had a
cramp, and the other man he tied himself up in
a double bowknot, and called for a priest, and the
king said he would have to go to the chapel, and
the fellows who were guarding the king took him
away, breathing hard, and red in the face, and
dad said to me, " What the bloody hell you trying
to do with the crowned heads ? Cause you have
poisoned the whole bunch, and we better get
out." So we went out of the palace while the
king's retainers were filling him with ice water.
Well, they got the cayenne pepper out of him,
because we saw him at the bull fight in the after-
noon, but for a while he had the hottest box there
ever was outside of a freight train, and if he
lives to be as old as Mr. Methuselah he will
always remember his interview with little Hen-
nery. The bull fights ain't much. Bulls come
336
Toned him over the fence."
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
in the ring mad as wet hens, cause they stick
daggers in them, and they bellow around, and
the Spaniards dodge and shake red rags at them,
and after a bull has ripped a mess of bowels out
of a few horses, then a man with a saber stabs the
bull between the shoulders, and he drops dead,
and the crowd cheers the assassin of the bull, and
they bring in another bull. Well, sir, dad came
mighty near his finish at the bull fight. When
the second bull came in, and ripped the stomach
out of a blind horse, and the bull was just charg-
ing the man who was to stab it, dad couldn't stand
it any longer and he climbed right over into the
ring, and he said : " Look a here, you heathen ;
I protest, in the name of the American Humane
Society, against this cruelty to animals, and un-
less this business stops right here I will have this
place pulled, and " Well, sir, you would of
thought that bull would have had sense enough
to see that dad was his friend, but he probably
couldn't understand what dad was driving at,
for he made a rush for dad, and dad started to
run for the fence, and the bull caught dad just
like dad was sitting in a rocking chair, and
tossed him over the fence, and dad's pants stayed
on the bull's horns, and dad landed in amongst
a lot of male and female grandees, and everybody
33^
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
yelled, " Bravo, Americano," and the police
wrapped a blanket around dad's legs and were
going to take him to the emergency hospital, but
I claimed dad, and took him to the hotel. Dad is
ready to come home now. He says he is through.
Yours, Hennery.
339
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Bad Boy and His Dad at Berlin— They Call on
Emperor William and his Family and the Bad
Boy Plays a Joke on Them AIL
Berlin, Germany. — My Dear Old Piunmer-
nickel : Now we have got pretty near home, and
you would enjoy it to be with us, because you
couldn't tell the town from Milwaukee, except
for the military precision with which everything
is conducted, where you never take a glass of beer
without cracking your heels together like a sol-
dier, and giving a military salute to the bar-
tender, who is the commander-in-chief of all who
happen to patronize his bar. Everybody here
acts like he was at a picnic in the woods, with a
large barrel of beer, with perspiration oozing
down the outside, and a spigot of the largest size,
which fills a schooner at one turn of the wrist,
and every man either smiles or laughs out loud,
and you feel as though there was happiness every-
where, and that heaven was right here in this
greatest German city. There is laughter every-
where, except when the Emperor drives by, es-
340
"EWfrj Man tmiUi er laughs out loud"
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
corted by his bodyguard, on the finest horses in
the world; then every citizen on the street stops
smiling and laughing ; all stand at attention, and
every face takes on a solemn, patriotic, almost a
fighting look, as though each man would consider
it his happiest duty and pleasure to walk right
up to the mouth of cannon and die in his tracks
for his pale-faced, haggard and loved Emperor.
And the Emperor never smiles on his subjects as
he passes, but looks into every eye on both sides
of the beautiful street, with an expression of
agony on his face, but a proud light in his eye, as
though he would say, " Ach, Gott, but they are
daisies, and they would fight for the Fatherland
with the last breath in their bodies/'
The pride of the people in that moustached
young man, with the look of suffering, is only
equalled by the pride of the Emperor in every
German in Germany, or anywhere on the face of
the globe. There is none of the *' Hello, Bill ! "
such as we have in America, when the President
drives through his people, many of whom yell,
" Hello, Teddy ! " while he shows his teeth, and
laughs, and stands up in his carriage, and says,
" Hello, Mike,'' as he recognizes an acquaintance.
But these same '' Hello, Bill," Americans are
probably just as loyal to their chief, whoever he
342
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
may be, and would fight as hard as the loving
Germans would for their hereditary Emperor.
I suppose there is somebody working in BerHn,
but it seems to us that the whole population, so
far as can be seen, is bent on enjoying every min-
ute, walking the streets, in good clothes, giving
military salutes, and drinking beer between
meals, and talking about what Germany would
do to an enemy if the ever-present ciiip on the
shoulder should be knocked off, even accidentally.
But they all seem to love America, and when we
registered at the hotel, from Milwaukee, Wis..
U. S. A., citizens began to gather around us and
ask about relatives at our home. They seem to
think that every German who has settled in Mil-
waukee owns a brewery, and that all are rich, and
that some day they will come back to Germany
and spend the money, and fight for the Em-
peror.
We did not have the heart to tell them that all
the Germans in Milwaukee were going to stay
there and spend their money, and while their
hearts were still warm towards the Fatherland,
they loved the Stars and Stripes, and would fight
for the American flag, against the world, and that
the younger Germans spoke the German lan-
guage, if it all, with a Yankee accent. Gee, but
343
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
wouldn't the people of Berlin be hot under the
collar if they knew how many Germans in Amer-
ica were unfamiliar with the make-up of the Ger-
man flag, and that they only see it occasionally
when some celebration of German days takes
place.
Well, when dad saw the German Emperor
drive down the great street, and got a look at
his face, he said, " Hennery, I have got to see
that young man and advise him to go and con-
sult a doctor,'* and so we made arrangements to
go to the Palace and see the Emperor and his
son, the Crown Prince, who will before long take
the empire on his shoulders, if William is as sick
as he looks. You don't have to hire any mas-
querade clothes to call on the Emperor of Ger-
many, like you do when you visit royalty in
Turkey and Egypt, for a good frock coat and a
silk hat will take you anywhere in the day time,
and a swallowtail is legal tender at night ; so dad
put on his frock coat and silk hat, just as he
would to go and attend an afternoon wedding at
home, and we were ushered in to a regular par-
lor, where the Emperor was having fun with his
children, and the Empress was doing some needle-
work.
Dad supposed we would have to talk to the
344
" 9o this it the Champion Little D«tAi of America."
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
Emperor and the Prince through an interpreter,
and we stood there waiting for some one to break
the ice, when some one told the Emperor that an
American gentleman and his boy Wanted to pay
their respects, and the Emperor, who wore an
ordinary dark suit, with no military frills, took
one of the young Princes he had been playing
with across his knee and gave him a couple of
easy spanks, in fun, and the whole family was
laughing, and the spanked boy " tackled " the
Emperor around the legs, below the knee, like a
football player, and the other Princes pulled him
off, and the Emperor came up to dad, smiling as
though he was having the time of his life, and
spoke to dad in the purest English, and said he
was glad to see the " Bad Boy " man, because he
had read all about tl^e pranks of the Bad Boy,
and bid dad welcome to Germany, and he didn't
look sick at all.
Dad was taken all of a heap, and didn't know
what to make of the German Emperor talking
English, but when the ruler of Germany turned
to me and said, " And so this is the champion
little devil of America,*' and patted me on the
head, dad felt that he had struck a friend of the
family, and he sat down with the Emperor and
talked for half an hour, while the young Princes
346
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
gathered around me, and we sat down on the
floor and the boys got out their knives, and we
played munibletypeg on the carpet, just as though
we were at home, and all the boys talked English,
and we had a bully time. The princes had all
read " Peck's Bad Boy" and I think the Em-
peror and Empress have encouraged thera in
their wickedness, for the boys told me of several
tricks they had played on their father, the Em-
peror, which they had copied from the Bad Boy,
and it made me blush when they told of initiating
their father into the Masons, the way my chum
and I initiated dad into the Masons with the aid
of a goat.
I asked the boys how their dad took it, and told
them from what we in America heard about the
Emperor of Germany, we would think he would
kill anybody that played a trick on him; but they
said he would stand anything from the children,
and enjoy it; but if grown men attempted to mon-
key with him, the fur would fly. The Crown
Prince came in and was introduced to me, and he
seemed proud to see me, cause his uncle. Prince
Henry, had told him about being in Milwaukee,
and how all the women in that town were the
handsomest he had ever seen in his trip around
the world, and he asked me if it was so. I re-
347
4
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
ferred him to dad, and dad told him the women
were the greatest in the world, and then dad
made his usual break. He said : " Look ahere,
Mister Prince, you have got to be married some
day, and raise a family to hand the German em-
pire down to, and my advice to you is not to let
them saw off on to you no duchess or princess as
homely as a hedge fence, with no ginger in her
blood, but you skip out to America, and come to
Milwaukee, and I will introduce you to girls that
are so handsome they will make you toe the mark,
and if you marry one of them she will raise a
family of healthy young royalty with no humor
in the blood, and you won't have to go off and be
gay away from home, cause an American wife
will take you by the ear if you show any signs of
wandering from your own fireside, like lots of
your relatives have done."
Gee, but that made the Emperor hot, and he
said dad needn't instill any of his American ideas
into the German nobility, as he could run things
all right without any help, and dad got ready to
go, cause the atmosphere was getting sort of
chilly, but the Emperor soon got over his huff,
and told dad not to hurry, and then he turned to
me and said, " Now, little American Bad Boy,
what kind of a trick are you going to play on me,
348
<^^ Co 6 J r»£ ■
"Dad and Bntperor William stood scratching themsehe
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
cause from what I have read of you I know you
will never go out of this house without giving me
a benefit, and all my boys expect it, and will enjoy
it, the same as I will; now, let 'er go."
I felt that it was up to me to do something to
maintain the reputation I had made, so I said,
" Your majesty, I will now proceed to make it
interesting for you, if you and the boys will
kindly be seated in a circle around me." They
got into a circle, all laughing, and I took out of
my pistol pocket a half pint flask, of glass, cov-
ered with leather, and with a stopper that opened
by touching a spring, and I walked around in
front of each one of the Royal family, mumbling,
" Ene-mene-mony-my," and opening the flask in
front of each one, and pretty soon they all began
to get nervous, and scratch themselves, and the
Emperor slapped his leg, and pinched his arm, and
put his fingers down his collar and scratched his
neck, and the Crown Prince jumped up and
kicked his leg, and scratched his back, and said,
" Say, kid, you are not hypnotizing us, are you ?"
and I said, " Ene-meny-mony-my," and kept on
touching the stopper.
By and by they all got to scratching, and the
Emperor turned sort of pale, but he was going
to see the show through to the end, as long as he
3SO
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
had a ticket, and he said, " What is the joke, any-
way?" and I kept on saying, " Ene-mene-mony-
my," and walking around in front of them, and
dad began to dance around, too, and dig under
his shirt bosom, and scratch his leg, and then
they all scratched in unison, and laughed, and a
little prince asked how long before they would
know what it was all about, and I said my ene-
mene, and looked solemn, and dad said, " What
you giving us?" and I said, " Never you mind;
this is my show, and I am the whole push," and
everybody had raised up out of his chair and each
was scratching for all that was out, and finally the
Emperor said, " I like a joke as well as anybody,
but I can't laugh until I know what I am laugh-
ing about," and he told dad to make me show
what was in the bottle, and I showed the bottle
and there was nothing in it. and there they stood
scratching themselves, and I told dad we better
excuse ourselves and go, and we were going all
right enough when dad said, " What is it you are
doing?" and as we got almost to the door I said,
" Your majesty, I have distributed, impartially,
I trust, in the Royal family of Germany, a half a
pint of the hungriest fleas that Egypt can pro-
duce, for they have been in that flask three weeks,
with nothing to eat except themselves, and I esti-
351
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
mate that there were a million Cairo fleas in the
flask, enough to set up housekeeping in your pal-
ace, with enough to stock the palace of your
Crown Prince when he is married, and this is that
"Dad leaned against a lamfipost and scratched his back."
you may remember the visit of Peck's Bad Boy
and his Dad."
The Emperor was mad at first, but he laughed,
and when we got out of the palace dad leaned
against a lamp post and scratched his back, and
said to me, " Hennery, you never ought to have
352
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
did it," and I said, " What could a poor boy do
when called upon suddenly to do something to
entertain royalty?"
" Well," says dad, " I don't care for myself,
but this thing is apt to bring on international
complications," and I said, " Yes, it will bring
Persia into it, cause they will have to use Persian
insect powder to get rid of them," and then we
went to our hotel and fought fleas all night, and
thought of the sleepless night the royal family
were having.
Well, so long, old Pummernicl«el.
Your only, Hennery.
353
DECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Bad Boy Writes from Brussels— He and Dad see
the Field of Waterloo and call on King Leopold
and Dad and the King go in for a Swinir— The Bad
Boy, a Dog and some Goats do the rest.
Brussels, Belgium.— Dear Old Skate : "What
is the matter with our going to Belgium?" said
dad to me, as we were escaping from Germany.
"Well, what in thunder do we want to go to Bel-
gium for ? " said I to dad. " I do not want to go
to a country that has no visible means of support,
except raising Belgian hares, to sell to cranks in
America. I couldn't eat rabbits without think-
ing I was chewing a piece of house cat, and rab-
bits is the chief food of the people. I have eaten
horse and mule in Paris, and wormy figs in
Turkey, and embalmed beef fried in candle
grease in Russia, and sausage in Germany, im-
ported from the Leutgart sausage factory in
Chicago, where the man run his wife through a
sausage machine; and stuff in Egypt, with
ground mummy for curry powder, but I draw
the line on Belgian hares, and I strike right here,
354
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
and shall have the Internationa! Union of Amal-
gamated Tourists declare a boycott on Belgium,
by gosh," said I. just like that, bristling up to
dad real spunky.
