"More-pig-talk," laughed Whistlebinkie. "He's the little pig that went
to market."

"No--it was the little pig that stayed at home that said wee, wee, wee
all day long," said Mollie.

"Je desire to be lettyd out pretty quick if there's un grand big
earthquake going on," cried the Unwiseman.

Mollie slid the nickeled latch on the top of the carpet-bag along and in
a moment it flew open.

"Kesserkersayker what's going on out ici?" demanded the Unwiseman, as he
popped out of the bag. "Je ne jammy knew such a lot of motiong. London
Bridge ain't falling down again, is it?"

"No," said Mollie. "We're on the boat crossing the British Channel."

"Oh--that's it eh?" said the Unwiseman gazing about him anxiously, and
looking rather pale, Mollie thought. "Well I thought it was queer. When
I went to sleep last night everything was as still as Christmas, and
when I waked up it was movier than a small boy in a candy store. So
we're on the ocean again eh?"

"Not exactly," said Mollie. "We're on what they call the Channel."

"Seems to me the waves are just as big as they are on the ocean, and the
water just as wet," said the Unwiseman, as the ship rose and fell with
the tremendous swell of the sea, thereby adding much to his uneasiness.

"Yes--but it isn't so wide," explained Mollie. "It isn't more than
thirty miles across."

"Then I don't see why they don't build a bridge over it," said the
Unwiseman. "This business of a little bit of a piece of water putting on
airs like an ocean ought to be put a stop to. This motion has really
very much unsettled--my French. I feel so queer that I can't remember
even what _la_ means, and as for _kesserkersay_, I've forgotten if it's
a horse hair sofa or a pair of brass andirons, and I had it all in my
head not an hour ago. O--d-dud-dear!"

The Unwiseman plunged headlong into his carpet-bag again and pulled the
top of it to with a snap.

"Oh my, O me!" he groaned from its depths. "O what a wicked channel to
behave this way. Mollie--Moll-lie--O Mollie I say."

"Well?" said Mollie.

"Far from it--very unwell," groaned the Unwiseman. "Will you be good
enough to ask the cook for a little salad oil?"

"Mercy," cried Mollie. "You don't want to mix a salad now do you?"

"Goodness, no!" moaned the Unwiseman. "I want you to pour it on those
waves and sort of clam them down and then, if you don't mind, take the
carpet-bag----"

"Yes," said Mollie.

"And chuck it overboard," groaned the Unwiseman. "I--I don't feel as if
I cared ever to hear the dinner-bell again."

Poor Unwiseman! He was suffering the usual fate of those who cross the
British Channel, which behaves itself at times as if it really did have
an idea that it was a great big ocean and had an ocean's work to do. But
fortunately this uneasy body of water is not very wide, and it was not
long before the travellers landed safe and sound on the solid shores of
France, none the worse for their uncomfortable trip.

"I guess you were wise not to throw me overboard after all," said the
Unwiseman, as he came out of the carpet-bag at Calais. "I feel as fine
as ever now and my lost French has returned."

"I'd like to hear some," said Mollie.

"Very well," replied the Unwiseman carelessly. "Go ahead and ask me a
question and I'll answer it in French."

"Hm! Let me see," said Mollie wondering how to begin. "Have you had
breakfast?"

"Wee Munsieur, j'ay le pain," replied the Unwiseman gravely.

"What does that mean?" asked Mollie, puzzled.

"He says he has a pain," said Whistlebinkie with a smile.

"Pooh! Bosh--nothing of the sort," retorted the Unwiseman. "Pain is
French for bread. When I say 'j'ay le pain' I mean that I've got the
bread."

"Are you the jay?" asked Whistlebinkie with mischief in his tone.

"Jay in French is I have--not a bird, stupid," retorted the Unwiseman
indignantly.

"Funny way to talk," sniffed Whistlebinkie. "I should think pain would
be a better word for pie, or something else that gives you one."

"That's because you don't know," said the Unwiseman. "In addition to the
pain I've had oofs."

"Oooffs?" cried Whistlebinkie. "What on earth are oooffs?"

"I didn't say oooffs," retorted the Unwiseman, mocking Whistlebinkie's
accent. "I said oofs. Oofs is French for eggs. Chickens lay oofs in
France. I had two hard boiled oofs, and my pain had burr and sooker on
it."

"Burr and sooker?" asked Mollie, wonderingly.

"I know what burr means--it's French for chestnuts," guessed
Whistlebinkie. "He had chestnuts on his bread."

