 How babes in the wood showed they couldn't be beaten. A man of kind and noble mind was each Gustavus hide, to be amiss to add to this at present for he died, in full possession of his senses the day before my tale commences. One half his gold as four-year-olds on Paul was known to win, and Beatrix, whose age was six, for all the rest came in, perceiving which their uncle Ben did a thing, the people said, was blended. For by the hand he took them, and remarked an accent smooth, one thing I ask, be mine the task, these stricken babes to soothe. My country home is really charming, I'll teach them all the joys of farming. On Halcyon week they fished his creek, and watched him do the chores. In hale-offs hid and shouting slid down sloping cellar doors. Because his life to bliss was equal, the more distressing is the sequel. Concealing guile beneath a smile he took them to a wood, and with severe and most austere injunctions to be good, he left them seated on the gateway, and took his own departures straightway. Though much afraid the children stayed from ten till nearly eight. At times they wept, at times they slept, but never left the gate, until the swift suspicion crossed them that Uncle Benjamin had lost them. Then quite unnerved, young Paul observed, it's like a dreadful dream, and Uncle Ben has fallen ten percent in my esteem. That only did he first usurp us, but now he's left us here on purpose. For countless years their childish fears have made the reader pale. For countless years the public's tears have started at the tail. For countless years much detestation has been expressed for their relation. So draw a veil across the dale, where stood that ghastly gate? No need to tell, you know full well what was their touching fate, and how with leaves each little dead breast was covered by a robin red breast. But when they found them on the ground, although their life had ceased, quite near to Paul there lay a small white paper neatly creased. Because of lack of any merit, behind it ran, we'd disinherit. The moral, if you deeply long to punish one who's done you wrong, though in your lifetime fail you may, where there's a will, there is a way. The End How fair Cinderella disposed of her shoe, by Guy Wetmore Carroll, read for Libravox by Patrick Barringer. The Venus girls in forty states were Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates. They warbled slightly off-the-air romantic German songs, and each of them upon her hair employed the curling tongs. And each with ardor most intense her buxom figure laced, until her willful want of sense procured a woeful waist. For bound to married titled mates were Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates. Yet truth to tell the swan's refue of Gwendolyn and Gladys too. So morning, afternoon, and night upon their sister they were want to vent their selfish spite, and in the rudest way. For though her name was Leonor, that's neither there nor here, they called her Cinderella for the kitchen was her sphere, save when she had the hair to do of Gwendolyn and Gladys too. Each night to dance as into fates went Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates, and Cinderella watched them go and silks and satins clad, and Prince invited them, and so they put on all they had. But one fine night, as all alone, she watched the flames leap higher, a small and stooping fairy-crone slipped nimbly from the fire. She said, the pride upon me grates of Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates. I'll now, she added with a frown, call Gwendolyn and Gladys down. And air your fingers you could snap, there stood before the door, no paltry hired horse-and-trap, oh no, a coach and four. And Cinderella fitted out regardless of expense, made both her sisters look about like thirty-seven cents. And Prince, with one look at her gown, turned Gwendolyn and Gladys down. Wall flowers, when thus compared with her, both Gwendolyn and Gladys were. The Prince, but gave them glances hard, no gracious word he said. He scratched their names off from his card, and wrote hers down instead. And where he would bestow his hand, he showed them in her trice, by handing her the kisses and, to each of them, an ice. And sudden need of fire and fur, both Gwendolyn and Gladys were. At ten o'clock, in discontent, both Gwendolyn and Gladys went. Their sisters stayed till after two, and with a joy sincere. Their Prince obtained her crystal shoe by way of souvenir. Upon the bridal path he cried, we'll reign together since, I love you, you must be my bride, he was no slouch, that Prince. And to sudden languishment, both Gwendolyn and Gladys went. The moral, all the girls on earth exaggerate their proper worth. They think the very shoes they wear are worth the average millionaire, whereas few pairs in any town can be half sold for half a crown. The end. How Little Red Riding Hood came to be eaten, by Guy Whatmore Carroll, recorded for LibriVox by Patrick Beringer. Most worthy of praise were the virtuous ways of Little Red Riding Hood's maw, and no one was ever more cautious and clever than Little Red Riding Hood's paw. They never misled, for they meant what they said, and would frequently say what they meant, and the ways she should go they were careful to show, and the way that they showed her she went. For obedience she was effusively thanked, and for anything else she was carefully spanked. It thus isn't strange that Red Riding Hood's range of virtues so subtly grew, as soon she won prizes of different sizes, and golden and comiums too. As a general rule she was head of her school, and at six was so notably smart, that they gave her a check for reciting the rec of Asperces, holy by heart. And you all will applaud her the more, I am sure, when I add that this money she gave to the poor. At eleven this last had a Sunday school class, at twelve wrote a volume of verse. At thirteen was yearning for glory and learning, to be a professional nurse. To a glorious height this young paragon might have grown, if not nipped in the bud. But the following year struck her smiling career with a dull and a sickening thud. I have shed a great tear at the thought of her pain, and must copy my manuscript over again. Not dreaming of harm, one day on her arm, a basket she hung, it was filled, with jellies and ices and gruel and spices, and chicken legs carefully grilled. In a savoury stew, and