# Tiberius Smith/Chapter 8
### VIII WHEN LUNACY WAS TRUMPS

"HOW we worked our way southward on an Eagle City boat remains too harshly in my memory to be dwelt upon. Enough to say Tib swallowed his pride once we arrived at Seattle, and wired, 'Collect,' to the circus boss. 'Need several hundred dollars to buy umbrellas,' was the trend of his message, for he would never openly concede defeat. And we didn't have to wait for a letter in receiving it, either; although the first post did bring a most beautiful and blistering call for allowing the purse-strings to get unwholesomely loose. You see, the Big Top people were there to stake Tib in anything, from the manufacture of soap-bubbles to selling warming-pans in Cuba. For I suppose there never was any one man who pulled off so many big coups in their interest as he. I've simply detailed some of our mishaps, as I believe the defeats wore a broader fringe of the unique than could be found on the average victory.
"But the sight of real money, printed on both ​sides, so heartened us that the old chap inflated his chest and began discussing gilt-edged investments with would-be, almost Napoleons of finance in the lobby of the best hotel. Yet beneath it all he felt chagrined to have failed to land on the innermost bull's-eye; and two days after we'd butterflied about the burgh he decided we should run away to Broadway and hold a consolation session with the boss. We were not to go hurriedly, he explained to me, but leisurely and pleasantly, stopping to pluck fancy's flowers here and yon, arriving gradually and in dignified placidity.
"It was owing to this lazy mode of travelling that we two worldlings found ourselves at a point in the Middle West where Time had turned a few handsprings backward, and brought to our startled ken King James of Merry England and the four-flushing usurper, Monmouth. Only, in this replica of Britain's past Mr. Monmouth won out. I reckon that Tiberius Smith was the one mechanic in the whole game of life who could have worked that change in historical events.
"Sounds odd, eh? Somewhat teasing, eh? And yet all the events flowed naturally once you got into the channel; only, Tib was the only man who would ever have waded into such a distorted channel. He was ever a Columbus to the abnormal.
"You see, we had left the autocratic porter and ​his vestibuled home at Beanville—I won't name the State—in an idle quest for tourmalines and amethysts, often found in that locality. A horse-dealer had told us of the place, and Tib immediately took a fancy to loiter about a few days. It was while at Beanville that we first heard of Tanker's Mills, twelve miles back in the mountains. It was connected with the outside world largely by heartthrobs, for the rough country road evidently was constructed while the workmen were entertaining the delirium tremens.
"It seems that at the close of the Civil War the only insane asylum in the State burned down, and that a score of the inmates in escaping the flames wandered up to Tanker's and took possession of a few deserted cabins. As the commonwealth was bedridden with debt, and as the little colony was quiet and gave no trouble, the authorities decided to leave it alone to market its own garden sass. In the settlement were several men of unusual culture, perfectly rational except on some one subject, and as they controlled the weaker minded and more perfectly crazy inhabitants, the tax-payers were glad to be rid of the whole outfit. As the years passed, the colony grew, and the individual streaks of non compos were relegated to and merged in a general plane of oddity. It became the custom when a man or woman got daffy to take them up there to ​board. The ruined shacks had given place to neat frame-houses, and the queer people took the best of care of any sufferers from the outside world and often sent them back cured. Funny graft, eh? Tib said it was a case of similia similibus curantur. And, mind you, those people weren't rank crazy. They averaged enough rationality to prosper and to care for an occasionally violent voter. But they were peculiar, eccentric, and of course every little while some one would get to telephoning to himself and cutting up didoes.
"Well, when Tib heard of the settlement the scenario appealed to him, and naught would do but we hire bicycles and wheel up for a visit.
"‘We are all batty on some one subject,' he declared to me. 'I'm sane until it comes to shows. Another is evenly balanced until it comes to north poles, and so it goes. I'll bet these simple folk are more rational than the average alderman.'
"To cut across lots, we came to Tanker's at nightfall, and saw from the brow of a hill a scattering settlement of white houses. As we entered the main street we observed a grocery-store, a blacksmith-shop, and a small hall. And what surprised us was the busy-bee activity of a crowd of men bunched in front of the village smithy's place of business.
"‘What's doing, fair and merry sirs?" accosted ​Tib, cheerily, in his old free-and-easy way, as we pedalled up to the gang.
"Instantly they turned, and an old man with a Chris Kringle beard started back as though faced by a hooded-cobra, and with one dramatic, lean finger pointed at us, cried, 'By my faith! he has come! It is he!'
