"Do you wish to go anywhere?No I do not wish to go anywhere.Why don't you wish to go somewhere?Because I've been everywhere.You must have seen much.No I have seen nothing.Is not that rather strange?No it is rather natural.Why?Because to go everywhere one must travel too rapidly to see anything."
"That you see," the Unwiseman went on, "goes very well at a five o'clock tea. The only trouble would be to get it started, but if I once got it going right, why I could rattle it off in French as easy as falling off a log."
"Smity interesting conversation," said Whistlebinkie really delighted.
"I'm glad you find it so," replied the Unwiseman.
"It's far more interesting in French than it is in English."
"Givus-smore," whistled Whistlebinkie.
"Give us what?" demanded the Unwiseman.
"Some-more," said Whistlebinkie.
"Well here is a very nice bit that I can do if somebody gives me the chance," said the Unwiseman. "It begins:
"Lend me your silver backed hand-glass.Certainly. Who is that singing in the drawing room?It is my daughter.It is long since I heard anyone sing so well.She has been taking lessons only two weeks.Does she practice on the phonograph or on her Aunt's upright piano?On neither. She accompanies herself upon the banjo.I think she sings almost as well as Miss S.Miss S. has studied for three weeks but Marietta has a better ear.What is your wife's grandmother knitting?A pair of ear-tabs for my nephew Jacques.Ah—then your nephew Jacques too has an ear?My nephew Jacques has two ears.What a musical family!"
"Spul-lendid!" cried Whistlebinkie rapturously. "When do you think you can use that?"
"O I may be invited off to a country house tospend a week, somewhere outside of Paris," said the Unwiseman, "and if I am, and the chance comes up for me to hold that nice little chat with my host, why it will make me very popular with everybody. People like to have you take an interest in their children, especially when they are musical. Then I have learned this to get off at the breakfast-table to my hostess:
"I have slept well. I have two mattresses and a spring mattress.Will you have another pillow?No thank you I have a comfortable bolster.Is one blanket sufficient for you?Yes, but I would like some wax candles and a box of matches."
"That will show her that I appreciate all the comforts of her beautiful household, and at the same time feel so much at home that I am not afraid to ask for something else that I happen to want. The thing that worries me a little about the last is that there might be an electric light in the room, so that asking for a wax candle and a box of matches would sound foolish. I gather from the lesson, however, that it is customary in France to ask for wax candles and a box of matches, so I'm going to do it anyhow.There's nothing like following the customs of the natives when you can."
"I'd like to hear you say some of that in French," said Whistlebinkie.
"Oh you wouldn't understand it, Whistlebinkie," said the Unwiseman. "Still I don't mind."
And the old man rattled off the following:
"Avvy-voo kelker chose ah me dire? Avvy-voo bien dormy la nooit dernyere? Savvy-voo kieskersayker cetum la avec le nez rouge? Kervooly-voo-too-der-sweet-silver-plate-o-see-le-mem. Donny-moi des boogies et des alloomettes avec burr et sooker en tasse. La Voila. Kerpensy-voo de cette comedie mon cher mounseer de Whistlebinkie?"
"Mercy!" cried Whistlebinkie. "What a language! I don't believe Ievercould learn to speak it."
"You learn to speak it, Whistlebinkie?" laughed the old gentleman. "You? Well I guess not. I don't believe you could even learn to squeak it."
With which observation the Unwiseman hopped back into his carpet-bag, for the conductorof the train was seen coming up the platform of the railway station, and the old gentleman as usual was travelling without a ticket.
"I'd rather be caught by an English conductor if I'm going to be caught at all," he remarked after the train had started and he was safe. "For I find in looking it over that all my talk in French is polite conversation, and I don't think there'd be much chance for that in a row with a conductor over a missing railway ticket."
The Unwiseman was up bright and early the next morning. Mollie and Whistlebinkie had barely got their eyes open when he came knocking at the door.
"Better get up, Mollie," he called in. "It's fine weather and I'm going to call on the Umpire. The chances are that on a beautiful day like this he'll have a parade and I wouldn't miss it for a farm."
"What Umpire are you talking about?" Mollie replied, opening the door on a crack.
"Why Napoleon Bonaparte," said the Unwiseman. "Didn't you ever hear of him? He's the man that came up here from Corsica and picked the crown up on the street where the king had dropped it by mistake, and put it on his own head and made people think he was the whole roil family. He was smart enough for an American and I want to tell him so."
"Why he's dead," said Mollie.
"What?" cried the Unwiseman. "Umpire Napoleon dead? Why—when did that happen? I didn't see anything about it in the newspapers."
"He died a long time ago," answered Mollie. "Before I was born, I guess."