"Nothing of the sort," said the Unwiseman. "Burr is French for butter
and has nothing to do with chestnuts. Over here in France a lady goes
into a butter store and also says avvy-voo-doo burr, and the man behind
the counter says wee, wee, wee, jay-doo-burr. Jay le bonn-burr. That
means, yes indeed I've got some of the best butter in the market,
ma'am."

"And then what does the lady say?" asked Whistlebinkie.

The Unwiseman's face flushed, and he looked very much embarrassed. It
always embarrassed the poor old fellow to have to confess that there was
something he didn't know. Unwisemen as a rule are very sensitive.

"That's as far as the conversation went in my French in Five Lessons,"
he replied. "And I think it was far enough. For my part I haven't the
slightest desire to know what the lady said next. Conversation on the
subject of butter doesn't interest me. She probably asked him how much
it was a pound, however, if not knowing what she said is going to keep
you awake nights."

"What's sooker?" asked Mollie.

"Sooker? O that's what the French people call sugar," explained the
Unwiseman.

"Pooh!" ejaculated Whistlebinkie, scornfully. "What's the use of calling
it sooker? Sooker isn't any easier to say than sugar."

"It's very much like it, isn't it?" said Mollie.

"Yes," said the Unwiseman. "They just drop the H out of sugar, and put
in the K in place of the two Gees. I think myself when two words are so
much alike as sooker and shoogger it's foolish to make two languages of
'em."

"Tell me something more to eat in French," said Whistlebinkie.

"Fromidge," said the Unwiseman bluntly.

"Fromidge? What's that!" asked Whistlebinkie.

"Cheese," said the Unwiseman. "If you want a cheese sandwich all you've
got to do is to walk into a calf--calf is French for restaurant--call
the waiter and say 'Un sandwich de fromidge, silver plate,' and you'll
get it if you wait long enough. Silver plate means if you please. The
French are very polite people."

"But how do you call the waiter?" asked Whistlebinkie.

"You just lean back in a chair and call garkon," said the Unwiseman.
"That's what the book says, but I've heard Frenchmen in London call it
gas on. I'm going to stick to the book, because it might turn out to be
an English waiter and it would be very unpleasant to have him turn the
gas on every time you called him."

"I should say so," cried Whistlebinkie. "You might get gas fixturated."

"You never would," said the Unwiseman.

"Anybody who isn't choked by your conversation could stand all the gas
fixtures in the world."

"I don't care much for cheese, anyhow," said Whistlebinkie. "Is there
any French for Beef?"

"O wee, wee, wee!" replied the Unwiseman. "Beef is buff in French.
Donny-moi-de-buff--"

"Donny-moi-de-buff!" jeered Whistlebinkie, after a roar of laughter.
"Sounds like baby-talk."

"Well it ain't," returned the Unwiseman severely. "Even Napoleon
Bonaparte had to talk that way when he wanted beef and I guess the kind
of talk that was good enough for a great Umpire like him is good enough
for a rubber squeak like you."

"Then you like French do you, Mr. Me?" asked Mollie.

"Oh yes--well enough," said the Unwiseman. "Of course I like American
better, but I don't see any sense in making fun of French the way
Fizzledinkie does. It's got some queer things about it like calling a
cat a chat, and a man a homm, and a lady a femm, and a dog a chi-enn,
but in the main it's a pretty good language as far as I have got in it.
There are one or two things in French that I haven't learned to say
yet, like 'who left my umbrella out in the rain,' and 'has James
currycombed the saddle-horse with the black spot on his eye and a
bob-tail this morning,' and 'was that the plumber or the piano tuner I
saw coming out of the house of your uncle's brother-in-law yesterday
afternoon,' but now that I'm pretty familiar with it I'm glad I learned
it. It is disappointing in some ways, I admit. I've been through French
in Five Lessons four times now, and I haven't found any conversation in
it about Kitchen-Stoves, which is going to be very difficult for me when
I get to Paris and try to explain to people there how fine my
kitchen-stove is. I'm fond of that old stove, and when these furriners
begin to talk to me about the grandness of their country, I like to hit
back with a few remarks about my stove, and I don't just see how I'm
going to do it."

"What's sky-scraper in French?" demanded Whistlebinkie suddenly.

"They don't have sky-scrapers in French," retorted the old gentleman.
"So your question, like most of the others you ask, is very very
foolish."

"You think you can get along all right then, Mr. Me?" asked Mollie,
gazing proudly at the old man and marvelling as to the amount of study
he must have done in two days.

