WHEN I broke the back of knight1-errantry that time, I no longer felt obliged to work in secret. So, the very next day I exposed my hidden schools, my mines, and my vast system of clandestine2 factories and workshops to an astonished world. That is to say, I exposed the nineteenth century to the inspection3 of the sixth.
Well, it is always a good plan to follow up an advantage promptly4. The knights5 were temporarily down, but if I would keep them so I must just simply paralyze them -- nothing short of that would answer. You see, I was "bluffing6" that last time in the field; it would be natural for them to work around to that conclusion, if I gave them a chance. So I must not give them time; and I didn't.
I renewed my challenge, engraved7 it on brass8, posted it up where any priest could read it to them, and also kept it standing9 in the advertising10 columns of the paper.
I not only renewed it, but added to its proportions. I said, name the day, and I would take fifty assistants and stand up AGAINST THE MASSED CHIVALRY11 OF THE WHOLE EARTH AND DESTROY IT.
I was not bluffing this time. I meant what I said; I could do what I promised. There wasn't any way to misunderstand the language of that challenge. Even the dullest of the chivalry perceived that this was a plain case of "put up, or shut up." They were wise and did the latter. In all the next three years they gave me no trouble worth mentioning.
Consider the three years sped. Now look around on England. A happy and prosperous country, and strangely altered. Schools everywhere, and several colleges; a number of pretty good newspapers. Even authorship was taking a start; Sir Dinadan the Humorist was first in the field, with a volume of gray-headed jokes which I had been familiar with during thirteen centuries. If he had left out that old rancid one about the lecturer I wouldn't have said anything; but I couldn't stand that one. I suppressed the book and hanged the author.
Slavery was dead and gone; all men were equal before the law; taxation12 had been equalized. The telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, the typewriter, the sewing-machine, and all the thousand willing and handy servants of steam and electricity were working their way into favor. We had a steamboat or two on the Thames, we had steam warships13, and the beginnings of a steam commercial marine14; I was getting ready to send out an expedition to discover America.
We were building several lines of railway, and our line from Camelot to London was already finished and in operation. I was shrewd enough to make all offices connected with the passenger service places of high and distinguished15 honor. My idea was to attract the chivalry and nobility, and make them useful and keep them out of mischief16. The plan worked very well, the competition for the places was hot. The conductor of the 4.33 express was a duke; there wasn't a passenger conductor on the line below the degree of earl. They were good men, every one, but they had two defects which I couldn't cure, and so had to wink17 at: they wouldn't lay aside their armor, and they would "knock down" fare -- I mean rob the company.
There was hardly a knight in all the land who wasn't in some useful employment. They were going from end to end of the country in all manner of useful missionary18 capacities; their penchant19 for wandering, and their experience in it, made them altogether the most effective spreaders of civilization we had. They went clothed in steel and equipped with sword and lance and battle-axe, and if they couldn't persuade a person to try a sewing-machine on the installment20 plan, or a melodeon, or a barbed-wire fence, or a prohibition21 journal, or any of the other thousand and one things they canvassed22 for, they removed him and passed on.
I was very happy. Things were working steadily23 toward a secretly longed-for point. You see, I had two schemes in my head which were the vastest of all my projects. The one was to overthrow24 the Catholic Church and set up the Protestant faith on its ruins -not as an Established Church, but a go-as-you-please one; and the other project was to get a decree issued by and by, commanding that upon Arthur's death unlimited25 suffrage26 should be introduced, and given to men and women alike -- at any rate to all men, wise or unwise, and to all mothers who at middle age should be found to know nearly as much as their sons at twenty-one. Arthur was good for thirty years yet, he being about my own age -- that is to say, forty -- and I believed that in that time I could easily have the active part of the population of that day ready and eager for an event which should be the first of its kind in the history of the world -- a rounded and complete governmental revolution without bloodshed. The result to be a republic. Well, I may as well confess, though I do feel ashamed when I think of it: I was beginning to have a base hankering to be its first president myself. Yes, there was more or less human nature in me; I found that out.