"Well I never!" ejaculated the Unwiseman, his face clouding over. "That book I read on the History of France didn't say anything about his being dead—that is, not as far as I got in it. Last time I heard of him he was starting out for Russia to give the Czar a licking. I supposed he thought it was a good time to do it after the Japs had started the ball a-rolling. Are you sure about that?"
"Pretty sure," said Mollie. "I don't know very much about French history, but I'm almost certain he's dead."
"I'm going down stairs to ask at the office," said the Unwiseman. "They'll probably know all about it."
So the little old gentleman pattered down the hall to the elevator and went to the office to inquire as to the fate of the Emperor Napoleon. In five minutes he was back again.
"Say, Mollie," he whispered through thekey-hole. "I wish you'd ask your father about the Umpire. I can't seem to find out anything about him."
"Don't they know at the office?" asked Mollie.
"Oh I guess they know all right," said the Unwiseman, "but there's a hitch somewhere in my getting the information. Far as I can find out these people over here don't understand their own language. I asked 'em in French, like this: 'Mounseer le Umpire, est il mort?' And they told me he wasnomore. Now whethernomore means that he is not mort, orismort, depends on what language the man who told me was speaking. If he was speaking French he's not dead. If he was speaking English heisdead, and there you are. It's awfully mixed up."
"I-guess-seez-ded-orright," whistled Whistlebinkie. "He was dead last time I heard of him, and I guess when they're dead once there dead for good."
"Well you never can tell," said the Unwiseman. "He was a very great man, the Umpire Napoleon was, and they might have only thoughthe was dead while he was playing foxy to see what the newspapers would say about him."
So Mollie asked her father and to the intense regret of everybody it turned out that the great Emperor had been dead for a long time.
"It's a very great disappointment to me," sighed the Unwiseman, when Mollie conveyed the sad news to him. "The minute I knew we were coming to France I began to read up about the country, and Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the things I came all the way over to see. Are the Boys de Bologna dead too?"
"I never heard of them," said Mollie.
"I feel particularly upset about the Umpire," continued the Unwiseman, "because I sat up almost all last night getting up some polite conversation to be held with him this morning. I found just the thing for it in my book."
"Howdit-go?" whistled Whistlebinkie.
"Like this," said the Unwiseman. "I was going to begin with:
"'Shall you buy a horse?'
"And the Umpire was to say:
"'I should like to buy a horse from you.'
"And then we were to continue with:
"'I have no horse but I will sell you my dog.''You are wrong; dogs are such faithful creatures.''But my wife prefers cats——'"
"Pooh!" cried Whistlebinkie. "You haven't got any wife."
"Well, what of it?" retorted the Unwiseman. "The Umpire wouldn't know that, and besides shewouldprefer cats if I had one. You should not interrupt conversation when other people are talking, Whistlebinkie, especially when it's polite conversation."
"Orright-I-pol-gize," whistled Whistlebinkie. "Go on with the rest of it."
"I was then going to say:" continued the Unwiseman,
"'Will you go out this afternoon?''I should like to go out this afternoon.''Should you remain here if your mother were here?''Yes I should remain here even if my aunt were here.''Had you remained here I should not have gone out.''I shall have finished when you come.''As soon as you have received your money come to see me.''I do not know yet whether we shall leave tomorrow.''I should have been afraid had you not been with me.''So long.''To the river.'"
"To the river?" asked Whistlebinkie. "What does that mean?"
"It is French for, 'I hope we shall meet again.' Au river is the polite way of saying, 'good-bye for a little while.' And to think that after having sat up until five o'clock this morning learning all that by heart I should find that the man I was going to say it to has been dead for—how many years, Mollie?"
"Oh nearly a hundred years," said the little girl.
"No wonder it wasn't in the papers before I left home," said the Unwiseman. "Oh well, never mind——."
"Perhaps you can swing that talk around so as to fit some French Robert," suggested Whistlebinkie.
"The Police are not Roberts over here," said the Unwiseman. "In France they are Johns—John Darms is what they call the pleece in this country, and I never should think of addressing a conversation designed for an Umpire to the plebean ear of a mere John."
"Well I think it was pretty poor conversation," said Whistlebinkie. "And I guess it'slucky for you the Umpire is dead. All that stuff didn't mean anything."
"It doesn't seem to mean much in English," said the Unwiseman, "but it must mean something in French, because if it didn't the man who wrote French in Five Lessons wouldn't have considered it important enough to print. Just because you don't like a thing, or don't happen to understand it, isn't any reason for believing that the Umpire would not find it extremely interesting. I shan't waste it on a John anyhow."
An hour or two later when Mollie had breakfasted the Unwiseman presented himself again.
"I'm very much afraid I'm not going to like this place any better than I did London," he said. "The English people, even if they do drop their aitches all over everywhere, understand their own language, which is more than these Frenchmen do. I have tried my French on half a dozen of them and there wasn't one of 'em that looked as if he knew what I was talking about."