" You are going to Belgium all right." said
dad, as he took hold of my thumb in a Jiu Jitsu
fashion, and twisted it backwards until 1 fairly
penuked, and held it, while he said he should never
dare go home without visiting King Leopold's
kingdom, and had a talk with an eighty-year-old
male flirt, who had a thousand chorus girls on his
staff, and could give the Sultan of Turkey cards
and spades and little casino in the harem game.
"You will go along, won't you, bub?" and he gave
my thumb another twist, and I said, " You bet
your life, but I won't do a thing to you and Leo-
pold before we get out of the Belgian hare belt,"
and so here we are, looking for trouble.
It is strange we never hear more about Bel-
gium in America, but actually I never heard of a
Belgian settling in the United States. There
are Irish, and Germans, and Norwegians, and
Italians, and men of all other countries, but I
never saw a Belgian until to-day, and it does you
good to see a people who don't do anything but
work. There is not a loafer in Belgium, and
every man has smut on his nose, and his hands
355
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
are black with handling iron, or something.
There is no law against people going away from
Belgium, but they all like it here, and seem to
think there is no other country, and they are
happy, and work from choice.
■// dad relics of the BatlU of Watrrloo."
I always knew the Belgian guns that sell in
America for twelve shillings, and kill at both
ends, but I never knew they made things here
that were worth anything, but dad says they are
better fixed here for making everything used by
civilized people than any country on earth, and
356
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
I am glad to be here, cause you get notice when
you are going to be robbed. They ring a bell
here every minute to give you notice that some
one is after the coin, so when you hear a beil
ring, if you hang onto your pocketbook, you
don't lose.
This is the place wliere " There was a sound
of revelry at night, and Belgium's capitol had
gathered there." You remember, the night be-
fore the Battle of Waterloo, when Napoleon
Bonaparte got his. You must remember about
it, old man, just when they were right in the
midst of the dance, and " soft eyes looked love
to eyes which spake again," and they were taking
a champagne bath, inside and out, when sudden-
ly the opening guns of Waterloo, twelve miles
away, began to boom, and the poet, who was
present, said, " But hush, hark, a deep sound like
a rising knell," and everybody turned pale and be-
gan to stampede, when the floor manager said,
" 'Tis but the wind, or the car on the stony street,
on with the dance, let joy be unconfined, no sleep
till mom, when youth and pleasure meet, to
chase the glowing hours with flying feet."
Well, sir, this is the place where that ball took
place, which is described in the piece I used to
speak in school, but I never thought I would be
357
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
here, right where the dancers got it in the neck.
When dad found that the battlefield of Waterloo
was only a few miles away, he hired a wagon
and we went out there. Well, sir, of all the
frauds we have run across on this trip the bat-
tlefield of Waterloo is the worst. When the
fanners who are raising barley and baled hay on
the battlefield, saw us coming, they dropped their
work and made a rush for us, and one fellow
yelled something in the Belgian language that
sounded like, " I saw them first,*' and he got hold
of dad and me, and the rest stood off like a lot of
hack drivers that have seen a customer fall into
the hands of another driver, and made up faces
at us, and called the farmer who had caught us
the vilest names. They said we would be skinned
to a finish by the faker who got us, and they were
right.
He showed us from a high hill, where the dif-
ferent portions of the battle were fought, and
where they caught Napoleon Bonaparte, and
where Blucher came up and made things hum in
the German language, and then he took us off to
his farm where the most of the relics were found,
and began to sell things to dad, until he had filled
the hind end of the wagon with bullets and grape-
shot, sabres and bayonets, old rusty rifles, and
s\ 358
PECK-S BAD BOY ABROAD
everything dad wanted, and we had enough to
fill a museum, and when the farmer had got dad's
money we went back to Brussels, and got our
stuff unloaded at the hotel. Say, when we came
to look it over we found two rusty Colt's revol-
vers, and gims of modern construction, which
have been bought on battlefields in all countries,
and properly rusted to sell to tourists. I showed
dad that the revolver was imknown at the time
of the battle of Waterloo, and that every article
he had bought was a fraud, the sabers having
been made in America, before the war of the re-
bellion, and dad was mad, and gave the stuff to
the porter of the hotel, who charged dad seven
dollars for taking it away.
Dad kept one three-cornered hat that the
farmer told him Bonaparte lost when his horse
stampeded with him. and it drifted under a
barbed wire fence, where it had lain until the day
before we visited the battlefield. Say, that hat
is as good as new, and dad says it is worth all the
stuf? cost, but I would not be found dead wearing
it, cause it is all out of style.
We have seen the King of Belgium, and actu-
ally got the worth of our money. He is an old
dandy, and looks like a Philadelphia Quaker, only
he is not as pious as a Quaker. Dad wrote to the
359
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
King and said he was a distinguished American,
traveHng for his health, and had a niece who had
frequently visited Belgium with an opera com-
pany, and she had spoken of the King, and dad
wanted to talk over matters that might be of in-
" The King began to peel off his clothes and Dad took #ff hit."
terest both to Belgium and to America. Well,
the messenger came back and said dad couldn't
get to the palace a minute too quick, and so we
went over, and as we were going through the
park we saw an old man, in citizen's clothes, sit-
ting on a bench, patting the head of a boar
360
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
hound, and when he saw us he said, " Come here,
Uncle Sam, and let my dog chew your pants."
Dad thought it must be some lunatic, and was
going to make a sneak, and get out, when the
man rose up and we saw if was the King, and
we went up to him and sat down on the bench,
and he asked dad if he had come as the relative
of the opera singer, to commence suit against the
King for breach of promise, or to settle for a
money consideration, remarking that he had al-
ways rather pay cash than to have any fuss made
about these little matters. Dad told him he had
no claim against him for alienating anybody's
affections, or for breach of promise, and that all
he wanted was to have a little talk with the King,
and find out how a King lived, and how he had
any fun in running the king business, at his age,
and they sat down and began to talk as friendly
as two old chums, while the dog played tag with
me. We found that the King was a regular boy,
and that instead of his mind being occupied by
affairs of state, or his African concessions in the
Congo country, where he owns a few million
slaves who steal ivory for him, and murder other
tribes, he was enjoying life just as he did when
he was a barefooted boy, fishing for perch at the
old mill pond, and when he mentioned his career
361
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
as a boy, and his enjoyments, dad told about his
youth, and how he never got so much pleasure
in after life as he did when he had a stone bruise
on his heel, and went off into the woods and cut
a tamarack pole and caught sunfish till the cows
came home.
The King brightened up and told dad he had a
pond in the palace grounds, stocked with old-
fashioned fish, and every day he took off his
shoes and rolled up his pants, and with nothing
on but a shirt and pants held up by one suspen-
der of striped bed ticking, he went out in a boat
and fished as he did when a boy, with a bent pin
for a hook, and he was never so happy as when
so engaged, and they could all have their grand
functions, and balls, and dinners, and Turkish
baths, if they wanted them, but give him the old
swimming hole. " Me, too,'' said dad, and as
dad looked down into the park he saw a little
lake, and dad held up two fingers, just as boys do
when they mean to say, "Come on, let's go in
swimming," and the King said, *' I'll go you,"
and they locked arms and started through the
woods to the little lake, and the dog and I fol-
lowed.
Well, sir, you'd a dide to see dad and Leopold
make a rush for that swimming place. The King
362
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
put his hand in the water, and said it was fine,
and began to peel his clothes off, and dad took oflF
his clothes and the King made a jump and went
in all over, and came up with his eyes full of
water, strangling because he did not hold his
nose, and then dad made a leap and splashed the
water like an elephant had fallen in, and there
those two old men were in the lake, just like kids.
" I'll swim you a match to the other side,*' said
the King. "It's a go," said dad, and they started
porpoising across the little lake, and then I
thought it was time there was something doing ;
so I got busy and tied their clothes in knots so
tight you couldn't get them untied without an
act of parliament. They went ashore on the op-
posite side of the lake, cause some women were
driving through the grounds, and then I found
a flock of goats grazing on the lawn, and the dog
and I drove them to where the clothes were tied
in knots, and when the goats began to chew the
clothes I took the dog and went back to the en-
trance of the park, and dad and the King swam
back to where the clothes and the goats were,
and when they drove the goats away, and couldn't
untie the knots, the King gave the grand hailing
364
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
sign of distress, or something, and the guards
of the palace and some cavalry came on the run.
and the park seemed filled with an army, and I
bid the dog good-bye, and went back to the hotel
alone and waited for dad.
Dad didn't get back till after dark, and when
he came he had on a suit of the King's clothes,
too tight around the stomach, and too long in the
legs, cause dad is pusey, and the King is long-
geared. " Did you have a good time, dad? " says
I, and he said, " Haven't you got any respect for
age, condemn you? The King has ordered that
you be fed to the animals in the zoo." I told him
I didn't care a darn what they did with me; I
had been brought up to tie knots in clothes when
I saw people in swimming, and I didn't care
whether they were crowned heads or just plain
dubs, and I asked dad how they got along when
their clothes were chewed up. He said the sol-
diers covered them with pouches and got them to
the palace, and they had supper, he and the King,
and the servants brought out a lot of clothes and
he got the best fit he could. I asked him if the
King was actually mad, and he said no, that he
always enjoyed such things, and wanted dad and
365
match to the other tide!' w''' ''" King.
DECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
I to come the next day and go fishing with him,
barefooted. Say, dad can go, but I wouldn't be
caught by that King on a bet. He would get
even, sure, cause he has a look in his eye like they
have in a sanitarium. Not any king business for
your little Hennery.
367
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXX.
The Bad Boy's Delayed Letter abodt Holland and
Cuba — Dad and the Boy go for a Drive in a
Dogcart — ^They have a Great Time —
Land in Cuba and See the Island
we Fought for.
Havana, Cuba.
My Dear Old Greaser:
We stopped in Holland for a couple of days
after we left Belgium, and it was the most disap-
pointing coimtry we visited on our whole trip.
We expected to be walked on with wooden shoes,
and from what we had heard of that Duke that
married Queen Wilhelmina, we thought we were
going to a country where men were cruel to their
wives, and swatted them over the head when
things didn't go right, but when we saw the queen
riding with her husband, as free from ostenta-
tion as a department store clerk would ride out
with his cash girl wife, and saw happiness beam-
ing on the face of the queen and her husband, and
saw them squeeze hands and look lovingly into
each other's eyes, we made up our minds that you
couldn't believe these newspaper scandals. And
368
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
when we saw the broad-shouldered, broad-chested
and broad-everywhere women of Holland we con-
cluded that it would be a brave or reckless hus-
band who would be unkind to one of them, and
mighty dangerous because the women are
stronger than the men. and any woman could
whip four men at the drop of the hat, because
she could take off her wooden shoes and strike
out and a man would think he had been hit by
a railroad tie.
I do not know what makes Hollanders wear
wooden shoes, unless they are sentenced to
do it, or that they are unruly, and have to
be hobbled, to keep them from jumping fences,
but the people are so good and honest that after
you have met them you forget the vaudeville fea-
ture of their costumes, and love them, and wish
the people of other countries were as honest as
they. For two or three days we were not robbed,
and I do not believe there is a dishonest man or
woman in Holland, except one. There was one
woman that played it on dad in Amsterdam, but
I think she only played him for a sucker for a
joke, for she laughed all the time.
Dad was much struck at seeing the women
selling milk from little carts, hauled by teams of
big dogs, and he negotiated with a woman for a
369
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
dog team and cart, and all one day dad and I put
on wooden shoes, and Dutch clothes and drove
the dog team around town, and we had the time
of o«r lives, more fun than I ever had outside of a
circus, but the shoes skinned our feet, and when
the dogs laid down to rest, and dad couldn't talk
dog language to make them get up and go ahead,
he kicked the off dog with his wooden shoe, and
the dog got up and grabbed a mouthful of dad's
ample pants and shook dad till his teeth were
loose, and a woman driving another mess of
dogs had to come and choke tlie off dog so he
wouldn't swallow dad, pants and all. Dad gjave
her a dollar for rescuing him, and what do you
think ? Say. she pulled an old stocking of money
out of her bosom and counted out ninety-six
cents in change and gave it back to dad, and only
charged four cents for saving his life, and that
couldn't occur in any other country, cause in
most places they would take the dollar and strike
him for more.
Dad wanted to take the dog team and cart to
Milwaukee to give it to a friend who sells red hot
weiners, and so we arranged to have the team
loaded on the boat, but just before the boat sailed,
the dog team was lying down on the dock, sleep-
ing and scratching flees, when the woman dad
3/1
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
bought the team of came along and spoke to the
dogs in Dutch, and, say, those dogs woke up and
started on a regular runaway down the dock,
after the laughing won^an, and disappeared up
the street. Just as the boat whistled to pull in the
gang planks, dad and I stood on deck and saw the
team disappear, and dad said, "Buncoed again,
by gosh, and it is all your condemned fault. Why
didn't you hang on to that off dog.'* Well, we
lost our dog team, but we got the worth of our
money, for we saw a people who do not eat much
beside cabbage and milk, and they are the strong-
est in the world, and there never was a case of
dyspepsia in their country. We saw a people with
stone bruises on their heels and corns on their
toes, smiling and laughing all the time. We met
a people that work all the time, and never take
any recreation except churning and rocking ba-
bies, and yet never have to call a doctor, because
there are no doctors except veterinary surgeons,
who care for dogs and cattle.
The people we met in Holland wear wooden
shoes to teach them patience and humility. With
wooden shoes no frenzied financier of Holland
will ever travel the fast road of speculation, slip
on a bucket-shop banana peel, and fall on the in-
nocent bystander who has coughed up his savings
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
and given them to the honest financier to safely
invest.