a novel or two, she'd persuaded a neighbor to loan, and a hot water can, and a Japanese fan, and a bottle of Ode to Cologne. And the rest of the things that your family fill your room with, whenever you chance to be ill. She expected to find her decrypt-up-a-kind old grandmother waiting her call. But the visage that met her completely upset her. It wasn't familiar at all. With a whitening cheek she started to speak, but her peril she instantly saw. Her grandma had fled, and she'd tackled instead four merciless paws in a maw. When the neighbors came running, the wolf was subdued. He was looking as chops, in Fred Riding Hood's too. At its terrible tale some readers will pale, and others, with horror, grow dumb. And yet it was better, I fear, he should get her, just think what she might have become. For an infant so keen might in future have been a woman of awful renown. Who carried on fights for her feminine rites is the mayor of an Arkansas town. She might have continued the crime of her teens, and come to reverse for the big magazines. The moral? There's nothing much glummer than children whose tail is appalled. One much prefers those who are dumber, but as for the paragons small. If a swallow cannot make a summer, it can bring on a summery fall. The End. How the fatuous wish of a peasant came true. By Guy Whatmore Carroll. Recorded for LibriVox by Patrick Beringer. An excellent peasant of character pleasant once lived in a hut with his wife. He was cheerful and docile, but such an old fossil you wouldn't meet twice in your life. His notions were all without reason or rhyme, such dullness in anyone else were a crime. But the folly pig-headed, to which he was wedded, was so deeply embedded it touched the sublime. He frequently stated such quite antiquated and singular doctrines as these. Do good unto others, all men are your brothers. Of course he forgot the Chinese. He said that all men were made equal and free. That's true if they're born on our side of the sea. The truth should be spoken, and pledge is unbroken. Now where by that token would most of us be? One day as his potage he ate in his cottage, a fairy stepped up to the door. Upon it she hammered, and meekly she stammered, a morsel of food I implore. He gave her sardines and a biscuit or two, and she said in reply when her luncheon was through, and returned for these dishes of bread and of fishes, the first of your wishes I'll make to come true. That nincompoop peasants accepted the present, as most of us probably would. And thinking her bounty to turn to account, he said, Now I'll do somebody good. I won't ask a thing for myself or my wife, but I'll make all my neighbors with happiness rife what ere their conditions henceforward physicians and in dispositions they're rid of for life. These words energetic, the fairy's prophetic announcement brought instantly true. With singular quickness each victim of sickness was made over better than new, and people who formerly thought they were doomed, with almost obstreperous healthiness bloomed, and each had some platitude teeming with gratitude for the new attitude life had assumed. Our friend's satisfaction concerning his action was keen but exceedingly brief. The wrathful condition of every physician in town was surpassing belief. All nurses were plunged in despair, and chemists shook passionate fists in the air. They called it his dwelling with violence swelling, his greeting repelling with arrogant stare. They beat and they battered, they slammed and they shattered, and did him a cheery as harm, but after their labours his wife told the neighbors they'd caused her excessive alarm. They then set to work on his various ills, implied him with liniments, powders, and pills, and charged him so dearly that all of them nearly made double their yearly amount of their bills. This moral, by the tale, is taught. The wish is fathered to the thought. We'd often time escape the worst if but the thinking part came first. A worthy couple, man and wife, dragged on a discontented life. The reason, I should state, that it was destitute of joys was that they had a dozen boys to feed and educate, and nothing such patience demands as having twelve boys on your hands. For twenty years they tried their best to keep those urchins neatly dressed and teach them to be good. But so much labour it involved that in the end they both resolved to lose them in a wood, though nothing apparent a noise like heartlessly losing his boys. So when their sons had gone to bed, though bitter tears the couple shed, they laid their little plan. For bank s'as fasse, qu'on m'aime, the woman said. J'en suis-t-t-t-blème. S'accole, observe the man. Mais s'accoute que ses gosses fichoux, Bancroix faut qu'ils soient partout. Ah, I've quite admitted to explain that they were natives of terrain. I see I must translate. Of course it must be done, and still the wife remarked. It makes me ill. You bet, replied her mate, but we both of us counted the cost, and the kids simply have to be lost. But while they plotted every word, the youngest of the urchins heard and winked the other eye. His height was only two feet three, I might remark in passing. He was little, but oh, my! He added, I'd better keep mum. He was foxy, was hop-a-me-thum. They took the boys into the woods and lost them, as they said they should, and came in silence back. Alas for them hop-a-me-thum at every step had dropped a crumb, and so retraced the track. While the parents had mourning their fate, he led the boys in at the gate. He placed his hand upon his heart and said, You think you're awful smart, but I have foiled you thus. His parents humbly bent the knee and meekly said, H-O-M-T, you're one too much for us. And both of them solemnly swore, We won't never do so no more. The moral is, while I do not endeavour to condone the plot, I still maintain that one should have no chance of being foiled and having one's arrangement spoiled by one's ingenious son. If you turn down your children with pain, take care they don't turn up again. End of How Hop-a-Me-Thum Got Rid of an Onus Tale number six of Grim-Tales Made Gay This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Grim-Tales Made Gay by Guy Wetmore Carroll How the helpmate of Bluebeard made free with a door A maiden from the Bosphorus with eyes as bright as phosphorus, once wed the wealthy bailiff of the Caliph of Calat, though