"What did you say to them?" asked Mollie.
"HAVE YOU SEEN THE ORMOLU CLOCK OF YOUR SISTER'S MUSIC TEACHER?"
"Well I went up to a cabman and remarked,just as the book put it, 'how is the sister of your mother's uncle,' and he acted as if I'd hit him with a brick," said the Unwiseman. "Then I stopped a bright looking boy out on the rue and said to him, 'have you seen the ormolu clock of your sister's music teacher,' to which he should have replied, 'no I have not seen the ormolu clock of my sister's music teacher, but the candle-stick of the wife of the butcher of my cousin's niece is on the mantel-piece,' but all he did was to stick out his tongue at me and laugh."
"You ought to have spoken to one of the John Darms," laughed Whistlebinkie.
"I did," said the Unwiseman. "I stopped one outside the door and asked him, 'is your grandfather still alive?' The book says the answer to that is 'yes, and my grandmother also,' whereupon I should ask, 'how many grandchildren has your grandfather?' But I didn't get beyond the first question. Instead of telling me that his grandfather was living, and his grandmother also, he said something about Ally Voozon, a person of whom I never heard and who is not mentioned in the book at all. I wish I was back somewhere where they speak a language somebody can understand."
"Have you had your breakfast?" asked Mollie.
A deep frown came upon the face of the Unwiseman.
"No—" he answered shortly. "I—er—I went to get some but they tried to cheat me," he added. "There was a sign in a window announcing French Tabble d'hotes. I thought it was some new kind of a breakfast food like cracked wheat, or oat-meal flakes, so I stopped in and asked for a small box of it, and they tried to make me believe it was a meal of four or five courses, with soup and fish and a lot of other things thrown in, that had to be eaten on the premises. I wished for once that I knew some French conversation that wasn't polite to tell 'em what I thought of 'em. I can imagine a lot of queer things, but when everybody tells me that oats are soup and fish and olives and ice-cream and several other things to boot, even in French, why I just don't believe it, that's all. What's more I can prove that oats are oats over here because I saw a cab-horse eating some. Imay not know beans but I know oats, and I told 'em so. Then the garkon—I know why some people call these French waiters gason now, they talk so much—the garkon said I could ordera la carte, and I told him I guessed I could if I wanted to, but until I was reduced to a point where I had to eat out of a wagon I wouldn't ask his permission."
"Good-for-you!" whistled Whistlebinkie, clapping the Unwiseman on the back.
"When a man wants five cents worth of oats it's a regular swindle to try to ram forty cents worth of dinner down his throat, especially at breakfast time, and I for one just won't have it," said the Unwiseman. "By the way, I wouldn't eat any fish over here if I were you, Mollie," he went on.
"Why not?" asked the little girl. "Isn't it fresh?"
"It isn't that," said the Unwiseman. "It's because over here it's poison."
"No!" cried Mollie.
"Yep," said the Unwiseman. "They admit it themselves. Just look here."
The old gentleman opened his book on Frenchin Five Lessons, and turned to the back pages where English words found their French equivalents.
"See that?" he observed, pointing to the words. "Fish—poison. P-O-I-double S-O-N. 'Taint spelled right, but that's what it says."
"It certainly does," said Mollie, very much surprised.
"Smity good thing you had that book or you might have been poisoned," said Whistlebinkie.
"I don't believe your father knows about that, does he, Mollie?" asked the old man anxiously.
"I'm afraid not," said Mollie. "Leastways, he hasn't said anything to me about it, and I'm pretty sure if he'd known it he would have told me not to eat any."
"Well you tell him with my compliments," said the Unwiseman. "I like your father and I'd hate to have anything happen to him that I could prevent. I'm going up the rue now to the Loover to see the pictures."
"Up the what?" asked Whistlebinkie.
"Up the rue," said the Unwiseman. "That's what these foolish people over here call a street.I'm going up the street. There's a guide down stairs who says he'll take me all over Paris in one day for three dollars, and we're going to start in ten minutes, after I've had a spoonful of my bottled chicken broth and a ginger-snap. Humph! Tabble d'hotes—when I've got a bag full of first class food from New York! I tell you, Mollie, this travelling around in furry countries makes a man depreciate American things more than ever."
"I guess you meanappreciate," suggested Mollie.
"May be I do," returned the Unwiseman. "I mean I like 'em better. American oats are better than tabble d'hotes. American beef is better than French buff. American butter is better than foreign burr, and while their oofs are pretty good, when I eat eggs I want eggs, and not something else with a hard-boiled accent on it that twists my tongue out of shape. And when people speak a language I like 'em to have one they can understand when it's spoken to them like good old Yankamerican."
"Hoorray for-Ramerrica!" cried Whistlebinkie.
"Ditto hic, as Julius Cæsar used to say," roared the Unwiseman.