The bank of Holland is an old woolen stock-
ing, and money never comes out of the stocking
unless there is a string to it. and the string is the
heart string of an honest people, that will stand
no trifling. If a dishonest financier came to Hol-
land from any other country, and did any of his
dirty work, the women of Holland, who handle
the funds, would give him such a hazing that he
would never open his three-card monte lay-out
in any other country.
It is a country where you get the right
change back, and the cows give eighteen carat
milk, and the hens have not learned to lay small,
cold storage eggs. It is the country for me, if the
women would wear corsets, and not be the same
size all the way down, so that if you hugged a
girl you wouldn't make a dent in her, that would
not come out until she got her breath.
"And we left such a country and such a peo-
ple, to come here to Cuba, where the population
now comprises the meanest features of the desper-
ate and wicked Spaniards, beaten «t their own
game of loot, the trickiness of the native Cuban,
flushed with pride because his big American
brother helped him to drive away the Spaniard
373
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
that he could never have gotten rid of alone, and
with no respect for the American who helped,
and only meets him respectfully because he is
afraid of being thrown into the ocean if he is im-
pudent, and the worst class of Yankee grafters
'And the dog got uf and grabbed a mouthful of Dad's ample
pantt."
and highway robbers that have ever been allowed
to stray away from the land of the free. That is
what Cuba is to-day.
Soulless Yankee corporations have got hold
of most of the branches of business that there is
any money in, and the things that do not pay
374
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
and never can be made to pay, are for sale
to tenderfeet. The cuban hates the Yankee,
the Yankee hates the Cuban, and the Span-
iard hates both, and both hate him. In Ha-
vana your hotel, owned by a Cuban, run by
a Yankee, with a Spanish or Portuguese cashier,
will take all the money you bring into it for a
bed at night, and hold your baggage till your can
cable for money to buy breakfast. It is a "free
country," of course, run by men who will fly high
as long as they can borrow money for some one
else to pay after they are dead, but within ten
years the taxes will eat the people so they will be
head over heels in debt to the Yankee and the
Spaniard, the German and the Englishman, the
Frenchman and the Italian, and some day
warships will sail into Havana harbor, over
the submerged bones of the "Maine," and there
will be a fight for juicy morsels of the Cuban
dead horse, by the congregated buzzards of
strange navies, unless they shall shake the
dice for the carcass, and by carefully loading the
dice saw the whole thing off on to Uncle Sam,
and make him pay the debts of the deceased re-
public, and act as administrator for the benefit of
the children of the sawed off republic, whose only
asset now is climate that feels good, but contains
375
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
germs of all diseases, and tobacco that smells
good when it is in conflagration under your nose,
and does not kill instantly if it is pasted up in a
Wisconsin wrapper, that is the pure goods.
If tobacco ever ceases to be a fad with the rich
Any woman could whip four men at the drop of the hot.
consumer of fifty-cent cigars, and beet sugar is
found to contain no first aid to Bright's disease,
Cuba will amount to about as much as Dry Tor-
tugas, which has purer air, and the Isle of Pines,
which has more tropical scenery and less yellow
376
PECKS BAD BOV ABROAD
fever. But now the Island of Cuba is a joy, and
Havana is like Heaven, until you come to pay
your bill, when it is hell. Streets so wide you can-
not see a creditor on the other side, pavements as
smooth as the road to perdition, and tropical trees,
plants and flowers, with birds of rare plumage,
you feel like sitting on a cold bench in the shade,
and wishing all your friends were here to enjoy a
taste of what will come to those who are truly
good, in the hereafter, when suddenly you are
taken with a chill up the spinal column, and a cold
sweat comes out on the forehead, and the internal
arrangements go on a strike because of the cold,
perspiring cucumber you had for lunch, and you
go to the doctor, who docs not do a thing to you,
but scare you out of your boots by talking of
cholera, and giving you the card of his partner,
the undertaker, telling you never to think of dy-
ing in a tropical country without being embalmed,
because you look so much better when you are
delivered at your home by the express company,
and then he gives you pills and a bill, and an
alarm clock that goes off every hour to take a
pill by, and furnishes you an ofRccr to go home
to your hotel with you to collect his bill, and you
pawn your watch and sleeve buttons for a steer-
age ticket to New York, where you arrive as soon
377
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
as the Lord will let you, and stay as long as He
thinks is good for you.
Dad has not been much good in Havana,
cause he wanted to see the whole business
in one day. He got a row boat and went
out in the harbor to where the back-bone of the
"Maine** acts as a monument to the fellows who
yet sleep in the mud of the bottom, and after tying
a little American flag on the rigging that sticks
up above the water, and damning the villains who
blew up the good ship, we went back to town and
drove out to the cemetery where several himdred
of our boys are buried, where we left flowers on
the graves and a cuss in the balmy air for the
guilty wretches who fired the bomb, and then we
went back to the city and walked the beautiful
streets, until dad began to have cramps, from try-
ing to eat all the fruit he could hold, and then it
was all off, and I was going to call a carriage to
take him to the hotel, when dad saw a negro
astride a single ox, hitched to a cart, who had
come in from the coimtry, and dad said he wanted
to ride in that cart, if it was the last act of his
life, and as dad was b^inning to swell up from
the fruit he had eaten, I thought he better ride
in an open cart, cause in a carriage he might swell
up so we couldn't get him out of the door when
378
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
we got to the hotel, so I hired the negro, got dad
in the cart, and we started, but the ox walked so
slow I was afraid we would never get dad there
alive, so I told the negro dad had the cholera, and
that settled, for he kicked the slats of the ox in
with his heels, and the ox bellowed and run away,
and the negro turned pale from fright, and I
guess the runaway ride on the cobble stone pave-
ment was what saved dad's life, for the swelling
in dad's inside began to go down, and when we
got to the hotel he got out of the cart alone, and
I knew he was better, for he shook himself, gul-
luped up wind, and said, "You think you are dam
smart, don't you?" So I will close.
Yours,
Hennery.
379
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXXI.
The Bad Boy Calls on the Old Groceryman and Gets
Acquainted with his New Dog — Off again
to See America.
The old g^ocerman was sitting m the old gro-
cery one fine spring morning, looking over his
accounts, as they were written on a quire of
brown wrapping paper with a blunt lead pencil,
and wondering where he could go to collect
money to pay a note that was due at the bank at
noon on that day. He was looking ten years
older than he did the year before, when the Bad
Boy had played his last trick on the old man, and
gone abroad to chaperone his sick father, in a
search for health and adventure. The old man
had missed the boy around the grocery, and with
no one to keep his blood circulating, and his tem-
perature occasionally soaring above the normal,
he had failed in health, and had read with mixed
feelings of joy, fear and resentment that the Bad
Boy and his dad had arrived home, and he knew
it could not be long before the boy would blow
in, and he was trying to decide whether to meet
the boy cheerfully and with a spirit of resigna-
380
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
tion, or to meet him with a club, whether to give
him the glad hand, or form himself into a col-
umn of fours to drive him out when he came.
He had accumulated a terrier dog since the boy
went away, to be company for the old singed cat,
to hunt rats in the cellar, and to watch the store
nights. The dog was barking down cellar, and
the old man went down the rickety stairs to see
what the trouble was, and while he was down
there helping the dog to tree a rat under a sack of
potatoes, the Bad Boy slipped into the store, and
finding the old man absent, he crawled under the
counter, curled up on a cracker box, and began to
snore as the old man came up the stairs, followed
by the dog. with a rat in its mouth. The old man
heard the snore, and wondered if he had been
entertaining a tramp unawares, wlien the dog
dropped the rat, and rushing behind the counter
began to growl, and grabbed the Bad Boy by the
seat of his trousers and gave him a good shaking,
while the boy set up a yell that caused the plas-
ter to fall, and the old man to almost faint with
excitement, and he went to the door to call a po-
liceman, when the boy kicked the dog off. and
raised up from behind the counter, causing the
old cat to raise her back and spit cotton, and as
the old man saw the Bad Boy he leaned against
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
the show case and a large smile came over his
face, and he said : " Gee whiz, where did you
get on?'*
" The porter was not in, so I turned in in the
first lower berth I came to,'* said the Bad Boj^
as he jumped over the counter and grabbed the
old man by the arm and shook his hand until it
ached. " Introduce me to your friend, the dog,
who seems to have acquired an appetite for
pants,'* and the Bad Boy got behind the old man
and kicked at the dog, who was barking as
though he had a cat on the fence.
" Get out, Tige,'* said the old man, as he pushed
the dog away. " You have got to get used to this
young heathen," and he hugged the bright-look-
ing, well-dressed boy as though he was proud of
him.
" What are good fat rats selling for now ? "
asked the boy, as his eye fell on the rat the
terrier had brought out of the cellar. " I did
not know you had added a meat market to your
grocery. Now, in Paris the rat business is a very
important industry, but I didn't know the peo-
ple ate them here. What do you retail them at ? ''
" O, get out, I don't sell rats," said the old
man, indignantly. " I got this dog for company,
in your place, and he has proved himself more
382
"Dog doii kinder act at though he had somithing on kis mind."
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
useful than any boy I ever saw. Say, come and
sit down by the stove, and tell me all about your
trip, as your letters to me were not very full of
information. How is your father's health ? '*
" Dad is the healthiest man in America," said
the boy, as he handed the old man a Turkish
cigarette, with a piece of cheese imder the to-
bacco about half an inch from where the old man
lighted it with a match. *' Dad is all right, ex-
cept his back. He slept four nights with a cork
life preserver strapped to his back, coming over,
and he has got curvature of the spine, but the
doctor has strapped a board to dad's back, and
says when his back warps back to fit the board he
will be sound again."
" Say, this is a genuine Turkish cigarette,
isn't it," said the old man, as he puffed away at it,
and blew the smoke through his nose. " I have
always wanted to smoke a genuine, imported
cigarette. Grot a flavor something like a Welsh
rabbit, ain't it ? " and the old man looked at the
cigarette where the frying cheese was soaking
through the paper. " Gee, but I can't go that,"
and he threw it away, and looked sea sick.
" Turks always take cheese in their cigar-
ettes," said the Bad Boy. " They get a smoke
and food at the same time. But if you feel sicl:
384
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
you can go out in the back yard and I will wait
for you."
" No, I will be all right," said the old man, as
he got up to wait on a customer. " Here, try a
glass of my cider," and he handed the boy a dirty
glass half filled with cider which the boy drank,
and then looked queer at the old man.
" Tastes like it smells going through the oil
belt in Indiana," said the boy. " What's in it? "
" Kerosene," said the old man.-' " The Turks
like kerosene in their cider. They get drink and
light, if they touch a match to their breath. Say,
that makes us even. Now, tell me, what coun-
try did your dad get robbed the most in while
you were abroad ? "'
" Well, it was about a stand off." said the boy,
as he made a slip noose ou the end of a piece of
twine, and was trying to make a hitch over the
bob tail of the groceryman's dog, with an idea
of fastening a tomato can to the string a little
later, and turning the dog loose. " Do you know,"
said he to the old man, " that T think it is wrong
to cut off a dog's tail, cause when you tie a tin
can to it you feel as though you were taking ad-
vantage of a cripple.
" Well, all the countries we visited robbed dad
of all the money he had, one way or another,
385
I^ECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
sooner or later; even our own country, when we
arrived in New York, took his roll for duty on
some little things he smuggled, but I think the
combination of robbers at Carlsbad stuck to-
gether and got the goods off dad in the most
systematic manner. Some way they got news
when we arrived, of the exact amount of money
dad had got out of the bank, and before we had
breakfast the fakers had divided it up among
themselves, and each one knew just what was
going to be his share, and it was just like getting
a check from home for them. If we were going
there again we would give the money to some
particular faker to divide with the rest, and then
take a few swallows of their rotten egg water,
and get out.
" Say, did you ever eat a piece of custard pie
made out of stale eggs ? Well, that is just about
the same as the Carlsbad water, only the water is
not baked with a raw crust on the bottom. But
the doctor dad consulted was the peach. Dad
asked him how much of the water he ought to
drink, and the doctor held a counsel with him-
self, and said dad might drink all he could hold,
and when dad asked him how much his charges
were he said, * Oh, wait till you are cured.' So
dad thought he was not going to charge for his
386
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
advice, but after we had drank the water for ten
days, and dad was so weak he couldn't brush the
flies oflF his bald spot, we decided to go to rest
cure, and when we had our tickets bought the
doctor attached our baggage, and had a bill
against dad for four hundred and sixty dollars
for consultations, operations, advice, board and
borrowed money, and he had a dozen witnesses
to prove every item. Dad paid it, but we are go-
ing there once more with a keg of dynamite for
that doctor. But dad thinks he got the worth
of his money.
" You remember before he went away he
thought the doctors who operated on him for that
'pendecitus left a monkey wrench in him when
they sewed him up. Well, after he began to drink
that water he found iron rust on the towels when
he took a bath, and he believes the monkey-
wrench was sweat out of him. Say, does your
dog like candy ? "
" O, yes, he eats a little," said the groceryman,
and the boy tossed a piece of candy such as be
gave the King of Spain, with cayenne pepper in
it, to the dog, which swallowed it whole, and the
old man said, " Now I suppose your father is
cured, you will all stay at home for a while, and
settle down to decent citizenship, and take an
3^7
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
active part in the affairs of your city and state ?
Gee, but what is the matter with the dog? " added
the old man, as the dog jumped up on all fours,
looked cross-eyed, and tried to dig a hole in his
stomach with his hind leg.
