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

time in our lives we’ve got to do a real dishonest act. Lobbying is something we’ve never been used to; but we’ve got to scandalize ourselves for Bill Humble’s sake. In a straight and legitimate business,’ says I, ‘we could afford to introduce a little foul play and chicanery, but in a disorderly and heinous piece of malpractice like this it seems to me that the straightforward and aboveboard way is the best. I propose,’ says I, ‘that we hand over $500 of this money to the chairman of the national campaign committee, get a receipt, lay the receipt on the President’s desk and tell him about Bill. The President is a man who would appreciate a candidate who went about getting office that way instead of pulling wires.’

“Andy agreed with me, but after we talked the scheme over with the hotel clerk we give that plan up. He told us that there was only one way to get an appointment in Washington, and that was through a lady lobbyist. He gave us the address of one he recommended, a Mrs. Avery, who he said was high up in sociable and diplomatic rings and circles.

“The next morning at 10 o’clock me and Andy called at her hotel, and was shown up to her reception room.

“This Mrs. Avery was a solace and a balm to the eyesight. She had hair the color of the back of a twenty dollar gold certificate, blue eyes and a system of beauty that would make the girl on the cover of a July magazine look like a cook on a Monongahela coal barge.

“She had on a low necked dress covered with silver spangles, and diamond rings and ear bobs. Her arms was bare; and she was using a desk telephone with one hand, and drinking tea with the other.

“ ‘Well, boys,’ says she after a bit, ‘what is it?’

“I told her in as few words as possible what we wanted for Bill, and the price we could pay.

“ ‘Those western appointments,’ says she, ‘are easy. Le’me see, now,’ says she, ‘who could put that through for us. No use fooling with the Territorial delegates. I guess,’ says she, ‘that Senator Sniper would be about the man. He’s from somewheres in the West. Let’s see how he stands on my private menu card.’ She takes some papers out of a pigeonhole with the letter S over it.

“ ‘Yes,’ says she, ‘he’s marked with a star; that means “ready to serve.” Now, let’s see. “Age 55; married twice; Presbyterian, likes blondes, Tolstoy, poker and stewed terrapin; sentimental at third bottle of wine.” Yes,’ she goes on, ‘I am sure I can have your friend, Mr. Bummer, appointed Minister to Brazil.’

“ ‘Humble,’ says I. ‘And United States Marshal was the berth.’

“ ‘Oh, yes,’ says Mrs. Avery. ‘I have so many deals of this sort I sometimes get them confused. Give me all the memoranda you have of the case, Mr. Peters, and come back in four days. I think it can be arranged by then.’

“So me and Andy goes back to our hotel and waits. Andy walks up and down and chews the left end of his mustache.

“ ‘A woman of high intellect and perfect beauty is a rare thing, Jeff,’ says he.

“ ‘As rare,’ says I, ‘as an omelet made from the eggs of the fabulous bird known as the epidermis,’ says I.

“ ‘A woman like that,’ says Andy, ‘ought to lead a man to the highest positions of opulence and fame.’

“ ‘I misdoubt,’ says I, ‘if any woman ever helped a man to secure a job any more than to have his meals ready promptly and spread a report that the other candidate’s wife had once been a shoplifter. They are no more adapted for business and politics,’ says I, ‘than Algernon Charles Swinburne is to be floor manager at one of Chuck Connor’s annual balls. I know,’ says I to Andy, ‘that sometimes a woman seems to step out into the kalsomine light as the charge d’affaires of her man’s political job. But how does it come out? Say, they have a neat little berth somewhere as foreign consul of record to Afghanistan or lockkeeper on the Delaware and Raritan Canal. One day this man finds his wife putting on her overshoes and three months supply of bird seed into the canary’s cage. “Sioux Falls?” he asks with a kind of hopeful light in his eye. “No, Arthur,” says she, “Washington. We’re wasted here,” says she. “You ought to be Toady Extraordinary to the Court of St. Bridget or Head Porter of the Island of Puerto Rico. I’m going to see about it.”

“ ‘Then this lady,’ I says to Andy, ‘moves against the authorities at Washington with her baggage and munitions, consisting of five dozen indiscriminating letters written to her by a member of the Cabinet when she was 15; a letter of introduction from King Leopold to the Smithsonian Institution, and a pink silk costume with canary colored spats.

“ ‘Well and then what?’ I goes. ‘She has the letters printed in the evening papers that match her costume, she lectures at an informal tea given in the palm room of the B. & O. Depot and then calls on the President. The ninth Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Labor, the first aide-de-camp of the Blue Room and an unidentified colored man are waiting there to grasp her by the hands⁠—and feet. They carry her out to S. W. B. street and leave her on a cellar door. That ends it. The next time we hear of her she is writing postcards to the Chinese Minister asking him to get Arthur a job in a tea store.’

“ ‘Then,’ says Andy, ‘you don’t think Mrs. Avery will land the Marshalship for Bill?’

“ ‘I do not,’ says I. ‘I do not wish to be a septic, but I doubt if she can do as well as you and me could have done.’

“ ‘I don’t agree with you,’ says Andy. ‘I’ll bet you she does. I’m proud of having a higher opinion of the talent and the powers