diligent and zealous he became a slave to jealousy, considering her beauty to us his duty to be that. When business would necessitate a journey he would hesitate, but fearing to disgust her he would trust her with his keys, remarking to her prayerfully, I beg you use them carefully, don't look what I deposit in the closet if you please. It may be mentioned casually that Bluebeard's lapis lazuli, he dyed his hair his lashes his moustaches and his beard, and just because he did it, aroused his wife's timidity, her terror she disempled, but she trembled when he neared. This feeling insalubrious soon made her most legubrious and bitterly she missed her elder sister Mary Ann. She asked if she might write her to, come down and spend a night or two, her husband answered rightly and pro-rightly, yes you con. Bluebeard the Monday following his jealous feeling swallowing packed all his clothes together in a leather-bound valise, and feigning reprehensibly he started out ostensibly by travelling to learn a bit of Smyrna and of Greece. His wife made but a cursory inspection of the nursery, the kitchen and the airy little dairy were a bore, as well as big or scanty rooms and billiard baths and anti-rooms, but not that interdicted and restricted little door, for all her curiosity awakened by the closet he so carefully had hidden and forbidden her to see. This damsel disobedient did something inexpedient, and in the keyhole tiny turned the shiny little key. Then started back impulsively and shor-ricked aloud convulsively, three heads of girls he'd wedded and beheaded met her eye, and turning round much terrified her darkest fears were verified, for Bluebeard stood behind her, come to find her on the sly. Perceiving she was fated to be soon decapitated to, she telegraphed her brothers and some others what she feared, and sister and looked out for them in readiness to shout for them whenever in the distance with assistance they appeared. But only from her battlement she saw some dust that cattle meant the ordinary story isn't gory but a jest, and here's the true fun equaled, the husband wasn't mollified, her head is in his bloody little study with the rest. The Moral Wives we must allow who to their husbands will not bow, a stern and dreadful lesson learn when, as you've read, they're cut in turn. End of How the Helpmate of Bluebeard Made Free with a Door Tale number seven of Grim-Tales Made Gay This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Grim-Tales Made Gay by Guy Wetmore Carroll How Rumpelstilts held out in vain for a bonus In Germany there lived an Earl who had a charming niece and never gave the timid girl a single moment's peace. Whatever low and menial task is fancy flitted through, he did not hesitate to ask that shrinking child to do. I see with truly honest shame you are blushing and I do not blame you. A tale like this, the feeling softened and brings the tears as dues too often. She had to wash the windows and she had to scrub the floors. She had to lend a willing hand to fifty other chores. She gave the dog his exercise. She read the earl the news. She ironed all his evening ties and polished all his shoes. She cleaned the tins that filled the dairies. She cut the claws of the canary and then at night with manner winsome when coal was wanted carried in some. But though these tasks were quite enough he thought them all too few and so her uncle rude and rough invented something new. He took her to a little room, her willingness to tax and pointed out a broken loom and half a ton of flax, observing spin six pairs of trousers. His haughty manners seemed to rouse hers. She met his scornful glances proudly and for an answer whistling loudly. But when the earl went down the stairs she yielded to her fears, gave way at last a grim despair and melted into tears. When suddenly from out the wall as if he felt at home there pounced a singularly small and much distorted gnome. He smiled a smile extremely vapid and set to work in fashion rapid. No time for resting he deducted and soon the trousers were constructed. The girl observed, how very nice to help me out this way. The gnome replied, a certain price of course you'll have to pay. I'll call tomorrow after noon my due reward to claim and then you'll sing another tune unless you guess my name. He indicated with a gesture a pile of newly fashioned vesture. His eyes on hers a moment centred and then he went as he had entered. As by this tale you have been grieved and heartily distressed. Kind sir, you will be much relieved to know his name she guessed. But if I do not tell the same, pre-count it's not a crime. I've tried my best and for the name I can't find any rhyme. Yet spare me from remarks injurious. I will not leave you foiled and furious if something must proclaim the answer and I cannot the title cancer. The moral is all said and done. There's nothing new beneath the sun. And many times before a title was incapacities requital. End of How Rumpelstilts held out in vain for a bonus. Tale number eight of GrimTales Made Gay. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. GrimTales Made Gay by Guy Wetmore Carroll. How Jack made the giants uncommonly sore. Of all the ill-fated boys ever created, young Jack was the wretchedest lad. An emphatic, erratic, dogmatic fanatic was foisted upon him as dad. From the time he could walk and before he could talk his weary sum-training began on a highly barbarian, disciplinary and nilly-tartarian plan. He taught him some rally and some of makale till all of Horatius he knew and the drastic, sarcastic, fantastic, scar-lastic Philippics of Junius, too. He made him learn lots of the poems of Watts and frequently said he ignored, on principle, any son's title to Benesons till he learned Tennyson's Maude. For these are the giants of thoughts and of science, he said in his positive way. So weigh them, obey them, display them and lay them to heart in your infancy's days. Jack made no reply, but he said on the sly an eloquent word that had come from a quite indefensible, most reprehensible but indispensable chum. By the time he was twenty Jack had such a plenty of books and paternal advice. Losidia needy. Indeed, he was greedy for vengeance, whatever the price. In the editor's seat of a critical sheet he found the revenge that he sought and, with sterling appliance of mind, wrote defiance of all of the giants