" O, no, we shall never stay home much more,"
said the Bad Boy, getting up on a barrel and pull-
ing his feet up to get away from the dog, which
was beginning to act queer. " You see, dad got
cured all right, of a few diseases that were carry-
ing him off, but he has taken the * jumps,' a dis-
ease that is incurable. When a man has the
'jumps' he can't stay long in one place, but his life
after taking the disease is one continual round of
packing up and unpacking, his literature is time
cards and railroad guides, and his meals are
largely taken at railroad eating houses, sitting
on a stool, and his sleep is uncertain cat naps.
Say, that dog acts as though the mouthful he
took out of my pants under the counter didn't
agree with him," added the boy, as the dog rolled
over and tried to stand on his head.
" Dog does act kinder like he had something
on his mind," said the old man, as he got out of
the dog's way, so he could do his acrobatic stimt.
" Where is your dad going next trip ? Seems as
388
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
' liough he would want to stay home long enough
10 change his shirt."
" Don't have to change your shirt when you
travel," said the boy. as he slipped an imitation
snake into the side fjocket of the old grocery-
man's sack coat. "We are going to see all
the world, now that we have started in the
traveling industry, but our next move will be
chasing ourselves around our own native land.
Say, if you have never been vaccinated against
mad dog, you better take something right now,
for that dog is mad, and in about two minutes he
is going to begin to snap at people, and there is no
death so terrible as death from a mad dog bite.
Gee, but I wouldn't be in your place for a mil-
lion dollars." And the boy stood up on the bar-
rel, and was beginning to yell "mad dog," when
the old man asked what he could take to make
him immune from the bite of a mad dog.
" Eat a bottle of horseradish," said the boy, as
he reached over to the shelves and got a bottle,
and pulled the cork. " Eminent scientists agree
that horseradish is the only thing that will get
the system in shape to withstand and throw off
the mad dog virus," and he handed the old man
the bottle and he began to eat it, and cry, and
choke, and the boy got down from the barrel and
389
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
let the dog out doors, and he made a bee-line for
the lake.
" He's a water dog all right," said the boy, and
as a servant girl came in to buy some soap, and
saw the old man eating raw horseradish and
choking and looking apoplectic, she asked what
was the matter with the old man, and the boy
said a mad dog just escaped from the store, and
that the old man had shown signs of madness
ever since ; the girl gave a yell and rushed out into
the world without her soap. " Let this be a les-
son to you to be kind to dumb animals," said the
boy to the old man, as he finished the bottle of
horseradish, and put his hands on his stomach.
"Write to me, won't you?" said the old
groceryman, "and may the fiercest grizzly bear
get you, and eat you, condemn you," and the old
man opened the door and pointed to the street.
" Sure," said the Bad Boy. " I will write you
but beware of the dog. Good-bye. You are a
good thing. Push yourself along," and the Bad
Boy went out to pack up for another journey.
390
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER X X X 1 1.
The Bad Boy Relates the Automobile Ride he and
Dad took — ^They Sneak out of Town.
"Give me a package .of your strongest break-
fast food, and a big onion," said the bad boy, as
he came into the grocery, looking as weak as a
^ever convalescent, "and I want to eat the onion
right now."
"Well, that is a combination, sure enough,"
said the old groceryman as he wrapped a package
of breakfast food in a paper and watched the boy
rub half an onion on a salt bag, and eat it greed-
ily. "What is the matter with you to look so sick,
and eat raw onion before breakfast?"
"Oh, it is this new-fashioned way of living that
is killing little Hennery. When I lived at home
before we used to have sassidge and pancakes for
breakfast, roast meat for dinner and cold meat
for supper, and dad was healthy as a tramp, ma
could dance a highland fling, I could play all
kinds of games and jump over a high board fence
when anybody was chasing me. Now we have
some kind of breakfast food three times a day
391
PECKS BAD GOV ABROAD
because ma reads the advertisements, and dad is
so weak he has to be helped to dress, ma goes
moping around Hke a fashionable invalid, I am
so tired I can't hit a window with a snowball, and
the dof that used to fight cats now wants to lay in
'Jfrusaltm, but you art a sifht," said Iht old groctrym^m.
front of the grate and wish he was dead. Gosh,
but there ought to be a law that any man that
invents a new breakfast food should be compelled
to eat it. Gee, but that onion gives a man
strength."
"I should think so." said the old grocery man,
39-2
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
as he took a rag and set it on fire and let the
smoke purify the room. "But I suppose your folks
are like a great many others who have quit eat-
ing meat on account of the meat trust, and are
going to die in their tracks on health food. Is
your dad going out to-day to get the fresh air
and brace up for his next trip?"
"No, dad is going to stay in the house. He
wants ma to get him a female trained nurse, but
ma kicks. They had a trained nurse for a week,
once, but ma had one of these little electric flash-
lights that you touch a button and it lights up the
room like a burglar was in the house, and she
used to get up in the night and flash the light into
dad's room. Dad always had nervous prostra-
tion after ma flashed the light, and the nurse
fainted dead away, so ma and I are going to do
the nursing until dad is strong enough to travel
again, and then he and I skip."
"Where are you going first?" asked the old
grocery man, as he opened the door to let the
odor of onion and burned rag out of the room.
"What kind of treatment do the doctors advise to
bring the old man around so he will be himself
again?"
"They want him to go where he can take baths,
and gamble, and attend horse races, and go into
393
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"Z>orf said, 'Good ikol. Hennery:"
1
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
fast society, and maybe have a fight or two so as
to stir his blood, and we have decided to take him
first to the hot springs and turn him loose, and
we are packing up now and shall go next week.
They tell me that at the Arkansaw Hot Springs
you can get into any kind of a scrape you want,
and you don't have to look around for trouble.
It comes to you. Oh, we won't do a thing down
there. I broke the news to dad last night,
and he said that was good enough for
him, and he has packed up his poker chips and
some marked cards he used to win money with
from the deacons in the church, and he wants to
go as quick as possible. You will have to excuse
me now, for I am going to take dad out in an au-
tomobile after breakfast to give him his first dose
of excitement. I will make dad think that auto-
mobiling is a sport next to fox hunting, and I
will drop in this afternoon and tell you about it,"
and the bad boy took his breakfast food and went
home.
"Jerusalem, but you are a sight," said the
groceryman late in the afternoon, as the bad boy
came in with a pair of black goggles on, his coat
torn down the back and his pants ripped up the
legs. "What a time you must have had in the
automobile. Did you run over anybody?"
395
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
"Everybody/' said the bad boy, as he pinned
his trousers leg together with a safety pin. "There
they go now with dad in a milk wagon. Say,
these airships that run on the ground give a man
all the excitement he needs."
"Hurry up and tell me about your automobile
ride," said the groceryman, as he brushed off the
bad boy's clothes with an old blacking brush.
"Well, dad said he had never taken a ride in
one of the devil wagons, though he had got a good
deal of exercise the last year or two dodging them
on the streets, but he said he was tickled to death
to hear that I was an expert performer, and he
would go out with me, and if he liked the sensa-
tion, he would buy one. The machine I hired was
one of those doublets for two persons, one seat,
you know, a runabout. It was a runabout all
right. It run about eighteen miles in fifteen min-
utes. I got dad tucked in, and touched her on a
raw spot, and we were off. I run her arotmd
town for a while on the streets that had no teams
on, and dad was pleased. He said:
" 'Hennery, I like a boy that knows something-
about machinery, and who knows what dingus to
touch to make his machine do a certain thing,
and I am proud of you.'
"We had to go through the business part of
396
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
town, and dad looked around at the people on the
streets that he knew, and he swelled up and tried
to look as though he owned a brewery, and told
me to let her out, and I thought if dad could
"/( rained bananiu and the Dago came d»ivn »n kit head."
Stand it to let her out I could, so I pulled her open
just as one of these station fruit venders with a
hand cart was crossing the street. The cow-
catcher in front caught the hand cart right in the
middle and threw it into the air and it rained ba-
397
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
nanas and oranges, and the dago came Hown on
his head and swore in Italian, and dad said, 'Good
shot, Hennery,* and then the machine swung
across the street and knocked the fender off a
street car, and then I got her in the road straight
and by gosh I couldn't stop her. Something had
got balled up, and the more I touched things the
faster she went. We frightened four teams and
had three rimaways, and the air seemed full of
horses rearing up and drivers yelling for us to
stop. One farmer with a load of hay would not
give any of the road, and I guess his hay came in
contact with the gasoline tank, for the hay took
fire, his team ran away, and as we went over the
hill I looked back and saw a fire engine trying to
catch up with the red-hot load of hay, and the
farmer had grabbed hold of a wire sign across
the street and let the wagon run out from imder
him, and they had to take him down with a fire
ladder.
"We kept going faster, and dad began to get
frightened and asked me to slow up, but I couldn't.
We must have got in the country about eight
miles, and dad was getting scared, and his face
was just the color of salt pork, and he said :
" 'Hennery, this excursion is going to wind up
in a tragedy, and if I die I want you to have a
398
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
post-mortem examination made, just to see if I
am right about those doctors leaving that mon-
key wrench in me. For heaven's sake make the
machine jump that fence, for here comes a drove
of cattle in the road, more'n a hundred horned
steers, and we never can pass them alive/'
"Gee, but when I saw those cattle ahead and
the machine running away, I tried to pray, and
then I steered her towards an old rail fence that
looked as though it was rotten, and then there
was a crash, the air was full of rails, and dad
said. This is no hurdle race,' and we landed in
a field where there was an old hard snow bank.
She went up on the side, hit the frozen snow,
turned a summersault, the gasoline tank exploded
and I didn't remember anything till some farmers
that were spreading manure in the field turned
me over with a pitchfork, and asked me who the
old dead man was standing on his head in the
snow bank with his plug hat around his neck«
As soon as I came to I went to dad, and he was
just coming out of a trance, and asked him if he
didn't think a little excitement sort of made the
sluggish blood circulate, and he looked at the
blood on the snow, and said he thought there was
no doubt about the circulation of his blood.
"He got up, got his hat untangled, told the
300
The farmer had grabbed hold of a xire sign acrou the street.'* J
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
farmers he was obliged to them for their cour-
tesy and then he called me one side and said :
" 'Hennery, this attempt on your part to mur-
der me was not the success that you expected, but
you keep on and you will get me all right. Now,
as a business man, I want to say we have got
to get out of this town to-night or we will be ar-
rested and sent to the penitentiary ; besides, I will
have to pay a thousand dollars damage at the
least calculation. Get me a carriage for home,
and you stay and set this machine on fire and
skip back to town in time for the evening train
south, and we will go where the climate is more
genial.'
''Just then the steers we saw in the road came
into the field through the fence we had broken,
and when they smelled the blood they began to
paw and beller, and look like they would run
at dad, so the farmers got dad into a milk wagon
that was going to town, and when the wagon
started dad was pouring a cup of milk on him
where the gasoline had scorched him when it ex-
ploded, and I walked in town helping the fellows
drive the steers, and here I am, alive and ready to
travel at 8 p. m.
"If my chum comes around tell him I will write
him from Hot Springs and give him the news/'
401
PECK'S BAt> BOV ABROAD
"If that don't beat anything I ever heard of,"
said the old grocery man. "I have always been
afraid of those automobiles, and when one of the
horns blow I go in the first gate, say my prayers
and wait for it to go by and run over some one
"Hennery, this allemfl o» yonr part to murdfr me timi not the
farther down the block. Did your dad say any-
thing about buying an automobile after he came
lo?"
"Yes, as I remember it, he said he would see
me in h — first, or something like that. He re-
402
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
marked, as he got in the milk wagon, that every
man that owned an automobile ought to be ex-
amined by an insanity expert and sent to the peni-
tentiary for letting concealed weapons carry him.
^Well, good-by, old man,'* and the bad boy
went limping out of the grocery to go home and
tell his mother that he and dad had been scoring
up for the good time they were going to have
when they got out on the road for dad's health.
40s
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXXIIL
The Bad Boy Writes his Chum not to get so Gaj^-
Dad*s Experience with the Pecarries.
"Hot Springs, Ark. — My dear old chum : Dad
and I got here three days ago, and have begun to
enjoy life. We didn't leave home a minute too
soon, as we would have been arrested for rim-
ning over that banana peddler, and for arson in
setting a load of hay dn fire and destroying the
•
farmer's pants in our automobile accident. Ma
writes that a policeman and a deputy sheriff have
camped on our front doorstep ever since we left,
waiting for dad and I to show up. Dad wants
me to tell you to notify the officers that they can
go plum, as we shall never come back. Tell them
we have gone to Panama, or Mexico, or any old
place.
"By the way, kid, I shall have to give you a
little fatherly advice. W^hen dad and I were at
the bank getting a wad to travel with, I asked
one of the clerks how it was that the bank dis-
pensed with your services, after you had been
there nearly a year, and had got your salary up
404
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
to $60 a month, and were just becoming worth
your salt He said you got too fresh, that every
new responsibility that was put upon you caused
your chest to swell, and that you walked around
as though you were president of the bank, and
that you got ashamed to carry your lunch to the
bank, to eat it in the back room, but went out to
a restaiirant and ordered the things to eat that
came under the 15-cent list, whether you liked
the food or not, just to show off; and instead of
quietly eating the wholesome lunch your mother
put up for you, and being good natured, you ate
the restaurant refuse, and got cross, and all for
style, showing that you had got the big head; and
that you demanded an increase of salary, like a
walking delegate, and got fired, as you ought to
have been ; and now you are walking on your up-
pers, and are ashamed to look into the bank,
which you think is going to fail because you have
withdrawn your support. Dad arranged with tlie
managers to take you back on probation, so you
go and report for duty just as though you had
been off on a vacation, and then you try and have
some sense. Dad says you should get to the bank
before you are expected, and stay a little while
after it is time to quit, and don't watch the clock
and get your coat on before it strikes, and don't
405
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
make a center rush for the door, as though you
were escaping from jail. Let those above you
see that there is not enough for you to do, and
that you are anxious to help al! around the place.