"‘Odd bodkins, put him to death!' cheerfully advised an urchin, who impressed my startled gaze as being eighteen feet in height.
"‘Odd Hooligans!' cried Tib. 'And why?'
"Well, sir, the old man threw back his head and pealed out a laugh that sounded about as mellow as a rusty buzz-saw eating a rock-maple knot, and as he chortled in unseemly glee he ejaculated, 'Walked into the trap! Stap my vitals, and had he called on me at St. James, or Whitehall, I had not been more surprised.'
"From his tone I realized, sir, that we were about as popular with them as a safety-deposit vault full of scarlet-fever germs. Tib was impressed after the same fashion, for he whispered to me:
"‘What's up, Billy? Have we struck them at the harvest-time of lunacy? Their speech savors of ye olden time and good Queen Bess, sith it please ye.' Then he asked, aloud, 'Kindly identify us, reverend sir, and then yourselves.'
"‘Monmouth, thou wert ever a false-hearted ​knave, but prithee, didst think to dull my royal eyes by that disguise?' demanded the ringleader of the mental aberrations in his shrill voice.
"‘Nay, sire,' denied Tib, looking back only to behold all escape cut off. 'And you are—?'
"‘Your uncle, sirrah. King James!' was the stern response.
"‘Strike me purple, Billy!' whispered Tib, 'but we are invaders, and if I recall my history rightly, Mr. Monmouth lost his head.'
"‘No plotting with your emissary,' warned James. 'We know him, and i'faith, but Argyle, though he be an earl, shall kiss the same block. Nay, ye both have lost such royal prerogative and shall grace a common gibbet.'
"‘I say, old chap, this is getting tiresome,' I murmured to Tib. 'Tell 'em I'm plain Billy Campbell and a stanch supporter of the throne.'
"‘A Campbell!' shrieked King James. 'Ay, smite me bleeding, but I know the foul Scottish brood! But Argyle or Campbell, ye shall hang and change from the quick to the dead more readily than ever ye shifted aliases.'
"‘Probably some one has opened a quart bottle of pleasuroid,' murmured Tib, 'and they are unduly excited for the minute. Anyway, if they are going to behave like this, I don't care how soon we desert them. I feel like an historical romance.'
​"But, sir, the minute we tried to turn we were surrounded. And what do you suppose those oddities were armed with? Pikes, sir, pikes! And that was what the smithy was busy turning out. As a rule, Tib's air of confidence would incite a cowardly pug-dog to throw rocks at an elephant, but he was a bit puzzled over this situation. We'd met lots of heathens and irresponsible persons in our day, but once you realized their status you could dope out their susceptibilities and comprehend the logical trend of their intentions. But a score of incompetents might glide from one personality to another at any second and pluck us from one epoch only to plant us in another, and in every event would probably insist that we hold the most onery cards and be soundly spanked.
"‘It's no use. Earl of Argyle, to dodge our identity,' remarked Tib, to me, gravely. Then to the king, 'Yes, I am Monmouth, your dutiful nephew, come all the way from Brabant to kiss your august hand.'
"The crowd of peasants jeered at this admission, and one stalwart rogue seemed determined to explore our physical systems with his long prodder. 'Nay, nay,' prohibited the king. 'Their seeming frankness shall avail them naught, but retribution must overtake them in an orderly manner. My Lord Chief-Justice Jeffreys shall try them. In the ​mean time lay them in the Tower with the spy who was captured three days ago.'
"We were enamored with even this respite, for Tib declared it was an ill omen to be slaughtered in front of a prosaic blacksmith's shop, and surrounded by the pikemen we were dragged to the little town-hall and thrust inside. 'Hello, spy, where are you?' demanded Tib, sparring neatly to ward off any possible attack, as he endeavored to peer through the darkness.
"‘I say, fellers, I'll admit you're all kings, but for Heaven's sake concede I'm only a drummer from Buffalo!' begged a weak voice, and a tall, thin man, very much frightened, humbly approached us, hat in hand, and stood where the light filtered through the window and made his angular form look willowy.
"‘Odds fish, but ye are petitioning the wrong court. I am only the unhappy Monmouth,' groaned Tib.
"‘Crazy as an owl!' whimpered the drummer. 'Say, King, help me get out of this and I'll send you down the best spring-tooth harrow made.'
"Well, sir, Tib was so intent in trying to recall his Monmouth lines that I had to take the drummer aside and convince him of our good intentions and sanity. But, Lord, sir! he was suspicious. He'd been cooped up for three days and was beginning ​to hear bees in his own belfry. But after I'd told him who was President and had named the capitals of thirty States, he agreed we might be what we didn't seem. 'For,' he concluded, confidentially, 'if ever I saw a trifling light glint in a man's eye it is your partner's there.'
