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Page 10
"I have an hour or two to spare," said I, looking at the cafe clock.
"Not that the Americans aren't a great commercial nation," conceded
Bill. "But the fault laid with the people who wrote lies for fiction."
"What was this Irishman's name?" I asked.
"Was that last beer cold enough?" said he.
"I see there is talk of further outbreaks among the Russian peasants," I
remarked.
"His name was Barney O'Connor," said Bill.
Thus, because of our ancient prescience of each other's trail of
thought, we travelled ambiguously to the point where Kansas Bill's story
began:
"I met O'Connor in a boarding-house on the West Side. He invited me to
his hall-room to have a drink, and we became like a dog and a cat that
had been raised together. There he sat, a tall, fine, handsome man, with
his feet against one wall and his back against the other, looking over a
map. On the bed and sticking three feet out of it was a beautiful gold
sword with tassels on it and rhinestones in the handle.
"'What's this?' says I (for by that time we were well acquainted). 'The
annual parade in vilification of the ex-snakes of Ireland? And what's
the line of march? Up Broadway to Forty-second; thence east to McCarty's
cafe; thence--'
"'Sit down on the wash-stand,' says O'Connor, 'and listen. And cast no
perversions on the sword. 'Twas me father's in old Munster. And this
map, Bowers, is no diagram of a holiday procession. If ye look again.
ye'll see that it's the continent known as South America, comprising
fourteen green, blue, red, and yellow countries, all crying out from
time to time to be liberated from the yoke of the oppressor.'
"'I know,' says I to O'Connor. 'The idea is a literary one. The ten-cent
magazine stole it from "Ridpath's History of the World from the
Sand-stone Period to the Equator." You'll find it in every one of 'em.
It's a continued story of a soldier of fortune, generally named O'Keefe,
who gets to be dictator while the Spanish-American populace cries
"Cospetto!" and other Italian maledictions. I misdoubt if it's ever been
done. You're not thinking of trying that, are you, Barney?' I asks.
"'Bowers,' says he, 'you're a man of education and courage.'
"How can I deny it?' says I. 'Education runs in my family; and I have
acquired courage by a hard struggle with life.'
"'The O'Connors,' says he, 'are a warlike race. There is me father's
sword; and here is the map. A life of inaction is not for me. The
O'Connors were born to rule. 'Tis a ruler of men I must be.'
"'Barney,' I says to him, 'why don't you get on the force and settle
down to a quiet life of carnage and corruption instead of roaming off to
foreign parts? In what better way can you indulge your desire to subdue
and maltreat the oppressed?'
"'Look again at the map,' says he, 'at the country I have the point of
me knife on. 'Tis that one I have selected to aid and overthrow with me
father's sword.'
"'I see,' says I. 'It's the green one; and that does credit to your
patriotism, and it's the smallest one; and that does credit to your
judgment.'
"'Do ye accuse me of cowardice?' says Barney, turning pink.
"'No man,' says I, 'who attacks and confiscates a country single-handed
could be called a coward. The worst you can be charged with is
plagiarism or imitation. If Anthony Hope and Roosevelt let you get away
with it, nobody else will have any right to kick.'
"'I'm not joking,' says O'Connor. 'And I've got $1,500 cash to work the
scheme with. I've taken a liking to you. Do you want it, or not?'
"'I'm not working,' I told him; 'but how is it to be? Do I eat during
the fomentation of the insurrection, or am I only to be Secretary of War
after the country is conquered? Is it to be a pay envelope or only a
portfolio?'
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