Look upon a bale of money just as you would
look upon a bale of hay if you were work-
the parlor ivith a widow uniil the porter ka4 to tell
ing in a feed store, and don't look covetous
upon a pile of bills, and wonder how much
there is in it, and think how much you could
buy with it if it was yours. It is just a part
of the business, that pile of money is, and it is
not your place to brood over it with venom in
406
PECICS BAD BOY ABROAD
your eyes, or some day you will reach out and
take a little, and look guilty, and if they don't
find you out, you will take a bigger slice next
time, and go and blow yourself for clothes as
good as the president of the bank wears, and
some night you will open a small bottle of wine,
and put your thumbs in the arm-holes of yoiir
vest, and imagine you are *it,' and when you flash
your roll to pay the score, the quiet man at an-
other table in the saloon, who has been drinking
pop, and whom you were sorry for, he looked so
forlorn, will take you into the police station, and
they will search you, and you will break down and
blubber, and then it is all oflF, and the next day
you will be before a judge, and your broken-
hearted mother will be there trying to convince
the judge that somebody must have put the money
in your pocket to ruin you, some one jealous of
your great success as a banker, but the judge will
know how you came by the money, and you will
go over the road, your mother goes to the grave,
and your friends will say it is a pity about you.
"Men who employ boys know that half of them
will never amount to a tinker's dam, a quarter of
them will just pass muster, and if they can't run
the place in a year they will find another job, and
two out of the 20 will be what are needed in the
407
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
business. The boy who is always looking for an-
other job is the one that never finds one that suits
him. The two boys out of the twenty will seem
to look a little rustier each year as to clothes but
their rotmd, rosy faces will change from year to
year, the jaws begin to show strength, the eyes
get to looking through you, and the forehead
seems to expand as the brain gets to working.
"The successful boys out of the bunch remind
me of the automatic repeating rifle, that you put
ten cartridges in and pull the trigger and shoot
ten times with your eyes shut, if you want to, and
it hits where you point it. Every time an em-
ployer pulls the trigger on a successful business
boy, and a good idea of business is fired, the recoil
puts a new idea into the chamber, and you pull
again, and so on until the magazine of the brainy
boy is emptied, when you load him up again, and
he is ready for business, and the employer
wouldn't be without him, and would not go back
to the old-fashioned one-idea boy, that goes off
half-cocked when not pointed at anything in par-
ticular, and whose ideas get stuck in the barrel
and have to be pulled out with a wormer, and
primed with borrowed powder, and touched off
by the neighbors, most of whom get powder in
their eyes, unless they look the other way when
408
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
the useless employe goes off, for anything in the
world. So, chum, you go back to the bank and
become an automatic repeater in business, with
ideas to distribute to others, instead of borrow-
ing ideas, and you will own the bank some day.
"/ t»l a g»mhler to look noii al dad."
"Now, kid, you don't want to go peddling this
around among the neighbors, but dad and I are
having the time of our lives here, and since dad
has begun to get acquainted with the ladies here
at the hotel, and the millionaire sports, he is get-
409
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
ting well, and acts like old times. He sat in the
parlor of the hotel with a widow the first night
until the porter had to tell him to cut it out. Say,
I got asleep three or four times on a lounge in
the parlor, waiting for dad to get to the 'continued
in our next' in talking with that widow about his
wealth, and his loneliness since ma died. He
said he didn't know what he was worth, because
he didn't pay any attention to any of his bonds and
securities, except his Standard Oil stock, because
the dividends on that stock came regular and
increased a little every quarter. Gee, but I
wanted to tell her that all the interest he
had in Standard Oil was a gallon kerosene can
with a potato stuck in the spout, and when we
went to bed I told him that woman's husband was
behind the door of the parlor all the time listen-
ing, and he had a gun in his hip pocket, and would
call him out for a duel the next morning, sure.
Dad didn't sleep good that night, and the next
morning I got a gambler to look cross at dad and
size him up, and dad didn't eat any breakfast.
After breakfast I had the hotel stenographer
write a challenge to dad, and demand satisfaction
for alienating the affections of his wife, and dad
began to get weak in the knees. He showed me
the challenge, and I told him the only way to
410
PECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
do in this climate was to walk around and punch
his cane on the floor, and look mad, and talk loud,
and the challenger would know he was a fiery
fighter, and would apologize, and dad walked
around town and through the hotel office most of
the day, fairly frothing at the mouth, and he
thinks he has scared the challenger away, and,
as the woman is gone, dad thinks he is a hero.
"But the worst thing has happened and it will
take a week to grow new skin on dad's legs. He
got acquainted with a bunch of men who were
411
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
bear hunters and sports, and they talked of the
bear shooting in Arkansas, and dad told about
how he had killed tigers, lions, elephants and
things until they thought he was great. Dad never
saw one of those animals except in a menagerie,
but when they suggested that he go with them on
a bear hunt, he bit like a bass, and the whole bunch
went off in a buckboard one morning with guns,
lunches, hounds, bottles, and all kinds of ammu-
nition. They didn't let me go but when the crowd
came back about midnight, and they carried dad
up to his room, and sent for a doctor, one of the
horse race men who went along told me all
about it.
"He said they went out in a canebrake and sta-
tioned dad on a runway for bear, and put in the
dogs about a mile away in the swamp, and they
left him there for five hours, and when they went
to where he was, there was a drove of wild hogs,
or peccaries, under a tree, and* dad was up on
a limb, praying, his gun on the ground; his coat
was chewed by the wild pigs, and the wild ani-
mals were jumping up to eat his shoes. The fel-
lows hid behind trees and listened to dad confess
Ills sins, and pray, and promise to do better, and
be a good man, and when a wild pig would g^ash
his teeth and make a jump at him, he would talk
412
I limb praying, his gun on the groiiHd and his
coattaiU chewed by the wild pist."
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
swear words at the pig, and then he would put
up his hands and ask forgiveness, and promise to
lead a different life, and say what a fool he was
to be off down here in the sunny south being eaten
alive by wild hogs, when he ought to be home en-
joying religion. Just as dad was about to die
there on the limb of a shagbark hickory, the fel-
lows behind the trees touched off a small dyna-
mite cartridge and threw it under the tree, and
when it exploded the wild hogs ran away, dad
fell off the limb, and he was rescued. He was a
sight, for sure, when they brought him to the
hotel; his clothes were torn off, his stomach lac-
erated, and when he was stuck together with
plasters, and I was alone with him, he said he
was as good a bear hunter as ever came down
the pike, but he never worked in a slaughter
house, and didn't know anything about slaugh-
tering pigs, and besides, if he ever got out again,
and able to use a gun, he would put that bunch
of hunters that took him out in the canbrakes
under the sod. He said while he sat up the tree
praying for strength to endure the ordeal he had
a revelation that there wasn't a bear within a
hundred miles, and that those fellows had the
hogs trained to scare visitors to Hot Springs, so
they could be easy to rob. He said one fellow
414
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
borrowed $50 of him to pay into the state treas-
ury for wear and tear on the wild hogs. Well,
dad had forgotten about the monkey-wrench in
his system, and I guess we are going to enjoy
ourselves here in the old-fashioned way. Yours
all right,
"Hennery/'
415
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The Bad Boy and his Dad have Trouble with a new
Breakfast Food — Dad Rides a Buckmg Broncho.
San Antonio, Texas. — My Dear Chum: Dad
and I left Hot Springs because the man who
kept the hotel where we stopped got prejudiced
against me. I suppose I did carry the thing a
little too far. You see dad has got into this
breakfast food habit, and reads all the advertise-
ments that describe new inventions of breakfast
food, and he has got himself so worked up over
the bran mash that he is losing appetite for any-
thing substantial, and he is getting weak and
nutty. Ma told me when I went away with dad
that she wanted me to try my best to break dad
of the breakfast food habit, and I promised to do
it. Say, kid, if you ever expect to succeed in
life" you have got to establish a reputation for
keeping your promises. Truth is mighty, and
when anybody can depend upon a boy to do as
he agrees his fortune is made. Dad saw a new
breakfast food advertised in an eastern maga-
zine, and as the hotel people only kept thirty or
416
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
forty kinds of mockingbird food for giicsts, dad
made me go out to the groceries and round up
the new kind. I brought a box to the tabic at
breakfast, and dad fell over himself to fill his
saucer, and then he offered some lo eight lx)ard-
ers that sat at our table. Dad had been brag-
ging for a week about how he had adopted the
breakfast food fad, first for his health, and then
to get even with the beef trust. He had con-
vinced the boarders at our table that it was a
patriotic duty of every citizen to shut down on
eating meat until the criminal meat trust was
ruined.
"The breakfast food I put up on dad was some
pulverized cork that I got at a grocery out of a
barrel of California grapes. It looked exactly
like other breakfast food, but you'd a dide to
see dad and several invalid southern colonels,
and two women who were at the table, pour
cream on that pulverized cork, and sprinkle sugar
on it, and try to get the pulverized cork to soak
up the cream, but the particles of cork floated on
top of the cream, and acteiJ alive. An old con-
federate colonel, who had called dad a dam yan-
kee ever since we had been there, and always
acted as though he was on the point of drawing
a gun, took the first mouthful, and after chcw-
4>7
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
ing it a while he swallowed as though his throat
was sore, but he got it down, and ordered a cock-
tail, and looked mad at dad. Dad noticed that
the others were having difficulty in masticating
the food, and so he pitched in and ate his food
"Henntry. I (eel
very lone lor thU
and said it was the finest he ever tasted, but the
rest of the crowd only took a spoonful or two,
and ct fruit. One woman who is there to be
cured of the habit of betting on the races, got
the cork in amongst her false teeth and it
418
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
squeaked when she chewed, like pulling a cork
out of a beer bottle. They all seemed to want
to please dad, and so they munched away at the
cork, until the woman with the false teeth had
to leave the table, then a colonel went out, and
then all quit the table except dad and I, and by
that time dad felt as though he had swallowed
a life preserver, and he said to me:
" 'Hennery, either the baths or the climate, or
something has upset me, and I feel as though
your dad was not very long for this world. Be-
fore I die I want you to confess to me what that
rluff is that I have been eating, and I can die in
peace !'
"I told him that he had wanted a light break-
fast, and I thouglit there was nothing quite so
light as cork, and that he was full clear to the
muzzle with pulverized cork, and he couldn't sink
any more when he took a bath. Dad turned pale
and we went out in the office and found that all
the people who sat at our table, and ate break-
fast food were in the hands of doctors, and dad
went in the room with them, and each had a doc-
tor, and how they got it out of them I don't
know, as I was busy organizing a strike amon^^
the bell boys. I told them they could double their
wages by striking at exactly ten o'clock, when
419
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
all the boarders wanted cocktails sent to their
rooms.
"They struck all right, and the breakfast food
people had all got pumped out, and then it came
my turn. Dad gave me a licking, the boarders
kicked at me, the landlord ordered me out of the
house, and the striking bell boys who had their
places filled in ten minutes, chased me all over
town, and when I got back to the hotel dad had
bought tickets to San Antonio, because the doc-
tor told him to get out on the prairies and take
horseback exercise to shake the pulverized cork
and the monkey-wrench out of his system, and
everybody threw stones at the buss that we rode
to the depot in. Gosh, but I hate a town where
genius has no chance against the mob element.
The worst was that woman with the false teeth,
because she lost them somewhere, and had to
hold her handkerchief over her mouth while she
called me names when the porter took me by the
collar and the pants and flung me into the buss.
Dad told the porter, when he handed out the reg-
ular *tip,' that he would have made it larger if
the porter had taken an axe to me. Dad is get-
ting so funny he almost makes me laugh.
"Well, kid, we arrived here next day, and got
acclimated before night. Dad bought a wide
420
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
gray cowboy hat, with a leather strap for a band,
and began to pose as a regular old rough rider,
and told everybody at the hotel that he was going
to buy a ranch, and run for congress. Every-
body here is willing a northern man should buy
a ranch, but when he talks about running for
Congress they look sassy at him, but dad can
look just as sassy as anybody here. He told all
around that he was a cavalry veteran of the war,
and wanted to get a horse to ride that would stir
up his patriotic instincts and his liver, and all
his insides, and a real kind man steered dad to
a livery stable, and I knew by the way the na-
tives winked at each other that they were going
to let him have a horse that would jounce him
all right.
"They saddled up a real nice pony for me, but
when they led out the horse for dad I knew that
trouble was coming. The horse was round shoul-
dered on the back, and when they put the saddle
on the horse humped up and coughed most piti-
ful, and when they fastened the cinch the horse
groaned and the crowd all laughed. A negro
boy asked me if my old man was ever on a horse
before, and when I told him that dad had eaten
horses in the army, the boy said that horse would
eat him, 'cause he was a bucker from Buckers-
422
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
ville, in the western part of the state. I told dad
the horse was a dangerous bucker, but he tipped
his hat on one side and said he had broken more
bucking bronchos than those Texas livery men
ever saw. Dad borrowed a pair of these Mexi-
"Dad began to pose as a regular old Roueh Ridtr.'
can Spurs with a wheel in them as big as a silver
dollar, and the men held the horse by the bridle
while dad got on. and I must say he got on like
he knew how. He asked which was the road to
Houston, and we started out of towtL
4^3
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
''Well, Sir, I have been in a good many run-
aways, and I was filling a soda fountain once
when it exploded, and I have been on a toboggan
when it run into a cow, and I have been to a
church sociable when a boy turned some rats
loose, and a terrier went after them right among
the women, but I never was so paralyzed as I
was to see dad and that horse try to stay to-
gether. The first two miles out of town the horse
walked, and acted as though it was going to die,
and my pony would get away ahead and have to
wait for dad and the camel to come up. Dad
was mad because they gave him such a slow
horse,
" 'What are those things on your heels for ?*
I says to dad. 'Why don't you run the spokes
mto his slats?' I said, just to be sociable.