Clarence was with me as concerned the revolution, but in a modified way. His idea was a republic, without privileged orders, but with a hereditary27 royal family at the head of it instead of an elective chief magistrate28. He believed that no nation that had ever known the joy of worshiping a royal family could ever be robbed of it and not fade away and die of melancholy29. I urged that kings were dangerous. He said, then have cats. He was sure that a royal family of cats would answer every purpose. They would be as useful as any other royal family, they would know as much, they would have the same virtues30 and the same treacheries, the same disposition31 to get up shindies with other royal cats, they would be laughably vain and absurd and never know it, they would be wholly inexpensive; finally, they would have as sound a divine right as any other royal house, and "Tom VII., or Tom XI., or Tom XIV. by the grace of God King," would sound as well as it would when applied32 to the ordinary royal tomcat with tights on. "And as a rule," said he, in his neat modern English, "the character of these cats would be considerably33 above the character of the average king, and this would be an immense moral advantage to the nation, for the reason that a nation always models its morals after its monarch's. The worship of royalty34 being founded in unreason, these graceful35 and harmless cats would easily become as sacred as any other royalties36, and indeed more so, because it would presently be noticed that they hanged nobody, beheaded nobody, imprisoned37 nobody, inflicted38 no cruelties or injustices39 of any sort, and so must be worthy40 of a deeper love and reverence41 than the customary human king, and would certainly get it. The eyes of the whole harried42 world would soon be fixed43 upon this humane44 and gentle system, and royal butchers would presently begin to disappear; their subjects would fill the vacancies45 with catlings from our own royal house; we should become a factory; we should supply the thrones of the world; within forty years all Europe
would be governed by cats, and we should furnish the cats. The reign46 of universal peace would begin then, to end no more forever...... Me-e-e-yow-ow-ow-ow -- fzt! -- wow!"
Hang him, I supposed he was in earnest, and was beginning to be persuaded by him, until he exploded that cat-howl and startled me almost out of my clothes. But he never could be in earnest. He didn't know what it was. He had pictured a distinct and perfectly47 rational and feasible improvement upon constitutional monarchy48, but he was too feather-headed to know it, or care anything about it, either. I was going to give him a scolding, but Sandy came flying in at that moment, wild with terror, and so choked with sobs49 that for a minute she could not get her voice. I ran and took her in my arms, and lavished50 caresses51 upon her and said, beseechingly52:
"Speak, darling, speak! What is it?"
Her head fell limp upon my bosom53, and she gasped54, almost inaudibly:
"HELLO-CENTRAL!"
"Quick!" I shouted to Clarence; "telephone the king's homeopath to come!"
In two minutes I was kneeling by the child's crib, and Sandy was dispatching servants here, there, and everywhere, all over the palace. I took in the situation almost at a glance -- membranous55 croup! I bent56 down and whispered:
"Wake up, sweetheart! Hello-Central"
She opened her soft eyes languidly, and made out to say:
"Papa."
That was a comfort. She was far from dead yet. I sent for preparations of sulphur, I rousted out the croup-kettle myself; for I don't sit down and wait for doctors when Sandy or the child is sick. I knew how to nurse both of them, and had had experience. This little chap had lived in my arms a good part of its small life, and often I could soothe57 away its troubles and get it to laugh through the tear-dews on its eyelashes when even its mother couldn't.
Sir Launcelot, in his richest armor, came striding along the great hall now on his way to the stockboard; he was president of the stock-board, and occupied the Siege Perilous58, which he had bought of Sir Galahad; for the stock-board consisted of the Knights of the Round Table, and they used the Round Table for business purposes now. Seats at it were worth -well, you would never believe the figure, so it is no use to state it. Sir Launcelot was a bear, and he had put up a corner in one of the new lines, and was just getting ready to squeeze the shorts to-day; but what of that? He was the same old Launcelot, and when he glanced in as he was passing the door and found out that his pet was sick, that was enough for him; bulls and bears might fight it out their own way for all him, he would come right in here and stand by little HelloCentral for all he was worth. And that was what he did. He shied his helmet into the corner, and in half a minute he had a new wick in the alcohol lamp and was firing up on the croup-kettle. By this time Sandy had built a blanket canopy59 over the crib, and everything was ready.
Sir Launcelot got up steam, he and I loaded up the kettle with unslaked lime and carbolic acid, with a touch of lactic60 acid added thereto, then filled the thing up with water and inserted the steam-spout under the canopy. Everything was ship-shape now, and we sat down on either side of the crib to stand our watch. Sandy was so grateful and so comforted that she charged a couple of church-wardens with willow-bark and sumach-tobacco for us, and told us to smoke as much as we pleased, it couldn't get under the canopy, and she was used to smoke, being the first lady in the land who had ever seen a cloud blown. Well, there couldn't be a more contented61 or comfortable sight than Sir Launcelot in his noble armor sitting in gracious serenity62 at the end of a yard of snowy church-warden. He was a beautiful man, a lovely man, and was just intended to make a wife and children happy. But, of course Guenever -- however, it's no use to cry over what's done and can't be helped.
Well, he stood watch-and-watch with me, right straight through, for three days and nights, till the child was out of danger; then he took her up in his great arms and kissed her, with his plumes63 falling about her golden head, then laid her softly in Sandy's lap again and took his stately way down the vast hall, between the ranks of admiring men-at-arms and menials, and so disappeared. And no instinct warned me that I should never look upon him again in this world! Lord, what a world of heart-break it is.
