THE IRISH KING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 15003, 25 May 1909, Page 5

THE IRISH KING.

(By LINDSAY DENISON.)

“ Hen-ry!” The grey side-whiskered person who had been leaning back, with his eyes half shut, in a corner of the smoking compartment, sat up with a start. The summons was repeated just outside the swaying curtain. •‘Hen-ry!” “Yes dear.” He. took a regretful look at his cigar, and cast it under the wash-basins. Before he reached the doer, though, he was called again. i “ He-eu—ry,” she said—and her voice was increasingly acid —“ you have been in there indulging your selfishness long enough I I want you to come out and sit with me—for a while, any way.” The curtain flapped and Henry was gone. But we did not look at each other right away. When I raised my eyes, the other man was grinning broadly. He shook his head. “Poor Henry!” he chuckled. “Poor Henry!” His voice was, rich with Irish cadence. “It’s one of the saddest sights in a long life of experience in. all manner of countries and among’ all sorts of strange -peoples, this that we’ve just seen. If I\ weren’t laughing, I’d be crying. Oh dear, oh dear! Poor Henry!” He moved over to the seat- beside me and settled back into comfort. “It all comes,” he continued, “of bringing them up the wrong way. As for me, not to he after boasting of it, l have no such trouble with women at all, at all. Whenever the affairs of life bring it about that it beoomea me pleasure and me duty to have business or sentimental dealings with the weaker sex there’s the utmost harmony prevailing. Clarence Riley • puts the motion to the meeting; the lady seconds it. Clarence Riley counts the vote; the lady verifies the count. Clarence Riley declares it passed; and the lady extends thanks for being allowed to come in. No debate, no argument, except for a few explanatory or oratorical remarks by Mr Riley. You get the idea. Authority. Never let them lose sight of it. Keep it ever before them. If they have an idea, let them find out what you think of it before they mention it. “ ’Tis the same way with a.uinials ami the other alien races. How is it. that a mere mite of a man like meself can walk up to air elephant as big an this Pullman and handle him like I was a four-year-old kid and he was a St Bernard dog? Authority! Never let him find out his own strength. Never let him find out bis own mind. Keep him bluffed. That’s the. idea. Make him do what you want him to do before he’s waked up to any idea that he wants to be doing something on Iris own account. “ ’Tis the place of woman in the world, after me own way of thinking, to make man comfortable; she’s got no business ' to be knowing that, there is such a thing as being comfortable herself. Now what would I have been after doing if I was Henry .and that was me wife? Just this. Before the first half of me name was off her lips, I’d ’a’ been out there in the aisle of the car with her neck tenderly but firmly in the grasp of me left hand and with me right forefinger rigidly though gently planted between her shoulder blades. And when I got her to the section, she would be set down, (not too hard). “‘My dear,’ I’d say to her, ‘you must be" nervous. You forget yourself. Be calm,’ I’d say to her, ‘ be calm, and remember that when your presence is required outside the smoking-room door I’ll send the nayger porter for you.’— That’s the way to handle them.” “Are you a married man?” I asked. He seemed embarassed. I explained that I didn’t mean to be personal, but that really he had piqued my curiosity. “ Oh, it’s not that at all,” he pretested. “ It’s only that I don’t altogether know how to answer the question, not knowing your religious, social, and anthropological beliefs, if you will allow me to use the word. - Am I married ? According to me own feelings and finer senses, yes, I am. You sev, it’s like this: the lady is a Filipino, and I bought her from her mother for fifty pesos. She is no ordinary Filipino person, understand. She was the daughter of a Spanish general and her mother came of one of the finest of the native aristocracy—l’m thinking her brother was once commandante at Cavite. The widor had gone broke since Dewey’s doings, and she needed the money. Tall for a Filipino, me lady is, and slim and most distinguished in her behaviour. And her devotion and love for me is eo pathetic I hato to speak of it,. She’s a good girl, too. 1 was offered a hundred pesos for her when I left the islands—you seo I had taught her to bake American bread and enhanced her commercial value by that much. But I didn’t sell. I took her back to her mother to keep until I go ; out again, as I Bill be aftor doing right away. For she’s a. good girl, and j all the wife I ever want. There’s no ; ‘ Henry ’ business about Bridget. Suro, : that’s her name. I named her that to j make the house more home-like. She’d ; jump out of the. window before she’d be coming down, hero barking like a terrier at the smoking-room door. No nonsense at all, and never u-as. Never knew how to start being nonsensical, and so didn’t have to be cured. ; “And as 1 was saying, it’s the same u'ay with tho other alien races. Perhaps you know me name by me business? No? ’Tis-no matter—’tis well known in tho show business. I’m commonly known ms Captain Riley, and I mako mo living bringing wild and barbarous savages from their poor but lionest homes into thojand of the free and tho bravo. ’Tis educating to the intelligent American masses, but it is demoralising to the savages. You mind the Java Village at Buffalo? And the African Kraal at Chicago? And the Filipino Village at St Louis? Aline, all of ’em. Were you in. St Louis when Miguel Bent Jiuromuntado —that is to say, what you would call musth in an elephant or running amuck in a Malay? No? Well, he did? Ho Bent huromuntado good and plenty. They had him locked up in a room and they sent for me. There was all kinds of advice to me about . not going in there. He was the cook,