of thought. He'd thunder and grumble at high and at humble until he became, in a while, mordacious, pugnacious, rapacious, good gracious. They called him the Yankee Carlile but he never took rest on his quarrelsome quest of the giants both mighty and small. He slated, distorted them, hanged them and quartered them till he had slaughtered them all. And this is the moral that lies in the verse. If you have a go-father, you're apt to fare worse. When you turn it around, it is different, rather. You're not apt to go worse if you have a fair father. End of Howe Jack Made the Giants Uncommonly Saw Tale nine of Grim-Tales Made Gay This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Grim-Tales Made Gay by Guy Wetmore Carroll How rudeness and kindness were justly rewarded. Once on a time, long years ago, just when I quite forget, two maidens lived beside the Poe, one blonde and one brunette. The blonde one's character was mild from morning until night she smiled, whereas the one whose hair was brown did little else than pine and frown. I think one ought to draw the line at girls who always frown and pine. The blonde one learned to play the harp, like all accomplished dames, and trained her voice to take C sharp, as well as Emma Ames, made baskets out of scented grass and paper weights of hammered brass and ends for gentlemen and lady-friends. I think it takes a deal of sense to manufacture gifts for gents. The dark one wore an air of gloom, proclaimed the world a bore, and took a breakfast in her room three mornings out of four. With crankiness she seemed imbued, and everything she said was rude. She sniffed and sneered, and what is more, when very much provoked, she swore. I think that I could never care for any girl who learned to swear. One day the blonde was striding past a forest all alone, when all at once her eyes she cast upon a wrinkled crone who tottered near with shaking knees and said, Penny, if you please, and you will learn with some surprise this was a fairy in disguise. I think it must be hard to know a fairy whose incognito. The maiden filled her trembling palms with coinage of the realm. The fairy said, Take back your arms, my heart they overwhelm. Henceforth at every word shall slip a pearl or ruby from your lip. And when the girl got home that night she found the fairy's words were right. I think there are not many girls whose words are worth their weight in pearls. It happened that the cross brunette ten minutes later came along the self-same road and met that bent and wrinkled dame who asked her humbly for a sue and the girl replied, Get out with you. The fairy cried, Each word you drop a toad from out your mouth shall hop. I think that nothing incomodes one speech like uninvited toads. And so it was the cheerful blonde lived on in joy unblissed and grouper cuneous beyond the dreams of avarice. And to a nice young man was wed and I have often heard it said no other man who ever walked most loved his wife when most she talked. I think this very fact forsooth goes far to prove I tell the truth. The cross brunette the fairy's joke by Hook or Crook survived but still at every word she spoke an ugly toad arrived until at last she had to come to feigning she was holy dumb where at the suit is swarmed around and soon a wealthy mate she found. I think nobody ever knew the happier husband of the two. The moral of the tale is Bah! Nous avons changé tout cela no clear idea I hope to strike of what your nicest girl is like but she whose best young man I am is not an oyster nor a clam end of how rudeness and kindness were justly rewarded. Tale 10 of Grim Tales Made Gay This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Grim Tales Made Gay by Guy Wetmore Carroll How Beauty Contrived to Get Square with the Beast Miss Gwynevere Platt was so beautiful that she couldn't remember the day when one of her swings hadn't taken the pains to send her a mammoth bouquet and the postman had found on the whole of his round that no one received such a lot of bulky epistles as, waiting his whistles, the beautiful Gwynevere got. A significant sign that her charm was divine was seen in society when the chaperone sniffed with the eyebrow's lift whatever's got into the men. There was always a man who was holding a fan and twenty that danced in details and a couple of mourners who brooded in corners and gnawed their mustaches and nails. John Jeremy Platt wouldn't stay in the flat for his beautiful daughter he missed. When he'd taken his tub he would he to his club and dally with poker or wist. At the end of a year it was perfectly clear that he'd never computed the cost for he hadn't a penny to settle the many ten thousands of dollars he'd lost. F. Ferdinand Fife was a student of life. He was coarse and excessively fat with her beard like a goat's but he held all the notes of ruined John Jeremy Platt. With an adamant smile that was brimming with guile he said, I am tuck with the face of your beautiful daughter and wed me she ought her to save you from utter disgrace. Miss Gwynevere Platt didn't hesitate at her duty's imperative call when they looked at the bride all the chaperones cried, she isn't so bad after all of the desolate men there was something like ten who took up political lives and the flower of the flock went and fell off a dock and the rest married hideous wives. But the beautiful wife of Ferdinand Fife was the wildest that ever was known. She'd grumble and glare till the man didn't care to say that his soul was his own. She sneered at his ills and quadrupled his bills and spent nearly twice what he earned. Her husband deserted and flibbled and flirted till Ferdinand's reason was turned. He repented too late and his terrible fate upon him so heavily sat that he swore at the day when he sat down to play at cards with John Jeremy Platt. He was dead in a year and the fair Gwynevere in society sparkled again while the caperons fluttered their fans as they muttered. She's getting exceedingly plain. The moral predicaments often are found that beautiful beauty is apt to get round but greedy extortioners better beware for beautiful beauty is apt to get square. End of How Beauty Can Trive to Get Square with the Beast Tale 11 of Grim-Tales Made Gay by LibriVox Recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Grim-Tales Made Gay by Guy Wettmore Carroll How a Fair One No Hope to His Highness Accorded