And the Unwiseman took what was left of his bottleful of their native land out of his pocket and the three little travellers cheered it until the room fairly echoed with the noise. That night when they had gathered together again, the Unwiseman looked very tired.
"Well, Mollie," he said, "I've seen it all. That guide down stairs showed me everything in the place and I'm going to retire to my carpet-bag again until you're ready to start for Kayzoozalum——"
"Swizz-izzer-land," whistled Whistlebinkie.
"Switzerland," said Mollie.
"Well wherever it is we're going Alp hunting," said the Unwiseman. "I'm too tired to say a word like that to-night. My tongue is all out of shape anyhow trying to talk French and I'm not going to speak it any more. It's not the sort of language I admire—just full o' nonsense. When people call pudding 'poo-dang' and a bird a 'wazzoh' I'm through with it. I've seen 8374 miles of pictures; some more busted statuary; one cathedral—I thought a cathedralwas some kind of an animal with a hairy head and a hump on its back, but it's nothing but a big overgrown church—; Napoleon's tomb—he is dead after all and France is a Republic, as if we didn't have a big enough Republic home without coming over here to see another—; one River Seine, which ain't much bigger than the Erie Canal, and not a trout or a snapping turtle in it from beginning to end; the Boys de Bologna, which is only a Park, with no boys or sausages anywhere about it; the Champs Eliza; an obelisk; and about sixteen palaces without a King or an Umpire in the whole lot; and I've paid three dollars for it, and I'm satisfied. I'd be better satisfied if I'd paid a dollar and a half, but you can't travel for nothing, and I regard the extra dollar and fifty cents as well spent since I've learned what to do next time."
"Wass-that?" whistled Whistlebinkie.
"Stay home," said the Unwiseman. "Home's good enough for me and when I get there I'm going to stay there. Good night."
And with that the Unwiseman jumped into his carpet-bag and for a week nothing more was heard of him.
"I hope he isn't sick," said Whistlebinkie, at the end of that period. "I think we ought to go and find out, don't you, Mollie."
"I certainly do," said Mollie. "I know I should be just stufficated to death if I'd spent a week in a carpet-bag."
So they tip-toed up to the side of the carpet-bag and listened. At first there was no sound to be heard, and then all of a sudden their fears were set completely at rest by the cracked voice of their strange old friend singing the following patriotic ballad of his own composition:
"Next time I start out for to travel abroadI'll go where pure English is spoken.I'll put on my shoes and go sailing towardThe beautiful land of Hoboken."No more on that movey old channel I'll sail,The sickening waves to be tossed on,But do all my travelling later by railAnd visit that frigid old Boston."Nay never again will I step on a shipAnd go as a part of the cargo,But when I would travel I'll make my next tripOut west to the town of Chicago."My sweet carpet-bag, you will never againBe called on to cross the Atlantic.We'll just buy a ticket and take the first trainTo marvellous old Williamantic."No French in the future will I ever speakWith strange and impossible, answers.I'd rather go in for that curious GreekThe natives all speak in Arkansas."To London and Paris let other folks goI'm utterly cured of the mania.Hereafter it's me for the glad Ohi-o,Or down in dear sweet Pennsylvania."If any one asks me to cross o'er the seaI'll answer them promptly, "No thanky—There's beauty enough all around here for meIn this glorious land of the Yankee."
Mollie laughed as the Unwiseman's voice died away.
"I guess he's all right, Whistlebinkie," she said. "Anybody who can sing like that can't be very sick."
"No I guess not," said Whistlebinkie. "He seems to have got his tongue out of tangle again. I was awfully worried about that."
"Why, dear?" asked Mollie.
"Because," said Whistlebinkie, "I was afraid if he didn't he'd begin to talk like me and that would be perf'ly awful."
When the Unwiseman came out of the carpet-bag again the travellers had reached Switzerland. Every effort that Mollie and Whistlebinkie made to induce him to come forth and go about Paris with them had wholly failed.
"It's more comfortable in here," he had answered them, "and I've got my hands full forgetting all that useless French I learned last week. It's very curious how much harder it is to forget French than it is to learn it. I've been four days forgetting that wazzoh means bird and that oofs is eggs."
"And you haven't forgotten it yet, have you," said Whistlebinkie.
"O yes," said the Unwiseman. "I've forgotten it entirely. It occasionally occurs to me that it is so when people mention the fact, but in the main I am now able to overlook it. I'll be glad when we are on our way again, Mollie, because between you and me I think they're a lot of frauds here too, just like over in England.They've got a statue here of a lady named Miss Jones of Ark and Iknowthere wasn't any such person on it. Shem and Ham and Japhet and their wives, and Noah, and Mrs. Noah were there but no Miss Jones."