" 'Never you mind me,' says dad. 'After I
have looked at the scenery a while I will open
the throttle on this dromedary, and we will g^
and visit the Pyramids.'
"I was a little ahead and I did not catch dad
in the act of kicking open the throttle, but I
heard something that sounded like a freight train
wreck, and dad and the horse went by me like
a horse race, only that the horse was not on the
ground half the time, and he didn't go straight
424
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
ahead, but just lowered his head between his
legs and jumped in the air and came down stiff-
legged and then jumped sideways, and changed
ends and did it all over again, all over the prairie,
and dad was a sight. His eyes stuck out, and
his teeth rattled, and every time the horse came
down on his feet dad seemed to get shorter, as
though his spine was being telescoped up into his
hat. I think dad would have fallen off the first
jump, only he had rammed the spurs in amongst
the horse's ribs, and couldn't get them out. Gee,
but you never saw such actions, unless you have
seen a horse go plum crazy. The horse kept
giving dad new fancy side steps, and jumps until
dad yelled to me to get a gun and shoot him or
the horse, and he didn't care which. I yelled to
dad to loosen up on the bridle, and let the horse
run lengthways instead of sideways, and I guess
he did, for the horse lit out for some musquite
trees and before I could get there the horse had
run under a limb and scraped dad off, and when
I got there dad was lying under a tree, trying to
pray and swear all to wonst, and his spurs were
all blood and hair, and things a horse wears on
the inside of hisself, and the horse was standing
not far away, eating grass, and looking at dad.
If dad had had his revolver along he would have
4^5
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
killed the horse, but the horse seemed to know he i
had been fooling with an unarmed man. I got
dad righted up, and he rode my pony to town,
and I had to lead the bucking horse, and he eat
some of the cloth out of my pants.
Dad on a bucking broncho.
"Say, this is a bully place down here; just as "
quiet and sunshiny as can be, only dad is in a hos-
pital for a week or so, having operations on
where the horse let him drop once in a while on
the saddle, and the livery man made dad buy the
426
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
horse 'cause he said dad had ripped his sides out
with the spurs. Dad says we will have a picnic
when he gets out of the hospital. He is going to
buy some dynamite and take the horse out on
the prairie and blow him up. Dad is so fond of
dumb animals. I got your letter about your being
in love. Gee, but you f an't afford it on your sal-
ary.
"Your* quite truly,
"Hennery."
427
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXXV.
The Bad Boy and his Dad Return from Teisaa-— The
Boy Tells the Groceryman about die Excite-
ment at San Antonio.
The old groceryman sat on an up-turned half
bushel measure in front of the store drying his
old-fashioned boots. As he fried the soles in
front of the red hot stove, there was an odor of
burnt leather, but he did not notice it, as the other
odors natural to the dirty old grocery seemed to
be in the majority. The door opened quietly, and
the old man got up to wait on a possible custo-
mer, when the bad boy rushed in and dropped on
the floor the queerest animal the old man and the
cat had ever seen. The cat got up on the cotmter
on a pile of brown wrapping paper, curved its
back and purmeyowed, and the strange animal
jumped into a half barrel of dried apples and be-
gan to dig with all four feet, as though to make
a bed to lie in.
"Take that animalcule, or whatever it is, out
of them apples," said the old grocer)anan, pick-
ing up a fire-poker. "What is it, and where
428
PECiTS BAD BOY ABRO.\D
it come from, and when did you get back, and
how is your pa, and why didn*t you stay away«
and what do too want here anvwav?** and the
^ mm
old man eyed the animal and the bad boy« ex-
pectii^ to be bitten by one and bilked by the
other.
"That's a prairie d<^ from Texas, if you are
not posted in omicothol(^\" said the boy, as he
took the prairie dog up and put him on the coim-
ter near the cat. "Dad is all right, only we were
driven out of Texas bv the board of health.'"
m
" I told that pirate chum of yours when he read
me your letter, that you would last in Texas just
about a week, and that you would be shipped
home in a box. They are not as tolerant with
public nuisances down south as we are here. But
what did you do there to get the board of health
after you ?" and the old man pushed the cat's back
down level, and held her tail so she couldn' t eat
the prairie dog.
**Well, sir, it was the condemdedest outrage
that ever was," said the boy, as he gave the prairie
dog some crackers and cheese. "You see, dad
told me I could pick up some pet animals while I
was in Texas, and I got quite a collection while
dad was in the hospital. Here is one in my
pocket,'' and the boy took a homed toad out of
429
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
his pocket, about as big as a soft-shelled crab,
and put it in the old groceryman's hand.
"Condemn you, don't you put a poisonous rep-
tile in my hand," said the old man, as he dropped
the ugly-looking toad on the floor, and got be-
'^^<'
"Thafs a prairie dog from Texas."
hind the show case, while the boy laughed fit to
kill. "Now tell your story and vamose, by
ginger, or I will ring for the patrol wagon. You
would murder a man in his own house, and laugh
at his spasms."
430
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
"O, get out, that toad and this prairie dog are
as harmless as your old cat there," said the boy,
as he watched the old man tremble as though he
had jim-jams. "I have got a tarantula and a
diamond-back rattlesnake that will pizen you,
though. rU tell you about our getting fired out
of Texas, if you will stand still a minute. You
see, I had my collection of pets in my room at
the hotel, and I had the bell boys bribed, and the
chambermaid would only come in our room while
I was there to watch the pets. The night dad
got back from the hospital, where he went to
grow some new bones and things on his insides,
after he rode the bucking broncho, a man got me
the prettiest little animal you ever saw, sort of
white and black, about the size of a cat, and I
took it to the room and put it under the bed in a
box the man gave me. Dad had gone to bed,
and was snoring so you could cut it with a knife."
"Say, you knew that animal was a skunk all
the time, now tell me, didn't you," said the old
groceryman. "You was a fool to take it, when
you knew what a skunk will do."
"Yes, I thought it was a skunk, all right,'*
said the boy, "but the man told me the animal
had been vaccinated, and wouldn't ever make
any trouble for any one, and he would warrant it
431
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
I thought a warranted skunk was all right, and
so I went to bed in a cot next to dad's bed. I
guess it was about daylight when skunks want
to suck eggs, that he beg^n to scratch the box,
and squeak, and I was afraid it would wake dad
"Dad heard something at night and rose up in bed."
Up, SO I reached down and took off the cover of
the box. From that very identical moment the
trouble began. Dad heard something in the room
and he rose up in bed and the animal sat on the
foot of the bed and looked at dad. Dad said
432
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
'scat/ and threw a pillow at my pet, and then all
was chaos. I never exactly smelled chaos, but
I know it when I smell it. O, O, but you'd a dide
to see dad. He turned blue and green, and said
'Hennery^ someone has opened a jack pot, call
for the police !' I rushed for the indicator where
you ring for bell boys, and cocktails, and things,,
and touched all the buttons, and then got in bed
and pulled a quilt over my head, and dad went
into a closet where my snakes and things were,
and the vaccinated skunk kept on doing the same
as he did to dad, and I thought I should die*
Dad heard my snake rattle hisself in the box, an^
he stepped on my prairie dog and yelled mu^§r;,
and he got into my box of horned toads, and rj^y-
young badger scratched dad's bare feet, and i
young eagle I had began to screech, and dad
began to have a fit. He said the air seemed
fixed, and he opened the window, and sat on the
window sill in his night shirt, and a fireman
came up a ladder from the outside and turned
the hose on dad, then the police came and broke
in the door, and the landlord was along, and the
porter, and all the chambermaids, and every-
body. I had turned in all the alarms there were,
and everybody came quick. The skunk met the
policemen halfway, and saluted them as polite
433
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
as could be, and they fell back for reinforce-
ments ; dad got into his pants and yelled that he
was stabbed, and I don't know what didn't hap-
pen. Finally the policemen got my skunk under
a blanket and walked on him, and he was
"Dai tUfped on my prairie dog and yelUd mwdtr'
squashed, but, by gosh, tiiey can never use that
blanket again, and I told 'cm so."
"It's a wonder they didn't put a blanket over
you, and kill you too," said the old grocery man,
as he moved away from the horned toad, which
the boy had placed on the counter. "What did
did.
PECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
they do to you then? What way did your dad
explain it? How long did you remain at the
hotel after that?"
"We didn't stay hardly any after that," said
the boy, as he pushed the prairie dog along the
counter toward the grocerjnnan's cat, hoping to
get them to fighting. "The landlord said we dam
yankee's were too strenuous for his climate, and
if we didn't get out of the house in fifteen min-
utes he would get a gun and see about it, and
he left two policemen to see that we got away.
Dad tried to argue the question with the land-
lord, after all the windows had been opened in
the house. He said he had come to Texas for a
quiet life, to get away from the climate of the
north, but he had no idea any landlord would
turn animals into a gentleman's room, and he
would sue for damages; but the bluff did not
work, and we left San Antonio on a freight train,
imder escort of the police, and the board of
health. Say, that freight train smelled like it
had a hot box, but nobody suspected us. When
we got most to New Orleans dad said, 'Hennery.
I hope this will be a lesson to you,' and I told
him two more such lessons would kill his little
boy dead."
"What did you do with* your clothes?" said
435
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
the groceryman, as he snuffed around, as though
he thought he could smell something.
"O, we bought new clothes in New Orleans,
and let our old ones out of the window of a
hotel with a rope. A man picked them up, and
"We Ufl under escort of the folice."
they sent him to the quarantine for smallpox
patients. O, we came out all right, but it was
a close call. Say, I bet this prairie dc^ can lick
your cat in a holy minute," and the boy pushed
the dog against the cat, said "sik em," and the cat
436
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
scratched the dog, the dog yelled and bit the cat,
the cat run up the shelves, over the canned goods,
and tipped over some bottles of pickles, and the
old groceryman got crazy, while the boy took
his prairie dog under his arm, and his horned
toad in his hand and started to go out.
"FU drop in some day and have some fun with
you," says the boy.
"If you do I will stab you with a cheese knife,"
said the groceryman as he picked up the broken
glass.
457
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXXVI.
The Bad Boy's Joke with a Stuffed Sattlesnake^He
Telia the Old Groceryman about his Dad's
Morbid Appetite.
*
The old groceryman was sitting on the coun-
ter, with his legs stretched lengthwise, his heels
resting on a sack of flour, and his back against a
pile of wrapping paper, his eyes closed, his pipe
gone out, and the ashes sifting from it on the
cat that was asleep in his lap. He was waiting
for a customer to come in and buy something to
start the day's business. He had sprinkled the
floor and swept the dirt up in a comer, and he
was sleepy. There was a crash in front of the
door, a barrel of axe handles and garden tools
had been tipped over on the sidewalk, the door
opened with a jerk and closed with a slam, and
the bad boy came in with a long paper box, per-
forated with holes, slammed it on the counter be-
side the groceryman's legs, and yelled:
"Wake up. Rip Van Winkle, the day of judg-
ment has come, and you are still buried. You
got to get a move on you or tKe procession will
438
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
go off and leave you. Say, are you afraid of
rattlesnakes ?*' and the bad boy shook the paper
box, when an enormous rattle came from within,
as though a snake had shaken its tail good and
plenty,
"Great Scott, boy, I believe you have got a
rattlesnake in that box/' and he jumped off the
counter and grabbed an iron fire poker, while the
boy got out his knife to cut the string on the box.
"Now, lookahere, I am suffering from nervous
prostration, and a snake turned loose in this store
would settle it with me. I am at your mercy, but
by the holy smoke, if I am bitten by that snake
I will kill you and your old snake. Now take that
box out of here," and the old man picked up a
hatchet and got behind a barrel.
"Well, wouldn't that skin you," said the bad
boy, as he sharpened his knife on a piece of old
cheese, and felt of the edge. "Here you have
been telling me for years what a brave man you
were, and how you were not afraid of anything
that wore hair, and now you have fits be-
cause a little five-foot rattlesnake, with only ten
rattles on, makes a formal call on you. Gee, but
you are a squaw. Why, there is no danger in the
bite of a rattlesnake,, since science has taken the
matter up. All yt>u got to do, when a snake bites
439
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
you and you begin to turn black, is to drink a
couple of quarts of whisky, and bind a poultice of
limberg cheese on the wotmd, and go to bed for a
week or ten days, and you come out all right,*' and
the bad boy began to cut the string.
"Now, let up until I wait on these customers,^
said the old man, as he went to the door and let
in a committee of women who were to buy some
suppHes for a church sociable. The women lined
up on each side of the store, looking at the canned
things on the shelves, and the old man wa» try-
ing to be polite, when the bad boy opened the box
and laid on the floor a stuffed rattlesnake that
was as natural as life, and touched a rattle box in
his pocket, and the trouble began. The women
saw the snake curled up, ready to spring, and
they all went through the door at once, tipping
(5ver everything that was loose, and screaming,
while the old man, when he saw the snake, got
into the front show window and trembled and
yelled for the police. A policeman rushed in the
store and when he saw the snake he backed out
of the door, and the bad boy sat down on a box
and began to eat some raisins out of a box, as
though he was not particularly interested in the
commotion.
440
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
"Arrest that boy with the snake," said the gro-
ceryman.
"Come out of that wid your menagerie," said
the policeman, shaking his club.