She has slid down the channels of history's annals disguised as the child of a king but that is a glib and iniquitous fib for she never was any such thing. They called her the Fair One with golden locks and it's true she had lovers who swarmed in flocks but the rest is ironic her business Quranic was selling air tonic by bottle and box. From the dawn till the gloaming she used to sit combing her hair in a languorous way and her suitors would stop to look into the shop and stand there the rest of the day. She filled them with mute but with deep despair for she never glanced up with a smile to wear they stood about crushing each other and blushing she simply kept brushing her beautiful hair. A Butter Prince who was passing engaged in amassing some facts on American life was suddenly struck by the fact that his look might give him that girl for a wife. His rashness he didn't attempt to excuse he entered the shop and he stated his views remarking I'm confident you will not wish to be cruel enough to refuse most winsome of creatures he told her your features have led me to candidly say that no other beside would I have for a bride will be married a week from today. I belong to a long and titled line on the list of your wishes I won't decline next month I will usher my wife into Broucher, sweet Comber on Broucher consider your mine she looked at him squarely considered him fairly her glance was as keen as a knife then she turned up her nose and with icy repose she answered well not on your life you're not on the paper the only blot do you think I come twelve in a parcel what me pose as your dearie oh go and chase Perry you're making me now git he got the crowd that had waited outside was elated so much by the prince's mischance that they greeted with jeers and ironical cheers the end of his little romance they said did it when the ground you it they searched for some mark where the prince had lit and as he looked colder they only grew bolder and tapped on his shoulder with tag you're it the lengthy discussion that sensitive Russian compiled on the USA was read by the maid she carelessly played with her beautiful hair one day the talk you hear in that primitive land he wrote nobody can understand somebody who guffed him she said stuffed him and easily bluffed him to beat the band the moral the people across the brine are exceedingly strong on old langzine but they're lost in the push when they gang that is strong an American new line slang end of how a fair one no hope to his highness accorded tale 12 of grim tales made gay this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org grim tales made gay by Guy Wetmore Carol Thomas are made from a dragon released though Philip II of France was reckoned no coward his breath came short when they told him a dragon as big as a wagon was waiting below in the court a dragon so long and so wide and so fat that he couldn't get in the door to chat the king couldn't leave him outside and grieve him he had to receive him upon the mat the dragon bowed nicely and very concisely he stated the reason he called he made the disclosure with frigid composure King Philip was simply appalled he demanded for eating a fortnight apart the monarch's ten daughters all dear to his heart and now you'll produce he concluded the juicy and succulent Lucy by way of start King Philip was pliant and far from defiant and servile no doubt you retort if you struck a snag on a bottle green dragon who filled up two-thirds of your court and curled up his tail on your new tin roof and made your piazza grown under the hoof would you threaten and thunder or just knuckle under completely I wonder if put to the proof by way of a truce he brought out little Lucy and watched her conducted away but all of the others were out with their brothers thus gaining a little delay he promised through herald sent west and east his crown and his kingdom and last not least his daughter so slightly to any one nightly who'd come and politely wipe out that beast for love of this charmer arrayed in his armour each suitor for glory who yearned would gallantly hasten the dragon to chasten but none of them ever returned when the dragon had eaten some sixteen score he hung up the sign on his cavern door where at he lay pronely in majesty lonely there standing room only for three nights more a slim adolescent his beard only crescent rode up at this stage of the game to where the old sinner lay gorged with his dinner and breathing out torrents of flame he gathered a tip from the flaunting sign and took his position the fourth in line until as foreboded by food incomoded the dragon exploded at half past nine the king was delighted at first when he sighted the victor but then in dismay regretted his promise the stripling was Thomas his majesty's valet de piet he asked him at once will you compromise but Thomas looked straight in his master's eyes and answered severely I'll see your game clearly and scorn it sincerely and out the prize not long did he linger before on the finger of Lucy he fitted a ring a dictator in place of the elderly king he was lorded by pulpit and boomed by the press and no one had ever a chance to guess beholding this hero who ruled like an hero his valet was zero or something less the moral and still from Nice to Calais discretion's the best part of valets end of how Thomas are made the dragon released tale 13 of grim tales made gay this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org grim tales made gay by Guy Wetmore Carroll how a beauty was waked and her suitor was suited albeit holy Thomas Charming wasn't any less conceited than a cresis or a modern millionaire though often in necessity no one would ever guess it he was candidly insolvent and he frankly didn't care of the many debts he made not a one was ever paid but no one ever pressed him to refund the borrowed gold while he recklessly kept spending people gladly kept on lending for the fact they knew a title was requital 20 fold he lived in 1663 this smooth and blushing article since when as far as I can see men haven't changed a particle in Charming's principality there was a wild locality composed of somber forests and of steep and frowning crags a pheasant and of rabbit too and here it was his habit to go hunting with his courtyards in the keen pursuit of stags but the charger that he rode so mercurially strode and that the prince on