"I can if I can only get people talking the way I want 'em to," replied
the Unwiseman. "I've really learned a lot of very polite conversation.
For instance something like this:

  "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 to spend 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 I _ever_
could 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 conductor of 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."

IX.

IN PARIS

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 the key-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 was _no_ more. Now whether _no_ more means that he is not mort, or
_is_ mort, 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 he _is_
dead, 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 thought he 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 she _would_ prefer 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's lucky 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.

[Illustration: "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. I may 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 order _a
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 French in 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 mean _ap_preciate," 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 cathedral was 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 abroad
    I'll go where pure English is spoken.
  I'll put on my shoes and go sailing toward
    The 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 rail
    And visit that frigid old Boston.

  "Nay never again will I step on a ship
    And go as a part of the cargo,
  But when I would travel I'll make my next trip
    Out west to the town of Chicago.

  "My sweet carpet-bag, you will never again
    Be called on to cross the Atlantic.
  We'll just buy a ticket and take the first train
    To marvellous old Williamantic.

  "No French in the future will I ever speak
    With strange and impossible, answers.
  I'd rather go in for that curious Greek
    The natives all speak in Arkansas.

  "To London and Paris let other folks go
    I'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 sea
    I'll answer them promptly, 'No thanky--
  There's beauty enough all around here for me
    In 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."

X.

THE ALPS AT LAST

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 I _know_ there 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 time
and 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.

[Illustration: "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's_ really 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 lovely
place 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 that _was_ the 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 snow was
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 his completed "Perspectus" with the request that she
show it to her father. It read as follows:

THE SWITZER SNOW AND ICE CO.

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 August where
      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.

XI.

THE UNWISEMAN PLANS A CHAMOIS COMPANY

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 the _Mer-de-Glace_. "I wouldn't give seven cents to _see_
a 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 told he 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 had _not_ climbed. And then
the Unwiseman's yodel had become something unusually fine and original
in the line of yodeling, which may have attracted 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 sham
    Whose hide was soft as cotton,
  And everywhere that Mary went
    The shammy too went trottin'."

sang the Unwiseman, dropping into poetry as was one of his habits when
he was deeply moved.

[Illustration: THE CHAMOIS EVIDENTLY LIKED THIS VERSE FOR ITS EYES
TWINKLED]

The chamois evidently liked this verse for its eyes twinkled and it laid
its head gently on the Unwiseman's knee and looked at him appealingly as
if to say, "More of that poetry please. You are a bard after my own
heart." So the Unwiseman went on, keeping time to his verse by slight
taps on the chamois' nose.

  "It followed her to town one day
    Unto the Country Fair,
  And earned five hundred dollars just
    In shining silver-ware."

Whistlebinkie indulged in a loud whistle of mirth at this, which so
startled the little creature that it leapt backward fifteen feet in the
air and landed on top of a small pump at the rear of the yard, and stood
there poised on its four feet just like the chamois we see in pictures
standing on a sharp peak miles up in the air, trembling just a little
for fear that Whistlebinkie's squeak would be repeated. A moment of
silence seemed to cure this, however, for in less than two minutes it
was back again at the Unwiseman's side gazing soulfully at him as if
demanding yet another verse. Of course the Unwiseman could not
resist--he never could when people demanded poetry from him, it came
so very easy--and so he continued:

  "The children at the Country Fair
    Indulged in merry squawks
  To see the shammy polishing
    The family knives and forks.

  "The tablespoons, and coffee pots,
    The platters and tureens,
  The top of the mahogany,
    And crystal fire-screens."

"More!" pleaded the chamois with his soft eyes, snuggling its head close
into the Unwiseman's lap, and the old gentleman went on:

  "'O isn't he a wondrous kid!'
    The wondering children cried.
  We didn't know a shammy could
    Do such things if he tried.

  "And Mary answered with a smile
    That dimpled up her chin
  'There's much that shammy's cannot do,
  But much that shammy-skin.'"

Whistlebinkie's behavior at this point became so utterly and inexcusably
boisterous with mirth that the confiding little chamois was again
frightened away and this time it gave three rapid leaps into the air
which landed it ultimately upon the ridge-pole of the chalet, from
which it wholly refused to descend, in spite of all the persuasion in
the world, for the rest of the afternoon.

"Very intelligent little animal that," said the Unwiseman, as he trudged
his way home. "A very high appreciation of true poetry, inclined to make
friendship with the worthy, and properly mistrustful of people full of
strange noises and squeaks."