"Maybe Mrs. Noah or Mrs. Shem or one of the others was Miss Jones before she married Mr. Noah or Shem, Ham or Japhet," suggested Whistlebinkie.
"Then they should ought to have said so," said the Unwiseman, "and put up the statue to Mrs. Noah or Mrs. Shem or Mrs. Ham or Mrs. Japhet—but they weren't the same person because this Miss Jones got burnt cooking a steak and Mrs. Noah and Mrs. Ham and Mrs. Shem and Mrs. Japhet didn't. Miss Jones was a great general according to these people and there wasn't any military at all in the time of Noah for a lady to be general of, so the thing just can't help being a put up job just to deceive us Americans into coming over here to see their curiosities and paying guides three dollars for leading us to them."
"Then you won't come with us out to Versailles?" asked Mollie very much disappointed.
"Versailles?" asked the Unwiseman. "What kind of sails are Versailles? Some kind of a French cat-boat? If so, none of that for me. I'm not fond of sailing."
"It's a town with a beautiful palace in it," explained Mollie.
"That settles it," said the Unwiseman. "I'll stay here. I've seen all the palaces without any kings in 'em that I need in my business, so you can just count me out. I may go out shopping this afternoon and buy an air-gun to shoot alps with when we get to—ha—hum——"
"Switzerland," prompted Mollie hurriedly, largely with the desire to keep Whistlebinkie from speaking of Swiz-izzer-land.
"Precisely," said the Unwiseman. "If you'd given me time I'd have said it myself. I've been practising on that name ever since yesterday and I've got so I can say it right five times out of 'leven. And I'm learning to yodel too. I have discovered that down in—ha—hum—Swztoozalum, when people don't feel like speaking French, they yodel, and I think I can get along better in yodeling than I can in French. I'm going to try it anyhow. So run along and have a good timeand don't worry about me. I'm having a fine time. Yodeling is really lots of fun. Trala-la-lio!"
So Mollie and Whistlebinkie went to Versailles, which by the way is not pronounced Ver-sails, but Ver-sai-ee, and left the Unwiseman to his own devices. A week later the party arrived at Chamounix, a beautiful little Swiss village lying in the valley at the base of Mont Blanc, the most famous of all the Alps.
"Looks-slike-a-gray-big-snow-ball," whistled Whistlebinkie, gazing admiringly at the wonderful mountain glistening like a huge mass of silver in the sunlight.
"It is beautiful," said Mollie. "We must get the Unwiseman out to see it."
"I'll call him," said Whistlebinkie eagerly; and the little rubber-doll bounded off to the carpet-bag as fast as his legs would carry him.
"Hi there, Mister Me," he called breathlessly through the key-hole. "Come out. There's a nalp out in front of the hotel."
"Tra-la-lulio-tra-la-lali-ee," yodeled the cracked little voice from within. "Tra-la-la-la-lalio."
"Hullo there," cried Whistlebinkie again. "Stop that tra-la-lody-ing and hurry out, there's a-nalp in front of the hotel."
"A nalp?" said the Unwiseman popping his head up from the middle of the bag for all the world like a Jack-in-the-box. "What's a nalp?"
"A-alp," explained Whistlebinkie, as clearly as he could—he was so out of breath he could hardly squeak, much less speak.
"Really?" cried the Unwiseman, all excitement. "Dear me—glad you called me. Is he loose?"
"Well," hesitated Whistlebinkie, hardly knowing how to answer, "it-ain't-exactly-tied up, I guess."
"Ain't any danger of its coming into the house and biting people, is there?" asked the Unwiseman, rummaging through the carpet-bag for his air-gun, which he had purchased in Paris while the others were visiting Versailles.
"No," laughed Whistlebinkie. "Tstoo-big."
"Mercy—it must be a fearful big one," said the Unwiseman. "I hope it's muzzled."
Armed with his air-gun, and carrying a long rope with a noose in one end over his arm, the Unwiseman started out.
"Watcher-gone-'tdo-with-the-lassoo?" panted Whistlebinkie, struggling manfully to keep up with his companion.
"That's to tie him up with in case I catch him alive," said the Unwiseman, as they emerged from the door of the hotel and stood upon the little hotel piazza from which all the new arrivals were gazing at the wonderful peak before them, rising over sixteen thousand feet into the heavens, and capped forever with a crown of snow and ice.
"OUT THE WAY THERE!" CRIED THE UNWISEMAN
"Out the way there!" cried the Unwiseman, rushing valiantly through the group. "Out the way, and don't talk or even yodel. I must have a steady aim, and conversation disturbs my nerves."
The hotel guests all stepped hastily to one side and made room for the hero, who on reaching the edge of the piazza stopped short and gazed about him with a puzzled look on his face.
"Well," he cried impatiently, "where is he?"
"Where is what?" asked Mollie, stepping up to the Unwiseman's side and putting her hand affectionately on his shoulder.