one occasion left the others in the lurch and the falling darkness found him with no vassals left around him near a building like an abbey or a shabby ruined church his highness said I'll ring the bell and I'll stay till morning in it he took options choice a for no hotel there was in the vicinity his ringing was so vehement that anyone could see he meant to suffer no refusal but in spite of all the din there was no answer audible and so with courage laudable his royal highness turned the knob and stoutly entered in then he strode across the court but he suddenly stopped short when he passed within the castle by a massive open door there were courtyards without number but they all were plunged in slumber the prince is here delighting by uniting in a snore the prince remarked this must be Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and so was born the jest that's still the comic journals mania with torpor reprehensible numb, comatose insensible the flunkies and the chamberlains all slumbered like the dead and snore so loud and mournfully and the charming passed them scornfully and came to where a princess lay asleep upon her bed she was so extremely fair that his highness didn't care for the risk and so he kissed her air a single word he spoke in a jiffy maids and pages, usher's lackeys squires and sages as fresh as if they'd been at least a week awake awoke and hastened bustled, dashed and ran up stairways and through galleries in brief they won and all began again to earn their salaries aroused from her paralysis as if in deep analysis of him who had awakened her the princess met his eye her glance at first was critical externally analytical and then she dropped her lashes and she gave a little sigh as he watched her holy dumb she observed you've doubtless come for one of two good reasons and I'm going to ask you which do you mean my house to Harry or do you propose to marry he answered I'll be rude but I'll do it if you're rich the princess murmured with a smile I've millions at the least to come I cried please excuse me while I go and get the priest to come the moral when affairs go ill the sleeping partner foots the bill end of how a beauty was waked and her suitor was suited tale number 14 of grim tales made gay this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information all to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org grim tales made gay by Guy Wetmore Carroll how Jack found that beans may go back on the chap without the slightest basis for hypochondriasis a widow had forebodings which are cloud around a flung and with expression cynical for after-day a clinical thermometer she held beneath her tongue when as she read the papers at every tale of malady or accident she'd grown in every new and smart disease from housemaid's knee to heart's disease she recognized the symptoms as her own she had a yearning chronic to try each novel tomic elixir, panacea, lotion, opiate and balm and from a homeopathist would change to an hydropathist and back again with stupefying calm the closets of her villa were full of sasperilla, ammonia digitales, bronchial trochus soda mint, restoratives herceutical and soaps to clean the cuticle and iodine and peptonides and lint she was nervous, cataleptic ananemic and dyspeptic though not convinced of apoplexy yet she had her fears she'd dwelt with false fanatical upon a twin dramatical and said she had a buzzing in her ears now, all of this bemoaning and this grumbling and this groaning the mind of Jack, her son and heir unconscionably bored his heart completely hardening he gave his time to gardening for raising beans was something he adored each hour in accents morbid this limp maternal borebid her callous son affectionate and lacrimose goodbyes she never granted Jack a day without some longer lack a day open-ended by rolling of the eyes but Jack, no panic showing just watched his beanstalk growing and twined with tender fingers the tendrils up the pole at all her words funerial he smiled a smile ethereal or sighed an absent minded bless my soul that hollow hearted creature would never change a feature no tear be dimmed his eye however touchy was the talk she never forced or flurried him the only thing that worried him was when no bean-pots grew upon the stalk and then he wobbled loosely his head and wept profusely and taking out his anchor-chief to mop away his tears exclaimed he hasn't got any he found this blow to botany was sadder than were all his mother's fears the moral is that gardener's pine when there no pods adorned the vine of all sad words experienced gleens the saddest are it might have beans I didn't make this up myself it was in a book upon my shelf it's witty but I don't deny it's rather wittier than I end of how Jack found that beans may go back on a chap this recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Grim-Tales made gay by Guy Wetmore Carroll Tale 15 how a cat was annoyed and a poet was booted a poet had a cat there is nothing odd in that I might make a little pun about the muse but what is really about a cat a cat a muse but what is really more remarkable she wore a pair of pointed patent leather shoes and I doubt me greatly weather ere you heard the like of that pointed shoes of patent leather on a cat his time he used to pass writing sonnets on the grass I might say something good on pen and sword while the cat sat near at hand trying hard to understand and occasionally roared I myself possess a feline but when poetry I roar he is sure to make a beeline for the door the poet sent by sent all his patrimony spent I might tell how he went from worse to worse till the cat was sure she could by advising do him good so addressed him in a manner that was terse we are bound toward the scuppers and the time has come to act or will both be on our uppers for a fact on her boot she fixed her eye but the boot made no reply I might say couldn't speak to save its soul and the foolish bard instead of responding only read a verse that wasn't bad upon the whole and it pleased the cat so greatly though she knew not what it meant that I'll quote approximately how it went if I should live to be the last leaf upon the tree I might put in I think I just as leaf ha ha ha let them smile as I do now at the old forsaken bow well he'd plagiarized it boldly in brief but that cat of simple breeding couldn't read the lines between