Mollie and the Unwiseman Abroad. Bangs John Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ have better luck with that deep blue Porpoise over there. Hi-you-you blue Porpoise. What's the chief product of the lunch counter at Poughkeepsie?"

      Again the Unwise old head was cocked to one side to catch the answer but all the blue porpoise did was to wiggle his tail in the air, as he butted one of his brother porpoises in the stomach. The Unwiseman looked at them with an angry glance.

      "Well all I've got to say about you," he shouted, "is that your father and mother are wasting their money sending you to school!"

      To which one of the Porpoises seemed to reply by sticking his head up out of the crest of a wave and sneezing at the Unwiseman.

      "Haven't even learned good manners!" roared the old gentleman.

      Whereupon the whole school indulged in a mighty scrimmage in the water jumping over, under and upon each other and splashing the spray high in the air until finally Whistlebinkie in his delight at the sight cried out,

      "I-guess-sitz-the-football-team!"

      "I guess for once you're right, Whistlebinkie," cried the Unwiseman. "And that accounts for their not knowing anything about 'rithmetic, jography or Elmira. When a feller's a foot-ball player he don't seem to care much for such higher education as the Poughkeepsie lunch counter, or how many is five. I knew the boys were runnin' foot-ball into the ground on land, but I never imagined the fish were running it into the water at sea. Too bad – too bad."

      And again the Unwiseman took himself off and was not seen again the rest of the day. Nor did Mollie and Whistlebinkie see much of him for the rest of the voyage for the old fellow suddenly got it into his head that possibly there were a few undiscovered continents about, the first sight of which would win for him all of the glory of a Christopher Columbus, and in order to be unquestionably the very first to catch sight of them, he climbed up to the top of the fore-mast and remained there for two full days. Fortunately neither the Captain nor the Bo'-sun's mate noticed what the old gentleman was doing or they would have put him in irons not as a punishment but to protect him from his own rash adventuring. And so it was that the Unwiseman was the first person on board to catch a glimpse of the Irish Coast, the which he announced with a loud cry of glee.

      "Land ho – on the starboard tack!" he cried, and then he slid down the mast-head and rushed madly down the deck crying joyfully, "I've discovered a continent. Hurray for me. I've discovered a continent."

      "Watcher-goin'-t'do-with it?" whistled Whistlebinkie.

      "Depends on how big it is," said the Unwiseman dancing gleefully. "If it's a great big one I'll write my name on it and leave it where it is, but if it's only a little one I'll dig it up and take it home and add it to my back yard."

      But alas for the new Columbus! It soon turned out that his new discovery was only Ireland which thousands, not to say millions, had discovered long before he had, so that the glory which he thought he had won soon faded away. But the old gentleman was very amiable about it after he got over his first disappointment.

      "I don't care," he confided to Mollie later on. "There isn't anything in discovering continents anyway. Look at Columbus. He discovered America, but somebody else came along and took it away from him and as far as I can find out he don't even own an abandoned farm in the United States to-day. So what's the good?"

      "Thass-wat-I-say," whistled Whistlebinkie. "I wouldn't give seven cents to discover all the continents there is. I'd ruther be a live rubber doll than a dead dishcover anyhow."

      Later in the afternoon when the ship had left Queenstown, Mollie found the Unwiseman sitting in her steamer chair hidden behind a copy of the London Times which had been brought aboard, and strange to relate he had it right-side up and was eagerly running through its massive columns.

      "Looking for more pollywogs?" the little girl asked.

      "No," said the Unwiseman. "I'm trying to find the latest news from America. I want to see if that burgular has stole my stove. So far there don't seem to be anything about it here, so the chances are it's still safe."

      "Do you think they'd cable it across?" asked Mollie.

      "What the stove?" demanded the Unwiseman. "You can't send a stove by cable, stupid."

      "No – the news," said Mollie. "It wouldn't be very important, would it?"

      "It would be important to me," said the Unwiseman, "and inasmuch as I bought and paid for their old paper I've got a right to expect 'em to put the news I want in it. If they don't I'll sue 'em for damages and buy a new stove with the money."

      The next morning bright and early the little party landed in England.

      IV

      ENGLAND

      The Unwiseman's face wore a very troubled look as the little party of travellers landed at Liverpool. He had doffed his sailor's costume and now appeared in his regular frock coat and old fashioned beaver hat, and carried an ancient carpet-bag in his hand, presenting to Mollie and Whistlebinkie a more familiar appearance than while in his sea-faring clothes, but he was evidently very much worried about something.

      "Cheer up," whistled Whistlebinkie noting his careworn expression. "You look as if you were down to your last cream-cake. Wass-er-matter?"

      "I think they've fooled us," replied the Unwiseman with a doubtful shake of his gray head. "This don't look like England to me, and I've been wondering if that ship mightn't be a pirate ship after all that's carried us all off to some strange place with the idea of thus getting rid of us, so that the Captain might go home and steal our kitchen-stoves and other voluble things."

      "Pooh!" ejaculated Whistlebinkie. "What makes you thinkit-taint England?"

      "It's too big in the first place," replied the Unwiseman, "and in the second it ain't the right color. Just look at this map and you'll see."

      Here Mr. Me took a map of the world out of his pocket and spread it out before Whistlebinkie.

      "See that?" he said pointing to England in one corner. "I've measured it off with a tape measure and it's only four inches long and about an inch and a half wide. This place we're in now is more'n five miles long and, as far as I can see two or three miles across. And look at the color on the map."

      "Tspink," said Whistlebinkie.

      "I don't know what you mean by tspink," said the Unwiseman, "but – "

      "It's-pink," explained Whistlebinkie.

      "Exactly," said the Unwiseman. "That's just what it is, but that ain't the color of this place. Seems to me this place is a sort of dull yellow dusty brown. And besides I don't see any houses on the map and this place is just chock-full of them."

      "O well, I guess it's all right," said Whistlebinkie. "Maybe when we get further in we'll find it grows pinker. Cities ain't never the same color as the country you know."

      "Possibly," said the Unwiseman, "but even then that wouldn't account for the difference in size. Why should the map say it's four inches by an inch and a half, when anybody can see that this place is five miles by three just by looking at it?"

      "I guess-smaybe it's grown some since that map was made," suggested Whistlebinkie. "Being surrounded by water you'd think it would grow."

      Just then a British policeman walked along the landing stage and Whistlebinkie added, "There's a p'liceman. You might speak to him about it."

      "Good СКАЧАТЬ