A Guest at the Ludlow, and Other Stories

  THREE OPEN LETTERS

  XIV

  _Colonel John L. Sullivan, at large:_

  DEAR SIR--Will you permit me, without wishing to give you the slightestoffense, to challenge you to fight in France with bare knuckles andpolice interference, between this and the close of navigation?

  I have had no real good fight with anybody for some time, and should beglad to co-operate with you in that direction, preferring, however, tohave it attended to in time so that I can go on with my fall plowing. Ishould also like to be my own stake holder.

  We shall have to fight at 135 pounds, because I can not train above thatfigure without extra care and good feeding, while you could train downto that, I judge, if you begin to go without food on receipt of thischallenge. I should ask that we fight under the rules of the Londonprize ring, in the Opera House in Paris. If you decide to accept, I willengage the house at once and put a few good reading notices in thepapers.

  I should expect a forfeit of $5,000 to be put up, so that in case youare in jail at the time, I may have something to reimburse me for mytrip to Paris and the general upheaval of my whole being which arisesfrom ocean travel.

  I challenge you as a plain American citizen and an amateur, partially toassert the rights of a simple tax-payer and partly to secure for myselfa name. I was, as a boy, the pride of my parents, and they wanted me toamount to something. So far, the results have been different. Will younot aid me, a poor struggler in the great race for supremacy, to obtainthat notice which the newspapers now so reluctantly yield? You are saidto be generous to a fault, especially your own faults, and I plead withyou now to share your great fame by accepting my challenge and appearingwith me in a mixed programme for the evening, in which we will jointlyamuse and instruct the people, while at the same time it will give me achance to become great in one day, even if I am defeated.

  I have often admired your scholarly and spiritual expressions, and yourmodest life, and you will remember that at one time I asked you for yourautograph, and you told me to go where the worm dieth not and the firedepartment is ineffectual. Will you not, I ask, aid a struggler andpanter for fame, who desires the eye of the public, even if his own beitalicised at the same time?

  I must close this challenge, which is in the nature of an appeal to oneof America's best-known men. Will you accept my humble challenge, sothat I can go into training at once? We can leave the details of thefight to the _Mail and Express_, if you will, and the championship beltwe can buy afterward. All I care for is the honor of being mixed up withyou in some way, and enough of the gate money to pay for arnica andmedical attendance.

  Will you do it?

  I know the audience would enjoy seeing us dressed for the fray, you sostrong and so wide, I so pensive and so flat busted about the chest. Letus proceed at once, Colonel, to draw up the writings and begin to train.You will never regret it, I am sure, and it will be the making of me.

  I do not know your address, but trust that this will reach you throughthis book, for, as I write, you are on you way toward Canada, with arequisition and the police reaching after you at every town.

  I am glad to hear that you are not drinking any more, especially whileengaged in sleep. If you only confine your drinking to your wakinghours, you may live to be a very old man, and your great, massive brainwill continue to expand until your hat will not begin to hold it.

  What do you think of Browning? I should like to converse with you on thesubject before the fight, and get your soul's best sentiments on hisstyle of intangible thought wave.

  I will meet you at Havre or Calais, and agree with you how hard we shallhit each other. I saw, at a low variety show the other day, twopleasing comedians who welted each other over the stomach with canes,and also pounded each other on the head with sufficient force to explodepercussion caps on the top of the skull, and yet without injury. Do younot think that a prize-fight could be thus provided for? I will seethese men, if you say so, and learn their methods.

  Remember, it is not the punishment of a prize-fight for which I yearn,but the effulgent glory of meeting you in the ring, and having thecables and the press associate my budding name with that of a man whohas done so much to make men better--a man whose name will go down toposterity as that of one who sought to ameliorate and mellow anddesiccate his fellow-men.

  I will now challenge you once more, with great respect, and beg leave toremain, yours very truly,

  BILL NYE.