"He was awfully pretty, wasn't he," said Mollie.

"Yes, but he was better than pretty," observed the Unwiseman. "He could
be made useful. Things that are only pretty are all very well in their
way, but give me the useful things--like my kitchen-stove for instance.
If that kitchen-stove was only pretty do you suppose I'd love it the way
I do? Not at all. I'd just put it on the mantel-piece, or on the piano
in my parlor and never think of it a second time, but because it is
useful I pay attention to it every day, polish it with stove polish,
feed it with coal and see that the ashes are removed from it when its
day's work is done. Nobody ever thinks of doing such things with a plain
piece of bric-a-brac that can't be used for anything at all. You don't
put any coal or stove polish on that big Chinese vase you have in your
parlor, do you?"

"No," said Mollie, "of course not."

"And I'll warrant that in all the time you've had that opal glass jug on
the mantel-piece of your library you never shook the ashes down in it
once," said the Unwiseman.

"Mity-goo-dreeson-wy!" whistled Whistlebinkie. "They-ain't never no
ashes in it."

"Correct though ungrammatically expressed," observed the Unwiseman.
"There never are any ashes in it to be shaken down, which is a pretty
good reason to believe that it is never used to fry potatoes on or to
cook a chop with, or to roast a turkey in--which proves exactly what I
say that it is only pretty and isn't half as useful as my
kitchen-stove."

"It would be pretty hard to find anything useful for the bric-a-brac to
do though," suggested Mollie, who loved pretty things whether they had
any other use or not.

"It all depends on your bric-a-brac," said the Unwiseman. "I can find
plenty of useful things for mine to do. There's my coal scuttle for
instance--it works all the time."

"Coal-scuttles ain't bric-a-brac," said Whistlebinkie.

"My coal scuttle is," said the Unwiseman. "It's got a picture of a daisy
painted on one side of it, and I gilded the handle myself. Then there's
my watering pot. That's just as bric-a-bracky as any Chinese china pot
that ever lived, but it's useful. I use it to water the flowers in
summer, and to sift my lump sugar through in winter. Every pound of lump
sugar you buy has some fine sugar with it and if you shake the lump
sugar up in a watering pot and let the fine sugar sift through the
nozzle you get two kinds of sugar for the price of one. So it goes all
through my house from my piano to my old beaver hat--every bit of my
bric-a-brac is useful."

"Wattonearth do-you-do with a-nold beevor-at?" whistled Whistlebinkie.

"I use it as a post-office box to mail cross letters in," said the
Unwiseman gravely. "It's saved me lots of trouble."

"Cross letters?" asked Mollie. "You never write cross letters to anybody
do you?"

"I'm doing it all the time," said the Unwiseman. "Whenever anything
happens that I don't like I sit down and write a terrible letter to the
people that do it. That eases off my feelings, and then I mail the
letters in the hat."

"And does the Post-man come and get them?" asked Mollie.

"No indeed," said the Unwiseman. "That's where the beauty of the scheme
comes in. If I mailed 'em in the post-office box on the lamp-post, the
post-man would take 'em and deliver them to the man they're addressed to
and I'd be in all sorts of trouble. But when I mail them in my hat
nobody comes for them and nobody gets them, and so there's no trouble
for anybody anywhere."

"But what becomes of them?" asked Mollie.

"I empty the hat on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of every
month and use them for kindling in my kitchen-stove," said the
Unwiseman. "It's a fine scheme. I keep out of trouble, don't have to buy
so much kindling wood, and save postage."

"That sounds like a pretty good idea," said Mollie.

"It's a first class idea," returned Mr. Me, "and I'm proud of it. It's
all my own and if I had time I'd patent it. Why I was invited to a party
once by a small boy who'd thrown a snow-ball at my house and wet one of
the shingles up where I keep my leak, and I was so angry that I sat down
and wrote back that I regretted very much to be delighted to say that
I'd never go to a party at his house if it was the only party in the
world besides the Republican; that I didn't like him, and thought his
mother's new spring bonnet was most unbecoming and that I'd heard his
father had been mentioned for Alderman in our town and all sorts of
disgraceful things like that. I mailed this right in my hat and used it
to boil an egg with a month later, while if I'd mailed it in the
post-office box that boy'd have got it and I couldn't have gone to his
party at all."

"Oh--you went, did you?" laughed Mollie.

