JOHN BROWN’S BODY AND THE
BONES OF JOHN PAUL JONES.
CHAPTER III.
John Brown’s Body and
the Bones of John
Paul Jones.
THAT Paul Jones was not alone soon became evident. With his coming, other ghostly forms had taken shape in the semi-gloom and the admiral became the centre of a throng which included the greatest men of all time—the only great men, in fact, for one must die before he can be accorded any measure of greatness. Only in the perspective of the past does a man loom large in the vision of the present.
“It were better to be a live politician than a dead hero,” observed Paul Jones, reading my thoughts. Then he sighed.
“But you are honored on earth and even here,” I said, with a glance around the circle at the illustrious members of the Asbestos Society of Sinners.
“Earthly honor is but hysteria,” Jones replied wearily. “Yet, ‘twas ever thus. One is usually crushed by the honors showered upon him, as were the Romans in attending the banquet of Emperor Elagabalus, who rained roses upon his guests until all were buried and smothered by the flowers. Like them ‘bouquets’ are thrown at me when I am dead, of which I would have been more appreciative while living. Yet ‘bouquets’ are preferable to ‘brickbats,’ even though they do not make so lasting an impression. Hades, as you will soon learn, is more of a news centre than London, and so I have heard that in recent years the city hall of New York was draped in mourning for Hiram Cronk, last survivor of the War of 1812, whose only claim to fame was that he did not die sooner. If earthly honors died on earth I wouldn’t complain, but they are all reproduced in Hades, which is a burlesque of the upper world. Ever since Ambassador Porter found a body which he thought might have looked like me had I looked like that body, I have been given homage by every man in Hades. The joke of the matter—if a Scotchman may take an Irish bull by the horns and joke at his own funeral—is that there is no certainty about the body being mine.”
“Do you doubt it in the face of—”
“When face to face with a dead doubt, don’t look a gift corpse in the mouth,” interrupted the admiral dryly. “Had Porter done so, he would have discovered two gold teeth, and I really must insist that if that body is mine, those teeth were filled after I died. In the old days, before the doctors invented appendicitis, I did not mind swallowing all the grape sent with the enemy’s compliments, but I always did draw the line at the dentist’s chair, and any manipulator of the forceps would have struck a snag had he investigated my corpse too closely. Perhaps I ought not to complain, for it may be that if I keep my mouth shut I shall get a decent funeral, and unfortunately this is supposed to be my funeral.”
“But the proofs,” I remonstrated.
“My dear fellow, it is easy to pile up proofs on a dead man, for he cannot rise up to refute them. Here is a dead body; Paul Jones is dead: therefore, this must be Paul Jones. That may be logic but it is not common-sense. Yet this text-book reasoning is no more absurd than the ‘proofs.’ First of all, there was the absence of a coffin plate; had the body been missing instead of the name it would have been more worthy of notice. An autopsy has revealed traces of the disease of which I died, and this after a hundred years! If they were as expert in diagnosing the living as they are in cutting up the dead, fewer of the mistakes of the doctors would have to be buried from sight and mind. Then these learned savants triumphantly point to the height as a sure proof that this is the body of Jones and not of Smith, though both families are so numerous that the bones of one more or less doesn’t matter save as a museum exhibit—from which fate may the Stars and Stripes protect me! It seems from this deduction that I was the only person ever born into the world who ever attained to a stature of five feet and seven inches. That’s what a man gets for measuring up to the standard! The most remarkable coincidence of all is that neither uniform nor sword was found. Evidently Paris makes it a custom to bury its dead, civilian and officer alike, in a shroud of mystery, epaulets and gold stripes.
“Really, the only proof distilled is that the body was found floating in alcohol. I was so fond of that preservative in life, according to the historical novelists, that if a dead body can move of its own volition, I know mine would have sought out the alcohol. It may be the body of John Jones or John Smith, or it may be the remains of some Johnny Craupaud of a century ago; who knows? A slip of genealogy has lost thrones and made more than one man get off the earth.”
“At least you must concede it is not often that many cities squabble over the honor of giving sepulture to a man’s remains.”
“After a century of neglect,” retorted Jones, “‘history repeats itself,’ as my friend Tom Heyward will tell you.”
“It’s a wonder some of those cities did not foresee the coming events of which Homer was the shadow and make a play for Jones. Now, Seward, it’s your turn. Come, Tom, speak your little piece.”