"‘Alack a day,' muttered Tib, 'plots and more plots! Now, see here, children, we've got to play our parts until the general intellect of this town clears up a bit. This head fanatic is some college professor, I guess, and he's hypnotized himself into believing for the moment that he's James of England. Now we must humor him or he'll never recover. So, try and inhale the same kind of dope, and at the first opening we'll leave bloody England for the quiet shores of Beanville. Hi, you halberdier!' he cried through the open window to one of the guards—'want to earn fifty cents?'
"The man jabbed at us playfully with his spear and mumbled something about the king.
"‘See?' cried Tib, 'the old one has led these poor incompetents into believing he's king and they are his subjects.' Then to the guard again, taking care to keep out of range: 'What's your name, fellow? Not your stage name, but your real The guard looked puzzled for a moment, and then replied, slowly: 'Why, I was always called Al ​Smikins, but since the king come I'm Colonel Kirke. That's me, Kirke.'
"‘When did the king come?' soothed Tib.
"‘Why, let's see. Yes, it was just before the blackness settled down,' and the guard grinned triumphantly at remembering thus much. 'Me and Jed Bufkins, him that's my Lord Chief-Justice Jeffreys now, had just got back from selling some garden-truck in Beanville. But I forgit. There ain't any Beanville now. It's Brabant, and this is England. Hooray for King James! Stand back from that winder, ye poisonous critter!' and we all three leaped aside just in time to escape being decorated with the pike. 'And if ye git sassy I'll climb in there and larrup ye,' warned the yeoman, in conclusion.
"‘Gramercy for thy courtesy,' growled Tib, rubbing his barked knuckles. 'If ever I catch ye chasin' the stag at Epping we'll have this out to a finish, my lad.'
"‘Say, boss,' sobbed the drummer, 'don't talk like that when we're alone. It unhinges me. I feel myself going.'
"‘A murrain take thee. Go to, thou knave!' I sneered.
"‘Beautiful, Billy, beautiful!' congratulated Tib. 'Let's wear the purple while we can and play our parts to the finish. This poor varlet has submitted ​to captivity for three days and will wind up by waiting on a foolish counter for life. Now, sirrah, hark ye. We leave this place to-night. If ye ever want to see Brabant again, silence!'
"‘How are we to work it, Tib?' I inquired; for the quaintness of our peril was getting into my bones.
"‘I'm Monmouth until we get back to Bean-Brabant,' reminded Tib, simply. 'Well, Earl, I shall try to start a revolution.'
"As he said this a hearty hammering caused us to creep to the window on the other side of the building and steal a peep. And what do you think, sir! Why, those poor, hard-hearted idiots were building a gibbet! It simply swept the drummer off his feet.
"‘Oh, Monmouth,' he wailed, 'save this one fool! What an idiot I was, with all the United States to live in, that I had to come down here to be slaughtered by a counterfeit!'
"‘Well, well,' murmured Tib, pursing up his lips and drawing up his rotund form. 'This does look kind of serious. We must get word to Beanville, yet the guards won't allow one of us to slip through the window and there's no one to carry a message Odd situation, isn't it?'
"‘I say, you fellers—I mean, Monmouth,' called out the guard, poking his head into the window—'King James has just broken up his council and ​they decided the spy can live, as he warned us of your coming.'
"‘Hooray!' shouted the drummer, with a vulgar display of enthusiasm.
"‘Shut up!' growled Tib. 'So, you foretold our coming, eh?'
"‘Sure; had to, to save my hide,' grinned the drummer, happily. 'Of course it was only con on my part, but luckily it worked out all hunkey. All's well that ends well, you know.'
'"You needn't be so devilish gay over it,' snapped Tib, 'or you'll find it's sad work to double-cross even the Pretender.'
"‘Oh, come now,' whined the drummer, 'you fellers wouldn't spike a poor man's game! Don't you see, just as soon at I get to Beanville I'll catch a constable and come back and rescue you both.'
"‘No ye won't,' chuckled the guard, whom we'd forgotten. 'Cause King James says ye can't go till after they've been executed, whatever that means—for danged if I do. And before ye go, we're going to brand the word "traitor" on your brow.'
"Well, that doubled the drummer all up. He tried to bribe the guard to run up to the corner store and beg the king to modify the sentence. 'I'll give two dollars if you'll get him to change his mind and brand me on the leg or in the newspapers,' he offered, hysterically.