"That Alp?" said the Unwiseman. "Whistlebinkie said there was an alp running around the yard and I've come down either to catch him alive or shoot him. He hasn't hid under this piazza, has he?"
"No, Mr. Me," she said. "They couldn't get an Alp under this piazza. That's it over there," she added, pointing out Mont Blanc.
"What's it? I don't see anything but a big snow drift," said the Unwiseman. "Queer sort of people here—must be awful lazy not to have their snow shoveled off as late as July."
"That's the Alp," explained Mollie.
"Tra-la-lolly-O!" yodeled the Unwiseman. "Which is yodelese for nonsense. That an Alp? Why I thought an Alp was a sort of animal with a shaggy fur coat like a bear or a chauffeur, and about the size of a rhinoceros."
"No," said Mollie. "An Alp is a mountain. All that big range of mountains with snow and ice on top of them are the Alps. Didn't you know that?"
The Unwiseman didn't answer, but with a yodel of disgust turned on his heel and went back to his carpet-bag.
"You aren't mad at me, are you, Mr. Me?" asked Mollie, following meekly after.
"No indeed," said the Unwiseman, sadly. "Of course not. It isn't your fault if an Alp is a toboggan slide or a skating rink instead of a wild animal. It's all my own fault. I was very careless to come over here and waste my time to see a lot of snow that ain't any colder or wetter than the stuff we have delivered at our front doors at home in winter. I should ought to have found out what it was before I came."
"It's very beautiful though as it is," suggested Mollie.
"I suppose so," said the Unwiseman. "But I don't have to travel four thousand miles to see beautiful things while I have my kitchen-stove right there in my own kitchen. Besides I've spent a dollar and twenty cents on an air-gun, and sixty cents for a lassoo to hunt Alps with, when I might better have bought a snow shovel.That'sreally what I'm mad at. If I'd bought a snow shovel and a pair of ear-tabs I could have made some money here offering to shovel the snow off that hill there so's somebody could get some pleasure out of it. It would be a lovelyplace to go and sit on a warm summer evening if it wasn't for that snow and very likely they'd have paid me two or three dollars for fixing it up for them."
"I guess it would take you several hours to do it," said Whistlebinkie.
"What if it took a week?" retorted the Unwiseman. "As long as they were willing to pay for it. But what's the use of talking about it? I haven't got a shovel, and I can't shovel the snow off an Alp with an air-gun, so that's the end of it."
And for the time being thatwasthe end of it. The Unwiseman very properly confined himself to the quiet of the carpet-bag until his wrath had entirely disappeared, and after luncheon he turned up cheerily in the office of the hotel.
"Let's hire a couple of sleds and go coasting," he suggested to Mollie. "That Mount Blank looks like a pretty good hill. Whistlebinkie and I can pull you up to the top and it will be a fine slide coming back."
But inquiry at the office brought out the extraordinary fact that there were no sleds in the place and never had been.
"My goodness!" ejaculated the Unwiseman. "I never knew such people. I don't wonder these Switzers ain't a great nation like us Americans. I don't believe any American hotel-keeper would have as much snow as that in his back-yard all summer long and not have a regular sled company to accommodate guests who wanted to go coasting on it. If they had an Alp like that over at Atlantic City they'd build a fence around it, and charge ten cents to get inside, where you could hire a colored gentleman to haul you up to the top of the hill and guide you down again on the return slide."
"I guess they would," said Whistlebinkie.
"Then they'd turn part of it into an ice quarry," the Unwiseman went on, "and sell great huge chunks of ice to people all the year round and put the regular ice men out of business. I've half a mind to write home to my burgular and tell him here's a chance to earn an honest living as an iceman. He could get up a company to come here and buy up that hill and just regularly go in for ice-mining. There never was such a chance. If people can make money out of coal mines and gold mines and copper mines,I don't see why they can't do the same thing with ice mines. Why don't you speak to your Papa about it, Mollie? He'd make his everlasting fortune."
"I will," said Mollie, very much interested in the idea.
"And all that snow up there going to waste too," continued the Unwiseman growing enthusiastic over the prospect. "Just think of the millions of people who can't get cool in summer over home. Your father could sell snow to people in midsummer for six-fifty a ton, and they could shovel it into their furnaces and cool off their homes ten or twenty degrees all summer long. My goodness—talk about your billionaires—here's a chance for squillions."
The Unwiseman paced the floor excitedly. The vision of wealth that loomed up before his mind's eye was so vast that he could hardly contain himself in the face of it.
"Wouldn't it all melt before he could get it over to America?" asked Mollie.
"Why should it?" demanded the Unwiseman. "If it don't melt here in summer time why should it melt anywhere else? I don't believe snowwas ever disagreeable just for the pleasure of being so."
"Wouldn't it cost a lot to take it over?" asked Whistlebinkie.
