Peck's Bad Boy Abroad Part 8

Dad was afraid they were going to charge the prayers in the bill for pushing him up, but I told dad that these people expected every time they, went up to the top that it would be their last trip, as they knew that some day the volcano would open in a new place and swallow them whole, with all the tourists. Then he gave them a dollar apiece to pray for him, and wanted to go back down the mountain and let Vesuvius run its own fireworks, but the Chicago lady told dad to brace up and she would protect him, and so the guides gave a few more pushes, and we were on top of the volcano, and dad collapsed and had to be brought to with smelling salts and whisky that the woman carried in her pistol pocket.

Gee, but it was worth all the trouble to get up the mountain, to see the sight that opened up. The hole in the mountain filled with boiling stuff was worth the price of admission, and the roaring of the boiling stuff, and the explosions way down cellar, and the flying stones, the smoke going into the air for a mile, like the burning of an oil well, the red-hot lava finding crevices to leak through, and flowing down the side of the mountain in streams like hot maple sirup, made a scene thai caused us to take off our hats and thank the good Lord that the thing hadn't overflowed enough to hurt us. But I could see dad was scared, 'cause when I wanted him to go around the edge of the crater with me, and see the h.e.l.l-roaring free show from other points of view, and see where the hot ashes years ago rolled down and covered Pompeii and Herculaneum, he balked and said he had seen all he wanted to, and if he could stay alive until the next car went down the mountain, they could all have his interest in Vesuvius, and be darned to them, but he said if I wanted to go around looking for trouble, he would stay there under a big rock, with the Chicago lady, and wait for me to come back. She said she knew dad was all tired out, and needed rest, and she would stay with him, and keep him cheered up; so I left them and went off with one of the dagoes, to slide down hill on some flowing lava, and pick up specimens.

Well, sir, I wish I could get along some way without telling the rest of this sad story, but if I am going to be a historian I have got to tell the whole blame thing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: And she was stroking his hair 217]

When I left dad and the Chicago woman she had produced a lunch from somewhere about her person, and a small bottle, and they were eating and drinking, and dad was laughing more natural than I had seen him laugh since we run over the old woman with the automobile at Nice, and she was smiling on dad just as though she was his sweetheart. (As I went around the crater, a couple of blocks away, I looked back and dad had laid his head in her lap, and she was stroking his hair. )

Well, I picked up specimens, burned the soles off my shoes wading in the lava, and took in the volcano from all sides, and after an hour I went back to where dad and the woman were lunching, but the woman was gone, and dad acted as though he had been hit by an express train, his eyes were wild, his collar was gone, his pocketbook was on the ground, empty, his coat was gone, his scarf-pin had disappeared and the $11 watch he bought when he was robbed the other time was missing, and dad's tongue was run out, and he was yelling for water. I thought he had been trying to drink some lava.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He was yelling for water 223]

"Dad, what in the world has happened to you?" said I, as I rushed up to him.

"That woman has happened to me, that is all," said dad, as he took a swallow of water out of a canteen one of the dagoes had.

"Tell me about it, dad," said I, trying to keep from laughing, when I saw that he was not hurt.

"Say, let this be a lesson to you," said dad, "and don't you steer another woman to me on this trip. Do you know you hadn't more than got around that big rock when she said she was tired and was going to faint, for the alt.i.tude was too high for her, and I tried to soothe her, and she did look pale, and, by gosh, I thought she was going to die on my hands, and I would have to carry her corpse down the mountain. I heard a scuffling on the rocks, and she looked up and saw a man not ten feet away, and she said: 'Me husband!' and then she fainted and grabbed me around the neck, and I couldn't get her loose. She just froze to me like a person drowning, and that husband of hers, who had come up on the last car, hunting for his wife, who had eloped, pulled a long blue gun and told me he would give me five minutes to pray, and then he would kill me and throw my body down in the creater, to sizzle."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pulled a long blue gun 220]

"I told him I could pay up enough ahead in three minutes, and he could take all I had if he would loosen up his wife, and bring her to, and take her away, and let me die all alone, and let the buzards eat me, uncooked. He took the bet, pulled her arms away from my throat, took my money and coat, brought her to, and said he was going to throw her into the crater, but I told him she had certainly been good to me, and if he would spare her life, and take her away in the cars, he could have my watch and scarfpin, and he took them, and they went to the cars.

"She looked back at me with the saddest face I ever saw, and said: 'O, sir, it is all a terrible dream, and I will see you in Naples, and explain all,' and now, by Christmas, I want to go back to town and find her, and rescue her from that jealous husband," and dad got up and we started for the car.