"Come in and get the snake if you want it,"
said the boy. "I don't want it any more, any-
way," and he took the stuffed snake up by the
head and laid it across his lap, and began to shake
the rattles, and laugh at the groceryman and the
policeman, and the crowd that had collected in
front of the store. The policeman came in laugh-
ing, and the old groceryman crawled out of the
show window, and all breathed free again, and
finally the policeman went and drove the crowd
away, and went on his beat again, after shaking
his club at the boy; the groceryman, tlie snake
*nd the cat remained in the store. The grocery-
man took a swig out of a bottle of whisky, to set-
tic his nerves, and the boy took up his snake and
pushed it towards the cat, which ran up a step-
ladder and yowled.
"Do you know, I kind of like you," said the
old groceryman, as he went up behind the bad
boy and took him by the throat, "and I think it
would be a great thing for the community if I
should just choke you to deaih. You are worse
441
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
dian a mad dog, and you are just ruining my
business."
"I will give you just ten seconds to take your
hand off my neck,'* said the bad boy, pulling out
a dollar watch, "and when the time is up, and you
have not let loose of me, I will turn loose a couple
of live snakes I have in my pocket, and some
tartantulas, and you will probably be bitten and
swell up like a poisoned pup, and die under the
counter/'
"All right, let's be friends," said the old man,
as he let go of the bad boy. "If your parents and
the rest of the community can stand having you
around, alive, probably it is my duty to be a mar-
tyr, and stand my share, but you are very try-
ing to the nerves. By the way, put that con-
founded stuffed snake in the ice box, and sit
down here and tell me something. I saw your
father on the street yesterday, and he is a sight.
His stomach is twice as big around as it was, and
he looks troubled. What has got into him?"
"Well, rU tell you, dad has got what they call
a morbid appetite. Whatever you do, old skate,
don't you ever get a morbid appetite."
"What is a morbid appetite?" asked the old
man, as he peeled a banana and began to eat it "I
443
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
can always eat anything that is not tied down, but
I don't know about this morbid business."
"Scientists say a morbid appetite is one that
don't know when it has got enough. Dad likes
good things, but he wants all there is on the
table. Now, at New Orleans, before we came
home, dad and I went in a restaurant to get some
oysters, and you know the oysters there are the
biggest in the world. When we got there dad was
hungry, and the thought of raw oysters on the
half shell made him morbid. He had a blue point
appetite, and ordered four dozen on the half shell,
for himself, and one dozen for me. Well, you
would have dropped dead in yoiu" tracks if you
had been there. Six waiters brought on the five
dozen oysters, and each oyster was as big as a
pie plate. Six dozen oysters would cover this
floor from the door to the ice box. Dad almost
fainted when he saw them, but his pride was at
stake, and he made up his mind if he didn't eat
them all the waiters would think he was a tender-
foot, and so he started in. The first oyster was
as big as a calf's liver, and nobody but a sword
swallowcr could ever have got it down. Dad cut
one oyster into quarters, and got away with it,
and after a while he murdered another, and after
he had eaten three he wanted to go home and
444
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAfi
leave them. Then is the time his little boy got in
his work. I told dad that if he didn't eat all the
oj'sters the waiters and the people would mob him,
tliat it was a deadly offense to order oysters and
not eat them, and that they would probably kill
us both before we got out of the place. He said,
"Hennery, I don't like oysters like I used to, and
it seems to me I couldn't eat another one to save
my life, but if, as you say, we are in a country
445
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
where a man's life is held so cheaply, by the gjeat
horn spoons, I will eat every oyster in the house,
and the Lord have mercy on me/ I told him
that was about the size of it, and he would eat or
die, and maybe he would die anyway, and just
then a wicked-looking negro with a big oyster
knife came to the table and looked ugly at dad
and said, 'Have another dozen?' and dad said,
'Yes,' and then he began to eat as though his life
depended on it, and I could hear the great wads
of oysters strike with a dull thud on exposed
places inside of dad, and before he got up from
the table he had eaten them all, and he told the
man we would be in again to lunch after awhile.
Dad is the bravest man I ever saw, and don't you
forget it. He would have come out all right, I sup-
pose, and lived, if it hadn't been for his devilish
morbid appetite for travel and adventure. Quick
as we got out of the oyster place dad wanted to
take a steamboat ride down the river to the Eades
Jetties at the mouth of the river, and we went on
board, and had a nice ride down to the mouth.
After we had looked over the jetties where Eades
made an artificial canal big enough for the largest
ocean steamers to come up to New Orleans, the
passengers wanted the captain to run the boat
outside the bar, into the blue ocean, where the
446
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
waves come from. Gee, but I hope I may live
long enough to forget the ride. We hadn't got a
boat's length outside the bar before the boat be-
gan to roll and toss, and I held on to dad's hand,
and wished 1 was dead. I told him my little
tummy ached, and I wanted a lemon. Dad said
my little tummy, with its three oysters in it, was
not worth mentioning, and told nie to look at
him. Talk about your Mount Pelee, and your
Vesuvius, those volcanoes were tame and unin-
teresting, compared to dad, leaning over the rail-
ing,and shouting words at the sharks in the water.
Why. he just doubled up like a jack knife, one
minute, and then straightened up like an elephant
standing on its hind legs in a circus, the next
minute, and he kept saying, "Ye-up.' and all
[he passengers said 'poor man,' I told them he
was not so poor, for he owned a brewery at home.
Dad finally went to steep with his arm and head
over the rail, and his body hanging Ump down on
deck. The boat turned around and went back into
the mouth of the river, and the passengers were
thanking the captain for giving them such a
lovely ride, when I thought I would wake dad
up, and so I touched him on the shoulder and
asked him if he didn't want a few dozen more
raw oysters, and he yelled murder, and began to
447
PECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
have hydrophobia again, and hump himself. You
know the way people do when they are dissatis-
fied with the medicine the doctor g^ves. Well,
we got back to New Orleans, and dad took a
hack to the hotel, and told the driver not to pass
any saloon where there were oyster shells on the
sidewalk. We came home next day. Well, I
g^ess I will get my snake out of the ice box, and
go home and comfort dad. But wait a minute
till that Irishman puts that chunk of ice in the
ice box, and see if he notices the snake." Just
then there was a sound as if a house had fallen,
a two hundred poimd cake of ice struck the floor,
and the Irishman came running through the gro-
cery with his ice tongs waving, and yelling,
"There's a rattlesnake in yer ice box, mister, and
ye can go to h — 1 for yer ice." The groceryman
looked at the boy, the boy looked at the grocery-
man, the cat looked at both, the boy took his
snake under his arm and went out, and the old
man said,
"Well, you are the limit. Call again, and bring
an anaconda, and a man-eating tiger," and he
went and scraped up the ice.
448
FECK'S BAD BOV ABROAD
CHAPTER XXXVII.
The Bad Boy Tells the Story of the Bean in Yellow-
stone Park and how Brave Dad was.
The old groceryman was down on his knees,
with a wet cloth, swabbing up something from
the floor with one hand, while he held bis nose
with the other, his back toward the door, when
suddenly the door opened with a bang, striking
the old man in the back, knocking him over and
landing him with his head in a basket of strictly
fresh eggs, breaking at least a dozen of them,
and filling the air with an odor that was immis-
takable: and the bad boy followed the door into
the grocery.
"What's your notion of taking a nap, with a
basket of stale eggs for a pillow," said the bad
boy, as he took the old man by the arm and raised
him up, and looked at him with a grin that was
tantalizing. "What is it, sewer gas? My, but
the board of health won't do a thing to you if
the inspector happens in here. Those eggs ntust
have been mislaid by a hen that had a diseased
mind," and the bad boy took a bottle of cologne
449
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
out of the show case and began to sprinkle the
floor, and squirted some of it on the old man's
clothes.
"Say, do you know I bought those eggs of a
man dressed like a farmer, whp came in here
yesterday with his pants in his boots, and smell-
ing as though he had just come out of his cow
stable?" said the old groceryman, as he took a
piece of coffee sack and wiped yellow egg off his
whiskers. "And yet they are old enough to at-
tend caucuses, I tell you that you have got to
watch a farmer the same as you do a crook, or
he will get the best of you. And to think I sold
four dozen of those eggs to a church sociable
committee that is going to make ice cream for a
celebration to-night. But what in thimder do
you come in here for, like a toboggin, and knock
me all over the floor, into eggs, when you could
come in gently and save a fellow's life; and me
a sick man, too^ Ever since that explosion, when
we tried to see how they blow up battleships, I
have had nervous prostration, and I am just
about sick of this condemned foolishness. I like
to keep posted on current events, and want to
learn how things are going on outside in the
world, and I realize that for an old man to asso-
ciate with a bright boy like you keeps him young,
450
Landed o/itA his litad m a basket af sinctly fr*th eggt.
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
but, by ginger, when I think how you have done
me up several times, I sometimes think I better
pick out a boy that is not so strenuous, so you
can tell your pa I rather he wouldn't trade here
any more, and for him to keep you away from
here. It is hard on me, I know, but life is dear
to all of us, and the life insurance company that
I am contributing to has notified me that if I don't
quit having you around they will cancel my policy.
Now, you may say farewell, and get out of here
forever, and I will try and pull along with the cat,
and such boys as come in here to be sociable. Go
on now," and the old groceryman threw the
eggs out in the alley, and washed his whiskers at
the sink.
"Oh, I guess not,'' said the boy, as he sat down
on a tin cracker box and began to eat fig^ out
of a box. "I know something about the law my-
self, and if you drive me away, you could be ar-
rested for breach of promise, and arson, and you
would go to the penitentiary. It was all I could
do to make the police believe you didn't set this
old shebang afire to get the insurance, and my
being here has drawn more custom to your store
than the quality of your goods would warrant.
No, sir, I stay right here, and advise with you,
and keep you out of trouble. If I went home and
452
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
told dad what you said he would fall in a 6t, and
would sue you for damages for ruining my repu-
tation, if he didn't come over here with a club
and take it out of your hide. Dad can stand a
good many things, but when anybody insults one
of our family, dad gets violent, and he had rather
kill a man than eat. You read about their find-
ing the body of a man in an alley, with his head
crushed? Well, I don't want to say anything, but
it is rumored that dad was seen near that alley
the night before, and that man chased me once
for throwing snow balls at him. We move in
good society, and are looked upon as good citi-
zens, but dad's temper gets worse every year.
Can I stay around here more or less, or do I hare
to go out into the world, branded as a criminal,
because an old fool fell into a basket of his own
eggs? Say, now, answer up quick," and the bad
boy sharpened a match with a big dirk knife and
picked 6g seeds out of his teeth.
"Oh, sugar, no; you don't need to go," said the
old groceryman, as he came up to the boy, wip-
ing the soapsuds ofiF, and trying to smile. "I was
only joshing you, and, honestly, I enjoy you.
Life is a dreary burden when you are away.
Somehow I have got so my blood gets thick, and
my appetite fails, when you are away from town,
453
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
and when you play some low down trick on me,
while I seem mad at the time, it does me good,
starts the circulation, and when you go away I
seem a new man, and laugh, and feel like I had
been off on a vacation, fishing, or something. It
was a great mistake that I did not have a family
of boys to keep me mad part of the time, because
a man that never has anything to make him mad
is no good. I envy your dad in having you
arotmd constantly to keep his blood in circulation.
I suppose you are responsible for his being, at
his age, as spry as a boy. He told me when he
and you got back from Yellowstone park last
summer that the trip did him a world of good,
and that he got so he could dimb a tree — ^just
shin right up like a cat, and that you were the
bravest boy he ever saw, said that you would fight
a bear as quick as eat. Such a boy I am proud
to call my friend. What was it about your fight-
ing bears, single-handed, with no weapon but
empty tomato cans ? You ought to be in the his-
tory books. Your dad said bravery run in the
family."
"Oh, get out. Did dad tell you about that bear
story?'' said the bad boy, as he sharpened his
knife on his boot. "Well, you'd a dide right there,
if you could have seen dad. He is one of these
454
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
men that is brave sort of intermittent, like folks
have fever. Half the time he is a darn covi'ard,
but when you don't expect it, for instance when
the pancakes are burned, or the steak is raw. and
tiis dyspepsia seems to work just right, he will
flare up and sass the cook, and I don't know of
anything braver than that; but ordinarily he is
"You ought to have setH dad's sitort legs carry htm
meek as a lam. I think the stomach has a good
deal to do with a man's bravery. You take a
soldier in battle, and if he is hungry he is full of
fight, but you fill him up with baked beans and
things and he is willing to postpone a fight, and
he don't care whether there is any fight at all
or not. I think the trip through Yellowstone
455
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
park took the tar out of dad. Those geysers
throwing up hot water, apparently right out of
the hot place the preachers tell about, seemed
to set him to thinking that may be he had got
nearer h — ^1, on a railroad pass, than he had ever
expected to get. He told me, one day, when we
stood beside old Faithful geyser, and the hot wa-
ter belched up into the air a hundred feet, that all
it wanted was for the lid to be taken off, and
h — 1 would be yawning right there, and he was
going to try to lead a different life, and if he ever
got out of that park alive he should go home,
and join every church in town, and he should ad-
vise ministers to get the sinners to take a trip to
the park, if they wanted to work religion into
them. Dad would wake up in the night, at the
hotels in the park, when a geyser went off sud-
denly, and g^oan, and cross himself, as he had
seen religious people do, and tell me that in a few
days more we would be safe out of the d — ^n
place, and you would never catch him in it again,
"Well, there is one hotel where a lot of bears
come out of the woods in the evening, to eat the
garbage that is thrown out from the hotel. They
are wild bears, all right, but they have got so
tame that they come right near folks, and don't
do anything but eat garbage and growl, and fight
456
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
each other. The cook told me about it, and said
there was no danger, 'cause you could take a club
and scare them into the woods.
