THE PURSUIT OF THE HOUSE-BOAT

by John Kendrick Bangs




CHAPTER I:  THE ASSOCIATED SHADES TAKE ACTION



The House-boat of the Associated Shades, formerly located upon the
River Styx, as the reader may possibly remember, had been torn from
its moorings and navigated out into unknown seas by that vengeful
pirate Captain Kidd, aided and abetted by some of the most ruffianly
inhabitants of Hades.  Like a thief in the night had they come, and
for no better reason than that the Captain had been unanimously voted
a shade too shady to associate with self-respecting spirits had they
made off with the happy floating club-house of their betters; and
worst of all, with them, by force of circumstances over which they
had no control, had sailed also the fair Queen Elizabeth, the
spirited Xanthippe, and every other strong-minded and beautiful woman
of Erebean society, whereby the men thereof were rendered desolate.

"I can't stand it!" cried Raleigh, desperately, as with his
accustomed grace he presided over a special meeting of the club,
called on the bank of the inky Stygian stream, at the point where the
missing boat had been moored.  "Think of it, gentlemen, Elizabeth of
England, Calpurnia of Rome, Ophelia of Denmark, and every precious
jewel in our social diadem gone, vanished completely; and with whom?
Kidd, of all men in the universe!  Kidd, the pirate, the ruffian--"

"Don't take on so, my dear Sir Walter," said Socrates, cheerfully.
"What's the use of going into hysterics?  You are not a woman, and
should eschew that luxury.  Xanthippe is with them, and I'll warrant
you that when that cherished spouse of mine has recovered from the
effects of the sea, say the third day out, Kidd and his crew will be
walking the plank, and voluntarily at that."

"But the House-boat itself," murmured Noah, sadly.  "That was my
delight.  It reminded me in some respects of the Ark."

"The law of compensation enters in there, my dear Commodore,"
retorted Socrates.  "For me, with Xanthippe abroad I do not need a
club to go to; I can stay at home and take my hemlock in peace and
straight.  Xanthippe always compelled me to dilute it at the rate of
one quart of water to the finger."

"Well, we didn't all marry Xanthippe," put in Caesar firmly,
"therefore we are not all satisfied with the situation.  I, for one,
quite agree with Sir Walter that something must be done, and quickly.
Are we to sit here and do nothing, allowing that fiend to kidnap our
wives with impunity?"

"Not at all," interposed Bonaparte.  "The time for action has
arrived.  All things considered, he is welcome to Marie Louise, but
the idea of Josephine going off on a cruise of that kind breaks my
heart."

"No question about it," observed Dr. Johnson.  "We've got to do
something if it is only for the sake of appearances.  The question
really is, what shall be done first?"

"I am in favor of taking a drink as the first step, and considering
the matter of further action afterwards," suggested Shakespeare, and
it was this suggestion that made the members unanimous upon the
necessity for immediate action, for when the assembled spirits called
for their various favorite beverages it was found that there were
none to be had, it being Sunday, and all the establishments wherein
liquid refreshments were licensed to be sold being closed--for at the
time of writing the local government of Hades was in the hands of the
reform party.

"What!" cried Socrates.  "Nothing but Styx water and vitriol,
Sundays?  Then the House-boat must be recovered whether Xanthippe
comes with it or not.  Sir Walter, I am for immediate action, after
all.  This ruffian should be captured at once and made an example
of."

"Excuse me, Socrates," put in Lindley Murray, "but, ah--pray speak in
Greek hereafter, will you, please?  When you attempt English you have
a beastly way of working up to climatic prepositions which are
offensive to the ear of a purist."

"This is no time to discuss style, Murray," interposed Sir Walter.
"Socrates may speak and spell like Chaucer if he pleases; he may even
part his infinitives in the middle, for all I care.  We have affairs
of greater moment in hand."

"We must ransack the earth," cried Socrates, "until we find that
boat.  I'm dry as a fish."

"There he goes again!" growled Murray.  "Dry as a fish!  What fish,
I'd like to know, is dry?"

"Red herrings," retorted Socrates; and there was a great laugh at the
expense of the purist, in which even Hamlet, who had grown more and
more melancholy and morbid since the abduction of Ophelia, joined.

"Then it is settled," said Raleigh; "something must be done.  And now
the point is, what?"

"Relief expeditions have a way of finding things," suggested Dr.
Livingstone.  "Or rather of being found by the things they go out to
relieve.  I propose that we send out a number of them.  I will take
Africa; Bonaparte can lead an expedition into Europe; General
Washington may have North America; and--"

"I beg pardon," put in Dr. Johnson,  "but have you any idea, Dr.
Livingstone, that Captain Kidd has put wheels on this House-boat of
ours, and is having it dragged across the Sahara by mules or camels?"

