Ambrose Bierce - Fantastic Fables

A Widow weeping on her husband’s grave was approached by an Engaging Gentleman who, in a respectful manner, assured her that he had long entertained for her the most tender feelings.

“Wretch!” cried the Widow. “Leave me this instant! Is this a time to talk to me of love?”

“I assure you, madam, that I had not intended to disclose my affection,” the Engaging Gentleman humbly explained, “but the power of your beauty has overcome my discretion.”

“You should see me when I have not been crying,” said the Widow.

A Dispenser-Elect of Patronage gave notice through the newspapers that applicants for places would be given none until he should assume the duties of his office.

“You are exposing yourself to a grave danger,” said a Lawyer.

“How so?” the Dispenser-Elect inquired.

“It will be nearly two months,” the Lawyer answered, “before the day that you mention. Few patriots can live so long without eating, and some of the applicants will be compelled to go to work in the meantime. If that kills them, you will be liable to prosecution for murder.”

“You underrate their powers of endurance,” the official replied.

“What!” said the Lawyer, “you think they can stand work?”

“No,” said the other—“hunger.”

An Office Seeker whom the President had ordered out of Washington was watering the homeward highway with his tears.

“Ah,” he said, “how disastrous is ambition! how unsatisfying its rewards! how terrible its disappointments! Behold yonder peasant tilling his field in peace and contentment! He rises with the lark, passes the day in wholesome toil, and lies down at night to pleasant dreams. In the mad struggle for place and power he has no part; the roar of the strife reaches his ear like the distant murmur of the ocean. Happy, thrice happy man! I will approach him and bask in the sunshine of his humble felicity. Peasant, all hail!”

Leaning upon his rake, the Peasant returned the salutation with a nod, but said nothing.

“My friend,” said the Office Seeker, “you see before you the wreck of an ambitious man—ruined by the pursuit of place and power. This morning when I set out from the national capital—”

“Stranger,” the Peasant interrupted, “if you’re going back there soon maybe you wouldn’t mind using your influence to make me Postmaster at Smith’s Corners.”

The traveller passed on.

The King of Wideout having been offered the sovereignty of Wayoff, sent for the Three Persons who had made the offer, and said to them:

“I am extremely obliged to you, but before accepting so great a responsibility I must ascertain the sentiments of the people of Wayoff.”

“Sire,” said the Spokesman of the Three Persons, “they stand before you.”

“Indeed!” said the King; “are you, then, the people of Wayoff?”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

“There are not many of you,” the King said, attentively regarding them with the royal eye, “and you are not so very large; I hardly think you are a quorum. Moreover, I never heard of you until you came here; whereas Wayoff is noted for the quality of its pork and contains hogs of distinction. I shall send a Commissioner to ascertain the sentiments of the hogs.”

The Three Persons, bowing profoundly, backed out of the presence; but soon afterward they desired another audience, and, on being readmitted, said, through their Spokesman:

“May it please your Majesty, we are the hogs.”

A Statesman who had been indicted by an unfeeling Grand Jury was arrested by a Sheriff and thrown into jail. As this was abhorrent to his fine spiritual nature, he sent for the District Attorney and asked that the case against him be dismissed.

“Upon what grounds?” asked the District Attorney.

“Lack of evidence to convict,” replied the accused.

“Do you happen to have the lack with you?” the official asked. “I should like to see it.”

“With pleasure,” said the other; “here it is.”

So saying he handed the other a check, which the District Attorney carefully examined, and then pronounced it the most complete absence of both proof and presumption that he had ever seen. He said it would acquit the oldest man in the world.

At a meeting of the Golden League of Mystery a Woman was discovered, writing in a note-book. A member directed the attention of the Superb High Chairman to her, and she was asked to explain her presence there, and what she was doing.

“I came in for my own pleasure and instruction,” she said, “and was so struck by the wisdom of the speakers that I could not help making a few notes.”

“Madam,” said the Superb High Chairman, “we have no objection to visitors if they will pledge themselves not to publish anything they hear. Are you—on your honour as a lady, now, madam—are you not connected with some newspaper?”

“Good gracious, no!” cried the Woman, earnestly. “Why, sir, I am an officer of the Women’s Press Association!”

She was permitted to remain, and presented with resolutions of apology.

A Judge who had for years looked in vain for an opportunity for infamous distinction, but whom no litigant thought worth bribing, sat one day upon the Bench, lamenting his hard lot, and threatening to put an end to his life if business did not improve. Suddenly he found himself confronted by a dreadful figure clad in a shroud, whose pallor and stony eyes smote him with a horrible apprehension.

“Who are you,” he faltered, “and why do you come here?”

“I am the Rash Act,” was the sepulchral reply; “you may commit me.”

“No,” the judge said, thoughtfully, “no, that would be quite irregular. I do not sit to-day as a committing magistrate.”

A Slander travelling rapidly through the land upon its joyous mission was accosted by a Retraction and commanded to halt and be killed.

“Your career of mischief is at an end,” said the Retraction, drawing his club, rolling up his sleeves, and spitting on his hands.

“Why should you slay me?” protested the Slander. “Whatever my intentions were, I have been innocuous, for you have dogged my strides and counteracted my influence.”

“Dogged your grandmother!” said the Retraction, with contemptuous vulgarity of speech. “In the order of nature it is appointed that we two shall never travel the same road.”

“How then,” the Slander asked, triumphantly, “have you overtaken me?”

“I have not,” replied the Retraction; “we have accidentally met. I came round the world the other way.”

But when he tried to execute his fell purpose he found that in the order of nature it was appointed that he himself perish miserably in the encounter.

The President of a great Corporation went into a dry-goods shop and saw a placard which read:

“If You Don’t See What You Want, Ask For It.”

Approaching the shopkeeper, who had been narrowly observing him as he read the placard, he was about to speak, when the shopkeeper called to a salesman:

“John, show this gentleman the world.”

A Heavy Operator overtaken by a Reverse of Fortune was bewailing his sudden fall from affluence to indigence.

“Do not weep,” said the Reverse of Fortune. “You need not suffer alone. Name any one of the men who have opposed your schemes, and I will overtake him .”