"Haven't you got that poison out of your system yet?""Not entirely,"said Hamlet,with a sigh;"but it isn't that that's bothering me.It's Fate.""We'll get out an injunction against Fate if you like,"said Blackstone."Is it persecution,or have you deserved it?""I think it's persecution,"said Hamlet."I never wronged Fate in my life,and why she should pursue me like a demon through all eternity is a thing I can't understand.""Maybe Ophelia is back of it,"suggested Doctor Johnson."These women have a great deal of sympathy for each other,and,candidly,Ithink you behaved pretty rudely to Ophelia.It's a poor way to show your love for a young woman,running a sword through her father every night for pay,and driving the girl to suicide with equal frequency,just to show theatre-goers what a smart little Dane you can be if you try.""'Tisn't me does all that,"returned Hamlet."I only did it once,and even then it wasn't as bad as Shakespeare made it out to be.""I put it down just as it was,"said Shakespeare,hotly,"and you can't dispute it.""Yes,he can,"said Yorick."You made him tell Horatio he knew me well,and he never met me in his life.""I never told Horatio anything of the sort,"said Hamlet."I never entered the graveyard even,and I can prove an alibi.""And,what's more,he couldn't have made the remark the way Shakespeare has it,anyhow,"said Yorick,"and for a very good reason.I wasn't buried in that graveyard,and Hamlet and I can prove an alibi for the skull,too.""It was a good play,just the same,"said Cicero.
"Very,"put in Doctor Johnson."It cured me of insomnia.""Well,if you don't talk in your sleep,the play did a Christian service to the world,"retorted Shakespeare."But,really,Hamlet,Ithought I did the square thing by you in that play.I meant to,anyhow;and if it has made you unhappy,I'm honestly sorry.""Spoken like a man,"said Yorick.
"I don't mind the play so much,"said Hamlet,"but the way I'm represented by these fellows who play it is the thing that rubs me the wrong way.Why,I even hear that there's a troupe out in the western part of the United States that puts the thing on with three Hamlets,two ghosts,and a pair of blood-hounds.It's called the Uncle-Tom-Hamlet Combination,and instead of my falling in love with one crazy Ophelia,I am made to woo three dusky maniacs named Topsy on a canvas ice-floe,while the blood-hounds bark behind the scenes.
What sort of treatment is that for a man of royal lineage?""It's pretty rough,"said Napoleon."As the poet ought to have said,'Oh,Hamlet,Hamlet,what crimes are committed in thy name!'""I feel as badly about the play as Hamlet does,"said Shakespeare,after a moment of silent thought."I don't bother much about this wild Western business,though,because I think the introduction of the bloodhounds and the Topsies makes us both more popular in that region than we should be otherwise.What I object to is the way we are treated by these so-called first-class intellectual actors in London and other great cities.I've seen Hamlet done before a highly cultivated audience,and,by Jove,it made me blush.""Me too,"sighed Hamlet."I have seen a man who had a walk on him that suggested spring-halt and locomotor ataxia combined impersonating my graceful self in a manner that drove me almost crazy.I've heard my 'To be or not to be'soliloquy uttered by a famous tragedian in tones that would make a graveyard yawn at mid-day,and if there was any way in which I could get even with that man I'd do it.""It seems to me,"said Blackstone,assuming for the moment a highly judicial manner--"it seems to me that Shakespeare,having got you into this trouble,ought to get you out of it.""But how?"said Shakespeare,earnestly."That's the point.Heaven knows I'm willing enough."Hamlet's face suddenly brightened as though illuminated with an idea.
Then he began to dance about the room with an expression of glee that annoyed Doctor Johnson exceedingly.
"I wish Darwin could see you now,"the Doctor growled."A kodak picture of you would prove his arguments conclusively.""Rail on,O philosopher!"retorted Hamlet."Rail on!I mind your railings not,for I the germ of an idea have got.""Well,go quarantine yourself,"said the Doctor."I'd hate to have one of your idea microbes get hold of me.""What's the scheme?"asked Shakespeare.
"You can write a play for ME!"cried Hamlet."Make it a farce-tragedy.Take the modern player for your hero,and let ME play HIM.
I'll bait him through four acts.I'll imitate his walk.I'll cultivate his voice.We'll have the first act a tank act,and drop the hero into the tank.The second act can be in a saw-mill,and we can cut his hair off on a buzz-saw.The third act can introduce a spile-driver with which to drive his hat over his eyes and knock his brains down into his lungs.The fourth act can be at Niagara Falls,and we'll send him over the falls;and for a grand climax we can have him guillotined just after he has swallowed a quart of prussic acid and a spoonful of powdered glass.Do that for me,William,and you are forgiven.I'll play it for six hundred nights in London,for two years in New York,and round up with a one-night stand in Boston.""It sounds like a good scheme,"said Shakespeare,meditatively.
"What shall we call it?"
"Call it Irving,"said Eugene Aram,who had entered."I too have suffered.""And let me be Hamlet's understudy,"said Charles the First,earnestly.
"Done!"said Shakespeare,calling for a pad and pencil.
And as the sun rose upon the Styx the next morning the Bard of Avon was to be seen writing a comic chorus to be sung over the moribund tragedian by the shades of Charles,Aram,and other eminent deceased heroes of the stage,with which his new play of Irving was to be brought to an appropriate close.
This play has not as yet found its way upon the boards,but any enterprising manager who desires to consider it may address Hamlet,The House-Boat,Hades-on-the-Styx.
He is sure to get a reply by return mail,unless Mephistopheles interferes,which is not unlikely,since Mephistopheles is said to have been much pleased with the manner in which the eminent tragedian has put him before the British and American public.