and he had a knife as long as me arm. They B’ere for shooting him through the door. I would have none of it. He was the only real good cook I had. I just took a, piece of. a soap box and went in and argued with him, with a few side remarks, on the B-ickedness of letting the sun go doivn on his wrath. And before the board was split, he ivas doB-n with his head on me shoes promising to be good arid confessing that I was the only real benevolent philanthropist ho ever met. “’Tis always that way. I could tell you a thousand cases. Only I’m that glad to be getting home that I can’t think of anything except me poor old mother who sent for me. Me mother is the grandest, which ever u’as., I tell you what I think of her. I’m here on this train to-day because I get a cable from her saying—but you can read it for yourself.” Ho drew' out a worn wallet and from it extracted a. cable form on B-hich was written, in the world-wide looped script of tile telegraph receiver : “Riley, Oriente, Manila.—Come home quick or a« soon as can or sooner.—Mrs N. Riley.” “You see,” he explained, “the old lady is the best that ever u-as, but it ain’t a telegram if it ain’t got ten words. Otherwise she’s cheated. And it’s more than your life is worth, nor any man’s, to try to explain that she’s paying so much for every word of a cable, including the address and signature, and that ten words has nothing to do with it. “ That’s all I know about why I am here. The mother, she says ‘Como on home,’ and I come. That’s all, for Riley. The first time I went out to heathen parts I went looking for me fortune. I didn’t know what me fortune was to be. But I’d heard that there was gold in South Africa—and Clarence Riley for tho gold! And I no more than gets to Delagoa Bay on the road to Johannesburg but I gets one of these messages from the mother. ‘ Come back at once,’ it was. And worried for fear she was dead or something, back I'come on the same boat. For I had plenty of transportation money. Why, man, man, me father was on the New York po-lice; he had the Elizabeth Street station for- ten. years running, before Reform set in. I come home from Delagoa Bay. And me poor old mother she. tells me that she heard tell of a man down to Coney Island B-ho said there was forty thousand dollars ifi it if only, ho knew somebody nho had the nerve to go out to South Africa and bring a Dahomey Vjllafge to tho Chicago Mkhvay. 1 goes. back and gets the Dahomeys and J makes forty-one thousand, two hundred and ten dollars and fifteen cents, net. From that time on, Clarence takes mother’s advice. You get that? “ So this time, once more, mo poor old mother sho tells me to oome home and I oome back. What are you laughing at? Inconsistency? And what’s that? With me theories as to the subjugation of woman? -04 i I’m -getting your meaning. Well, in-the first place, she’s me parent • and parents, being necessarily born before yourself, is entitled to a few delusions and prejudices. And besides, a man’s got a right to agree with his mother if he can’t agree with ho one else. “Speaking of alien races, was I telling you of the. trip we made in the Shawmut, coming over the time before the last? No? ’Twas the time I B-as bringing the Filipinos to St Louis. “ There u-as me fifty-six Filipinos. There was Doc Hunt and his forty Igorrotes headed for Fred Thompson and Luna PJrk. There was two hundred Chinks trying to "get away from home. There -was a hundred and three Japanese looking for wbat looked good to them.. There was forty missionaries. So Hunt, Mac Allister and myself was the only white men on the ship outside of the officers and the crew. Mac Allister was me partner. “There was a number of most agreeable white women, outside of tho missionary people. Then it came on to be St Patrick’s Day. Whether you’ve noticed it or not, I don’t know; but I’m free to confess: I’m Irish. And by what you might call a coincidence some of tho most important events of me life have happened on St Patrick’s Day, or more or less subsequent thereto.