The man and his wife went down on the car ahead of us, and dad wouldn't believe they were regular bunko people, who play that game everyday on some old sucker, but the man that runs the car told me so.

I can be responsible for dad in everything except the women he meets.

When it comes to women, your little Hennery don't know the game at all.

Yours,

Hennery.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The Bad Boy Makes Friends with Some Italian Children--Dad Is Chased by Lions from the Coliseum--"Not Any More Rome for Papa," Says Dad.

Rome, Italy.--My Dear Old "Pard:" Well, sir, if you could see me now, you wouldn't know me, because foreign travel has broadened me out so I can talk on any subject, and people of my age look upon me as an authority, and they surround me everywhere I go and urge me to talk.

The fact that the boys and girls do not understand a word I say makes no difference. They do not wear many clothes here, and there is no style about them, and when they see me with a whole suit of clothes on, and a hat and shoes and socks, and a scarf-pin on my necktie, they think I must be an Americano that is too rich for any use, or something that ranks with a prince at least, and the boys delight to be with me and do errands for me, and the girls seem to be in love with me.

There is no way you can tell if a girl is in love with you, except that she looks at you with eyes that are as black as coal, and they seem to burn a hole right into your insides, and when they take hold of your hand they hang on and squeeze like alamand-left in a dance at home, and they snug up to you and are as warm and cheerful as a gas stove.

[Ill.u.s.tration: It brought on a revolution 227]

Say, I sat on a bench in a plaza with a girl about my age, for an hour, while the other girls and boys sat on the ground and looked at us in admiration, and when I put my arm around her and kissed her on her pouting lips, it brought on a revolution. An Italian soldier policeman took me by the neck and threw me across the street, the girl scratched me with her finger nails and bit me, and yelled some grand hailing sign of distress, her brother and a ragged boy that was in love with the girl and was jealous, drew daggers, and the whole crowd yelled murder, and I started for our hotel on a run, and the whole population of Rome seemed to follow me, and I might as well have been a negro accused of crime in the states. I thought they would burn me at the stake, but dad came out of the hotel and threw a handful of small change into the crowd, and it was all off.

After they picked up the coin they beckoned me to come out and play some more, but not any more for little Hennery. I have been in love in all countries where we have traveled, and in all languages, but this Italian love takes the whole bakery, and I do not go around any more without a chaperone. The girls are ragged and wear shawls over their heads, and there are holes in their dresses and their skin isn't white, like American girls', but is what they call olive complexion, like stuffed olives you buy in bottles, stuffed with cayenne pepper, but the girls are just like the cayenne pepper, so warm that you want to throw water on yourself after they have touched you. Gee, but I wouldn't want to live in a climate where girls were a torrid zone, 'cause I should melt, like an icicle that drops in a stove, and makes steam and blows up the whole house.

Well, old man, you talk about churches, but you don't know anything about it. Dad and I went to St. Peter's in Rome, and it is the grandest thing in the world. Say, the Congregational church at home, which we thought so grand, could be put in one little corner of St. Peter's, and would look like 30 cents. St. Peter's covers ground about half a mile square, and when you go inside and look at grown people on the other side of it, they look like flies, and the organ is as big as a block of buildings in Chicago, and when they blow it you think the last day has come, and yet the music-is as sweet as a melodeon, and makes you want to get down on your knees with all the thousands of good Christians of Italy, and confess that you are a fraud that ought to be arrested.

Dad and I have been to all kinds of churches, everywhere, and never turned a hair, but since we got to this town and got some of the prevailing religion into our systems, we feel guilty, and it seems as though everybody could see right into us, and that they knew we were heathen that never knew there was a G.o.d. Sure thing, I never supposed there were so many people in the world that worshiped their Maker, as there are here, and I don't wonder that all over the world good people look to Rome for the light. Dad keeps telling me that when we get home we will set an example that will make people pay attention, but he says he does not want to join the church until he has seen all the sights, and then he will swear off for good.

He said to me yesterday: "Now, Hennery, I have been to all the pious places with you, the pope's residence, the catacombs and St. Peter's, where they preach from 40 different places and make you feel like giving up your sins, and I have looked at carvings and decorations and marble and jewels and seen the folly of my ways of life, and I am ripe for a change, but before I give up the world and all of its wickedness, I want blood. I want to go to the other extreme, and see the wild beasts at the Coliseum tear human beings limb from limb, and drink their blood, and see gladiators gladiate, and chop down their antagonists, and put one foot on their prostrate necks, like they do in the theaters, and then I am ready to leave this town and be good."