​"‘Odds tomatoes!' I whispered to Tib, 'but we must leave here in very sooth.'
"Then what was becoming an extremely unlovely situation, with the busy hammers clanging away on the gibbet and the tall Jasper at the window trying to make eyelets in our legs with his pike, was given a new direction by a lusty shout at the front door and the sound of a voice crying: 'Hooray! A Monmouth! A Monmouth!' And then the portal was cast down and my Lord Ezra Somebody bawled forth: 'Hello, folkses. Where be ye?'
"‘And come ye in peace here, or come ye in war?' demanded Tib, while the drummer shuddered and protested that our visitors were as welcome as burglars.
"‘We're friendly. Hooray for Monmouth!' cried the rabble.
"‘Let the portcullis fall, and enter,' invited Tib. Then to me: 'Don't you see, we're rescued. When the leading fay hypnotized this weak-minded chorus into viewing him as his Majesty King James, he necessarily supplied the whole suggestion; that is, the suggestion of a Monmouth, eke our reception. The last implied a handful of supporters, and now we'll leave this dungeon, raise the west, and the insane equation is completed. James has created a Frankenstein that will devour him.'
"‘Say, I knew a feller once named Fleckenstein. ​He travelled—' began the drummer, eagerly; but 'Hist, vassal,' commanded one of the new-comers, and he histed.
"The floor grew warm under our prancing feet as we hurried to leave the hall. The halberdier leaned in the window, and, eying us curiously, cried: 'Ye didn't git out by th' winder, did ye? I was told er guard it, and, by gum, I have!' But he made no move to stop our passing through the door, and Tib swore he was a man with a heart in his bosom. On the other side of the keep the volunteer cabinet-makers kept pounding away at the gibbet and recked us not, although one blur whistled with sinister shrillness, 'Let Erin Remember.'
"Our new captors numbered about a dozen and watched us keenly, although accepting Tib as their master. For when we tried to say good-night and sneak away after our wheels they caused us to hesitate and informed we would be piked to death if we made another break. 'We've left our hoein' to stand by ye, an' don't ye dast to caper any,' warned one.
"‘I trow we shall not part in scorn,' assured Tib.
"‘Then let that tall feller stop his rantin',' remonstrated another.
"‘Beshrew me,' groaned the drummer, keeping close to us; 'but say, fellers, this isn't real, is it? I'm still travelling for the Buffalo house, ain't I?'
​"‘I don't know why we took anybody besides Monmouth fer,' declared the leader, stopping short and eying us evilly. 'Before this queer spell come on I don't remember as we had any call ter rescue anybody but Monmouth.'
"‘Let's kill th' other two,' suggested a corn-haired boy, cheerfully.
"‘Hold!' roared Tib. 'These two men we all wot of are leal and true. Who touches a hair of their gray heads—'
"‘I snum, but ye're touchy, I guess!' broke in the corn-haired youth. 'I only want ter do what's right. If ye don't want 'em killed, say so. I didn't think 'twould make no difference. I'm sartain no one would miss either on 'em.'
"We were now clear of the main street and apparently leaving the settlement. I had an idea of dodging into the bushes and escaping, but Tib whispered we would accomplish nothing except to alienate our few faithful followers. 'Taunton will receive us warmly,' he added, and I shuddered. He said it so earnestly that I feared his intellect was looping the loop, and I'm sure the drummer felt the noose. Then our adopted parents quickened the pace and conversation was killed by the high hill we now began to climb. It seemed as if we'd been on that hill for years. In pausing to look back on the lights of the village it seemed as if ​cries of rage were fretting the balmy summer night, and I could hear the drummer's teeth clinking like pebbles in a tin can.
"‘Marry, come up,' quoth Tib at last; 'whence are we hencing?' And in the moonlight I saw the old fellow was mopping the sweat from his round face.
"‘Can't we call on the overseer of the poor, or at a drug-store, and get a bite to eat?' moaned the drummer. 'I have had naught, fair sirs—'
"‘Good form!' cried Tib, approvingly.
"‘Oh, I'm going fast,' whimpered the drummer. 'It seems real to me now, and if I only had a hooded-hawk, or a baldric, I'd be doing a huntsman's stunt. But, honest, fellers, I've had nothing in my stomach but rain-water for three days. And I had to steal that out of a barrel by the window when the archers were playing horseshoe on the green. I could eat a mustard-plaster or a coat of arms.'
