



Produced by Charles Aldarondo






THE FIEND'S DELIGHT

By Dod Grile


"Count that day lost whose low descending sun Views from thy hand no
worthy action done."

New York:

1873.



TO THE IMMUTABLE AND INFALLIBLE GODDESS, GOOD TASTE, IN GRATITUDE
FOR HER CONDEMNATION OF ALL SUPERIOR AUTHORS, AND IN THE HOPE OF
PROPITIATING HER CREATORS AND EXPOUNDERS, This Volume is reverentially
Dedicated BY HER DEVOUT WORSHIPPER,

THE AUTHOR.




PREFACE.


The atrocities constituting this "cold collation" of diabolisms are
taken mainly from various Californian journals. They are cast in the
American language, and liberally enriched with unintelligibility. If
they shall prove incomprehensible on this side of the Atlantic, the
reader can pass to the other side at a moderately extortionate charge.
In the pursuit of my design I think I have killed a good many people
in one way and another; but the reader will please to observe that they
were not people worth the trouble of leaving alive. Besides, I had the
interests of my collaborator to consult. In writing, as in compiling,
I have been ably assisted by my scholarly friend Mr. Satan; and to this
worthy gentleman must be attributed most of the views herein set forth.
While the plan of the work is partly my own, its spirit is wholly his;
and this illustrates the ascendancy of the creative over the merely
imitative mind. Palmam qui meruit ferat--I shall be content with the
profit.

DOD GRILE.




SOME FICTION.


"One More Unfortunate."


It was midnight--a black, wet, midnight--in a great city by the sea. The
church clocks were booming the hour, in tones half-smothered by the
marching rain, when an officer of the watch saw a female figure glide
past him like a ghost in the gloom, and make directly toward a wharf.
The officer felt that some dreadful tragedy was about to be enacted,
and started in pursuit. Through the sleeping city sped those two dark
figures like shadows athwart a tomb. Out along the deserted wharf to
its farther end fled the mysterious fugitive, the guardian of the night
vainly endeavouring to overtake, and calling to her to stay. Soon she
stood upon the extreme end of the pier, in the scourging rain which
lashed her fragile figure and blinded her eyes with other tears than
those of grief. The night wind tossed her tresses wildly in air, and
beneath her bare feet the writhing billows struggled blackly upward
for their prey. At this fearful moment the panting officer stumbled and
fell! He was badly bruised; he felt angry and misanthropic. Instead of
rising to his feet, he sat doggedly up and began chafing his abraded
shin. The desperate woman raised her white arms heavenward for the final
plunge, and the voice of the gale seemed like the dread roaring of the
waters in her ears, as down, down, she went--in imagination--to a black
death among the spectral piles. She backed a few paces to secure an
impetus, cast a last look upon the stony officer, with a wild shriek
sprang to the awful verge and came near losing her balance. Recovering
herself with an effort, she turned her face again to the officer, who
was clawing about for his missing club. Having secured it, he started to
leave.

In a cosy, vine-embowered cottage near the sounding sea, lives and
suffers a blighted female. Nothing being known of her past history, she
is treated by her neighbours with marked respect. She never speaks of
the past, but it has been remarked that whenever the stalwart form of a
certain policeman passes her door, her clean, delicate face assumes an
expression which can only be described as frozen profanity. The Strong
Young Man of Colusa.

Professor Cramer conducted a side-show in the wake of a horse-opera, and
the same sojourned at Colusa. Enters unto the side show a powerful young
man of the Colusa sort, and would see his money's worth. Blandly and
with conscious pride the Professor directs the young man's attention to
his fine collection of living snakes. Lithely the blacksnake uncoils
in his sight. Voluminously the bloated boa convolves before