"No such absurd idea ever entered my head," retorted the Doctor.

"Do you, then, believe that he has put runners on it, and is engaged
in the pleasurable pastime of taking the ladies tobogganing down the
Alps?" persisted the philosopher.

"Not at all.  Why do you ask?" queried the African explorer,
irritably.

"Because I wish to know," said Johnson.  "That is always my motive in
asking questions.  You propose to go looking for a house-boat in
Central Africa; you suggest that Bonaparte lead an expedition in
search of it through Europe--all of which strikes me as nonsense.
This search is the work of sea-dogs, not of landlubbers.  You might
as well ask Confucius to look for it in the heart of China.  What
earthly use there is in ransacking the earth I fail to see.  What we
need is a navel expedition to scour the sea, unless it is pretty well
understood in advance that we believe Kidd has hauled the boat out of
the water, and is now using it for a roller-skating rink or a bicycle
academy in Ohio, or for some other purpose for which neither he nor
it was designed."

"Dr. Johnson's point is well taken," said a stranger who had been
sitting upon the string-piece of the pier, quietly, but with very
evident interest, listening to the discussion.  He was a tall and
excessively slender shade, "like a spirt of steam out of a teapot,"
as Johnson put it afterwards, so slight he seemed.  "I have not the
honor of being a member of this association," the stranger continued,
"but, like all well-ordered shades, I aspire to the distinction, and
I hold myself and my talents at the disposal of this club.  I fancy
it will not take us long to establish our initial point, which is
that the gross person who has so foully appropriated your property to
his own base uses does not contemplate removing it from its keel and
placing it somewhere inland.  All the evidence in hand points to a
radically different conclusion, which is my sole reason for doubting
the value of that conclusion.  Captain Kidd is a seafarer by
instinct, not a landsman.  The House-boat is not a house, but a boat;
therefore the place to look for it is not, as Dr. Johnson so well
says, in the Sahara Desert, or on the Alps, or in the State of Ohio,
but upon the high sea, or upon the waterfront of some one of the
world's great cities."

"And what, then, would be your plan?" asked Sir Walter, impressed by
the stranger's manner as well as by the very manifest reason in all
that he had said.

"The chartering of a suitable vessel, fully armed and equipped for
the purpose of pursuit.  Ascertain whither the House-boat has sailed,
for what port, and start at once.  Have you a model of the House-boat
within reach?" returned the stranger.

"I think not; we have the architect's plans, however," said the
chairman.

"We had, Mr. Chairman," said Demosthenes, who was secretary of the
House Committee, rising, "but they are gone with the House-boat
itself.  They were kept in the safe in the hold."

A look of annoyance came into the face of the stranger.

"That's too bad," he said.  "It was a most important part of my plan
that we should know about how fast the House-boat was."

"Humph!" ejaculated Socrates, with ill-concealed sarcasm.  "If you'll
take Xanthippe's word for it, the House-boat was the fastest yacht
afloat."

"I refer to the matter of speed in sailing," returned the stranger,
quietly.  "The question of its ethical speed has nothing to do with
it."

"The designer of the craft is here," said Sir Walter, fixing his eyes
upon Sir Christopher Wren.  "It is possible that he may be of
assistance in settling that point."

"What has all this got to do with the question, anyhow, Mr.
Chairman?" asked Solomon, rising impatiently and addressing Sir
Walter.  "We aren't preparing for a yacht-race, that I know of.
Nobody's after a cup, or a championship of any kind.  What we do want
is to get our wives back.  The Captain hasn't taken more than half of
mine along with him, but I am interested none the less.  The Queen of
Sheba is on board, and I am somewhat interested in her fate.  So I
ask you what earthly or unearthly use there is in discussing this
question of speed in the House-boat.  It strikes me as a woful waste
of time, and rather unprecedented too, that we should suspend all
rules and listen to the talk of an entire stranger."

"I do not venture to doubt the wisdom of Solomon," said Johnson,
dryly, "but I must say that the gentleman's remarks rather interest
me."

"Of course they do," ejaculated Solomon.  "He agreed with you.  That
ought to make him interesting to everybody.  Freaks usually are."

"That is not the reason at all," retorted Dr. Johnson.  "Cold water
agrees with me, but it doesn't interest me.  What I do think,
however, is that our unknown friend seems to have a grasp on the
situation by which we are confronted, and he's going at the matter in
hand in a very comprehensive fashion.  I move, therefore, that
Solomon be laid on the table, and that the privileges of the--ah--of
the wharf be extended indefinitely to our friend on the string-
piece."