"I did and I had a fine time, six eclairs, three plates of ice cream, a
pound of chicken salad, and a pocketful of nuts and raisins," said the
Unwiseman. "He turned out to be a very nice boy, and his mother's spring
bonnet wasn't hers at all but another lady's altogether, and his father
had not even been mentioned for Water Commissioner. You see, my dear,
what a lot of trouble mailing that letter in the old beaver hat saved
me, not to mention what I earned in the way of food by going to the
party which I couldn't have done had it been mailed in the regular way."

Here the old gentleman began to yodel happily, and to tell passersby in
song that he was a "Gay Swiss Laddy with a carpet-bag, That never knew
fear of the Alpine crag, For his eye was bright and his conscience
clear, As he leapt his way through the atmosphere, Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Trala-lolly-O."

"I do-see-how-yood-make-that-shammy-useful," said Whistlebinkie. "Except
to try your poems on and I don't b'lieve he's a good judge o' potery."

"He's a splendid judge of queer noises," said the Unwiseman, severely.
"He knew enough to jump a mile whenever you squeaked."

"Watt-else-coodie-doo?" asked Whistlebinkie through his hat. "You
haven't any silver to keep polished and there aren't enough queer noises
about your place to keep him busy."

"What else coodie-do?" retorted the Unwiseman, giving an imitation of
Whistlebinkie that set both Mollie and the rubber doll to giggling. "Why
he could polish up the handle of my big front door for one thing. He
could lie down on his back and wiggle around the floor and make it shine
like a lookin' glass for another. He could rub up against my kitchen
stove and keep it bright and shining for a third--that's some of the
things he couldie-doo, but I wouldn't confine him to work around my
house. I'd lead him around among the neighbors and hire him out for
fifty cents a day for general shammy-skin house-work. I dare say
Mollie's mother would be glad to have a real live shammy around that she
could rub her tea-kettles and coffee pots on when it comes to cleaning
the silver."

"They can buy all the shammys they need at the grocer's," said
Whistlebinkie scornfully.

"Dead ones," said the Unwiseman, "but nary a live shammy have you seen
at the grocer's or the butcher's or the milliner's or the piano-tuner's.
That's where Wigglethorpe----"

"Wigglethorpe?" cried Whistlebinkie.

"Yes Wigglethorpe," repeated the Unwiseman. "That's what I have decided
to call my shammy when I get him because he will wiggle."

"He don't thorpe, does he?" laughed Whistlebinkie.

"He thorpes just as much as you bink," retorted the Unwiseman. "But as I
was saying, Wigglethorpe, being alive, will be better than any ten dead
ones because he won't wear out, maids won't leave him around on the
parlor floor, and just because he wiggles, the silver and the hardwood
floors and front door handles will be polished up in half the time it
takes to do it with a dead one. At fifty cents a day I could earn three
dollars a week on Wigglethorpe----"

"Which would be all profit if you fed him on potery," said Whistlebinkie
with a grin.

"And if I imported a hundred of them after I found that Wigglethorpe was
successful," the Unwiseman continued, very wisely ignoring
Whistlebinkie's sarcasm, "that would be--hum--ha----"

"Three hundred dollars a week," prompted Mollie.

"Exactly," said the Unwiseman, "which in a year would amount
to--ahem--three times three hundred and sixty-five is nine, twice nine
is----"

"It comes to $15,600 a year," said Mollie.

"Right to a penny," said the Unwiseman. "I was figuring it out by the
day. Fifteen thousand six hundred dollars a year is a big sum of money
and reckoned in eclairs at fifty eclairs for a dollar is--er--is--well
you couldn't eat 'em if you tried, there'd be so many."

"Seven hundred and eighty thousand eclairs," said Mollie.

"That's what I said," said the Unwiseman. "You just couldn't eat 'em,
but you could sell 'em, so really you'd have two businesses right away,
shammys and eclaires."

"Mitey-big-biziness," hissed Whistlebinkie.

"Yes," said the Unwiseman, "I think I'll suggest it to my burgular when
I get home. It seems to me to be more honorable then burguling and it's
just possible that after a summer spent in the uplifting company of my
kitchen stove and having got used to the pleasant conversation of my
leak, and seen how peaceful it is to just spend your days exercising a
sweet gentle umbrella like mine, he'll want to reform and go into
something else that he can do in the day-time."

By this time the little party had reached the hotel, and Mollie's father
was delighted to hear of the Unwiseman's proposition. It was an entirely
new idea, he said, although he was doubtful if it was a good business
for a burgular.

"People might not be willing to trust him with their silver," he said.

"Very well then," said the Unwiseman. "Let him begin on front door knobs
and parlor floors. He's not likely to run away with those."

