Tiberius Smith/Chapter 1
TIBERIUS SMITH
I
HIS FIRST ADMINISTRATION
I NEVER had the good-fortune to meet Tiberius Smith, the veteran showman, but I have known that other remarkable man, Billy Campbell, and from his lips heard many chronicles of his patron's hardy and unusual doings. As he told me these yarns, his eyes often grew moist, and he would murmur in parentheses, "Ah, but he was a man. Heaven knows why his folks dubbed him Tiberius; maybe to get away from the Smith. But when it came to writing down the real answer he was the only Roman on the asphalt."
I first met Campbell at the "Away From Home Club," and as I came to know him, I learned to love him, and through him, his old master. And thus, as the winter nights drove us to our pipes and the cosey companionship of the blazing hearth, he detailed that which has until now escaped the public ken, except as garbled press reports have at times hinted at inexplicable situations without furnishing the solution. I can see now that Smith, in his world-wide wanderings in search of circus and menagerie furnishings, or in piloting some theatrical venture, was the blind factor in many a half-published equation.
If I remember correctly, I had been commenting on the frequency of revolutions in quarrelsome Central America when Campbell first opened his heart, filled his pipe, and began the narrative which was to charm me for many an evening.
"It is true," he began, "that Central America has been a bargain-counter in petty warfares for years, and has peddled out more genuine lemons to would-be Cæsars than any other spot of its size on the map. Some of the disturbances have been exceedingly eccentric, others, just plain, vulgar killings; but I doubt if ever there was a more picturesque insurrection than that in which Tiberius Smith, of Vermont, filled the president's cosey corner for one week, and with his reserve battery of comic-opera singers and his ever-reassuring "Ha! ha!" defied all comers. The passing of Tiberius and his administration is not mentioned in history, nor did the consular agent hear of it in time to stir up the Washington newspaper men with sanguinary wires. And probably the slob element down there, known as the common people, have long since forgotten it.
"But the story of that glorious week should make brave reading, nevertheless, and the battle put up by the Green Mountain man and his corps of gayly clad sopranos and a light-brigade of giggling danseuses, reinforced by sad-voiced contraltos, an Alpine shepherd, a regulation pirate, and much green-room truck, incidentally demonstrates that art and science need not always stagger to the ropes because of ranting brute force.
"Tib—you know we called him Tib for short—had a way of making every one and every thing loyal to him. When his round, brown eyes concentrated in two beady twinkles, you had to believe in him and do his bidding. He believed in himself, and simply bubbled over with assurance when making the hardest shots imaginable. And he had the blamedest schemes. Yet, most of them pulled through in one way or another. If he didn't land what he was gunning for, he'd net something else almost as good. So when he decided to take a comic-opera troupe to Guatemala City, Mazie Adams side-stepped thirty per week in order to lead the ballet, and I was hypnotized to go as first tenor. There were twenty-eight of us all told, four men and two dozen women. Tiberius said he could surround enough Aztec gold in Guatemala to make bond-holders of us all for life. He believed it, and hang me if we all didn't after he'd given us a con about 'the luxurious life in the tropics,' 'the Crœsus Dons of the Blue Pacific,' and the like. It was the Dons that caught Mazie Adams and the other girls.
"Well, we sailed in November from 'Frisco, bound for San Jose de Guatemala. From there we were to take diligences to the capital. Our troupe was about all the little coastwise steamer had aboard, and when we were bobbing about off Champerico it began to blow up a regular hummer. The captain wanted to land us there, but Tib said San José or zero, and on we rolled. I was sorry, and so were the others; for the storm now became a hurricane and the captain decided he couldn't make San José, as that port has no harbor, but is simply an open roadstead. I believe we were to luff, or to loaf, in the offing, or thereabouts, and then beat in when the wind went down. But we didn't. Instead, we boomed right by in the night, and after a miserable ten hours found ourselves in Arcate, a small town that would make a sewing-machine feel homesick.
