Stay updated with breaking news from Pal smerch. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
his greater longer short stories. i amgen reading from the library of america thurber writings and drawings. pal smerch. as we bring you part two of the greatest man in the world. by james thurber. pal smerch, had the reporters discovered once knifed the principal of his high school, not mortally, to be sure, but he had knifed him and on another occasion, surprised him in the act of stealing an altar cloth. for each of these offenses, he has served a sentence in the reformatory. both organizations prayed that an understanding providence might, however awful such a thing seemed. bring disaster to the rusty battered plane and its illustrious pilot.
finally able to get up and dress and for the first time in two weeks take a great chew of tobacco, he was permitted to receive the newspaper. smerch did not wait for questions, news guys, he said and the times man winced, news guys can tell the world that i put it over on lindbergh and i made an ass out of the two fogs. the two frogs is a pair of gal land french flyers who only flew halfway around the world. the times man was bold enough at this point to sketch out for smerch the accepted formula in cases of this kind. he explained that there should be no arrogant -- particularly heroes of foreign nations. oh, the hell with that, said smerch, i did at sea, i did it and i'm talking about it. and he did talk about it.
the authorities were convinced that the character of the renowned aviator was such that the limelight of adulation was windy to reveal him to all the world mentally and morally unequipped to cope with his own fame. i trust, said the secretary of state, at one of the many secret cabinet meetings called to consider the national dilemma, i trust that his mother's prayer will be answered, by which he referred to her wish that her son might be drowned. it was however late for that. smerch has leaped the atlantic as if they were mill ponds. in 1937, the garage boy bought his idiotic plane into roosevelt field for a perfect three point landing. it had of course been out of the question to arrange a modest little reception for the greatest flier in the history of the world. he was perceived as backed by the world.
none of this extraordinary interview of course was printed. on the contrary the newspapers already under the discipline of a secret director ate gave out to a panting and restless world that jackie would consent to say only that he was very happy and that anyone could have done what he did. my achievement has been i fear, slightly exaggerated, the times man had him protest with a modest smile. these newspaper stories were kept from the hero, a restriction which did not serve to abate the rising malevolence of his temperature. pal smerch was as he kept insisting, raring to go. he could not much longer be kept from a nation clam rouse to lionize him. on the afternoon of the 27th of july, smerch was spirited away to a conference room in which
were gathered government officials, behave horlists and he gave them a limp, moist paw and a brief unlovely grin. hi, he said, when smerch was seated the mayor of new york arose and with obvious pessimism explain what he must say and how he must act when presented to the world. the mayor was followed by governor fannin of new york who after a touching declaration of faith introduced cameron spotswood, second secretary of the american underworld in paris, the gentleman selected to coach smerch in the amenities of public ceremonies, sitting in a chair with a soiled yellow tie in his hand, unshaved, smoking a rolled cigarette, jack smerch listened with a leer on his lips, i get you, i get you, he cut in nastily, you want me to act like a softy, you want me to
fortunately, the spent hero promptly swooned, had to be removed bodily from the plane. thus he did not jeopardize the dignity of his first reception, a reception illume minuted by the presence of the secretary of war. the premier of canada, governors and a brilliant array of european diplomats, smerch did not in fact come to in time to take part in the gigantuy gaiga be more exact before he was permitted to get up. meanwhile the greatest minds in the country in solemn assembly had arranged a secret conference of city, state and government officials which smerch was to attend for the purpose of being instructed in the ethics and behavior of heroism. the day the little mechanic was