"Not if the Company owned its own ships," said the Unwiseman. "If the Company owned its own ships it could carry it over for nothing."
The Unwiseman was so carried away with the possibilities of his plan that for several days he could talk of nothing else, and several times Mollie and Whistlebinkie found him working in the writing room of the hotel on what he called his Perspectus.
"I'm going to work out that idea of mine, Mollie," he explained, "so that you can show it to your father and maybe he'll take it up, and if he does—well, I'll have a man to exercise my umbrella, a pair of wings built on my house where I can put a music room and a library, and have my kitchen-stove nickel plated as it deserves to be for having served me so faithfully for so many years."
An hour or two later, his face beaming with pleasure, the Unwiseman brought Mollie hiscompleted "Perspectus" with the request that she show it to her father. It read as follows:
The Unwiseman,President.
Mr. Mollie J. Whistlebinkie,Vice-President.
A. Burgular,Seketary and Treasurer.
I. To purchase all right, title, and interest in one first class Alp known as Mount Blank, a snow-clad peak located at Switzerville, Europe. For further perticulars, see Map if you have one handy that is any good and has been prepared by somebody what has studied jography before.II. To orginize the Mount Blank Toboggan Slide and Sled Company and build a fence around it for the benefit of the young at ten cents ahead, using the surplus snow and ice on Mount Blank for this purpose. Midsummer coasting a speciality.III. To mine ice and to sell the same by the pound, ton, yard, or shipload, to Americans at one cent less a pound, ton, yard, or shipload, than they are now paying to unscrupulous ice-men at home, thereby putting them out of business and bringing ice in midsummer within the reach of persons of modest means to keep their provisions on, who without it suffer greatly from the heat and are sometimes sun-struck.IV. To gather and sell snow to the American people in summer time for the purpose of cooling off their houses by throwing the same into the furnace like coal in winter, thereby taking down the thermometer two or three inches and making fans unnecessary, and killing mosquitoes, flies and other animals that ain't of any use and can only live in warm weather.V. Also to sell a finer quality of snow for use at children's parties in the United States of America in July and Augustwhere snow-ball fights are not now possible owing to the extreme tenderness of the snow at present provided by the American climate which causes it to melt along about the end of March and disappear entirely before the beginning of May.VI. Also to sell snow at redoosed rates to people at Christmas Time when they don't always have it as they should ought to have if Christmas is to look anything like the real thing and give boys and girls a chance to try their new sleds and see if they are as good as they are cracked up to be instead of having to be put away as they sometimes are until February and even then it don't always last.This Company has already been formed by Mr. Thomas S. Me, better known as the Unwiseman, who is hereby elected President thereof, with a capital of ten million dollars of which three dollars has already been paid in to Mr. Me as temporary treasurer by himself in real money which may be seen upon application as a guarantee of good faith. The remaining nine million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven dollars worth is offered to the public at one dollar a share payable in any kind of money that will circulate freely, one half of which will be used as profits for the next five years while the Company is getting used to its new business, and the rest will be spent under the direction of the President as he sees fit, it being understood that none of it shall be used to buy eclairs or other personal property with.
I. To purchase all right, title, and interest in one first class Alp known as Mount Blank, a snow-clad peak located at Switzerville, Europe. For further perticulars, see Map if you have one handy that is any good and has been prepared by somebody what has studied jography before.
II. To orginize the Mount Blank Toboggan Slide and Sled Company and build a fence around it for the benefit of the young at ten cents ahead, using the surplus snow and ice on Mount Blank for this purpose. Midsummer coasting a speciality.
III. To mine ice and to sell the same by the pound, ton, yard, or shipload, to Americans at one cent less a pound, ton, yard, or shipload, than they are now paying to unscrupulous ice-men at home, thereby putting them out of business and bringing ice in midsummer within the reach of persons of modest means to keep their provisions on, who without it suffer greatly from the heat and are sometimes sun-struck.
IV. To gather and sell snow to the American people in summer time for the purpose of cooling off their houses by throwing the same into the furnace like coal in winter, thereby taking down the thermometer two or three inches and making fans unnecessary, and killing mosquitoes, flies and other animals that ain't of any use and can only live in warm weather.
V. Also to sell a finer quality of snow for use at children's parties in the United States of America in July and Augustwhere snow-ball fights are not now possible owing to the extreme tenderness of the snow at present provided by the American climate which causes it to melt along about the end of March and disappear entirely before the beginning of May.
VI. Also to sell snow at redoosed rates to people at Christmas Time when they don't always have it as they should ought to have if Christmas is to look anything like the real thing and give boys and girls a chance to try their new sleds and see if they are as good as they are cracked up to be instead of having to be put away as they sometimes are until February and even then it don't always last.
