The Ape, The Idiot and Other People
Fourth Edition
THE APE, THE IDIOT & OTHER PEOPLE
By
W. C. MORROW
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1910
Copyright, 1897
By
J. B. Lippincott Company
The stories in this volume are published with the kind permission of the periodicals in which they originally appeared—Lippincott's Magazine, Philadelphia, and theOverland Monthly, theArgonaut, theExaminer, theNews Letter, and theCall, all of San Francisco.
CONTENTS
Page
- The Resurrection of Little Wang Tai9
- The Hero of the Plague24
- His Unconquerable Enemy48
- The Permanent Stiletto67
- Over an Absinthe Bottle90
- The Inmate of the Dungeon109
- A Game of Honor134
- Treacherous Velasco147
- An Uncommon View of It168
- A Story Told by the Sea188
- The Monster-Maker213
- An Original Revenge245
- Two Singular Men256
- The Faithful Amulet275
The Resurrection of Little Wang Tai
A train of circus-wagons, strung along a dusty road, in the Santa Clara Valley, crept slowly under the beating heat of a July sun. The dust rolled in clouds over the gaudy wagons of the menagerie. The outer doors of the cages had been opened to give access of air to the panting animals, but with the air came the dust, and the dust annoyed Romulus greatly. Never before had he longed for freedom so intensely. Ever since he could remember he had been in a cage like this; it had been so all through his childhood and youth. There was no trace in his memory of days when he of a time had been free. Not the faintest recollection existed of the time when he might have swung in the branches of equatorial forests. To him life was a desolation and a despair, and the poignancy of it all was sharpened by the clouds of dust which rolled through the grated door.
Romulus, thereupon, sought means of escape. Nimble, deft, sharp-sighte