"We got to the hotel in the a/ternoon, and dad
went to our room to say his prayers, and take a
nap, and had his supper taken to the room, and
he was so scared at the awful surroundings in
the park that he asked a blessing on the supper,
though it was the bummest supper I ever struck.
After dark I told dad we better go out and take
a walk and inspect the scenery, "cause it was all
in the bill, and if you got a bum supper and didn't
get the scenery you were losing money on the
deal. I saw the man enipyting the garbage and
I knew the Iwars would be getting in their work
pretty soon, so I took dad and we walked away
of?, and he talked about how God had prepared
that park as a warning to sinners of what was to
come, and I knew his system was sort of run-
ning down, and I knew he needed excitement, a
shock or something to make a reaction, so I
steered him around by the garbage pile.
"Say, before he knew it we were right in the
midst of about nine bears, grizzlies, cinnamon
bears, black bears, and all of them raised up and
said, "Whoof !" and they growled, and, by gosh,
just as quick as I could run this knife into your
457
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
liver, I missed dad. He just yelled: "Hennery,
this is the limit, and here is where your poor old
dad sprints for tall timber," and he made for a
tree, and I yelled: "Hurry up, dad!" and he
said: "I ain't walking, am I?" and you ought
'f studied the bears far awhile and let dad yell for the polite,'
to have seen his short legs carry him to the tree,
and help him skin up it. I have seen squirrels
climb trees, when a dog was after them, but they
were slow compared to dad. \\Tien he got up to
a limb he yelled to me to come on up, as he wanted
45S
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
to give me a few last instructions about settling
his estate, but I told him I was going to play I
was Daniel in the lion's den. so I studied the bears
for a while and let dad yell for the police, and
then I picked up an annful of tomato cans and
make a rush for the bears, and yelled and threw
cans at them, and pretty soon every bear went
off into the woods, growhng and scrapping with
each other, and I told dad to come down and I
would save him at the risk of my life. Dad came
down as quick as he went up, and I took his arm
and led him to the hotel, and when we got to the
room he would have collapsed, only I gave him a
big drink of whiskey, and then he braced up and
said: "Hennery, when it comes to big game,
you and I are the wonders of the world. You
are brave, and I am discreet, and we make a team
hard to beat." I told dad he covered himself with
glory, but that he left most of his pants on the
tree," but he said he didn't care for a few pants
when he had a boy that was the bravest that ever
came down the pike. When we got home aUve
he didn't join the church, but he gave me a gold
, watch. Weil, I'll have to depart," and the bad
boy went out and left the old groceryman think-
ing of the hereafter.
I
459
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
CHAPTER XXX VIIL
rhe Bad Boy and the G iotei y man Illustiate tiie
Russia-Japanese War— The Bad Boy Tells
about Dad's Efforts to raise Hair by
the ''Sunshine'* Mediod.
The old groceryman had a war map spread
out on the counter, and for an hour he had stood
up in front of it, reading a morning paper, with
his thumb on Port Arthur, his fingers covering
the positions occupied by the Japanese and Rus-
sian forces in Manchuria, and his face working
worse than the face of the Czar eating a caviar
sandwich and ordering troops to the far east, at
the same time shying at dynamite bombs of nihil-
ists. There was a crash in front of the grocery
and the old man jumped behind a barrel, thinking
Port Arthur had been blown up, and the Rus-
sian fleet torpedoed.
"Hello, Matsuma, you yoimg monkey," said
the old man, as the bad boy burst the door open
and rushed in with a shovel at shoulder arms,
and came to "present arms'" in front of the old
man, who came from behind the barrel and
acknowledged the salute. "Say, now honest did
460
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
you put that chunk of ice in the stove the day
you skipped out last?"
"Sure Mike!" said the boy, as he ran the shovel
under the cat that was sleeping by the stove, and
tossed her into a barrel of dried apples. "I
wanted to demonstrate to you, old Michaelovit-
present arwu.
ski, the condition of things at Vladivostok, where
you candle-eating Russians are bottled up in the
ice, and where we Japanese are going to make
you put on your skates and get away to Siberia.
What are you doing with the map of the seat of
wari^'
461
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
"Oh, I was only trying to figure out the plan
of campaign, and find out where the Japanese
wotdd go to when they are licked," said the old
man. "This thing is worrying me. I want to see
Russia win, and I think our government ought to
send to them all the embalmed beef we had left
from the war with Spain, but if we did you
monkey Japanese would capture it, and have a
military funeral over it, and go on eating fish
and rice. When this country was in trouble, in
1864, the Russians sent a fleet of warships to New
York and notified all Europe to stand back and
look pleasant, and by the great horn spoons, I am
going to stand by Russia or bust. I would like to
be over there at Port Arthur and witness an ex-
plosion of a torpedo imder something. Egad, but
I glory in the smell of gunpowder. Now, say,
here is Port Arthur, by this barrel of dried ap-
ples, and there is Mushapata, by the ax handle
barrel, see?"
"Well, you and I are just alike,'' said the boy.
"Let's have a sham battle, right here in the gro-
cery. Get down that can of powder."
" 'Taint against the law, is it ?" said the old
man as he handed down a tin cannister of powder.
"I want cxcitonent, and valuable information,
but I don't want to unduly excite the neighbors."
462
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
"Oh, don't worry about the neighbors," said
the boy, as he poured a little powder under the
barrel of dried appUes. "Now, as you say, thi;
is Port Arthur. This chest of Oolong tea repre-
sents a Japanese cruiser outside the harbor. This
box of codfish represents a Russian fort, see? and
WhtH the Urnuorks
the Stove represents a Russian cruiser. This bar-
rel of ax handles is the Russian army, entrenched
behind the bag of coffee. Now, we put a little
powder under all of them, and lay a train
from one to the other, and now you get out
463
PECK'S BAD BOY ABkOAD
a few of those giant firecrackers you had left over
from last Fourth of July, and a Roman candle,
and we can illustrate the whole business so Alex-
ovitch and I to would take to the woods."
"No danger, is there?" said the old grocery-
man, as he brought out the fireworks, looking as
happy and interested as the bad boy did. "I want
to post myself on war in the far east, but I don't
want to do anything that would occasion re-
mark."
"Oh, remark nothing," said the boy, as he fixed
a firecracker under a barrel of rice, another im-
der a tin can of soda crackers, and got the Roman
candle ready to touch oflF at the stove. "It will
not make any more fuss than taking a flash-light
photograph. Just a piff-s-s-sis — ^boom — and
there you are, full of information."
"Well, let-er-go-Gallagher," said the old man,
sort of reckless like, as he got behind the cheese
box. "Gol darn the expense, when you want to
illustrate your ideas of war."
The boy lit the Roman candle, got behind a
barrel of potatoes and turned the spluttering
Roman candle on the giant firecracker under the
stove, and when he saw the fuse of the firecracker
was lighted, he turned the torch on the powder
under the barrel of dried apples, and in a second
464
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
everything went kiting; the barrel of dried apples
with the cat in it went up to the ceiling, the stove
was blown over the counter, the cheese box and
the old grocerj-man went with a crash to the back
end of the store, the front windows blew out on
the sidewalk, the store was full of smoke, the old
man rushed out the back door with his whiskers
singed and yelled "Fire!" while the bad boy fell
out the front door with his eye winkers gone,
and his hair singed, the cat got out with no hair
to brag on, and before they could breathe twice
the fire department came clattering up to a hy-
drant and soon turned the hose inside the gro-
cery. There was not very much fire, and after
tipping over every barrel and box that had not
been blown skyhigh the firemen gave one last
look at the inside of the grocery, one last squirt
at the burned and singed cat, that had crawled
into a bag of cinnamon on the top shelf, and they
went away, leaving the doors and windows open;
the crowd dispersed, and the bad boy went in the
front door; peered around under the counter,
pulled the cork out of a bottle of olive oil and be-
gan to anoint himself where he had been scorched.
Hearing a shuffling of arctic overshoes filled with
water, in the back shed, and a still small voice,
saying, "Well, I'll be condemned," he looked up
465
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
and saw the red face of the old groceryman pcA-
ing in the back door.
"Come in, Alexandroviski, and rub some of
this sweet oil on yom* comitenance, and put some
kerosene on your head, where the hair was. Gee !
but you are a sight ! Don't you go out anywhere
and let a horse see you, or he will run away.*'
"Have all the forts and war ships come down
yet?*' said the old man, looking up tO¥^ard the
ceiling, holding up his elbow to ward oflF any pos-
sible descending barrel or stove Ud. "I now real-
ize the truth of Gen. Sherman's remark that war
is hell. Gosh! how it smarts where the skin k
burnt off. Give me scmie of that salad oil," and
the old man sopped the oil on his face and head.
and the boy rubbed his lips and ears, and they
looked at each other and tried to smile two
cracked, and wrinkled and scorched smiles, across
the counter at each other. "Now, you Uttle Jap-
anese monkey, I hope you are satisfied, after ygu
have wrecked my store, and fitted me fer the
hospital, and I want you to get out of here, and
never come back. By ginger, I know when I
have got enough war. They can settle that af-
fair at Mukden, or Holoyahoo, or any old place.
I wash my hands of the whole business. Git, you
Spitz. What did you potir so much powder
466
PECKS BAD BOY ABROAD
around the floor for? AU I wanted was a little
innocent illustration of the horrors of war, not
an explosion."
"That's what I wanted, too," said the boy, as
he looked up on the top shelf at the cat, that was
licking herself where the hair used to be. "How
did I know that powder would burn so quick ? Say,
you are unreasonable. Do you think I will go
off and leave you to die here under the counter
of bloodpoisoning, like a dog that has eaten a
loaded sausage ? Never ! I am going to nurse you
through this thing, and bring you out as good
as new. I know how you feel towards me. Dad
felt the same way towards me, down in Florida,
the time he got skuii. You old people don't seem
to appreciate a boy that tries to teach you useful
noUig."
"What about your dad getting skun in Flor-
ida? I never heard about it," said the old gro-
ceryman, as he took a hand mirror and looked
at his burned face.
"Why, that was when we first got down there,"
said the boy, looking at the old man and laugh-
ing. "Gee! but you would make a boy laugh if
his lips were chapped. You look like a greased
pig at a barbecue. Well, when we struck Florida,
and dad got so he could assimilate high balls, and
467
PECK^ BAD BOY ABROAD
eat oranges off the trees, like a giraf, he sakl he
wanted to go fishiog^ and get tanned tq>, so we
hired a boat and I rowed while dad fidied. I ast
him why he didn't try that new prescriptiao to
raise hair on his bald head that I read of in a
magazine, to go bareheaded in the son. He ast
me if anybody ever raised any hair on a bald head
that way, and I tc^ him about Mr. Rodcefdlcr,
who had only cme hair cm his head, and he i^yed
golf bareheaded and in two weeks had to have
his hair cut with a lawn mower, 'cause it made
his brain ache. Dad said if Rodcefdler cookl
raise hair by the sunshine method he could, and
he threw his straw hat overboard, and b^an to
fish in the sun for fish and hair. Well, jroa'd a
dide to see dad's head after the blisters began
to raise. First, he thought the blisters was hair,
btit when we got back to the hotel and he kxrfced
in a glass, he see it wasn't hair worth a cent His
head and face looked like one of these hippc^xsta-
muses, and dad was mad. If I could have got
dad in a side show I could have made a barrel of
money, but he won't never make a show of his-
self, not even to make money, he is so proud.
There is more proud flesh on dad than there is
on any man I ever nursed. Well, dad ast me what
was good for blisters, and I told him lime juice
468
PECK'S BAD BOY ABROAD
was the best thing, so he sent me to get some
limes. They are a little sour thing, like a, lemon,
and I told him to cut one in two and soak the
juice on his head and face, and I went to supper,
'cause dad looked so disreputable he wouldn't go
to the dining room. When I bought the limes the
man gave me a green persimmon, and of course
dad got the persimmon instead of the lime, and
when I came back to our room after supper dad
was in bed, yelling for a doctor. Say, you know
how a persimmon puckers your mouth up when
you eat it? Well, dad had just sopped himself
with persimmon juice, and his head was puckered
up like the hide of an elephant, and his face and
cheeks were drawn aroimd sideways, and
wrinkled so I was scart. I gave him a mirror to
look at hisself , and when he got one look he said :
'Hennery, it is all over with your dad, you might
just as well call in a lawyer to take my measure
for a will, and an undertaker to fill me with stuff
so I will keep till they get me home by express,
with handles on. What was that you called that
fruit I sopped my head with?' and he groaned
like he was at a revival. Well, I told him he had
used the persimmon instead of the lime juice I
told him to, and that I would cure him, so I got
a cake of dog soap and Ia\mdered dad, and put
470
PECICS BAD BOY ABROAD
on stuflF to take the swelling out, and the next
day he began to notice things, it would have been
all right only a chambermaid told somebody the
mean old man with the pretty boy in 471 had the
smallpox, and that settled it. You know in a hotel
they are offal sensitive about smallpox, 'cause all
the boarders will leave if a man has a pimple on
hisself, so they made dad and I go into quaran-
tine in a hen house for a week, and dad said it
was all my fault trying to get him to raise hair
like Rockefeller. Well, I must go home and ex-
plain to ma how I lost my hair and eye-winkers.
If I was in your place I would take a little tar and
put it on where your hair was before the explo-
sion," and the bad boy went out, leaving the old
groceryman drawing some tar out of the barrel,
on to a piece of brown paper, and dabbling it on
his head with his finger.
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Stanford, California
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