Paul Jones was about to speak when he was interrupted by a newcomer who chanted:
“That is Mr. Anon,” whispered Lord Bacon. “Shakespeare is quite jealous of him, for Anon claims to be the most voluminous author in the world and, like Byron’s reviewer, has ‘just enough learning to misquote.’ He seldom quotes anyone correctly, not even excepting himself, but in this he is not unlike those other authors whom excess of egotism persuades into signing their names to that which would be their own had not some one said it before.”
observed Shakespeare.
“I ought to give you a pension for making my sayings so well known; I notice you never quote your own sentiments because mine answer all purposes so much better.”
It was Lord Bacon who spoke.
“I was talking of you, I grant that,” retorted Shakespeare. “Shall I repeat it? My wife says that it’s only by a hair—”
“You two men are always quarreling,” interrupted Anon. “Please keep the age of Anne from his lordship’s notice, for she hath a way to fry his Bacon. My lord, you should never judge a poet by his hair.”
“Nor yet by his feet,” interrupted Longfellow; “although if a poet looks well to his feet there are no heights to which he cannot climb.”
“I accept the measure of your judgment,” went on Anon calmly. “As for the lady, Delilah’s barber stunt convinced Samson it isn’t wise to tell the truth to a woman.”
“Yet I must insist,” continued Lord Bacon, “that Shakespeare is rather shy of hair to be a real poet. Of course, I have heard the story that Anne Hathaway, after a conference with Delilah, sought to reduce the strength of the Samson of letters by cutting his name from Shakespeare to Shakspeare and trimming his hair to make assurance doubly sure, but Lot’s wife, in looking backward, has recommended that the pig-tale be swallowed with a grain of salt. My dear Willie, your poetry has pains in its feet, your rhyme has received the absent treatment, and your rythm, like your hair, is lacking.”
“Oh, well, hair doesn’t grow on brains,” retorted the claimant to “Hamlet.”
But Anon was not to be out-argued, and continued:
“A hirsute chrysanthemum growing on a man’s head is more likely to indicate a quarterback Freshman on the gridiron than a hunchback poet on the Mount of Parnassus. As for the poet’s other extreme, metrical feet are not always symmetrical.”
“That’s blank verse,” interrupted Shakespeare.
“You mean damn!” interjected Lord Bacon, profanely. “Let me lend you the metres, Bill, so that you may measure up to my standard, or else cork the rythmic bottle and spill no more mimic blood of red ink.”
“The gas man is the only person who controls my metre,” said the Bard of Avon, chuckling at his own wit. “You quite sweep me off my metaphorical feet. That may not be original, but I have no aspirations in the direction of originality.”
“The last broker who arrived from Wall Street says that you are too full of quotations to be original,” sneered Lord Bacon.
“Have you forgotten that you once said ‘a man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others?’ Bartlett allows you seven pages, while he gives me more than a hundred. Familiarity breeds imitators. Even in quotations, you follow after me.”
“If you wear so long a face, you’ll stub your toe on your chin,” observed Anon, noting that Lord Bacon was getting the worst of his controversy with Shakespeare. “Never mind Bill’s raving. Burton tells him he larded his lean books with the fat of others’ works. Maybe that’s the reason why he gives his readers mental dyspepsia; to inwardly digest ‘Hamlet’ would disagree with the stomach of an ostrich. After all, the world knows that Shakespeare was not a man but a syndicate, to which I was the largest contributor. I’ll call the man a plagiarist who says I’m a liar.”
No one cared to knock off the verbal chip which Anon had put upon his shoulders, so Paul Jones resumed:
“Have I equalled Homer’s record?”
“Of course,” I answered; “you, as an American, couldn’t stand being beaten by a foreigner like Homer, even though you are both dead ones. You are claimed by New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Arlington, Richmond, Fredericksburg, Annapolis, and Ocean Grove. I believe there are a few other cities whose names have escaped my memory. Have you any preference in the matter?”
“It’s odd no one has thought about consulting me before. I could have settled the controversy at once. France did not treat me or my bones very well, yet I can’t say I am glad to leave there. It isn’t very pleasant to be dead, but it’s worse to have people squabble over your body. I wonder if Porter ever heard the adage ‘Let the dead rest in peace,’ and that other one ‘Cursed be he who moves my bones!’ You’ve seen two dogs fight over a bone, but you never saw the bone fight. I am nothing but bones.”
“New York’s claim—”
“I hope they won’t bury me in New York. I’ve heard it said that the metropolis is noisy enough to wake the dead and it is certain that my presence would make Captain Landais turn over in his grave. I always did bore Landais and so if I invaded the territory of the tired, St. Patrick’s cemetery would yawn and give up its dead.”