“ Nob’, bear in mind, I’ve never had kindly feelings touardg the Japanese, anyhow. Not since I was coming off from Yokohama me first trip out and, because the friend that was with me had some difference with a ’rickshaw man about a matter of three cento, and because I attempted to fix matters, and because a Japanese po-lieeinan butted in and put bis hands on me, and because I resented this insolent action and threw him into the harbour—because of such trifling little things as that thev wouldn’t let the ship sail until they’d gone all over it looking for me and me friend. They didn’t find ns. But I’ve thought but little of them from that day to this. “ And this trip that I’m telling you of, it B-as worse. For I had me fiftysix Filipinos on me hands, and eighteen of them women. And they are better-looking than the Japanese women and pleasanter spoken. And from the day the first Japanese man oome aboard I was busier than the principal of a young ladies’ boarding school. Couldn’t I see the whole eighteen of them Filipino, women deserting me in Seattle and marrying Japanese? So long ns we were in Japanese waters I had to rive meself such small satisfaction as would come from pulling the Jape about the deck by the scruff of their yellow necks. For to hit one of them was a. gaol offence. But every time I didn’t hit thorn, I’d say to me-

self: ‘ Never mind, there’s a good day coming 1’ “There was. It was St Patrick’s Day—St Patrick’s Day in the evening. There had been some little joking about the ship about me pride in being Irish. And I had announced that all that wanted wine with their dinner on St Patrick’s Day should have it as evidence of Captain Riley’s patriotism. And we did. And the ladies, they took a bit of green mosquito netting and some pasteboard and made the loveliest green crown you ever did see. And Doc Hunt, he had one of them green silk padded kimonos made like a bed-quilt. And they rigged up. a. broomstick with au artichoke on the end and that was me royal sceptre. And they crowned me the Irish King and they invested me in. me Toyal robes, and the pianola played ‘The Wearing of the Green ’ when I entered, and took me seat—the captain giving up the head of the table to me for the night. “ It come along to be half-past three o’clock the next morning. There was four of us left. There was me, the Irish King, and Mac, and the purser, and a young man that I .had thought all the way over was one of the missionaries, only he turned out to be a Standard Oil agent. So great was me joy over the discovery of this one thorn among the roses that I was for transferring me crown and sceptre and robes to him. But he wouldn’t have it. “Then somebody (how I don.t know, happened to 'mention the imperial Japanese nation. And it flashed over me that there was one hundred and throe of tire divvies living in the ’midships hold, which had been fitted up special for them with tiers of bunks five high. Up rose the Irish King in royal state and declared war against Japan. The purser, he said that it wouldn’t do for an officer of the ship to mix in this and he faded away. The Standard Oil man he was willing, but cautious, as was but natural from his training. “ We made a most strategic approach to the.hatch of the Japanese hold. But strategy was not needful. We might just as well have gone with a full brass band. For fifteen of the immoral Asiatic reprobates was sitting up playing some sinful gambling game. At that hour of the morning, too! “ I went down th© ladder and Mac followed. Standard' Oil, he stands up above and guards the hatch. I took a. chair to pieces and gave one of the legs to Mac and told him to see to it that no reinforcements came out of the bunks. Then I delivered a brief address giving my views of the past, present, and future of the Japanese race. Meantime they were making shift to go on with tlieir gambling and to make a noise like unconcerned persons. “ I fell inx>n them. I kicked the table over. I throw them all and severally on what was left of the table. Every time one of their ugly mugs emerged from the horrid struggling mass, I took a crack at it with me fist. Me royal robes got somewhat worse for wear, and the green crown spread ancl came down over me ears. But Ireland did its duty. And all the time Mac was dancing around the hold begging and beeeeciung <some of them to come down and give him a. chance. It's wonderful how sound the little yellow man can sleep when somebody is out after him with the leg of a good stout chair. They were meek as so many sheep. Give mo the two plantoos from the old Elizabeth Street station as mo father used to lead them dowu Fifth Avenue the day of the police parade—an' I’d guarantee to lick the whole Japanese nation. G’wan! There's nothing into it! “But I was tolling you. T stopped for breath, and the gamblers untangled themselves and took it on the run, each one for his own. bunk, like a lot of cockroaches when you turn on tho light sudden in the kitchen. “‘ And is t-liat all?’ says Mac, kind of sad like. ‘ Don’t I get any of this?’ “I settled me royal robes and readjusted the crown and wiped the sweat from me royal brow and I thought. And a truly regal inspiration cams to me. “‘No, Mac,' says I, ‘'tin not all. For there is. a hundred and three of them in here and only a pitiful minority have been educated up to a sinse of their inferiority. So I tell you,’ I Rays, 1 what to do, We will divide the hold in half and you go to the right and I’ll go to the left end we’ll take thorn out of their bunks and give them a hit of individual instruction. And when we meet we can shake hands, knowing that our duty has been honestly done.’ “ And we did. Mac takes the right and I. takes the'left. One by one we takes them out of their hunks, mops ’em around a little on the floor, gives them a couple of wallops over the jaw, and puts ’em back where they belongs. Of courso there was a few that had been iri -the gambling gang which had got theirs already. But we didn’t discriminate againt't ’em on that account.