The next day the travellers left Switzerland and when I next caught
sight of them they had arrived at Venice.

XII.

VENICE

It was late at night when Mollie and her friends arrived at Venice and
the Unwiseman, sleeping peacefully as he was in the cavernous depths of
his carpet-bag, did not get his first glimpse of the lovely city of the
waters until he waked up the next morning. Unfortunately--or possibly it
was a fortunate circumstance--the old gentleman had heard of Venice only
in a very vague way before, and had no more idea of its peculiarities
than he had of those of Waycross Junction, Georgia, or any other place
he had never seen. Consequently his first sight of Venice filled him
with a tremendous deal of excitement. Emerging from his carpet-bag in
the cloak-room of the hotel he walked out upon the front steps of the
building which descended into the Grand Canal, the broad waterway that
runs its serpentine length through this historic city of the Adriatic.

"'Gee Whittaker!'" he cried, as the great avenue of water met his gaze.
"There's been a flood! Hi there--inside--the water main has busted, and
the whole town's afloat. Wake up everybody and save yourselves!"

He turned and rushed madly up the hotel stairs to the floor upon which
his friends' rooms were located, calling lustily all the way:

"Get up everybody--the reservoy's busted; the dam's loose. To the boats!
Mollie--Whistlebinkie--Mister and Mrs. Mollie--get up or you'll be
washed away--the whole place is flooded. You haven't a minute to spare."

"What's the matter, Mr. Me?" asked Mollie, opening her door as she
recognized the Unwiseman's voice out in the hallway. "What are you
scaring everybody to death for?"

"Get out your life preservers--quick before it is too late," gasped the
Unwiseman. "There's a tidal wave galloping up and down the street, and
we'll be drowned. To the roof! All hands to starboard and man the
boats."

"What _are_ you talking about?" said Mollie.

"Look out your front window if you don't believe me," panted the
Unwiseman. "The whole place is chuck full of water--couldn't bail it out
in a week----"

"Oh," laughed Mollie, as she realized what it was that had so excited
her friend. "Is that all?"

"All!" ejaculated the Unwiseman, his eyebrows lifting higher with
astonishment. "Isn't it enough? What do you want, the whole Atlantic
Ocean sitting on your front stoop?"

"Why--" began Mollie, "this is Venice----"

"Looks like Watertown," interrupted the Unwiseman.

"Thass-swattit-izz," whistled Whistlebinkie. "Venice is a water town.
It's built on it."

"Built on it?" queried the Unwiseman looking scornfully at Whistlebinkie
as much as to say you can't fool me quite so easily as that. "Built on
water?" he repeated.

"Exactly," said Mollie. "Didn't you know that, Mr. Me? Venice is built
right out on the sea."

"Well of all queer things!" ejaculated the Unwiseman, so surprised that
he plumped down on the floor and sat there gazing wonderingly up at
Mollie. "A whole city built on the sea! What's the matter, wasn't there
land enough?"

"Oh yes, I guess there was plenty of land," said Mollie, "but maybe
somebody else owned it. Anyhow the Venetians came out here where there
were a lot of little islands to begin with and drove piles into the
water and built their city on them."

"Well that beats me," said the Unwiseman, shaking his head in
bewilderment. "I've heard of fellows building up big copperations on
water, but never a city. How do they keep the water out of their
cellars?"

"They don't," said Mollie.

"Maybe they build their cellars on the roof," suggested Whistlebinkie.

"Well," said the Unwiseman, rising from the floor and walking to the
front window and gazing out at the Grand Canal, "I hope this hotel is
anchored good and fast. I don't mind going to sea on a big boat that's
built for it, but I draw the line at sailin' all around creation in a
hotel."

The droll little old gentleman poised himself on one toe and stretched
out his arms. "There don't seem to be much motion, does there," he
remarked.

"There isn't any at all," said Mollie. "It's perfectly still."

"I guess it's because it's a clam day," observed the Unwiseman uneasily.
"I hope it'll stay clam while we're here. I'd hate to be caught out in
movey weather like they had on that sassy little British Channel. This
hotel would flop about fearfully and _I_ believe it would sink if
somebody carelessly left a window open, to say nothing of its falling
over backward and letting the water in the back door."

"Papa says it's perfectly safe," said Mollie. "The place has been here
more'n a thousand years and it hasn't sunk yet."

"All right," said the Unwiseman. "If your father says that I'm satisfied
because he most generally knows what he's talking about, but all the
same I think we should ought to have brought a couple o' row boats and a
lot of life preservers along. I don't believe in taking any chances.
What do the cab-horses do here, swim?"

