Chapter I. The Discovery

The Enchanted Typewriter

by John Kendrick Bangs

It is a strange fact, for which I do not expect ever
satisfactorily to account, and which will receive little credence
even among those who know that I am not given to romancing--it is a
strange fact, I say, that the substance of the following pages has
evolved itself during a period of six months, more or less, between
the hours of midnight and four o'clock in the morning, proceeding
directly from a type-writing machine standing in the corner of my
library, manipulated by unseen hands. The machine is not of recent
make. It is, in fact, a relic of the early seventies, which I
discovered one morning when, suffering from a slight attack of the
grip, I had remained at home and devoted my time to pottering about
in the attic, unearthing old books, bringing to the light
long-forgotten correspondences, my boyhood collections of "stuff,"
and other memory-inducing things. Whence the machine came originally
I do not recall. My impression is that it belonged to a stenographer
once in the employ of my father, who used frequently to come to our
house to take down dictations. However this may be, the machine had
lain hidden by dust and the flotsam and jetsam of the house for
twenty years, when, as I have said, I came upon it unexpectedly. Old
man as I am--I shall soon be thirty--the fascination of a machine has
lost none of its potency. I am as pleased to-day watching the wheels
of my watch "go round" as ever I was, and to "monkey" with a
type-writing apparatus has always brought great joy into my heart--
though for composing give me the pen. Perhaps I should apologize for
the use here of the verb monkey, which savors of what a friend of
mine calls the "English slanguage," to differentiate it from what he
also calls the "Andrew Language." But I shall not do so, because, to
whatever branch of our tongue the word may belong, it is exactly
descriptive, and descriptive as no other word can be, of what a boy
does with things that click and "go," and is therefore not at all out
of place in a tale which I trust will be regarded as a polite one.

The discovery of the machine put an end to my attic potterings.
I cared little for finding old bill-files and collections of Atlantic
cable-ends when, with a whole morning, a type-writing machine, and a
screw-driver before me I could penetrate the mysteries of that useful
mechanism. I shall not endeavor to describe the delightful sensations
of that hour of screwing and unscrewing; they surpass the powers of
my pen. Suffice it to say that I took the whole apparatus apart,
cleaned it well, oiled every joint, and then put it together again. I
do not suppose a seven-year-old boy could have derived more
satisfaction from taking a piano to pieces. It was exhilarating, and
I resolved that as a reward for the pleasure it had given me the
machine should have a brand-new ribbon and as much ink as it could
consume. And that, in brief, is how it came to be that this machine
of antiquated pattern was added to the library bric-a-brac. To say
the truth, it was of no more practical use than Barye's dancing bear,
a plaster cast of which adorns my mantel-shelf, so that when I
classify it with the bric-a-brac I do so advisedly. I frequently
tried to write a jest or two upon it, but the results were
extraordinarily like Sir Arthur Sullivan's experience with the organ
into whose depths the lost chord sank, never to return. I dashed off
the jests well enough, but somewhere between the keys and the types
they were lost, and the results, when I came to scan the paper, were
depressing. And once I tried a sonnet on the keys. Exactly how to
classify the jumble that came out of it I do not know, but it was
curious enough to have appealed strongly to D'Israeli or any other
collector of the literary oddity. More singular that the sonnet,
though, was the fact that when I tried to write my name upon this
strange machine, instead of finding it in all its glorious length
written upon the paper, I did find "William Shakespeare" printed
there in its stead. Of course you will say that in putting the
machine together I mixed up the keys and the letters. I have no doubt
that I did, but when I tell you that there have been times when,
looking at myself in the glass, I have fancied that I saw in my
mirrored face the lineaments of the great bard; that the contour of
my head is precisely the same as was his; that when visiting
Stratford for the first time every foot of it was pregnant with
clearly defined recollections to me, you will perhaps more easily
picture to yourself my sensations at the moment.

However, enough of describing the machine in its relation to
myself. I have said sufficient, I think, to convince you that
whatever its make, its age, and its limitations, it was an
extraordinary affair; and, once convinced of that, you may the more
readily believe me when I tell you that it has gone into business
apparently for itself --and incidentally for me.

