Seats of the Haughty.docx

1、Seats of the HaughtySeats of the Haughty Golden by day and silver by night, a new trail now leads to us across the Indian Ocean. Dusky kings and princes have found our Bombay of the West; and few be their trails that do not lead down to Broadway on their journey for to admire and for to see. If chan

2、ce should ever lead you near a hotel that transiently shelters some one of these splendid touring grandees, I counsel you to seek Lucullus Polk among the republican tuft-hunters that besiege its entrances. He will be there. You will know him by his red, alert, Wellington-nosed face, by his manner of

3、 nervous caution mingled with determination, by his assumed promoters or brokers air of busy impatience, and by his bright-red necktie, gallantly redressing the wrongs of his maltreated blue serge suit, like a battle standard still waving above a lost cause. I found him profitable; and so may you. W

4、hen you do look for him, look among the light-horse troop of Bedouins that besiege the picket-line of the travelling potentates guards and secretaries-among the wild-eyed genii of Arabian Afternoons that gather to make astounding and egregrious demands upon the princes coffers.I first saw Mr. Polk c

5、oming down the steps of the hotel at which sojourned His Highness the Gaekwar of Baroda, most enlightened of the Mahratta princes, who, of late, ate bread and salt in our Metropolis of the Occident.Lucullus moved rapidly, as though propelled by some potent moral force that imminently threatened to b

6、ecome physical. Behind him closely followed the impetus-a hotel detective, if ever white Alpine hat, hawks nose, implacable watch chain, and loud refinement of manner spoke the truth. A brace of uniformed porters at his heels preserved the smooth decorum of the hotel, repudiating by their air of dis

7、engagement any suspicion that they formed a reserve squad of ejectment.Safe on the sidewalk, Lucullus Polk turned and shook a freckled fist at the caravansary. And, to my joy, he began to breathe deep invective in strange words:Rides in howdays, does he? he cried loudly and sneeringly. Rides on elep

8、hants in howdahs and calls himself a prince! Kings-yah! Comes over here and talks horse till you would think he was a president; and then goes home and rides in a private dining-room strapped onto an elephant. Well, well, well!The ejecting committee quietly retired. The scorner of princes turned to

9、me and snapped his fingers.What do you think of that? he shouted derisively. The Gaekwar of Baroda rides in an elephant in a howdah! And theres old Bikram Shamsher Jang scorching up and down the pig-paths of Khatmandu on a motor-cycle. Wouldnt that maharajah you? And the Shah of Persia, that ought t

10、o have been Muley-on-the-spot for at least three, hes got the palanquin habit. And that funny-hat prince from Korea-wouldnt you think he could afford to amble around on a milk-white palfrey once in a dynasty or two? Nothing doing! His idea of a Balaklava charge is to tuck his skirts under him and do

11、 his mile in six days over the hog- wallows of Seoul in a bull-cart. Thats the kind of visiting potentates that come to this country now. Its a hard deal, friend.I murmured a few words of sympathy. But it was uncomprehending, for I did not know his grievance against the rulers who flash, meteor-like

12、, now and then upon our shores.The last one I sold, continued the displeased one, was to that three-horse-tailed Turkish pasha that came over a year ago. Five hundred dollars he paid for it, easy. I says to his executioner or secretary-he was a kind of a Jew or a Chinaman-His Turkey Gibbets is fond

13、of horses, then?Him? says the secretary. Well, no. Hes got a big, fat wife in the harem named Bad Dora that he dont like. I believe he intends to saddle her up and ride her up and down the board-walk in the Bulbul Gardens a few times every day. You havent got a pair of extra-long spurs you could thr

14、ow in on the deal, have you? Yes, sir; theres mighty few real rough-riders among the royal sports these days.As soon as Lucullus Polk got cool enough I picked him up, and with no greater effort than you would employ in persuading a drowning man to clutch a straw, I inveigled him into accompanying me

15、 to a cool corner in a dim cafe.And it came to pass that man-servants set before us brewage; and Lucullus Polk spake unto me, relating the wherefores of his beleaguering the antechambers of the princes of the earth.Did you ever hear of the S.A. & A.P. Railroad in Texas? Well, that dont stand for Sam

16、aritan Actors Aid Philanthropy. I was down that way managing a summer bunch of the gum and syntax-chewers that play the Idlewild Parks in the Western hamlets. Of course, we went to pieces when the soubrette ran away with a prominent barber of Beeville. I dont know what became of the rest of the comp