"No," said Mollie. "There aren't any horses in Venice. They have
gondolas."

"Gondolas?" repeated the Unwiseman. "What are gondolas, trained ducks?
Don't think much o' ducks as a substitute for horses."

"Perfly-bsoyd!" whistled Whistlebinkie.

"I should think they'd drive whales," said the Unwiseman, "or porpoises.
By Jiminy, that would be fun, wouldn't it? Let's see if we can't hire a
four whale coach, Mollie, and go driving about the city, or better yet,
if they've got them well broken, get a school of porpoises. We might put
on our bathing suits and go horseback riding on 'em. I don't take much
to the trained duck idea, ducks are so flighty and if they shied at
anything they might go flying up in the air and dump us backwards out of
our cab into the water."

"We're going to take a gondola ride this morning," said Mollie. "Just
you wait and see, Mr. Me."

[Illustration: THEY ALL BOARDED A GONDOLA]

So the Unwiseman waited and an hour later he and Mollie and
Whistlebinkie boarded a gondola in charge of a very handsome and smiling
gondolier who said his name was Giuseppe Zocco.

"Soako is a good name for a cab-driver in this town," said the
Unwiseman, after he had inspected the gondola and ascertained that it
was seaworthy. "I guess I'll talk to him."

"You-do-know-Eye-talian," laughed Whistlebinkie.

"It's one of the languages I _do_ know," returned the Unwiseman. "I buy
all my bananas and my peanuts from an Eye-talian at home and for two or
three years I have been able to talk to him very easily."

He turned to the gondolier.

"Gooda da morn, Soako," he observed very politely. "You havea da
prett-da-boat."

"Si, Signor," returned the smiling gondolier, who was not wholly
unfamiliar with English.

"See what?" asked the Unwiseman puzzled, but looking about carefully to
see what there was to be seen.

"He says we're at sea," laughed Whistlebinkie.

"Oh--well--that's it, eh?" said the Unwiseman. "I thought he only spoke
Eye-talian." And then he addressed the gondolier again. "Da weather's
mighta da fine, huh? Not a da rain or da heava da wind, eh? Hopa da babe
is vera da well da morn."

"Si, Signor," said Giuseppe.

"Da Venn greata da place. Too mucha da watt for me. Lika da dry land
moocha da bett, Giuseppe. Ever sella da banann?" continued the
Unwiseman.

"Non, Signor," replied Giuseppe. "No sella da banann."

"Bully da bizz," said the Unwiseman. "Maka da munn hand over da fist.
You grinda da org?"

"Huh?" grinned Giuseppe.

"He doesn't understand," said Mollie giggling.

"I asked him if he ever ground a hand-organ," said the Unwiseman.
"Perfectly simple question. I aska da questch, Giuseppe, if you ever
grinda da org. You know what I mean. Da musica-box, wid da monk for
climba da house for catcha da nick."

"What's 'catcha da nick'?" whispered Whistlebinkie.

"To catch the nickels, stoopid," said the Unwiseman; "don't interrupt.
No hava da monk, Giuseppe?" he asked.

"Non, Signor," said the gondolier. "No hava da monk."

"Too bad," observed the Unwiseman. "Hand-org not moocha da good without
da monk. Da monk maka da laugh and catcha da mun by da cupful. If you
ever come to America, Giuseppe, no forgetta da monk with a redda da
cap."

With which admonition the Unwiseman turned his attention to other
things.

"Is that really Eye-talian?" asked Whistlebinkie.

"Of course it is," said the Unwiseman. "It's the easiest language in the
world to pick up and only requires a little practice to make you speak
it as if it were your own tongue. I was never conscious that I was
learning it in my morning talks with old Gorgorini, the banana man at
home. This would be a great place for automobiles, wouldn't it, Mollie?"
he laughed in conclusion.

"I don't guesso," said Whistlebinkie.

The gondolier now guided the graceful craft to a flight of marble steps
up which Mollie and her friends mounted to the Piazza San Marco.

"This is great," said the Unwiseman as he gazed about him and took in
its splendors. "It's a wonder to me that they don't have a lot of places
like this on the way over from New York to Liverpool. Crossing the ocean
would be some fun if you could step off every hour or two and stretch
your legs on something solid, and buy a few tons of tumblers, and feed
pigeons. Fact is I think that's the best cure in the world for
sea-sickness. If you could run up to a little piazza like this three
times a day where there's a nice restaurant waiting for you and no
motion to spoil your appetite I wouldn't mind being a sailor for the
rest of my life."