Well, sir, I have been in lots of tight places before, but this one beat the band. Here was my dad, who did not know that the Roman, gladiator business had been off the boards for over 2,000 years, that the eating of human prisoners by wild beasts in the presence of the Roman populace was played out, and that the Coliseum was a ruin and did not exist as a place of amus.e.m.e.nt. He thought everything that he had read about the horrors of a Roman holiday was running to-day, as a side show, and he wanted to see it, and I had encouraged him in his ideas, because he was nervous, and I didn't want to undeceive him. He had come to Rome to see things he couldn't find at home, and it was up to me to deliver the goods.

Gee, but it made me sweat, 'cause I knew if dad did not get a show for his money he would lay it up against me, so I told him we would go to the Coliseum that night and see the hungry lions and tigers eat some of the leading citizens, just as they did when Caesar run the show. Then I found an American from Chicago at the hotel, who sells soap in Rome, and told him what dad expected of me in the way of amus.e.m.e.nt, and he said the only way was to take dad out to the Coliseum, and in the dark roll a barrel of broken gla.s.s down the tiers of seats and make him believe there was an earthquake that had destroyed the Coliseum, and that the lions and tigers were all loose, looking for people to eat, and scare dad and make a run back to town.

[Ill.u.s.tration: What dad expected of me in the way of amus.e.m.e.nt 230]

I didn't want to play such a scandalous trick on dad, but the Chicago man said that was the only way out of it, and he could get a barrel of broken gla.s.s for a dollar, and hire four ruffians that could roar like lions for a few dollars, and it would give dad good exercise, and may be save him from a run of Roman fever, 'cause there was nothing like a good sweat to knock the fever out of a fellow's system. The thing struck me as not only a good experience for dad, but a life saver, so I whacked up the money, and the Chicago soap man did the rest.

After dark we went out to the ruin of the Coliseum, where a great many tourists go to look at the ruins by moonlight, and dad was as anxious and bloodthirsty as a young surgeon cutting up his first "stiff."

When we got to the right place, and I told dad we were a little early, because the n.o.bility were not in their seats, the villains began to roar three dollars' worth like hungry lions, and dad turned a little pale and said that sounded like the real thing.

I told him we better not get too near, because we were not accustomed to seeing live men chewed up by beasts, and dad said he didn't care how near we got, as long as they chewed and tore to pieces the natives; so we started to work up a little nearer, when there was a noise such as I never heard before, as the hogshead of broken gla.s.s began to roll down the tiers of stone seats, and I fell over on the ground, and pushed dad, and he went over in the sand and struck his pants on a cactus, and yelled that he was stabbed with a dirk.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Went over in the sand and struck his pants on a cactus 233]

I got up and fell down again, and just then the Chicago soap man came up on a gallop, followed by the villains playing lion and tiger, and dad asked the Chicago man what seemed to be the matter, and he said: "Matter enough; there has been an earthquake, and the Coliseum has fallen down, killing more than 10,-000 Romans, and the animals' cages are busted and the animals are loose, looking for fresh meat, and we better get right back to Rome, too quick, or we will be eaten alive. Come on if you are with me. Do you hear the lions after us?" said he, as the hired villains roared.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He took the lead for good old Rome 235]

Well, you'd a died to see dad get up out of that p.r.i.c.kly cactus and take the lead for good old Rome. I didn't know he was such a sprinter, but we trailed along behind, roaring like lions and snarling like tigers and yip-yapping like hyenas and barking like timber wolves, and we couldn't see dad for the dust, on that moonlight night.

We slowed up and let dad run ahead, and he got to the hotel first, and we paid off the villains, and finally we went in the hotel and found dad in the bar-room puffing and drinking a high-ball. "Pretty near h.e.l.l, wasn't it," said dad, to the soap man. "Did the lions catch anybody?"

"O, a few of the lower cla.s.ses," said the soap man, "but none of the n.o.bility. The n.o.bility were in the boxes and that part of the Coliseum never falls during an earthquake," and the soap man joined dad in a high-ball.

After dad got through puffing and had wiped about two quarts of perspiration off his head and neck, and the soap man had told him what a great thing it was to perspire in Rome, on account of the Roman fever, that catches a man at night and kills him before morning, dad turned to me and said: "Hennery, you go pack up and we get out of this in the morning, for I feel as though I had been chewed by one of those hyenas.

Not any more Rome for papa," and the high-ball party broke up, and we went to bed to get sleep enough to leave town.

Do you know, the next morning those hired villains made the soap man and I pay ten dollars extra on account of straining their lungs roaring like lions? But we paid for their lungs all right, rather than have them present a bill to dad.

Well, good-by, old man. We are getting all the fun there is going.

Your only,

Hennery.

CHAPTER XIX.