  _Hon. Ferdinand de Lesseps, Paris, France:_

  DEAR SIR--I have some shares in the canal which you have been workingon, and I am compelled to hypothecate them this summer, in order topaint my house. You have great faith in the future of the enterprise,and so I will give you the first chance on this stock of mine. You havesuffered so much in order to do this work that I want to see the stockget into your hands. You deserve it. You shall have it. Ferdie, if youwill send me a post-office money order by return mail, covering the parvalue of five hundred shares, I will lose the premium, because I am alittle pressed for money. The painters will be through next week, andwill want their pay.

  As I say, I want to see you own the canal, for in fancy I can see you asyou toiled down there in the hot sun, floating your wheelbarrow and yourbonds down the valley with your perspiration. I can see you in themorning, with hot, red hands and a tin dinner pail, going to your toil,a large red cotton handkerchief sticking out of your hip pocket.

  So I have decided that you ought to have control, if possible, of thisgreat water front; besides, you have a larger family than I have tosupport. When I heard that you were the father of fifteen littlechildren, and that you were in the sere and yellow leaf, I said tomyself, a man with that many little mouths to feed, at the age ofeighty, shall have the first crack at my stock. And so, if you will sendthe face value as soon as possible, I will say bong jaw, messue.

  Yours truly,

  BILL NYE.

  _To the Seven Haired Sisters, 'Steenth Street, New York:_

  MESDAMES, MAMSELLES AND FELLOW-CITIZENS--I write these few lines to saythat I am well and hope this will find you all enjoying the same greatblessing. How pleasant it is for sisters to dwell together in unity andbeloved by mankind. You must indeed have a good time standing in thewindow day after day, pulling your long hair through your fingers withpride. When I first saw you all thus engaged, for the benefit of thepublic, I thought it was a candy pull.

  I now write to say that the hair promoter which you sold me at the timeis not up to its work. It was a year ago that I bought it, and I thinkthat in a year something ought to show. It is a great nuisance for apublic man who is liable to come home late at night to have to top-dresshis head before he can retire. Your directions involve great care andtrouble to a man in my position, and still I have tried faithfully tofollow them. What is the result? Nothing but disappointment, and not sovery much of that.

  You said, if you remember, that your father was a bald-headed clergyman,but one day, with a wild shriek of "Eureka!" he discovered this hairencourager, and for the rest of his life filled his high hat with hairevery time he put it on. You said that at first a fine growth of down,like the inside of a mouse's ear, would be seen, after that the blade,then the stalk, and the full corn in the ear. In a pig's ear, I am nowled to believe.

  Fair, but false seven-haired sisters, I now bid you adieu. You have lostin me a good, warm, true-hearted, and powerful friend. Ask me not for myindorsement, or for my before and after taking pictures to use in yourcirculars; I give my kind words and photographs hereafter to the soapmen. They are what they seem. You are not.

  When a woman betrays me she must beware. And when seven of them do so,it is that much worse. You fooled me with smiles and false promises, andnow it will be just as well for you to look out. I would rather die thanbe betrayed. It is disagreeable. It sours one, and also embitters one.

  Here
at this point our ways will diverge. The roads fork at this place.I shall go on upward and onward hairless and cappy, also careless andhappy, to my goal in life. I do not know whether each or either of youhave provided yourselves with goals or not, but if not you will do wellnow to select some. The world may smile upon you, and gold pour intoyour coffers, but the day will come when you will have to wrap thedrapery of your hair about you and lie down to pleasant dreams. Thenwill arise the thought, alas!--Then You'll Remember Me.

  I now close this letter, leaving you to the keen pangs of remorse andthe cruel jabs of unavailing regret. Some people are born bald, othersacquire baldness, whilst still others have baldness thrust upon themwith a paint brush. Some are bald on the outside of their heads, otherson the inside. But oh, girls, beware of baldness on the soul. I ask you,even if you are the daughters of a clergyman, to think seriously of whatI have said.

  Yours truly,

  BILL NYE.