And when Mac and me, meeting on the other side, shook hands, his face wan as happy as a child’s at the circus. “ ‘ Oh, Clarence,ho says, through Ilia smiles, ‘wasn’t it lovely 1’ He gets thoughtful, then, and says: ‘Don’t you think we ought to do something for these fellows r he saye.

I didn’t rightly get his meaning and I thought his conscience was troubling him because iio hadn’t done his whole duty by his side of the hold. I lost me temper at that and started right in and did that side over again, hut giving them only one wallop apiece. For T was tired. I wasn’t noticing the while that Mac had gone out. “'When I was through with this return visit, I looked around and found I was alone except for a few faces of the crew and coal-passers peering oyer the edges of the hatch and murmuring encouragement in large, coarse tones. Standard. Oil was restraining of their desires but not of their joy. I starts up the ladder looking for Mac, fearing he might have got on deck and got himself into mischief, and I bumps into a steward coming down with a case of beer, twenty-four bottles, which Mac had gone and ordered for the vanquished. I went. down. Tile steward went down. The twenty-four bottles went down amongst us and every last one of them broke. So I went up on deck and sent down another case ; and Mac, not knowing I was doing this, he sent down another case—and Standard Oil he—oh, well, between the three of us wo bought a good many and the party lasted until ton o’clock the next morning, when the Captain sent word down to stop, inasmuch as the missionaries were making serious complaint that the continuous shouts of ‘Banzai, Saint Patlick!’ was getting on their nerves. “ Resentful P Not at all. They was pleasant as pleasant could be, smiling all directions at once—excepting also the direction of mo Filipino ladies. Why, one of the girLs had a keepsake one of the Japs had give her and 1 sent her to give it hack to liim; she had to chase him all over the deck and finally, when she cornered him, ho had to be held to keep him from jumping overboard. . “ Once more, I’m telling you, ’tis the only way to deal with women and the alien races. Convince them of your authority and never let them take the lead in anything and tolerate no independence from them. ’Tis the only way.” • The train had plunged into the hew York tunnel and we went back to get our traps togethor. As we parted he said: “ I’m expecting me poor old mother to meet me when we get in. Keep sight of me when we land and take a look at the old lady. Of course, she’s only a woman and has all the weaknesses of the tribe. But she’s the best of them all.” \ . As we alighted, the side-whiskered Henry person was just ahead of us, convoyed by a large, robust woman with a hat almost ao tall as it was broad. “Man, man!” said the Irish King. “’Tis pitiful!” The wonderful plaintive note of the Celtic wanderer, everywhere in the world, crept into his voice.,