"I suggested that we stop and rest, and the guards for a wonder were willing. I could see, too, they were uneasy. Tib said it was because they didn't know what to do next, being removed from the zone of the king's influence. I reckon he hit it right, for the corn boy swore he was going back and ask his Majesty for further instructions. By this time the drummer had gone light-headed and persisted in reciting 'The Wreck of the Hesperus.' ​Tib augmented the corn boy's declaration by announcing: 'Catifs, we'll all go back and hunt up the king. We'll keep him with us, so we'll always know just what to do.'
"‘But we mustn't hurt him,' expostulated one. 'O1d Freeman Hucky is one of the best old souls in Tanker's Mills. Lord! Where'd I get that name? Sounds mighty familiar, too.' And the last was in deep perplexity.
"‘Say, fellers, can't we break into one of those barns and git some oats to eat?' babbled the drummer. 'A dish of nice, clean oats would look mighty good to me.'
"‘Ye varmint!' cried Corn Hair; 'if ye don't shut up I'll use th' goad on ye. I tell ye, boys, we're all goin' ter feel sorry if we don't kill this chap. Th' king said we'd got ter kill somebody.' But Tib and I pacified him, and explained there was no gain in slaying an insect, and at last we were marching towards the village.
'It's time to duck,' I whispered to Tib.
Let's first get a whack at King James,' he pleaded. 'And, Billy, what if we catch him and lock him up? Won't that make me ruler of Tanker's Mills? We'd be so cut off from interference that probably we could run this place as a monarchy all summer. And do you know, I've always hankered to wear the purple.'
​"‘Not for a gold-mine,' I objected, now fearing that his dreams of empire would cause him to cut up. For I knew that he would just like to sway the sceptre over Tanker's Mills, despite the fact that a despotism within the United States is incongruous.
"‘I'm going to pause long enough to devour that pump,' interrupted the drummer, now walking like a drunken man.
"We were entering the village at the time, and only Corn Hair's promise to assassinate him held him to the path. Then, whom should we meet, practically unattended, but King James himself. 'Out on thee, arrant knave!' he cried, on beholding Monmouth. 'Ho, warden! ho men at arms! Hither, I command thee!'
"‘Not on thy life!' howled the drummer, coming to his senses and clapping his soft hat over his Majesty's mouth.
"‘Hold him,' cried Tib, in a low voice, applying his handkerchief to the august arms and thus reversing history. 'Now, march him quietly to the town-hall.'
"‘Say, fellers, don't ye dare hurt Freeman Hucky,' warned one of the guards, as with poor grace they allowed us to drag the old man along. Several of them also incited gay feelings by producing coarse-looking jack-knives.
​"‘No harm shall befall a single whisker in his venerable beard, gentle sirs,' vouchsafed Tib, straining his eyes to catch a glimpse of the much-prayed-for bikes.
"Our insurgents then burst into a song of abuse and threw down their cartel of defiance, and said they were tired of a fat old Monmouth and that they would change allegiance and aid King James's followers in executing us on the now-finished gibbet. By this time we were close to the little hall, and in the bright moonlight could admire every detail of the clumsy yet businesslike-looking gallows. What added to our fear was the sound of shouting in the hall, where, through the lighted windows, we beheld a motley group of scamps, dancing and waving home-made weapons. But just then, like a beacon-light to the hopeless mariner, we caught the friendly twinkle of our bikes' frames, and with one accord we pushed the King against the deserters, and as they tumbled and romped on the ground we bent our hot footsteps towards the goal.
"In a second, it seemed, the hall had disgorged more enemies, and the whole pack were after us as we gained our perambulators and tried to hop the saddles.
"‘Where do I come in, Monmouth?' howled the drummer.
"‘Lord, if we haven't forgotten the spy!' cried ​Tib. 'Here, Sliver, jump up behind me. Nay, choke me not entirely with thy caresses. Now, hang tight and steal away.'
"And down the steep hill into the black shadows we sped, with a frenzied mob of King James's men in fearsome pursuit. When we reached the level and began climbing the next hill they all but had us. But just as they would have gathered us to their bosom we reached the crest and slid from view. And the way the drummer clung to Tib would cause the champion trick-cyclist to blush for inability.
"And so we left them in all their glory and made Beanville in safety. And what do you think, sir! When we'd lodged complaint, and a posse of constables had gone over to Tanker's to straighten out the general brain tangle, they found no trace of the King James germ. But instead old Freeman Hucky was in the midst of the belief that he was an algebraic equation that would never be solved if he kept perfectly quiet. And as he didn't wish to be solved. Tanker's was the most peaceful place on the map, and, so far as I know, has never met with royalty since the time Tib and I joggled the throne.