A House-Boat on the Styx | Page 8

Hamlet, eh, my boy? Ha-ha-ha! It was the greatest joke
of the century."
"Well, the laugh is on you," said Doctor Johnson. "If you wrote Hamlet
and didn't have the sense to acknowledge it, you present to my mind a
closer resemblance to Simple Simon than to Socrates. For my part, I
don't believe you did write it, and I do believe that Shakespeare did. I
can tell that by the spelling in the original edition."
"Shakespeare was my stenographer, gentlemen," said Lord Bacon. "If
you want to know the whole truth, he did write Hamlet, literally. But it
was at my dictation."
"I deny it," said Shakespeare. "I admit you gave me a suggestion now
and then so as to keep it dull and heavy in spots, so that it would seem
more like a real tragedy than a comedy punctuated with deaths, but
beyond that you had nothing to do with it."
"I side with Shakespeare," put in Emerson. "I've seen his autographs,
and no sane person would employ a man who wrote such a villanously
bad hand as an amanuensis. It's no use, Bacon, we know a thing or two.
I'm a New-Englander, I am."

"Well," said Bacon, shrugging his shoulders as though the results of the
controversy were immaterial to him, "have it so if you please. There
isn't any money in Shakespeare these days, so what's the use of
quarrelling? I wrote Hamlet, and Shakespeare knows it. Others know it.
Ah, here comes Sir Walter Raleigh. We'll leave it to him. He was
cognizant of the whole affair."
"I leave it to nobody," said Shakespeare, sulkily.
"What's the trouble?" asked Raleigh, sauntering up and taking a chair
under the cue-rack. "Talking politics?"
"Not we," said Bacon. "It's the old question about the authorship of
Hamlet. Will, as usual, claims it for himself. He'll be saying he wrote
Genesis next."
"Well, what if he does?" laughed Raleigh. "We all know Will and his
droll ways."
"No doubt," put in Nero. "But the question of Hamlet always excites
him so that we'd like to have it settled once and for all as to who wrote
it. Bacon says you know."
"I do," said Raleigh.
"Then settle it once and for all," said Bacon. "I'm rather tired of the
discussion myself."
"Shall I tell 'em, Shakespeare?" asked Raleigh.
"It's immaterial to me," said Shakespeare, airily. "If you wish-- only tell
the truth."
"Very well," said Raleigh, lighting a cigar. "I'm not ashamed of it. I
wrote the thing myself."
There was a roar of laughter which, when it subsided, found
Shakespeare rapidly disappearing through the door, while all the others
in the room ordered various beverages at the expense of Lord Bacon.

CHAPTER III
: WASHINGTON GIVES A DINNER

It was Washington's Birthday, and the gentleman who had the pleasure
of being Father of his Country decided to celebrate it at the Associated
Shades' floating palace on the Styx, as the Elysium Weekly Gossip, "a
Journal of Society," called it, by giving a dinner to a select number of
friends. Among the invited guests were Baron Munchausen, Doctor
Johnson, Confucius, Napoleon Bonaparte, Diogenes, and Ptolemy.
Boswell was also present, but not as a guest. He had a table off to one
side all to himself, and upon it there were no china plates, silver spoons,
knives, forks, and dishes of fruit, but pads, pens, and ink in great
quantity. It was evident that Boswell's reportorial duties did not end
with his labors in the mundane sphere.
The dinner was set down to begin at seven o'clock, so that the guests, as
was proper, sauntered slowly in between that hour and eight. The menu
was particularly choice, the shades of countless canvas-back ducks,
terrapin, and sheep having been called into requisition, and cooked by
no less a person than Brillat-Savarin, in the hottest oven he could find
in the famous cooking establishment superintended by the government.
Washington was on hand early, sampling the olives and the celery and
the wines, and giving to Charon final instructions as to the manner in
which he wished things served.
The first guest to arrive was Confucius, and after him came Diogenes,
the latter in great excitement over having discovered a comparatively
honest man, whose name, however, he had not been able to ascertain,
though he was under the impression that it was something like Burpin,
or Turpin, he said.
At eight the brilliant company was arranged comfortably about the
board. An orchestra of five, under the leadership of Mozart, discoursed
sweet music behind a screen, and the feast of reason and flow of soul
began.

"This is a great day," said Doctor Johnson, assisting himself copiously
to the olives.
"Yes," said Columbus, who was also a guest--"yes, it is a great day, but
it