It was on the morning of the 26th of March last that I
discovered the curious condition of affairs concerning which I have
essayed to write. My family do not agree with me as to the date. They
say that it was on the evening of the 25th of March that the episode
had its beginning; but they are not aware, for I have not told them,
that it was not evening, but morning, when I reached home after the
dinner at the Aldus Club. It was at a quarter of three A.M. precisely
that I entered my house and proceeded to remove my hat and coat, in
which operation I was interrupted, and in a startling manner, by a
click from the dark recesses of the library. A man does not like to
hear a click which he cannot comprehend, even before he has dined.
After he has dined, however, and feels a satisfaction with life which
cannot come to him before dinner, to hear a mysterious click, and
from a dark corner, at an hour when the world is at rest, is not
pleasing. To say that my heart jumped into my mouth is mild. I
believe it jumped out of my mouth and rebounded against the wall
opposite back though my system into my boots. All the sins of my past
life, and they are many--I once stepped upon a caterpillar, and I
have coveted my neighbor both his man-servant and his maid-servant,
though not his wife nor his ass, because I don't like his wife and he
keeps no live-stock--all my sins, I say, rose up before me, for I
expected every moment that a bullet would penetrate my brain, or my
heart if perchance the burglar whom I suspected of levelling a
clicking revolver at me aimed at my feet.

"Who is there?" I cried, making a vocal display of bravery I did
not feel, hiding behind our hair sofa.

The only answer was another click.

"This is serious," I whispered softly to myself. "There are two
of 'em; I am in the light, unarmed. They are concealed by the
darkness and have revolvers. There is only one way out of this, and
that is by strategy. I'll pretend I think I've made a mistake." So I
addressed myself aloud.

"What an idiot you are," I said, so that my words could be heard
by the burglars. "If this is the effect of Aldus Club dinners you'd
better give them up. That click wasn't a click at all, but the
ticking of our new eight-day clock."

I paused, and from the corner there came a dozen more clicks in
quick succession, like the cocking of as many revolvers.

"Great Heavens!" I murmured, under my breath. "It must be Ali
Baba with his forty thieves."

As I spoke, the mystery cleared itself, for following close upon
a thirteenth click came the gentle ringing of a bell, and I knew then
that the type-writing machine was in action; but this was by no means
a reassuring discovery. Who or what could it be that was engaged upon
the type-writer at that unholy hour, 3 A.M.? If a mortal being, why
was my coming no interruption? If a supernatural being, what infernal
complication might not the immediate future have in store for me?

My first impulse was to flee the house, to go out into the night
and pace the fields--possibly to rush out to the golf links and play
a few holes in the dark in order to cool my brow, which was rapidly
becoming fevered. Fortunately, however, I am not a man of impulse. I
never yield to a mere nerve suggestion, and so, instead of going out
into the storm and certainly contracting pneumonia, I walked boldly
into the library to investigate the causes of the very extraordinary
incident. You may rest well assured, however, that I took care to go
armed, fortifying myself with a stout stick, with a long, ugly steel
blade concealed within it--a cowardly weapon, by-the-way, which I
permit to rest in my house merely because it forms a part of a
collection of weapons acquired through the failure of a comic paper
to which I had contributed several articles. The editor, when the
crash came, sent me the collection as part payment of what was owed
me, which I think was very good of him, because a great many people
said that it was my stuff that killed the paper. But to return to
the story. Fortifying myself with the sword-cane, I walked boldly
into the library, and, touching the electric button, soon had every
gas-jet in the room giving forth a brilliant flame; but these,
brilliant as they were, disclosed nothing in the chair before the
machine.

The latter, apparently oblivious of my presence, went clicking
merrily and as rapidly along as though some expert young woman were
in charge. Imagine the situation if you can. A type-writing machine
of ancient make, its letters clear, but out of accord with the keys,
confronted by an empty chair, three hours after midnight, rattling
off page after page of something which might or might not be
readable, I could not at the moment determine. For two or three
minutes I gazed in open-mouthed wonder. I was not frightened, but I
did experience a sensation which comes from contact with the uncanny.
As I gradually grasped the situation and became used, somewhat, to
what was going on, I ventured a remark.

"This beats the deuce!" I observed.

The machine stopped for an instant. The sheet of paper upon
which the impressions of letters were being made flew out from under
the cylinder, a pure white sheet was as quickly substituted, and the
keys clicked off the line:

"What does?"

I presumed the line was in response to my assertion, so I
replied:

"You do. What uncanny freak has taken possession of you to-night
that you start in to write on your own hook, having resolutely
declined to do any writing for me ever since I rescued you from the
dust and dirt and cobwebs of the attic?"