The motion, having been seconded, was duly carried, and the stranger
resumed.

"I will explain for the benefit of his Majesty King Solomon, whose
wisdom I have always admired, and whose endurance as the husband of
three hundred wives has filled me with wonder," he said, "that before
starting in pursuit of the stolen vessel we must select a craft of
some sort for the purpose, and that in selecting the pursuer it is
quite essential that we should choose a vessel of greater speed than
the one we desire to overtake.  It would hardly be proper, I think,
if the House-boat can sail four knots an hour to attempt to overhaul
her with a launch, or other nautical craft, with a maximum speed of
two knots an hour."

"Hear! hear!" ejaculated Caesar.

"That is my reason, your Majesty, for inquiring as to the speed of
your late club-house," said the stranger, bowing courteously to
Solomon.  "Now, if Sir Christopher Wren can give me her measurements,
we can very soon determine at about what rate she is leaving us
behind under favorable circumstances."

"'Tisn't necessary for Sir Christopher to do anything of the sort,"
said Noah, rising and manifesting somewhat more heat than the
occasion seemed to require.  "As long as we are discussing the
question I will take the liberty of stating what I have never
mentioned before, that the designer of the House-boat merely
appropriated the lines of the Ark.  Shem, Ham, and Japhet will bear
testimony to the truth of that statement."

"There can be no quarrel on that score, Mr. Chairman," assented Sir
Christopher, with cutting frigidity.  "I am perfectly willing to
admit that practically the two vessels were built on the same lines,
but with modifications which would enable my boat to sail twenty
miles to windward and back in six days' less time than it would have
taken the Ark to cover the same distance, and it could have taken all
the wash of the excursion steamers into the bargain."

"Bosh!" ejaculated Noah, angrily.  "Strip your old tub down to a
flying balloon-jib and a marline-spike, and ballast the Ark with
elephants until every inch of her reeked with ivory and peanuts, and
she'd outfoot you on every leg, in a cyclone or a zephyr.  Give me
the Ark and a breeze, and your House-boat wouldn't be within hailing
distance of her five minutes after the start if she had 40,000 square
yards of canvas spread before a gale."

"This discussion is waxing very unprofitable," observed Confucius.
"If these gentlemen cannot be made to confine themselves to the
subject that is agitating this body, I move we call in the
authorities and have them confined in the bottomless pit."

"I did not precipitate the quarrel," said Noah.  "I was merely trying
to assist our friend on the string-piece.  I was going to say that as
the Ark was probably a hundred times faster than Sir Christopher
Wren's--tub, which he himself says can take care of all the wash of
the excursion boats, thereby becoming on his own admission a wash-
tub--"

"Order! order!" cried Sir Christopher.

"I was going to say that this wash-tub could be overhauled by a
launch or any other craft with a speed of thirty knots a mouth,"
continued Noah, ignoring the interruption.

"Took him forty days to get to Mount Ararat!" sneered Sir
Christopher.

"Well, your boat would have got there two weeks sooner, I'll admit,"
retorted Noah, "if she'd sprung a leak at the right time."

"Granting the truth of Noah's statement," said Sir Walter, motioning
to the angry architect to be quiet--"not that we take any side in the
issue between the two gentlemen, but merely for the sake of argument-
-I wish to ask the stranger who has been good enough to interest
himself in our trouble what he proposes to do--how can you establish
your course in case a boat were provided?"

"Also vot vill be dher gost, if any?" put in Shylock.

A murmur of disapprobation greeted this remark.

"The cost need not trouble you, sir," said Sir Walter, indignantly,
addressing the stranger; "you will have carte blanche."

"Den ve are ruint!" cried Shylock, displaying his palms, and showing
by that act a select assortment of diamond rings.

"Oh," laughed the stranger, "that is a simple matter.  Captain Kidd
has gone to London."

"To London!" cried several members at once.  "How do you know that?"

"By this," said the stranger, holding up the tiny stub end of a
cigar.

"Tut-tut!" ejaculated Solomon.  "What child's play is this!"

"No, your Majesty," observed the stranger, "it is not child's play;
it is fact.  That cigar end was thrown aside here on the wharf by
Captain Kidd just before he stepped on board the House-boat."

"How do you know that?" demanded Raleigh.  "And granting the truth of
the assertion, what does it prove?"

"I will tell you," said the stranger.  And he at once proceeded as

Other sites:

db3nf.com screen-capture.net floresca.net simonova.net flora-source.com flora-source.com sourcecentral.com sourcecentral.com geocities.com