The benevolent and protective order of Elks is a mystic organization whose membership is made up almost entirely of theatrical people, newspaper men, and people who have some claim or other on the dramatic profession. It is a noble institution, having for its foundation those grand and beautiful principles—friendship, charity, and justice. Every prominent actor in the country is found on its rolls, and the good work it accomplishes from one year to another is extensive, and worthy the widest recognition. The only thing I have to find fault with is its initiation business. Being a jolly, fun-loving set, every candidate is put through in the liveliest kind of style. I had a friend, a low comedian named Jughandle, who got me to be an Elk, and I think they put up an unusually interesting bill for my initiation. In fact, I don't think it was a genuine Elk initiation at all, but it was awful funny for those who witnessed, and not a bit pleasant for me.

It was Sunday afternoon when I was introduced to the mysteries of this Order. The first person I met in the ante-chamber of the lodge room was an officer called the Outer Spyglass. He ordered two strange Elks to lead me away to another room where I was blindfolded, and a long gown was thrown over me. A large red box, coffin-shaped, with hinges in the middle of the back, and a round hole in the middle of the split lid, so that by opening the box, adjusting a man's neck to the place intended for it, and then closing the box again, the contrivance became the ghastliest sort of a pillory. There were arm openings in the sides of the coffin and the lower portion which had been sawed short was not boarded up, so that the legs might be as free as possible under the circumstances, in walking. Into a wooden overcoat of this kind I was hurriedly thrust, with my head protruding through the hole in the lid. The garment had been built for a man with a longer and thinner neck than mine, and its proportions were so entirely out of keeping with my physique, that while I was choking, and my spinal column threatened to crack any minute, my arms and legs were suffering the severest torture. It was certainly a comfort to know that dead people do not as a general thing wear their ligneous ulsters in this style. When I had the overcoat on, the attendants tied a piece of rope around my neck, a three-pound prayer-book was placed in my right hand, and a euchre deck of cards in my left. Being ready for the sacrifice, one of the Elks was delegated to introduce me to the Order. He took hold of the rope that hung from my neck and hauled me up to the door at which the Grand Microscope stands guard.

"The candidate is ready," said the outer Spy-Glass.

"Let him enter!" was the Microscope's command.

Trembling and helpless, I stood at last, a picture of the utmost ridiculousness and misery, in the presence of the High, Mighty and Magnificent Muck-a-Muck of the Order.

"Quivering candidate!" the Muck-a-Muck exclaimed. "The Elks give you greeting. Every person here assembled stretches out his right hand to you, and the champion Indian-Club Swinger will now give you, in one solid chunk, the congratulations of this entire gathering for the success that promises to attend your attempt to enter our Order. Club-Swinger, congratulate!"

The Club-Swinger did so. It was the most startling congratulation I was ever the recipient of. If a train of cars travelling at the rate of 100 miles an hour had run into me I could not have been more surprised. A blow that would have made a pile driver or a quartz hammer feel that it had no more force than the hind leg of a house-fly was planted on the coffin lid right over the first button of my vest, and for three minutes I sped through space. When I landed on my back I felt as if I had run against another such blow speeding in an opposite direction to the first. Every bone in my body was jarred to my finger tips and toe-nails, and the wrench my neck got in the sudden stoppage gave me the impression that my spine had been all at once lengthened out sixteen feet and was still growing.

"Potential Pill-Prescriber!" the High Muck-a-Muck commanded, "examine the candidate's condition and immediately report upon the same! How has he stood the congratulation?"

The Master Physician felt my pulse, muttered to himself "14,—48,—96,—135," and answered "He has stood it well, your Majesty."

"Then let him thrice make the circuit of the Peculiar Circle!" was the next command.

Several Elks helped me to my feet, and after gathering up the scattered euchre deck and restoring it and the prayer-book to my outstretched hands, the first attendant seized the rope still dangling from my neck, and led me on a rapid trot around the lodge room. Wherever I passed heavy blows were rained upon my coffin covering, and I imagined I heard several half-suppressed laughs among my tormentors. I was beginning to get mad and had about made up my mind to throw off the wooden yoke I was carrying around, tear the bandage from my eyes, and sail in and punch the heads of half-a-dozen Elks, when I was pounced upon, dragged to the floor and roughly relieved of the coffin. I felt better after this and calmly awaited the next move.