This Company has already been formed by Mr. Thomas S. Me, better known as the Unwiseman, who is hereby elected President thereof, with a capital of ten million dollars of which three dollars has already been paid in to Mr. Me as temporary treasurer by himself in real money which may be seen upon application as a guarantee of good faith. The remaining nine million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven dollars worth is offered to the public at one dollar a share payable in any kind of money that will circulate freely, one half of which will be used as profits for the next five years while the Company is getting used to its new business, and the rest will be spent under the direction of the President as he sees fit, it being understood that none of it shall be used to buy eclairs or other personal property with.
"There," said the Unwiseman, as he finished the prospectus. "Just you hand that over to your father, Mollie, and see what he says. If he don't start the ball a-rolling and buy that old Mountain before we leave this place I shall be very much surprised."
But the Unwiseman's grand scheme never went through for Mollie's father upon inquiry found that nobody about Chamounix cared to sell his interest in the mountain, or even to suggest a price for it.
"They're afraid to sell it I imagine," said Mollie's father, "for fear the new purchasers would dig it up altogether and take it over to the United States. You see if that were to happen it would leave an awfully big hole in the place where Mount Blank used to be and there'd be a lot of trouble getting it filled in."
For all of which I am sincerely sorry because there are times in midsummer in America when I would give a great deal if some such enterprise as a "Switzer Snow & Ice Co." would dump a few tons of snow into my cellar for use in the furnace.
The Unwiseman's disappointment over the failure of his Switzer Snow & Ice Company was very keen at first and the strange old gentleman was inclined to be as thoroughly disgusted with Switzerland as he had been with London and Paris. He was especially put out when, after travelling seven or eight miles to see a "glazier," as he called it, he discovered that a glacier was not a frozen "window-pane mender" but a stream of ice flowing perennially down from the Alpine summits into the valleys.
"They bank too much on their snow-drifts over here," he remarked, after he had visited theMer-de-Glace. "I wouldn't give seven cents toseea thing like that when I've been brought up close to New York where we have blizzards every once in a while that tie up the whole city till it looks like one glorious big snow-ball fight."
And then when he wanted to go fishing in one of the big fissures of the glacier, and was toldhe could drop a million lines down there without getting a bite of any kind he announced his intention of getting out of the country as soon as he possibly could. But after all the Unwiseman had a naturally sun-shiny disposition and this added to the wonderful air of Switzerland, which in itself is one of the most beautiful things in a beautiful world, soon brought him out of his sulky fit and set him to yodeling once more as gaily as a Swiss Mountain boy. He began to see some of the beauties of the country and his active little mind was not slow at discovering advantages not always clear to people with less inquisitiveness.
"I should think," he observed to Mollie one morning as he gazed up at Mount Blanc's pure white summit, "that this would be a great ice-cream country. I'd like to try the experiment of pasturing a lot of fine Jersey cows up on those ice-fields. Just let 'em browze around one of those glaciers every day for a week and give 'em a cupful of vanilla, or chocolate extract or a strawberry once in a while and see if they wouldn't give ice-cream instead o' milk. It would be worth trying, anyhow."
Mollie thought it would and Whistlebinkie gave voice to a long low whistle of delight at the idea.
"It-ud-be-bettern-soder-watter-rany-way!" he whistled.
"Anything would be better than soda water," said the Unwiseman, who had only tried it once and got nothing but the bubbles. "Soda water's too foamy for me. It's like drinking whipped air."
But the thing that pleased the Unwiseman more than anything else was a pet chamois that he encountered at a little Swiss Chalet on one of his tours of investigation. It was a cunning little animal, very timid of course, like a fawn, but tame, and for some reason or other it took quite a fancy to the Unwiseman—possibly because he looked so like a Swiss Mountain Boy with a peaked cap he had purchased, and ribbons wound criss-cross around his calves and his magnificent Alpen-stock upon which had been burned the names of all the Alps he hadnotclimbed. And then the Unwiseman's yodel had become something unusually fine and original in the line of yodeling, which may haveattracted the chamois and made him feel that the Unwiseman was a person to be trusted. At any rate the little animal instead of running away and jumping from crag to crag at the Unwiseman's approach, as most chamois would do, came inquiringly up to him and stuck out its soft velvety nose to be scratched, and permitted the Unwiseman to inspect its horns and silky chestnut-brown coat as if it recognized in the little old man a true and tried friend of long standing.
"Why you little beauty you!" cried the Unwiseman, as he sat on the fence and stroked the beautiful creature's neck. "So you're what they call a shammy, eh?"
The chamois turned its lovely eyes upon his new found friend, and then lowered his head to have it scratched again.
"Mary had a little shamWhose hide was soft as cotton,And everywhere that Mary wentThe shammy too went trottin'."
sang the Unwiseman, dropping into poetry as was one of his habits when he was deeply moved.