"Arcate is made up of a dozen wooden houses, built down close to the beach, and one street running back about five blocks from the shore. Along this artery of travel are a handful of native huts of bamboo-sticks, covered with leaves of the cocoanut palm, while in the environs of the burg poisonous pools of stagnant water fill the air with miasma, steaming thickly in the ninety-degree heat. Mazie Adams crept down to the baggage-deck and wept bitterly.
"Cheer up, little one,' encouraged Tiberius, soothingly. 'For every tear now shed you shall have a piece of ice to wear on those fairy fingers.'
"But as if the heavy atmosphere and sickening odors were not enough, the tin boiler in our little craft blew up near daybreak, and we were forced to go ashore in our night-clothes, where we shivered in rugs and old sails until the broiled sun relieved the situation. To our joy we found all of our stage trunks had been saved, but our every-day finery was naught.
"'Get busy,' cried Tiberius, in his merry bass. 'Unpack the trunks and slip into the calico of Act I. When we reach Guaty we'll have some nice, new linen suits. Remember, children, I'm all that ever was, multiplied by two.'
"And that's what we had to do, and a nice-looking lot we were. Mazie and the other fairies in pink tights and long, bespangled cloaks didn't go so bad with the furnishings, but the pirate, George Hanscom, and I, the Alpine shepherd, kind of jarred on the rest of the furniture. Tib's rotund, energetic form was encased in a tin suit of mediæval armor, and he swore it felt good. By the time the town was fairly awake we were all arrayed in our picnic clothes, and I guess they thought we were a sure-enough bunch of fairies.
"While the dusky rabble was enjoying us with wonder-lit eyes, a tall, thin, mahoganized-skinned man approached and greeted us in good old Anglo-Sax. He said he was Alfred Jones, more commonly known on the coast as 'Banana' Jones. He had lived in the country for fifteen years and was too lazy to leave it. He informed us he could talk any lingo between Purgatory and Guatemala City, and Tib at once hired him as ticket-seller. Tib himself threw a fine cluster of Spanish, having toured a circus through South America once on a time. But he was shy on dialects.
"So Banana Jones was delegated to scout for some diligences, and he said he would, once he was able to tear his eyes from Mazie, and was just explaining that he hadn't seen a white woman for ten years, when fifty tatterdemalions, armed with ancient guns and a large accumulation of realty on their hands and bare feet, came howling down the lane.
"'I forgot,' said Banana Jones, simply, 'there's a bit of a revolution on, and the insurrectionists hold the town. They are expecting a president from 'Frisco. The junta was to send them down a regular fire-eater this week.'
"'That's me,' cried Tib. 'I'm on! I'm the president! I go a mile in less than nothing. I never did start a game but what something good turned up unexpectedly. Tell 'em I'm their feudal lord.'
"'Well, I'll be blasted,' gasped Banana Jones. Then he added, 'Do I get all the banana privileges between here and Sonsonate?'
"'You certainly do,' answered Tiberius, drawing his tin rapier and jolting his helmet into a jaunty position.
"Jones ran towards the mob and began a harangue in which 'Don Señor Tiberio,' and 'viva la libertad' figured extensively, and when he was done the ragamuffins danced about us in glee, and one squint-eyed ruffian sought to encompass Mazie Adams's fair waist with his dirty paw. But Tib lunged ferociously at him with his Toledo (Ohio) blade, and the gang evidently set us down for born fighters.
"'They dope you out as High Muck-a-Muck and accept you,' said Jones, 'but they want to know if you've brought any arms and powder.'
"'Tell 'em I've brought art, music, beauty, and science, and that against that quartet prosaic explosives aren't deuce-high in a well-thumbed euchre deck,' retorted Tib, grandly. Then he tipped us the cue and we all burst into a few sweet strains of song, as sung in the ensemble of 'The Dear Gazelle,' It fetched 'em, sir. It fetched 'em to their knees. They grovelled. I guess they'd have chucked the whole blooming revolution for reserved seats in our show. But Tiberius had made up his mind to act the conqueror, and he told Jones to take us to the most pretentious habitation in town, that he might confiscate it for government purposes. A miserable little hotel, built to accommodate about fifteen, was the best thing in this line, and into it we went, while all the regular boarders departed via the back door.