“Had you been a politician,” observed Matt Quay, “some faction of our party would long since have unearthed one of your letters in which you had selected your burial place.”
“You have not yet told me your choice,” I reiterated, remembering the city editor’s parting words.
“I would rather be embalmed in the throbbing heart of the sea, with which my own heart beat so long in unison. My grave has been unmarked for a century, so why not forever? I would prefer to be commander of that greatest army of all, the unknown dead, whose resting place is marked only by monuments of billows and flowers of feathery spray. A bridal veil of silver surge is as elaborate a shroud as I desire.”
“How about cremation?”
“We’ll get enough of that down here some day, so it is useless to undergo the ‘roasting’ process twice. Yet it has its advantages. Soldiers and sailors don’t get much time for godliness, you know, and as cleanliness is next to it, cremation might—”
“John Brown’s body lies a smouldering in—”
That was as far as Mr. Anon could proceed, for he had fired John Brown’s anger. That worthy said he was hanged if he were going to allow anybody to “roast” him by any such incendiary remark.
“Choke him off,” came the chorus from all sides. “Here’s a rope. String him up.”
This brought up such unpleasant recollections of the past that John Brown subsided. I hastened to pacify him by observing:
“You have no cause for disquiet, for your bones lie peacefully in the Adirondacks at North Elba.”
“Hush!” warned Holmes. “That word always invokes Napoleon.”
The Corsican had indeed materialized. He glared at me as he said:
“Peace at Elba? If you found peace there, you accomplished more than did the great Napoleon, and that were impossible.”
“Ah, but you see I hadn’t met my Waterloo,” I retorted. Wellington laughed tauntingly.
“Neither had I when I went to Elba,” supplemented Bonaparte, and then and there I met my Waterloo at the hands of Napoleon. It is poor policy for a writer of history to dispute the maker of it, though I am aware the historical novelists hold other views. For a moment it seemed as if Wellington’s tantalizing mirth would precipitate another battle between the illustrious warriors. Then the two men shook hands, looking like two prize fighters about to enter the ring. Nothing happened, however, and with a trace of disappointment in his tone,—for immortals are very like mortals and he dearly loved a fight,—Paul Jones went on:
“It is a good thing I’m dead, for living heroes always get restless and tumble from the clay pedestal on which an admiring public places them. Heroes should be handled with care, for they are perishable goods. Both Dewey and Dowie have had their day. Dewey turned his house over to his wife so the sheriff couldn’t get it, as many another man has done before and since. Evidently the dear public didn’t believe the two were one, for the hero-worshippers swept him to obscurity on a tidal wave of regretful tears. I wonder if he said it was all Mrs. Dewey’s fault. You know it is more difficult to manage a wife in America nowadays than it was in the days of Solomon, when the wives were so frequent that a man couldn’t remember which one was to blame.”
“The English still claim that you were a pirate,” I observed.
“I feel quite honored at so illustrious an accession to our ranks,” said Captain Kidd.
The admiral smiled.
“Stop your Kidding,” he said to the pirate. “I believe my conduct was unsatisfactory to them on several occasions when I bearded the lion in his channel. The English are queer. They made Captain Pierson a baronet for getting defeated.”
“If we had had Paul Jones,” said Lord Nelson, “we would have made him prime minister and buried him in Westminster Abbey. England is the most grateful of all nations.”
“You need not remind me of the ungratefulness of republics,” rejoined Jones. “I have experienced it, though I am not a living example. But, my lord, I wish I had had you pitted against me in the days of ’77; I would dearly have loved to have exchanged shots with you.”
“You are too kind,” drawled Nelson, lifting his monocle to his blind eye. “I really can’t see you in that light.”
“You have an eye single to your own interest,” I said to Nelson; then turning to Jones:
“We have swung around the circle and you haven’t yet told me—”
“We will leave it to Roosevelt,” replied the admiral. “Whether it is John Brown, John Jones or Johnny Craupaud, he will see that the body gets a square deal—box!”
“How about your epitaph? I would suggest: First in war, last in peace, and at present in the hearts of his countrymen, to mark the tomb of the father of the American navy. That epitomizes your whole career.”
“I do not want to usurp Washington’s paternal honors. Of course all epitaphs are written by Mephisto, ‘the father of liars,’ as you know, but if mine were to be truthful, my tomb would bear the simple inscription: