Oil of Dog
My name is Boffer Bings. I was born of honest
parents in one of the humbler walks of life, my father being a
manufacturer of dog-oil and my mother having a small studio in the
shadow of the village church, where she disposed of unwelcome
babes. In my boyhood I was trained to habits of industry; I not
only assisted my father in procuring dogs for his vats, but was
frequently employed by my mother to carry away the debris of her
work in the studio. In performance of this duty I sometimes had
need of all my natural intelligence for all the law officers of the
vicinity were opposed to my mother’s business. They were not
elected on an opposition ticket and the matter had never been made
a political issue; it just happened so. My father’s business of
making dog-oil was, naturally, less unpopular, though the owners of
missing dogs sometimes regarded him with suspicion, which was
reflected, to some extent, upon me. My father had, as silent
partners, all the physicians of the town, who seldom wrote a
prescription which did not contain what they were pleased to
designate as Ol. can. It is really the most valuable
medicine ever discovered. But most persons are unwilling to make
personal sacrifices for the afflicted, and it was evident that many
of the fattest dogs in town had been forbidden to play with me—a
fact which pained my young sensibilities, and at one time came near
driving me to become a pirate.
Looking back upon those days, I cannot but regret,
at times, that by indirectly bringing my beloved parents to their
death I was the author of misfortunes profoundly affecting my
future.
One evening while passing my father’s oil factory
with the body of a foundling from my mother’s studio I saw a
constable who seemed to be closely watching my movements. Young as
I was, I had learned that a constable’s acts, of whatever apparent
character, are prompted by the most reprehensible motives, and I
avoided him by dodging into the oilery by a side door which
happened to stand ajar. I locked it at once and was alone with my
dead. My father had retired for the night. The only light in the
place came from the furnace, which glowed a deep, rich crimson
under one of the vats, casting ruddy reflections on the walls.
Within the cauldron the oil still rolled in indolent ebullition,
occasionally pushing to the surface a piece of dog. Seating myself
to wait for the constable to go away, I held the naked body of the
foundling in my lap and tenderly stroked its short, silken hair.
Ah, how beautiful it was! Even at that early age I was passionately
fond of children, and as I looked upon this cherub I could almost
find it in my heart to wish that the small, red wound upon its
breast—the work of my dear mother—had not been mortal.
It had been my custom to throw the babes into the
river which nature had thoughtfully provided for the purpose, but
that night I did not dare to leave the oilery for fear of the
constable. “After all,” I said to myself, “it cannot greatly matter
if I put it into this cauldron. My father will never know the bones
from those of a puppy, and the few deaths which may result from
administering another kind of oil for the incomparable Ol.
can. are not important in a population which increases so
rapidly.” In short, I took the first step in crime and brought
myself untold sorrow by casting the babe into the cauldron.
The next day, somewhat to my surprise, my father,
rubbing his hands with satisfaction, informed me and my mother that
he had obtained the finest quality of oil that was ever seen; that
the physicians to whom he had shown samples had so pronounced it.
He added that he had no knowledge as to how the result was
obtained; the dogs had been treated in all respects as usual, and
were of an ordinary breed. I deemed it my duty to explain—which I
did, though palsied would have been my tongue if I could have
foreseen the consequences. Bewailing their previous ignorance of
the advantages of combining their industries, my parents at once
took measures to repair the error. My mother removed her studio to
a wing of the factory building and my duties in connection with the
business ceased; I was no longer required to dispose of the bodies
of the small superfluous, and there was no need of alluring dogs to
their doom, for my father discarded them altogether, though they
still had an honorable place in the name of the oil. So suddenly
thrown into idleness, I might naturally have been expected to
become vicious and dissolute, but I did not. The holy influence of
my dear mother was ever about me to protect me from the temptations
which beset youth, and my father was a deacon in a church. Alas,
that through my fault these estimable persons should have come to
so bad an end!
Finding a double profit in her business, my mother
now devoted herself to it with a new assiduity. She removed not
only superfluous and unwelcome babes to order, but went out into
the highways and byways, gathering in children of a larger growth,
and even such adults as she could entice to the oilery. My father,
too, enamored of the superior quality of oil produced, purveyed for
his vats with diligence and zeal. The conversion of their neighbors
into dog-oil became, in short, the one passion of their lives—an
absorbing and overwhelming greed took possession of their souls and
served them in place of a hope in Heaven—by which, also, they were
inspired.
So enterprising had they now become that a public
meeting was held and resolutions passed severely censuring them. It
was intimated by the chairman that any further raids upon the
population would be met in a spirit of hostility. My poor parents
left the meeting broken-hearted, desperate and, I believe, not
altogether sane. Anyhow, I deemed it prudent not to enter the
oilery with them that night, but slept outside in a stable.
At about midnight some mysterious impulse caused me
to rise and peer through a window into the furnace-room, where I
knew my father now slept. The fires were burning as brightly as if
the following day’s harvest had been expected to be abundant. One
of the large cauldrons was slowly “walloping”94 with a
mysterious appearance of self-restraint, as if it bided its time to
put forth its full energy. My father was not in bed; he had risen
in his nightclothes and was preparing a noose in a strong cord.
From the looks which he cast at the door of my mother’s bedroom I
knew too well the purpose that he had in mind. Speechless and
motionless with terror, I could do nothing in prevention or
warning. Suddenly the door of my mother’s apartment was opened,
noiselessly, and the two confronted each other, both apparently
surprised. The lady, also, was in her nightclothes, and she held in
her right hand the tool of her trade, a long, narrow-bladed
dagger.
She, too, had been unable to deny herself the last
profit which the unfriendly action of the citizens and my absence
had left her. For one instant they looked into each other’s blazing
eyes and then sprang together with indescribable fury. Round and
round the room they struggled, the man cursing, the woman
shrieking, both fighting like demons—she to strike him with the
dagger, he to strangle her with his great bare hands. I know not
how long I had the unhappiness to observe this disagreeable
instance of domestic infelicity, but at last, after a more than
usually vigorous struggle, the combatants suddenly moved
apart.
My father’s breast and my mother’s weapon showed
evidences of contact. For another instant they glared at each other
in the most unamiable way; then my poor, wounded father, feeling
the hand of death upon him, leaped forward, unmindful of
resistance, grasped my dear mother in his arms, dragged her to the
side of the boiling cauldron, collected all his failing energies,
and sprang in with her! In a moment, both had disappeared and were
adding their oil to that of the committee of citizens who had
called the day before with an invitation to the public
meeting.
Convinced that these unhappy events closed to me
every avenue to an honorable career in that town, I removed to the
famous city of Otumwee, where these memoirs are written with a
heart full of remorse for a heedless act entailing so dismal a
commercial disaster.