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The Battle That Ended the Century
(MS. Found in a Time Machine)

by H. P. Lovecraft and Robert Barlow

[Note: Barlow's contributions are in brackets.]

On the eve of the year 2001 a vast crowd of interested spectators were
present amidst the romantic ruins of Cohen's Garage, on the former site of
New York, to witness a fistic encounter between two renowned champions of
the strange-story firmament -- Two-Gun Bob, the Terror of the Plains, and
Knockout Bernie, the Wild Wolf of West Shokan. [The Wolf was fresh from
his correspondence course in physical training, sold to him by Mr. Arthur
Leeds.] Before the battle the auguries were determined by the venerated
Thibetan Lama Bill Lum Li, who evoked the primal serpent-god of Valusia
and found unmistakable signs of victory for both sides. Cream-puffs were
inattentively vended by Wladislaw Brenryk -- the partakers being treated
by the official surgeons, Drs. D. H. Killer and M. Gin Brewery.

The gong was sounded at 39 o'clock, after which the air grew red with the
gore of battle, lavishly flung about by the mighty Texas slaughterer. Very
shortly the first actual damage occurred -- the loosening of several teeth
in both participants. One, bouncing out from the Wolf's mouth after a
casual tap from Two-Gun, described a parabola toward Yucatan; being
retrieved in a hasty expedition by Messrs. A. Hijacked Barrell and G. A.
Scotland. This incident was used by the eminent sociologist and ex-poet
Frank Chimesleep Short, Jr., as the basis of a ballad of proletarian
propaganda with three intentionally defective lines. Meanwhile a potentate
from a neighbouring kingdom, the Effjay of Akkamin (also known to himself
as an amateur critic), expressed his frenzied disgust at the technique of
the combatants, at the same time peddling photographs of the fighters
(with himself in the foreground) at five cents each.

In round two the Shokan Soaker's sturdy right crashed through the Texan's
ribs and became entangled in sundry viscera; thereby enabling Two Gun to
get in several telling blows on his opponent's unprotected chin. Bob was
greatly annoyed by the effeminate squeamishness shewn by several onlookers
as muscles, glands, gore, and bits of flesh were spattered over the
ringside. During this round the eminent magazine-cover anatomist Mrs. M.
Blunderage portrayed the battlers as a pair of spirited n***s behind a
thin veil of conveniently curling tobacco-smoke, while the late Mr. C.
HalfCent provided a sketch of three Chinamen clad in silk hats and
galoshes -- this being his own original conception of the affray. Among
the amateur sketches made was one by Mr. Goofy Hooey, which later gained
fame in the annual Cubist exhibit as "Abstraction of an Eradicated
Pudding".

In the third round the fight grew really rough; several ears and other
appurtenances being wholly or partially detached from the frontier battler
by the Shokan Shocker. Somewhat irritated, Two-Gun countered with some
exceptionally sharp blows; severing many fragments from his aggressor, who
continued to fight with all his remaining members. [At this stage the
audience gave signs of much nervous excitement -- instances of trampling
and goring being frequent. The more enthusiastic members were placed in
the custody of Mr. Harry Brobst of the Butler Hospital for Mental
Diseases.]

The entire affair was reported by Mr. W. Lablache Talcum, his copy being
revised by Horse Power Hateart. Throughout the event notes were taken by
M. le Comte d'Erlette for a 200-volume novel-cycle in the Proustian
manner, to be entitled Morning in September, with illustrations by Mrs.
Blunderage. Mr. J. Caesar Warts frequently interviewed both battlers and
all the more important spectators; obtaining as souvenirs (after a
spirited struggle with the Effjay) an autographed quarter-rib of
Two-Gun's, in an excellent state of preservation, and three finger-nails
from the Wild Wolf. Lighting effects were supplied by the Electrical
Testing Laboratories under the supervision of H. Kanebrake. The fourth
round was prolonged eight hours at the request of the official artist, Mr.
H. Wanderer, who wished to put certain shadings of fantasy into his
representation of the Wolf's depleted physiognomy, which included several
supernumerary details supplied by the imagination.

The climax came in round five, when the Texas Tearer's left passed
entirely through Battling Bernie's face and brought both sluggers to the
mat. This was adjudged a finish by the referee -- Robertieff Essovitch
Karovsky, the Muscovite Ambassador -- who, in view of the Shokan Shocker's
gory state, declared the latter to be essentially liquidated according to
the Marxian ideology. The Wild Wolf entered an official protest, which was
promptly overruled on the ground that all the points necessary to
technical death were theoretically present.

The gonfalons sounded a fanfare of triumph for the victor, while the
technically vanquished was committed to the care of the official
mortician, Mr. Teaberry Quince. During the ceremonies the theoretical
corpse strolled away for a bite of bologna, but a tasteful cenotaph was
supplied to furnish a focus for the rites. The funeral procession was
headed by a gaily bedecked hearse driven by Malik Taus, the Peacock
Sultan, who sat on the box in West Point uniform and turban, and steered
an expert course over several formidable hedges and stone walls. About
half way to the cemetery the cortege was rejoined by the corpse, who sat
beside Sultan Malik on the box and finished his bologna sandwich -- his
ample girth having made it impossible to enter the hastily selected
cenotaph. An appropriate dirge was rendered by Maestro Sing Lee Bawledout
on the piccolo; Messrs. De Silva, Brown, and Henderson's celebrated aria,
"Never Swat a Fly", from the old cantata Just Imagine, being chosen for
the occasion. The only detail omitted from the funeral was the interment,
which was interrupted by the disconcerting news that the official
gate-taker -- the celebrated financier and publisher Ivar K. Rodent, Esq.
-- had absconded with the entire proceeds. [This omission was regretted
chiefly by the Rev. D. Vest Wind, who was thereby forced to leave unspoken
a long and moving sermon revised expressly for the celebration from a
former discourse delivered at the burial of a favourite horse.]

Mr. Talcum's report of the event, illustrated by the well-known artist
Klarkash-Ton (who esoterically depicted the fighters as boneless fungi),
was printed after repeated rejections by the discriminating editor of the
Windy City Grab-Bag -- as a broadside by W. Peter Chef[, with
typographical supervision by Vrest Orton.]. This, through the efforts of
Otis Adelbert Kline, was finally placed on sale in the bookshop of Smearum
& Weep, three and a half copies finally being disposed of through the
alluring catalogue description supplied by Samuelus Philanthropus, Esq.

In response to this wide demand, the text was finally reprinted by Mr. De
Merit in the polychromatic pages of Wurst's Weakly Americana under the
title "Has Science Been Outmoded? or, The Millers in the Garage". No
copies, however, remain in circulation; since all which were not snapped
up by fanatical bibliophiles were seized by the police in connexion with
the libel suit of the Wild Wolf, who was, after several appeals ending
with the World Court, adjudged not only officially alive but the clear
winner of the combat.