The Complete Works. O. Henry

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      “‘In the first place,’ says the man, ‘you want to know who I am. I’m sole lessee and proprietor of this tribe of Indians. They call me the Grand Yacuma, which is to say King or Main Finger of the bunch. I’ve got more power here than a chargé d’affaires, a charge of dynamite, and a charge account at Tiffany’s combined. In fact, I’m the Big Stick, with as many extra knots on it as there is on the record run of the Lusitania. Oh, I read the papers now and then,’ says he. ‘Now, let’s hear your entitlements,’ he goes on, ‘and the meeting will be open.’

      “‘Well,’ says I, ‘I am known as one W. D. Finch. Occupation, capitalist. Address, 541 East Thirty-second—’

      “‘New York,’ chips in the Noble Grand. ‘I know,’ says he, grinning. ‘It ain’t the first time you’ve seen it go down on the blotter. I can tell by the way you hand it out. Well, explain “capitalist.”’

      “I tells this boss plain what I come for and how I come to came.

      “‘Gold-dust?’ says he, looking as puzzled as a baby that’s got a feather stuck on its molasses finger. ‘That’s funny. This ain’t a gold-mining country. And you invested all your capital on a stranger’s story? Well, well! These Indians of mine — they are the last of the tribe of Peches — are simple as children. They know nothing of the purchasing power of gold. I’m afraid you’ve been imposed on,’ says he.

      “‘Maybe so,’ says I, ‘but it sounded pretty straight to me.’

      “‘W. D.,’ says the King, all of a sudden, ‘I’ll give you a square deal. It ain’t often I get to talk to a white man, and I’ll give you a show for your money. It may be these constituents of mine have a few grains of gold-dust hid away in their clothes. Tomorrow you may get out these goods you’ve brought up and see if you can make any sales. Now, I’m going to introduce myself unofficially. My name is Shane — Patrick Shane. I own this tribe of Peche Indians by right of conquest — single handed and unafraid. I drifted up here four years ago, and won ’em by my size and complexion and nerve. I learned their language in six weeks — it’s easy: you simply emit a string of consonants as long as your breath holds out and then point at what you’re asking for.

      “‘I conquered ‘em, spectacularly,’ goes on King Shane, ‘and then I went at ’em with economical politics, law, sleight-of-hand, and a kind of New England ethics and parsimony. Every Sunday, or as near as I can guess at it, I preach to ’em in the council-house (I’m the council) on the law of supply and demand. I praise supply and knock demand. I use the same text every time. You wouldn’t think, W. D.,’ says Shane, ‘that I had poetry in me, would you?’

      “‘Well,’ says I, ‘I wouldn’t know whether to call it poetry or not.’

      “‘Tennyson,’ says Shane, ‘furnishes the poetic gospel I preach. I always considered him the boss poet. Here’s the way the text goes:

      “‘“For, not to admire, if a man could learn it, were more

       Than to walk all day like a Sultan of old in a garden of spice.”

      “‘You see, I teach ’em to cut out demand — that supply is the main thing. I teach ’em not to desire anything beyond their simplest needs. A little mutton, a little cocoa, and a little fruit brought up from the coast — that’s all they want to make ’em happy. I’ve got ’em well trained. They make their own clothes and hats out of a vegetable fibre and straw, and they’re a contented lot. It’s a great thing,’ winds up Shane, ‘to have made a people happy by the incultivation of such simple institutions.’

      “Well, the next day, with the King’s permission, I has the McClintock open up a couple of sacks of my goods in the little plaza of the village. The Indians swarmed around by the hundred and looked the bargain-counter over. I shook red blankets at ‘em, flashed finger-rings and ear-bobs, tried pearl necklaces and sidecombs on the women, and a line of red hosiery on the men. ’Twas no use. They looked on like hungry graven images, but I never made a sale. I asked McClintock what was the trouble. Mac yawned three or four times, rolled a cigarette, made one or two confidential side remarks to a mule, and then condescended to inform me that the people had no money.

      “Just then up strolls King Patrick, big and red and royal as usual, with the gold chain over his chest and his cigar in front of him.

      “‘How’s business, W. D.?’ he asks.

      “‘Fine,’ says I. ‘It’s a bargain-day rush. I’ve got one more line of goods to offer before I shut up shop. I’ll try ’em with safety-razors. I’ve got two gross that I bought at a fire sale.’

      “Shane laughs till some kind of mameluke or private secretary he carries with him has to hold him up.

      “‘O my sainted Aunt Jerusha!’ says he, ‘ain’t you one of the Babes in the Goods, W. D.? Don’t you know that no Indians ever shave? They pull out their whiskers instead.’

      “‘Well,’ says I, ‘that’s just what these razors would do for ’em — they wouldn’t have any kick coming if they used ’em once.’

      “Shane went away, and I could hear him laughing a block, if there had been any block.

      “‘Tell ‘em,’ says I to McClintock, ‘it ain’t money I want — tell ’em I’ll take gold-dust. Tell ’em I’ll allow ’em sixteen dollars an ounce for it in trade. That’s what I’m out for — the dust.’

      “Mac interprets, and you’d have thought a squadron of cops had charged the crowd to disperse it. Every uncle’s nephew and aunt’s niece of ’em faded away inside of two minutes.

      “At the royal palace that night me and the King talked it over.

      “‘They’ve got the dust hid out somewhere,’ says I, ‘or they wouldn’t have been so sensitive about it.’

      “‘They haven’t,’ says Shane. ‘What’s this gag you’ve got about gold? You been reading Edward Allen Poe? They ain’t got any gold.’

      “‘They put it in quills,’ says I, ‘and then they empty it in jars, and then into sacks of twenty-five pounds each. I got it straight.’

      “‘W. D.,’ says Shane, laughing and chewing his cigar, ‘I don’t often see a white man, and I feel like putting you on. I don’t think you’ll get away from here alive, anyhow, so I’m going to tell you. Come over here.’

      “He draws aside a silk fibre curtain in a corner of the room and shows me a pile of buckskin sacks.

      “‘Forty of ‘em,’ says Shane. ‘One arroba in each one. In round numbers, $220,000 worth of gold-dust you see there. It’s all mine. It belongs to the Grand Yacuma. They bring it all to me. Two hundred and twenty thousand dollars — think of that, you glass-bead peddler,’ says Shane— ‘and all mine.’

      “‘Little good it does you,’ says I, contemptuously and hatefully. ‘And so you are the government depository of this gang of moneyless money-makers? Don’t you pay enough interest on it to enable one of your depositors to buy an Augusta (Maine) Pullman carbon diamond worth $200 for $4.85?’

      “‘Listen,’ says Patrick Shane, with the sweat coming out on his brow. ‘I’m confidant with you, as you have, СКАЧАТЬ