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

“You were throwing small coins into the street for the people to scramble after,” said the Margrave.

“That’s it. You buy all the beer you can hold, and then you throw chicken feed to⁠—Oh, curse that word chicken, and hens, feathers, roosters, eggs, and everything connected with it!”

“Young sir,” said the Margrave kindly, but with dignity, “though I do not ask your confidence, I invite it. I know the world and I know humanity. Man is my study, though I do not eye him as the scientist eyes a beetle or as the philanthropist gazes at the objects of his bounty⁠—through a veil of theory and ignorance. It is my pleasure and distraction to interest myself in the peculiar and complicated misfortunes that life in a great city visits upon my fellow-men. You may be familiar with the history of that glorious and immortal ruler, the Caliph Harun Al Rashid, whose wise and beneficent excursions among his people in the city of Bagdad secured him the privilege of relieving so much of their distress. In my humble way I walk in his footsteps. I seek for romance and adventure in city streets⁠—not in ruined castles or in crumbling palaces. To me the greatest marvels of magic are those that take place in men’s hearts when acted upon by the furious and diverse forces of a crowded population. In your strange behavior this evening I fancy a story lurks. I read in your act something deeper than the wanton wastefulness of a spendthrift. I observe in your countenance the certain traces of consuming grief or despair. I repeat⁠—I invite your confidence. I am not without some power to alleviate and advise. Will you not trust me?”

“Gee, how you talk!” exclaimed the young man, a gleam of admiration supplanting for a moment the dull sadness of his eyes. “You’ve got the Astor Library skinned to a synopsis of preceding chapters. I mind that old Turk you speak of. I read ‘The Arabian Nights’ when I was a kid. He was a kind of Bill Devery and Charlie Schwab rolled into one. But, say, you might wave enchanted dishrags and make copper bottles smoke up coon giants all night without ever touching me. My case won’t yield to that kind of treatment.”

“If I could hear your story,” said the Margrave, with his lofty, serious smile.

“I’ll spiel it in about nine words,” said the young man, with a deep sigh, “but I don’t think you can help me any. Unless you’re a peach at guessing it’s back to the Bosphorus for you on your magic linoleum.”

The Story of the Young Man and the Harness Maker’s Riddle

“I work in Hildebrant’s saddle and harness shop down in Grant Street. I’ve worked there five years. I get $18 a week. That’s enough to marry on, ain’t it? Well, I’m not going to get married. Old Hildebrant is one of these funny Dutchmen⁠—you know the kind⁠—always getting off bum jokes. He’s got about a million riddles and things that he faked from Rogers Brothers’ great-grandfather. Bill Watson works there, too. Me and Bill have to stand for them chestnuts day after day. Why do we do it? Well, jobs ain’t to be picked off every Anheuser bush⁠—And then there’s Laura.

“What? The old man’s daughter. Comes in the shop every day. About nineteen, and the picture of the blonde that sits on the palisades of the Rhine and charms the clam-diggers into the surf. Hair the color of straw matting, and eyes as black and shiny as the best harness blacking⁠—think of that!

“Me? Well, it’s either me or Bill Watson. She treats us both equal. Bill is all to the psychopathic about her; and me?⁠—well, you saw me plating the roadbed of the Great Maroon Way with silver tonight. That was on account of Laura. I was spiflicated, Your Highness, and I wot not of what I wouldst.

“How? Why, old Hildebrandt says to me and Bill this afternoon: ‘Boys, one riddle have I for you gehabt haben. A young man who cannot riddles antworten, he is not so good by business for ein family to provide⁠—is not that⁠—hein?’ And he hands us a riddle⁠—a conundrum, some calls it⁠—and he chuckles interiorly and gives both of us till tomorrow morning to work out the answer to it. And he says whichever of us guesses the repartee end of it goes to his house o’ Wednesday night to his daughter’s birthday party. And it means Laura for whichever of us goes, for she’s naturally aching for a husband, and it’s either me or Bill Watson, for old Hildebrant likes us both, and wants her to marry somebody that’ll carry on the business after he’s stitched his last pair of traces.

“The riddle? Why, it was this: ‘What kind of a hen lays the longest? Think of that! What kind of a hen lays the longest? Ain’t it like a Dutchman to risk a man’s happiness on a fool proposition like that? Now, what’s the use? What I don’t know about hens would fill several incubators. You say you’re giving imitations of the old Arab guy that gave away⁠—libraries in Bagdad. Well, now, can you whistle up a fairy that’ll solve this hen query, or not?”

When the young man ceased the Margrave arose and paced to and fro by the park bench for several minutes. Finally he sat again, and said, in grave and impressive tones:

“I must confess, sir, that during the eight years that I have spent in search of adventure and in relieving distress I have never encountered a more interesting or a more perplexing case. I fear that I have overlooked hens in my researches and observations. As to their habits, their times and manner of laying, their many varieties and cross-breedings, their span of life, their⁠—”

“Oh, don’t make an Ibsen drama of it!” interrupted the young man, flippantly. “Riddles⁠—especially old Hildebrant’s riddles⁠—don’t have