Short Fiction by O. Henry (librera reader txt) 📕

Denver. ‘We get the heelers out with the crackly two-spots, and coal-tickets, and orders for groceries, and have a couple of picnics out under the banyan-trees, and dances in the Firemen’s Hall⁠—and the usual things. But first of all, Sully, I’m going to have the biggest clambake down on the beach that was ever seen south of the tropic of Capricorn. I figured that out from the start. We’ll stuff the whole town and the jungle folk for miles around with clams. That’s the first thing on the programme. Suppose you go out now, and make the arrangements for that. I want to look over the estimates the General made of the vote in the coast districts.’

“I had learned some Spanish in Mexico, so I goes out, as Denver says, and in fifteen minutes I come back to headquarters.

“ ‘If there ever was a clam in this country nobody ever saw it,’ I says.

“ ‘Great skyrockets!’ says Denver, with his mouth and eyes open. ‘No clams? How in the⁠—who ever saw a country without clams? What kind of a⁠—how’s an election to be pulled off without a clambake, I’d like to know? Are you sure there’s no clams, Sully?’

“ ‘Not even a can,’ says I.

“ ‘Then for God’s sake go out and try to find what the people here do eat. We’ve got to fill ’em up with grub of some kind.’

“I went out again. Denver was manager. In half an hour I gets back.

“ ‘They eat,’ says I, ‘tortillas, cassava, carne de chivo, arroz con pollo, aquacates, zapates, yucca, and huevos fritos.’

“ ‘A man that would eat them things,’ says Denver, getting a little mad, ‘ought to have his vote challenged.’

“In a few more days the campaign managers from the other towns came sliding into Esperitu. Our headquarters was a busy place. We had an interpreter, and ice-water, and drinks, and cigars, and Denver flashed the General’s roll so often that it got so small you couldn’t have bought a Republican vote in Ohio with it.

“And then Denver cabled to General Rompiro for ten thousand dollars more and got it.

“There were a number of Americans in Esperitu, but they were all in business or grafts of some kind, and wouldn’t take any hand in politics, which was sensible enough. But they showed me and Denver a fine time, and fixed us up so we could get decent things to eat and drink. There was one American, named Hicks, used to come and loaf at the headquarters. Hicks had had fourteen years of Esperitu. He was six feet four and weighed in at 135. Cocoa was his line; and coast fever and the climate had taken all the life out of him. They said he hadn’t smiled in eight years. His face was three feet long, and it never moved except when he opened it to take quinine. He used to sit in our headquarters and kill fleas and talk sarcastic.

“ ‘I don’t take much interest in politics,’ says Hicks, one day, ‘but I’d like you to tell me what you’re trying to do down here, Galloway?’

“ ‘We’re boosting General Rompiro, of course,’ says Denver. ‘We’re going to put him in the presidential chair. I’m his manager.’

“ ‘Well,’ says Hicks, ‘if I was you I’d be a little slower about it. You’ve got a long time ahead of you, you know.’

“ ‘Not any longer than I need,’ says Denver.

“Denver went ahead and worked things smooth. He dealt out money on the quiet to his lieutenants, and they were always coming after it. There was free drinks for everybody in town, and bands playing every night, and fireworks, and there was a lot of heelers going around buying up votes day and night for the new style of politics in Espiritu, and everybody liked it.

“The day set for the election was November 4th. On the night before Denver and me were smoking our pipes in headquarters, and in comes Hicks and unjoints himself, and sits in a chair, mournful. Denver is cheerful and confident. ‘Rompiro will win in a romp,’ says he. ‘We’ll carry the country by 10,000. It’s all over but the vivas. Tomorrow will tell the tale.’

“ ‘What’s going to happen tomorrow?’ asks Hicks.

“ ‘Why, the presidential election, of course,’ says Denver.

“ ‘Say,’ says Hicks, looking kind of funny, ‘didn’t anybody tell you fellows that the election was held a week before you came? Congress changed the date to July 27th. Roadrickeys was elected by 17,000. I thought you was booming old Rompiro for next term, two years from now. Wondered if you was going to keep up such a hot lick that long.’

“I dropped my pipe on the floor. Denver bit the stem off of his. Neither of us said anything.

“And then I heard a sound like somebody ripping a clapboard off of a barn-roof. ’Twas Hicks laughing for the first time in eight years.”

Sully Magoon paused while the waiter poured us a black coffee.

“Your friend was, indeed, something of a manager,” I said.

“Wait a minute,” said Sully, “I haven’t given you any idea of what he could do yet. That’s all to come.

“When we got back to New York there was General Rompiro waiting for us on the pier. He was dancing like a cinnamon bear, all impatient for the news, for Denver had just cabled him when we would arrive and nothing more.

“ ‘Am I elect?’ he shouts. ‘Am I elect, friend of mine? Is that mine country have demand General Rompiro for the president? The last dollar of mine have I sent you that last time. It is necessario that I am elect. I have not more money. Am I elect, Señor Galloway?’

“Denver turns to me.

“ ‘Leave me with old Rompey, Sully,’ he says. ‘I’ve got to break it to him gently. ’Twould be indecent for other eyes to witness the operation. This is the time, Sully,’ says he, ‘when old Denver has got to make good as a jollier and a silver-tongued sorcerer, or else give up all the medals he’s earned.’

“A couple of days later I went around