I knew his heart was full of the dear old lady who was waiting for him. “ I’ve strayed far and into strange places, me friend. I’ve known ’em all, known ’em all. But it's taught mo one thing: the test- of a man. And that is his mastery of woman and the other alien races. Look at Henry and his wife. His mere existence is a confession of weakness. If a man can’t control animals, he’s to bo pitied but not despised. If ho cannot boss the brown and the black and the yellow man when he meets them, ! tis a disgrace. But the man who will take orders and insults from a. woman—he is beneath contempt. So much me travels have taught me.” Hjs face flushed with joy and he left me, running toward the station gateway. “Ay, ay, there she is!” ho cried

In the cleared space, between the rows of wa’iting men and women, she stood, squarely in the middle. She was a bit of a woman, with sharp features like the old witch pictures, and an eye flashing yellow fire. She wore a tiny black bonnet and a shawl, and in her hand was a bunchy green umbrella. So much I had time to see before he reached her. He slid his hags away from him along the concrete floor and opened liis arms. She threw out her hand, palm outward, to warn him off. “•Why. mother,” he gasped, “ what’s wrong with you?” . - The bunchy green umbrella swung in a mighty arc. It landed squarely on his ear with a crack that made everybody on the big concourse turn and look. And again. “ You dir-r-r-rty boy,” she shrilled, “ dir-r-r-rty boy. Marrying a nayger woman! (Whack ! Bang!) A nayger woman 1”

He turned as though to flee, but she caught liis arm. “No.” she cried. “Yon will not run. You will listen while I tell ye me mind. Never mind the people! Never mind them 1 I'm talking to you as is a mother’s right. (Bang ! Whack !) Now isn’t it the truth? Have ye married a nayger woman or have ye not? (Whack!)' Don’t lie to me, for Susie Mac Allister she showed me the letter her brother wrote her, telling the whole thing 1 (Whack! Whack 1 Bang 1) I ’most died of shame.”

She pushed his arm away and made for tho gate. “'Where is the hu6sy?” she asked. " Let mo see this woman that thinks she’s good enough to be Norah Riley’s daughter! Whore is she?” The old

lady turned back to the disheveled and crestfallen Irish King. “ Where is she? Hiding back there on the' train, afraid to face me? You left her in the Islands?” . < . The umbrella swung until it made a green halo about his head , arid 'shoulders. “Shame on you ! And _moro shame! Leaving your wife in''. a heathen country! Deserting her liko a brute I And now the neighbours will be saying' you ' were ashamed to .bring her home!” , • ' . ; 1 He spoke to her rapidly, beseechingly. i V ■ ' h >, .s “No, I will not ‘ be' quiet!”'shei screamed. “ No, I will not go home! Yes, I will, too I Arid I will pack- up arid we’ll take the next train pack, to them heathen islands where that pour trusting woman is waiting for ye. 'Have they priests out there? White ones? They have, eh? I’ve heard of these heathen, jump-over-a-stick weddings. They’ve never had one in the. KUey family, hear me? I’ll be seeing a priest, and if her lines ain’t good 'and regular out there or here or anywhere else, they’ll be made so. Andwhen you’ve finished your business," we’ll bring her home, and if the neighbours don’t treat' her like the foreign princess that she is, it will be Norah Riley that will be after knowing why.” Her voice broke and softened. .

“ Ah, Clarence boy,” she 6obbed, “Clarence boy, I fear you’ve been too far and too long away from the old mother that loves ye.” I went away. . !