17、any. I believe there were some salaries due; and the last I saw of the troupe was when I told them that forty-three cents was all the treasury contained. I say I never saw any of them after that; but I heard them for about twenty minutes. I didnt have time to look back. But after dark I came out of

18、the woods and struck the S.A. & A.P. agent for means of transportation. He at once extended to me the courtesies of the entire railroad, kindly warning me, however, not to get aboard any of the rolling stock.About ten the next morning I steps off the ties into a village that calls itself Atascosa Ci

19、ty. I bought a thirty-cent breakfast and a ten-cent cigar, and stood on the Main Street jingling the three pennies in my pocket-dead broke. A man in Texas with only three cents in his pocket is no better off than a man that has no money and owes two cents.One of lucks favourite tricks is to soak a m

20、an for his last dollar so quick that he dont have time to look it. There I was in a swell St. Louis tailor-made, blue-and-green plaid suit, and an eighteen- carat sulphate-of-copper scarf-pin, with no hope in sight except the two great Texas industries, the cotton fields and grading new railroads. I

21、 never picked cotton, and I never cottoned to a pick, so the outlook had ultramarine edges.All of a sudden, while I was standing on the edge of the wooden sidewalk, down out of the sky falls two fine gold watches in the middle of the street. One hits a chunk of mud and sticks. The other falls hard a

22、nd flies open, making a fine drizzle of little springs and screws and wheels. I looks up for a balloon or an airship; but not seeing any, I steps off the sidewalk to investigate.But I hear a couple of yells and see two men running up the street in leather overalls and high-heeled boots and cartwheel

23、 hats. One man is six or eight feet high, with open-plumbed joints and a heartbroken cast of countenance. He picks up the watch that has stuck in the mud. The other man, who is little, with pink hair and white eyes, goes for the empty case, and says, I win. Then the elevated pessimist goes down unde

24、r his leather leg-holsters and hands a handful of twenty- dollar gold pieces to his albino friend. I dont know how much money it was; it looked as big as an earthquake-relief fund to me.Ill have this here case filled up with works, says Shorty, and throw you again for five hundred.Im your company, s

25、ays the high man. Ill meet you at the Smoked Dog Saloon an hour from now.The little man hustles away with a kind of Swiss movement toward a jewelry store. The heartbroken person stoops over and takes a telescopic view of my haberdashery.Thems a mighty slick outfit of habiliments you have got on, Mr.

26、 Man, says he. Ill bet a hoss you never acquired the right, title, and interest in and to them clothes in Atascosa City.Why, no, says I, being ready enough to exchange personalities with this moneyed monument of melancholy. I had this suit tailored from a special line of coatericks, vestures, and pa

27、ntings in St. Louis. Would you mind putting me sane, says I, on this watch-throwing contest? Ive been used to seeing time-pieces treated with more politeness and esteem-except womens watches, of course, which by nature they abuse by cracking walnuts with em and having em taken showing in tintype pic

28、tures.Me and George, he explains, are up from the ranch, having a spell of fun. Up to last month we owned four sections of watered grazing down on the San Miguel. But along comes one of these oil prospectors and begins to bore. He strikes a gusher that flows out twenty thousand -or maybe it was twen

29、ty million-barrels of oil a day. And me and George gets one hundred and fifty thousand dollars-seventy-five thousand dollars apiece-for the land. So now and then we saddles up and hits the breeze for Atascosa City for a few days of excitement and damage. Heres a little bunch of the dinero that I dra

30、wed out of the bank this morning, says he, and shows a roll of twenties and fifties as big around as a sleeping-car pillow. The yellowbacks glowed like a sunset on the gable end of John D.s barn. My knees got weak, and I sat down on the edge of the board sidewalk.You must have knocked around a right

31、 smart, goes on this oil Grease-us. I shouldnt be surprised if you have saw towns more livelier than what Atascosa City is. Sometimes it seems to me that there ought to be some more ways of having a good time than there is here, specially when youve got plenty of money and dont mind spending it.Then

32、 this Mother Carys chick of the desert sits down by me and we hold a conversationfest. It seems that he was money-poor. Hed lived in ranch camps all his life; and he confessed to me that his supreme idea of luxury was to ride into camp, tired out from a round-up, eat a peck of Mexican beans, hobble his brains with a pint of raw whisky, and go to sleep with his boots for a pillow. When this barge-load of unexpected money came to him and his pink but perky partner, George, and they hied themselves to this clump of outhouses called