"Bring the candidate before the throne," was the next command of the High Muck-a-Muck.

With the assistance of a few Elks I succeeded in reaching a spot where we stopped, and which, I suppose, was right in the midst of the radiance that hovers nearest the presiding officer's throne. It is needless to say that I felt very badly, and I must have looked frightful, especially when, as happened just then, somebody clapped a demolished stove-pipe hat on my head to add to my already ridiculous aspect. I had hopes, however, that the end was near; but I was sadly mistaken.

"Now, trembling neophyte," said the High Muck-a-Muck, in very impressive tones, "the most important part of our ceremony still remains. Hitherto you have had all the fun; from this time on the fun will be on the side of the assembled Elks. Let the Grand Microscope search the candidate. See that he has no life-preserver under his vest, or pre-RaphÆlite panel of sole leather concealed in that portion of his pantaloons to which the hind straps of his suspenders are fastened."

"He is entirely defenceless, your Majesty," reported the Grand Microscope, after having made the necessary examination.

"Then let him learn the three motions through which every Prophet passes before attaining to the grand secrets of our Order. Let him test the swiftness of the Descent, the roughness of the Path of Progress, and the suddenness of the Upward flight to glory, and the possession of the everlasting talisman. When this has been done, if the candidate still lives, prepare, my mystic brethren, to welcome him into your circle."

My attendants now dealt with me very kindly. I hardly knew what to think of the easy, almost respectful, manner in which they took me by the arm as we walked along. Not a word was said. Silence intense as that which wields a spell over an audience while some daring act is in progress on the flying trapeze, seemed to surround me. As we walked I felt that there was the slightest bit of a rise—a gradual going upward—to my path. I paid little attention to this, however, because I was receiving unusually kind treatment at the time. I had just made up my mind that I had passed all the perilous places along the road, and was about to mutter to myself a mixture of thanks and self-gratulations for the security and comparative blissfulness of my condition, when, with surprising suddenness, my attendants caught me by the arms and legs, gave me a gentle waft forward, and then, reversing the motion, clapped me upon a rough plank at a very steep incline, down which I shot like lightning, regardless of the splinters that ran up into the tenderest portions of my pantaloons, and occasionally went on short and sharp expeditions into the neighborhood of my backbone. Down! Down!! Down!!! I slid, until I thought I had started from the top end of Jacob's ladder, away up beyond the furtherest space through which the tiniest stars twinkle, and was on a rapid and important journey to the centre of the earth. I kept on thinking this way until, for a moment, there was a cessation of the splinter annoyance upon that portion of my anatomy on which I usually do my sleighing. I felt myself falling, and then I felt myself stop. The force of gravitation was never before so fully and satisfactorily impressed upon me. I got so heavy when I had no further to go that I nearly crushed my life out with my own weight, and the sitting down was done with such alacrity that a pile-driver couldn't have sent the splinters that clung to my pantaloons further into my flesh. Add to this that the first thing I struck was not a spring mattress, or a high hair cushion, but a wheel-barrow, filled with small wooden cones, with sharp edges and cruel points. The shock caused me to send up such a howl that I imagined I could see the hair of every Elk in the land standing on end. A well-defined laugh answered the howl, and before I could think of the front end of the prayers for the dead, I heard the High Muck-a-Muck's voice ring out:—

"Wing him away," he commanded, "on Eincycle, the one-wheeled horse of the Hereafter."

They wung me away at once. I discovered that the one-wheeled horse designated by the High Muck-a-Muck when he made use of the half German and half Latin word in his command was a very modern wheel-barrow. The road over which the winging was done was, to say the least, an unpleasant one. There was an obstruction of some kind every six inches—hills and hollows without number—and, even if I had not already been physically shattered by the exciting episodes of the first part of the initiation, the merciless jolting I got and the sharp-pointed cones I kept dancing up and down on were sufficient torture to make me long for some quiet, peaceful spot on which I might stretch out my wearied limbs and close my eyes forever. I don't know how far I was carried over this rough road, which terminated in a tank of chilly water, into which I was unceremoniously dumped, while a shout went up from the assembled brotherhood that indicated that they were highly delighted over my prospects of being drowned. After sinking three times without any apparent effort having been made to rescue me, I evinced a disposition to remain under water. I was beginning to fill up rapidly, and celestial visions were already flitting before me, when something sharp ran through my shoulder and I felt myself lifted to the water's surface.