The doctors said we must take the child away, if we would coax64 her back to health and strength again. And she must have sea-air. So we took a man-ofwar, and a suite65 of two hundred and sixty persons, and went cruising about, and after a fortnight of this we stepped ashore66 on the French coast, and the doctors thought it would be a good idea to make something of a stay there. The little king of that region offered us his hospitalities, and we were glad to accept. If he had had as many conveniences as he lacked, we should have been plenty comfortable enough; even as it was, we made out very well, in his queer old castle, by the help of comforts and luxuries from the ship.
At the end of a month I sent the vessel67 home for fresh supplies, and for news. We expected her back in three or four days. She would bring me, along with other news, the result of a certain experiment which I had been starting. It was a project of mine to replace the tournament with something which might furnish an escape for the extra steam of the chivalry, keep those bucks68 entertained and out of mischief, and at the same time preserve the best thing in them, which was their hardy69 spirit of emulation70. I had had a choice band of them in private training for some time, and the date was now arriving for their first public effort.
This experiment was baseball. In order to give the thing vogue71 from the start, and place it out of the reach of criticism, I chose my nines by rank, not capacity. There wasn't a knight in either team who wasn't a sceptered sovereign. As for material of this sort, there was a glut72 of it always around Arthur. You couldn't throw a brick in any direction and not cripple a king. Of course, I couldn't get these people to leave off their armor; they wouldn't do that when they bathed. They consented to differentiate73 the armor so that a body could tell one team from the other, but that was the most they would do. So, one of the teams wore chain-mail ulsters, and the other wore platearmor made of my new Bessemer steel. Their practice in the field was the most fantastic thing I ever saw. Being ball-proof, they never skipped out of the way, but stood still and took the result; when a Bessemer was at the bat and a ball hit him, it would bound a hundred and fifty yards sometimes. And when a man was running, and threw himself on his stomach to slide to his base, it was like an iron-clad coming into port. At first I appointed men of no rank to act as umpires, but I had to discontinue that. These people were no easier to please than other nines. The umpire's first decision was usually his last; they broke him in two with a bat, and his friends toted him home on a shutter74. When it was noticed that no umpire ever survived a game, umpiring got to be unpopular. So I was obliged to appoint somebody whose rank and lofty position under the government would protect him.
Here are the names of the nines:
BESSEMERS ULSTERS
KING ARTHUR. EMPEROR LUCIUS.
KING LOT OF LOTHIAN. KING LOGRIS.
KING OF NORTHGALIS. KING MARHALT OF IRELAND.
KING MARSIL. KING MORGANORE.
KING OF LITTLE BRITAIN. KING MARK OF CORNWALL.
KING LABOR75. KING NENTRES OF GARLOT.
KING PELLAM OF LISTENGESE. KING MELIODAS OF LIONES.
KING BAGDEMAGUS. KING OF THE LAKE.
KING TOLLEME LA FEINTES. THE SOWDAN OF SYRIA.
Umpire -- CLARENCE.
The first public game would certainly draw fifty thousand people; and for solid fun would be worth going around the world to see. Everything would be favorable; it was balmy and beautiful spring weather now, and Nature was all tailored out in her new clothes.
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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clandestine
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| adj.秘密的，暗中从事的 | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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bluffing
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| n. 威吓，唬人 动词bluff的现在分词形式 | |
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engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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taxation
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| n.征税，税收，税金 | |
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warships
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| 军舰，战舰( warship的名词复数 )； 舰只 | |
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marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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penchant
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| n.爱好，嗜好；（强烈的）倾向 | |
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installment
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| n.(instalment)分期付款；(连载的)一期 | |
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prohibition
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| n.禁止；禁令，禁律 | |
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canvassed
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| v.（在政治方面）游说( canvass的过去式和过去分词 )；调查（如选举前选民的）意见；为讨论而提出（意见等）；详细检查 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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overthrow
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| v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆 | |
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unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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suffrage
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| n.投票，选举权，参政权 | |
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hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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magistrate
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| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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royalty
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| n.皇家，皇族 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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royalties
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| 特许权使用费 | |
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imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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injustices
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| 不公平( injustice的名词复数 )； 非正义； 待…不公正； 冤枉 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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harried
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| v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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humane
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| adj.人道的，富有同情心的 | |
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vacancies
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| n.空房间( vacancy的名词复数 )；空虚；空白；空缺 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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lavished
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| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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beseechingly
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| adv. 恳求地 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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membranous
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| adj.膜的，膜状的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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lactic
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| adj.乳汁的 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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plumes
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| 羽毛( plume的名词复数 )； 羽毛饰； 羽毛状物； 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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coax
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| v.哄诱，劝诱，用诱哄得到，诱取 | |
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suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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bucks
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| n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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69
hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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70
emulation
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| n.竞争；仿效 | |
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71
Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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72
glut
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| n.存货过多，供过于求；v.狼吞虎咽 | |
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73
differentiate
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| vi.(between)区分；vt.区别；使不同 | |
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74
shutter
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| n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置 | |
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75
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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