so she took it to a leading magazine she was jarred and very sore when they showed her to the door I might hit off the door that was a jar to the spot she swiftly returned where the poet sighed and yearned and she told him that he'd gone a little far your performance with yes rhyme has made me absolutely sick she remarked I think the time has come to kick I could fill up half the page with descriptions of a rage I'd say that she went a bit too fur when he smiled and murmured shoo! there is one thing I can do she answered with a wrathful kind of pur you may shoo me and it suit you but I feel my conscience bid me as tit for tat to boot you which she did the moral of the plot though I say it as should not is an editor is difficult to suit again there are other times when the man who fashions rhymes is a rascal and a bully one to boot end of tale 15 how a cat was annoyed and a poet was booted tale 16 of grim tales made gay this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina grim tales made gay by Guy Wetmore Carroll tale 16 how much Fortunatus could do with a cap Fortunatus a fisherman Dane set out on a sudden for Spain because runs the story he'd met with a horny mysterious sorcerer chap who troubled to save him most thoughtfully gave him a magical traveling cap I barely believe that the story is true but here's what that cap was reported to do suppose you were sitting at home and you wished to see Paris or Rome you'd pick up that bonnet you'd carefully don it the name of the city you'd call and the very next minute by Joe Viewer in it without having started at all one moment you soldered an upper broadway and the next on the Corso or the Corso while he had beat every journey of cooks, knocked spots out of Badeker's books he stepped from his doorway direct into Norway he hopped in a trice to Ceylon he saw Madagascar went round by Alaska and called on a girl in Luzon if they said she'd be down in a moment or two he took while he waited a peak at Peru he'd go out to the theater in Vladovostok and retire in New York at eleven o'clock every tongue he could readily speak French, German, Italian Greek, Norwegian, Bulgarian Turkish, Bavarian Japanese, Hindustani Russian and Mexican he was a lexicon such as you'd see in Paris he'd go out to the theater in Vladovostok he was a lexicon such as you'd seldom will see his knowledge linguistic gave Olandor Fitz and brought a hot flush to the face of Berlitz he would bow in an intimate way to Menelik and to Loubet he was frequently beckoned by William II a word of advice to receive he talked with Bervato about the Mikado, King Oscar Umpaul, the Kediv King Victor Emanuel II King Edward VII Kwangsu and the Tsar but what did he get from it all? his wife used to wait in the hall when this wandering mortal set foot on the portal she always appeared on the scene and far from ideally remarked well I really would like to know where you've been now what is the good of a wandering life if you have to tell all that you do to your wife? she'd indulge in a copious cry she'd remark she'd undoubtedly die or like many another go back to her mother and what would the world think of that? she only grew pleasant when offered a present of gloves or a gown or a hat and more than as talisman saved him in fare fortunately not as expended in putting things square and the moral is easily said like our hero you're certain to find when such a cap goes on ahead retribution will follow behind end of tale 16 how much fortunatus could do with a cap tale 17 of grim tales made gay this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina grim tales made gay by Guy Wetmore Carroll tale 17 how a princess was wooed from habitual sadness in days of old the king of sacks had singular opinions for with the weighty battle-axe he brutalized his minions and when he'd nothing to employ his mind he chose a village and with an air of savage joy delivered it to pillage but what aroused within his breast a rage well-nigh primeval was most of all his daughter dressed in fashion medieval the gowns that pleased this maiden's eye were simple as utopia and for a hat she had a high inverted cornucopia in all her life she'd never smiled her sadness was abysmal the boisterous monarch found his child unutterably dismal he therefore said the prince who made her from its shell come besides in ducats being paid might wed the girl and welcome I ought to say or I forget she was uncommon comely whoever read a grim tale yet in which the girl was homely and so the king's announcement drew nine princes in a column but all in vain the princess grew if anything more solemn one read her in a sense abroad more clothes eccentric the third one swallowed half his sword as in the circus tent trick thus eight of them into her cool reserve but deeper shoved her there was but one authentic fool the prince who really loved her he'd alternate between the height of hope and deep abasement he caught distressing colds at night by watching neath her casement he did what I have done I know and you I do not doubt it instead of bottling up his woe he bored his friends about it in brooding on the ways of fate long hours he daily wasted his food remained upon his plate was scarcely touched or tasted he said the bitter things of love all lovers save a few say and learn by heart the verses of swinburne and a de mousse this attitude his wish for I'd to silent laughter goaded until he talked of suicide and then the girl exploded you make me laugh and so she said I'll marry you next season not half the people who are wed have half so good a reason the moral the deliberate clown can never beat love's barriers down does better to be like the owl comic because so grave a foul from him we well may take you by him be taught to wit to woo end of tale 17 how a princess was from habitual sadness tale 18 of grim tales made gay this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this recording is by Mark Smith of simpsonville line grim tales made gay by Guy Wetmore Carroll tale 18 how a girl was too reckless of grammar by far Matilda Maude Mackenzie frankly hadn't any chin her hands were rough her feet she turned invariably in her general form was German by which I mean that you her waist could not determine and not only did she stammer but she used the kind of grammar that is called for sake of euphony a skew from what I say about her don't imagine