"See that he remains blindfolded," shouted the High Muck-a-Muck, and, while I still dangled from an iron hook on the end of a stout pole, the dripping handkerchief was tightened across my eyes.

"Put him through the Purgation rite," was the next order, in accordance with which I was thrown, face forward, upon a barrel, and one Elk taking me by the heels while another held my head, I was rolled and rolled until I had passed through one of the most violent spells of sea-sickness anybody ever experienced.

"Will the candidate recover?" asked the High Muck-a-Muck.

"I have some hopes, your Majesty," answered the Potential Pill-Prescriber.

"Then bring in the Krupp gun," the Muck-a-Muck commanded, "and while he still has life, let the candidate climb the cloud-heights around which many a Prophet has soared."

I was trembling with cold up to the time the High Muck-a-Muck mentioned the Krupp gun; just then a chill of fear ran down my back and my knees knocked together so violently that I could hear the bones rattle. The great cannon was rolled in and placed in position near where I stood.

"Spread the merciful net three hundred yards away," ordered the High Muck-a-Muck, "and sprinkle the carpet in its centre with fourteen papers of tacks. Place the sheet-iron bumper ten yards beyond, to prevent the candidate from being shot out of bounds. Charge the cannon with thirty pounds of powder; load her up and let her fly!"

They poured the thirty pounds of powder into the huge mouth of the cannon, rammed down an iron or steel plate, and then to my horror, grabbed me and pushed me into the piece of ordnance until my feet rested on the metallic plate and my head barely protruded from the top of the war-engine. Buckets of chopped ice were poured in to fill up the vacant space, and before the congealed wadding was all in, my toes and fingers were completely frost-bitten. When everything seemed to be in readiness the High Muck-a-Muck said:—

"The candidate has no hat on. Fish his plug out of the lake, put an air-cushion inside and then decorate his head with it."

The "air-cushion" referred to was only a blown bladder. It was placed in the top of my bruised and battered wet hat, which was tightly and gracefully placed upon my head.

"Is he ready?" shouted the High Muck-a-Muck.

"He is," was the Grand Microscope's answer.

"Then, let her go!"

Fiz! boom!! bang!!! I knew the match was at the fuse; felt the whole business give way; heard the scream of the powder leaving the cannon at the same moment as myself; saw the flash of fire as it burned my eyebrows, moustache and the ends of my hair; had my breath swept away by the swiftness of my flight, and while all these experiences were mingled in one instantaneous jumble in my mind, whack went my head against the sheet-iron bumper; bang! went the explosive bladder in my hat, and, hurled back by the recoil, I fell right in the middle of the carpet space in the merciful net, just back in the midst of the fourteen papers of tacks that had been sprinkled there for my benefit. I howled and jumped into the air, but every time I jumped I fell back again and got a fresh invoice of tacks in my flesh. Although there seemed to be nothing particularly mirth-provoking in my situation, the assembled Elks laughed heartily until I was stuck as full of carpet tacks as a boiled ham is of cloves at a pastry-cook's ball. Then they took me out of the net, picked the tacks out of my back, and stood me up, weak and exhausted, according to instructions, in front of the throne.

"The candidate," said the High Muck-a-Muck, "has given satisfactory evidence of his fortitude and endurance, and we are now prepared to receive him forever into our number as an Elk. Let him take the oath and kiss the branching antlers."

The oath was administered and I saluted the antlers with my lips as fervently as I could under the circumstances.

"Now remove the blindfold."

The handkerchief was removed from my eyes and I saw—nothing. But I was an Elk.

I have seen many candidates initiated into this Order since that time, but I have never seen any such proceeding as that here described, which leads me to infer that some friends, and among them Jughandle, put up a job on me and used me a little roughly, for the sake of the sport it afforded them.