"'But what about weapons?' persisted Jones, dubiously.
"Tiberius pondered thoughtfully, and Hanscom, the pirate, tapped the hardware in his belt and said, 'We've got them all here.'
"'We have the kinetograph,' reminded Tiberius.
"'What's that? A machine-gun?' cried Jones, eagerly.
"Tiberius looked at him sadly and then explained it was merely a device to throw moving-pictures on a screen.
"'But pictures won't hurt 'em,' bemoaned Jones.
"'No,' cried Tiberius, exultantly, 'but it 'll scare 'em like the deuce. Why, man, in that one big box I've columns of infantry, heavy artillery, troops of cavalry, a little drummer-boy, a Red Cross society, and the Private's Farewell to His Aged Mother. It's the most economical method of transporting field-forces in the world.'
"Then, after he had spoken several more pieces, Jones saw the illumination, and his hard-baked face cracked into various smiles. 'If they'll only come by night,' he murmured.
"You see, we carted the picture-machine around to amuse the audience between the acts of 'The Dear Gazelle,' and almost all of the pictures were war-scenes. Fortunately it had escaped injury in the explosion, and only needed to be dried out to be in fighting trim.
"But the rest of us hadn't come down to Central America to build up republics, and we were in a fair way to mutiny. Hanscom had just killed a tarantula, and was now writing a weepy letter to his old mother in Utica, New York. Mazie was sobbing that she did not see any chance of freezing her digits with Guatemala ice, and the rest of the bunch were swearing, or snivelling, as the sex demanded, when Tiberius visited us.
"'Children,' said he, kindly, 'List. Why weep? We've arrived here. The boat is busted. We can't leave till another comes. It seems two factions are sparring for the strangle-hold on this forsaken land. If we remain neutral, one side or the other, or both, will pick us up and sell us as slaves to owners of the dank mangrove swamps.' Tib didn't know a mangrove from a yard of felt, but it sounded good and he used it. 'Think, Mazie, of being compelled to pluck rubber gum with those fragile lily stalks,' he said. 'Think, Gertrude, of making bean bread for some chocolate-frosted brute that remembers when he walked on all fours. Now if I can obtain the backing of one party we are that much stronger, and will come out all right. Remember, Tiberius Smith always wins. Why, children, once I fell so low that I was forced to join an Uncle Tom's Cabin company and play I was ice in the Ohio River. Did I stay ice? Ask me. To-day you behold in me the sole owner of "The Dear Gazelle" opera troupe, and President pro tem of Iscanlati, or whatever name under high heavens they call it.'
"Of course there was a lot of horse-sense in Tib's talk, but I knew he was playing President just through his lust of empire. He told me afterwards that if he could have held down the job, he had intended to map out a canal route and sneak a stake from Uncle Sam.
"But to return to the well-filled inn and the homesick allies of the insurrectionists. That afternoon Tib and Jones reconnoitred the only approach from the interior; the only road over which the enemy could come. This ran dead against a big white cliff, and then swung sharp to the west and made a bee-line to the beach. Tib deployed the native troops far out beyond the cliff, with instructions to hike back to the hotel if they scented the foe. In a casual way he led them to believe that they wouldn't have to do much fighting. Just take prisoners after the new President had shaken a little parlor-magic out of his cuff. This pleased them immensely, and they said we were their saviors, Jupiter Stators, and all that kind of stuff. But we were in a very disagreeable situation. The warm climate didn't make the 'Gazelle' rags so bad for the girls, and we men knew we could get used to our make-up after a while. But only a narrow strip of beach separated us from the sharks, and Tib and his picture-game from the dusky triflers in front. However, it was grin and bear it, and we were there to tote the machine and fixings up to a point near the white cliff.