I desire a prejudice against this worthy creature to inspire she was willing she was active she was sober she was kind but she never looked attractive and she hadn't any mind I knew her more than slightly and I treated her politely when I met her and Matilda Maude Mackenzie had a habit that was droll she spent her morning seated on a rock or on a knoll and threw with much composure a smallish rubber ball at an inoffensive osher by a little waterfall but Matilda's way of throwing was like other people's mowing and she never hit the willow tree at all one day as Miss Mackenzie with uncommon ardor tried to hit the mark the missile flew originally wide and before her eyes astounded on a fallen maple's trunk ricocheted and rebounded in the rivulet and sunk Matilda greatly frightened in her grammar unenlightened remarked well now I asked her who'd her thunk but what a marvel followed from the pool at once there rose a frog the sphere of rubber balanced deathly on his nose he beheld her fright in frenzy and her panic to dispel on his knee by Miss Mackenzie he obsequiously fell with quite as much decorum as a speaker in a form he started in his history to tell fair maid he said I beg you do not hesitate her wince if you'll promise that you'll wed me I'll at once become a prince for a fairy old and vicious an enchantment round me spun then he looked up unsuspicious and he saw what he had won and in terms of sad reproach he made some comments so to voce which the publishers have bidden me to shun Matilda mob Mackenzie said as if she meant to scold I never why you forward thing now ain't you awful bold just a glance he paused to give her and his head was seen to clutch then he darted to the river and he dived to beat the Dutch while the wrathful made him panted I don't think he was enchanted and he really didn't look it over much the moral in one's language one conservative should be speeches silver and it never should be free end of tale 18 how a girl was too reckless of grammar by far tale 19 of Grim Tails made gay this is a Librebox recording all Librebox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Librebox.org this recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Grim Tails made gay by Guy Wetmore Carroll tale 19 how the peaceful Aladdin gave way to his madness his name was Aladdin the clothes he was clad in proclaimed him in an Arabic site and he had for a chum only rum old of Freet six cubits in height this person infernal who seemed so fraternal at bottom was frankly a scap his future too sad and he gave to Aladdin a wonderful magical lamp a marvel he dubbed it he said if one rubbed it one's wishes were done on the spot now what would you do were it offered to you refuse it undoubtedly not with pleasure extensive Aladdin accepted the gift and by it befriended erected a splendid chateau with a bath and a lift not dreaming of malice one year in his palace he led a luxurious life till his genius dread put it into his head that he needed a beautiful wife responding to friction the lamp this affliction at once for Aladdin secured the latter delighted imagine he cited a future of quiet assured when gladly he chose her he didn't suppose her a philatelist always a gape for novelties yet she had all of the set of triangular stamps of the cape some people malicious proclaimed her Mauritius one penny vermilion a cell but that was all rot it was true she had got it and the Tuppany blue one as well since thus she collected what could be expected she didn't for Brickabrack care so she traded the lamp for an Ecuador stamp that somebody told her was rare this act served to madden the mind of Aladdin but spite of his impotent wrath his manor house vanished to nothingness banished and while he was taking a bath the average Arab is hard as a scarab when someone has wounded his pride so he jumped up and down the face of his beautiful bride he had picked up a cargo of curious argot while living in Paris the gay in the slang of that city he cried without pity the moral when stamps you are adept on of risk you are reckless and yet beware if your face is once stepped on that's the last stamp you're likely to get end of the tale of Joel Aladdin gave way to his madness tale 20 of grim tales made gay this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this recording is my Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina grim tales made gay by Guy Wetmore Carroll tale 20 how a fisherman corked up his foe in a jar a fisherman lived on the shore it's a habit that fishers affect and his life was a hideous bore he had nothing to do but collect continual harvests of seaweed in shells which he stuck upon photograph frames to sell to the guests in the summer hotels with the quite inappropriate names he would wander along by the edge of the sea and I know for a fact from the pools with a portable dredge he would curious creatures extract and during the season he always took lots of tourists out fishing for bass and showed them politely impossible spots in the culpable way of his class it happened one day as afar he roved on the glistening strand that he chanced on a curious jar which lay on a humic of sand it was closed at the mouth with a cork and a seal and over the top there was tied a cloth and the fisherman couldn't but feel that he ought to see what was inside but what were his fear and surprise when the stopper he held in his hand for a genie of singular size appeared in a trice on the sand who said in the roughest and rudest of tones a monster you foolishly freed I shall simply make way with you and bones and that with phenomenal speed the fisherman looked in his face and answered him boldly my friend how you ever were packed in that space is something I don't comprehend pray do me the favor to show me how you can do it as large as you are the genie retorted that's just what I'll do and promptly re-entered the jar the fisherman corked him up tight the genie protested and raved but for all he accomplished he might as well all his shouting have saved and whenever a generous bonus is paid the fisherman willingly tells the singular tale of this trick that he played to the guests in the summer hotels the moral when fortune you strike and you slip through a dangerous crack get as forward as ever you like but never oh never get back end of tale 20 this is the end of grim tales made gay by guy wetmore carol