"You never rescued me from any attic," the machine replied.
"You'd better go to bed; you've dined too well, I imagine. When did
you rescue me from the dust and dirt and the cobwebs of any
attic?"

"What an ungrateful machine you are!" I cried. "If you have
sense enough to go into writing on your own account, you ought to
have mind enough to remember the years you spent up-stairs under the
roof neglected, and covered with hammocks, awnings, family portraits,
and receipted bills."

"Really, my dear fellow," the machine tapped back, "I must
repeat it. Bed is the place for you. You're not coherent. I'm not a
machine, and upon my honor, I've never seen your darned old
attic."

"Not a machine!" I cried. "Then what in Heaven's name are you?--
a sofa-cushion?"

"Don't be sarcastic, my dear fellow," replied the machine. "Of
course I'm not a machine; I'm Jim--Jim Boswell."

"What?" I roared. "You? A thing with keys and type and a
bell--"

"I haven't got any keys or any type or a bell. What on earth are
you talking about?" replied the machine. "What have you been
eating?"

"What's that?" I asked, putting my hand on the keys.

"That's keys," was the answer.

"And these, and that?" I added, indicating the type and the
bell.

"Type and bell," replied the machine.

"And yet you say you haven't got them," I persisted.

"No, I haven't. The machine has got them, not I," was the
response. "I'm not the machine. I'm the man that's using
it--Jim--Jim Boswell. What good would a bell do me? I'm not a cow or
a bicycle. I'm the editor of the Stygian Gazette, and I've come here
to copy off my notes of what I see and hear, and besides all this I
do type-writing for various people in Hades, and as this machine of
yours seemed to be of no use to you I thought I'd try it. But if you
object, Ill go."

As I read these lines upon the paper I stood amazed and
delighted.

"Go!" I cried, as the full value of his patronage of my machine
dawned upon me, for I could sell his copy and he would be none the
worse off, for, as I understand the copyright laws, they are not
designed to benefit authors, but for the protection of type-setters.
"Why, my dear fellow, it would break my heart if, having found my
machine to your taste, you should ever think of using another. I'll
lend you my bicycle, too, if you'd like it--in fact, anything I have
is at your command."

"Thank you very much," returned Boswell through the medium of
the keys, as usual. "I shall not need your bicycle, but this machine
is of great value to me. It has several very remarkable qualities
which I have never found in any other machine. For instance, singular
to relate, Mendelssohn and I were fooling about here the other night,
and when he saw this machine he thought it was a spinet of some new
pattern; so what does he do but sit down and play me one of his songs
without words on it, and, by jove! when he got through, there was the
theme of the whole thing printed on a sheet of paper before him."

"You don't really mean to say--" I began.

"I'm telling you precisely what happened," said Boswell.
"Mendelssohn was tickled to death with it, and he played every song
without words that he ever wrote, and every one of 'em was fitted
with words which he said absolutely conveyed the ideas he meant to
bring out with the music. Then I tried the machine, and discovered
another curious thing about it. It's intensely American. I had a
story of Alexander Dumas' about his Musketeers that he wanted
translated from French into American, which is the language we speak
below, in preference to German, French, Volapuk, or English. I
thought I'd copy off a few lines of the French original, and as true
as I'm sitting here before your eyes, where you can't see me, the
copy I got was a good, though rather free, translation. Think of it!
That's an advanced machine for you!"

I looked at the machine wistfully. "I wish I could make it
work," I said; and I tried as before to tap off my name, and got
instead only a confused jumble of letters. It wouldn't even pay me
the compliment of transforming my name into that of Shakespeare, as
it had previously done.

It was thus that the magic qualities of the machine were made
known to me, and out of it the following papers have grown. I have
set them down without much editing or alteration, and now submit them
to your inspection, hoping that in perusing them you will derive as
much satisfaction and delight as I have in being the possessor of so
wonderful a machine, manipulated by so interesting a person as
"Jim--Jim Boswell"--as he always calls himself--and others, who, as
you will note, if perchance you have the patience to read further,
have upon occasions honored my machine by using it.

I must add in behalf of my own reputation for honesty that Mr.
Boswell has given me all right, title, and interest in these papers
in this world as a return for my permission to him to use my
machine.

"What if they make a hit and bring in barrels of gold in
royalties," he said. "I can't take it back with me where I live, so
keep it yourself."