"No one troubled us that night, but on the next a horrible screeching aroused us from uneasy slumbers, and when the pirate and I got down into the open we could just catch a glimpse of Tib's armor twinkling in the moonlight far ahead.
"'Bring your shepherd's horn, Rupert,' cried Tib—he sometimes called me by my stage name—and I obeyed him.
"A long, lean valentine guided me up the road to the firing-line, to where Tib and Jones were stationed. To my horror I found them facing the cliff, backs turned to the enemy.
"'For Heaven's sake!' I cried, 'let us receive our wounds in the breast and die facing the tyrant.'
"'When I begin to let loose Uncle Sam, just sound some merry lay on the horn,' ignored Tib. 'Give 'em boots-and-saddles and a bit of that Tyrolese warble.'
"I was so choked up I didn't believe I could wind the horn, but Tib and Jones were cool enough. Tib had the machine all ready, and as a fearful howl went up behind us he turned on the illuminations. There on the cliff pranced the Fighting Seventh Cavalry, while Banana Jones split the shadows with hoarse shouts and military orders, accompanying his vocal stunts by hurling rocks among the bushes—in short, making enough noise for a whole regiment.
"'An would ye save me, blow!' cried Tib.
"Forgetting my peril, really believing that the brave phantoms on the white rock stood ready to succor me, I fixed my eyes on Old Glory and gave them Dixie. Any one ought to fight by that tune! Between notes I could hear the great gasp of astonishment from the foe, as they halted. Then the crackling in the bushes began to recede, and Banana Jones chuckled, 'They've vamoosed! Best pictures I ever saw.'
"You can safely gamble that the insurrectionists down on the beach looked upon us as real warriors when the sun rose and brought no invaders. Tiberius was so chesty that he wanted to pursue the enemy and incidentally annex San Salvador. But as white cliffs aren't always handy, we held him back.
"Well, three days passed and our stage costumes began to look tarnished. Then came the second attack. Our scouts said it was a different party, and when they approached the pass it was hardly dark enough to operate the machine. Tib commanded us all to follow him, and arranged us in a semicircle, position for the curtain raise in Act II.
"'Now warble!' he commanded, and we did, with a fringe of lime-light playing over our rich vestments and scared faces. What the enemy thought on seeing twenty-eight fays all covered gold and cut-glass, giving the serenade, will never be known. But it staggered 'em. Mazie Adams and the other Venuses sang and looked like angels, and the brownies didn't care to buck up against a celestial choir without any investigation.
"'If you can hold 'em a few minutes, we'll win in a canter,' cried Tib.
"At that we all stalked forward a few paces with the best lilt of the whole piece pealing from our ruby lips. Then came the welcome order to stand aside, and the faithful old picture-gallery began to squirt photos on the cliff. What with the howling of the ballet, the hoarse cries of Jones, the bugle-calls and prancing pictures, the brownies were held up for fair. And the funny part of it was, our allies were as scared as the enemy.
"'See 'em run!' cried Banana Jones.
"Then, just as the old One Hundred and Fortieth Infantry began tramping by, we all, with one common impulse, insane with elation, charged the paralyzed ranks in the brush. With one long-drawn-out screech they fled, but not before one beggar gave me a cut in the leg with a big cheese-knife. Tiberius would run amuck, and soon distanced us, the twinkling and clanging of his tin suit only revealing his whereabouts. When the company caught up with him he was trying to lift a good-sized chest in his arms.
"'It's probably full of tortillas,' remarked the pirate, after we had returned to the hotel.
"'I think, children, it's their war-chest,' gasped Tiberius, who had been unable to carry it alone.
"We tore off the cover and there were rows upon rows of yellow wafers. We divided 'em up equally and Jones said each one's share amounted to about fifteen hundred dollars.
"Whether it was the loss of their funds, or the moving-pictures that turned the trick, we were not destined to learn. For on the seventh day a little vermin-infested tub poked her nose into the harbor, and we all shipped for San José, where we picked up some civilized rags and caught a 'Frisco steamer.