The travellers passed through the glorious church of San Marco,
inspected the Doge's Palace and then returned to the gondola, upon which
they sailed back to their hotel.

"Moocha da thanks, Giuseppe," said the Unwiseman, as he alighted.
"Here's a Yankee da quart for you. Save it up and when you come to
America as all the Eye-talians seem to be doing these days, it will help
start you in business."

And handing the gondolier a quarter the Unwiseman disappeared into the
hotel. The next day he entered Mollie's room and asked permission to sit
out on her balcony.

"I think I'll try a little fishing this afternoon," he said. "It isn't a
bad idea having a hotel right on the water front this way after all. You
can sit out on your balcony and drop your line out into the water and
just haul them in by the dozen."

But alas for the old gentleman's expectations, he caught never a fish.
Whether it was the fault of the bait or not I don't know, but the only
things he succeeded in catching were an old barrel-hoop that went
floating along the canal from the Fruit Market up the way, and, sad to
relate, the straw hat of an American artist on his way home in his
gondola from a day's painting out near the Lido. The latter incident
caused a great deal of trouble and it took all the persuasion that
Mollie's father was capable of to keep the artist from having the
Unwiseman arrested. It seems that the artist was very much put out
anyhow because, mix his colors as he would, he could not get that
peculiarly beautiful blue of the Venetian skies, and the lovely
iridescent hues of the Venetian air were too delicate for such a brush
as his, and to have his straw hat unceremoniously snatched off his head
by an old gentleman two flights up with an ordinary fish hook baited
with macaroni in addition to his other troubles was too much for his
temper, not a good one at best.

"I am perfectly willing to say that I am sorry," protested the
Unwiseman when he was hauled before the angry artist. "I naturally would
be sorry. When a man goes fishing for shad and lands nothing but a last
year's straw hat, why wouldn't he be sorry?"

"That's a mighty poor apology!" retorted the artist, putting the straw
hat on his head.

"Well I'm a poor man," said the Unwiseman. "My expenses have been very
heavy of late. What with buying an air-gun to shoot Alps with, and
giving a quarter to the Ganderman to help him buy a monkey, I'm reduced
from nine-fifty to a trifle under seven dollars."

"You had no business fishing from that balcony!" said the artist
angrily.

"I haven't any business anywhere, I've retired," said the Unwiseman.
"And I can tell you one thing certain," he added, "if I was going back
into business I wouldn't take up fishing for straw hats and barrel-hoops
in Venice. There's nothing but to trouble in it."

"I shall lodge a complaint against you in the Lion's Mouth," said the
artist, with a slight twinkle in his eye, his good humor returning in
the presence of the Unwiseman.

"And I shall fall back on my rights as an American citizen to fish
whenever I please from my own balcony with my own bait without
interruption from foreign straw hats," said the Unwiseman with dignity.

"What?" cried the artist. "You an American?"

"Certainly," said the Unwiseman. "You didn't take me for an Eye-talian,
did you?"

"So am I," returned the artist holding out his hand. "If you'd only told
me that in the beginning I never should have complained."

"Don't mention it," said the Unwiseman graciously. "I was afraid you
were an Englishman, and then there'd been a war sure, because I'll never
give in to an Englishman. If your hat is seriously damaged I'll give you
my tarpaulin, seeing that you are an American like myself."

"Not at all," said the artist. "The hat isn't hurt at all and I'm very
glad to have met you. If your hook had only caught my eye on my way up
the canal I should have turned aside so as not to interfere."

"Well I'm mighty glad it didn't catch your eye," said the Unwiseman. "I
could afford to buy you a new straw hat, but I'm afraid a new eye would
have busted me."

And there the trouble ended. The artist and the Unwiseman shook hands
and parted friends.

"What was that he said about the Lion's Mouth?" asked the Unwiseman
after the artist had gone.

"He said he'd lodge a complaint there," said Mollie. "That's the way
they used to do here. Those big statues of lions out in front of the
Doggies' Palace with their mouths wide open are big boxes where people
can mail their complaints to the Government."

"Oh, I see," said the Unwiseman. "And when the Doggies get the
complaints they attend to 'em, eh?"

"Yes," said Mollie.

"And who are the Doggies?" asked the Unwiseman. "They don't have dogs
instead of pleece over here, do they? I get so mixed up with these
Johns, and Bobbies, and Doggies I hardly know where I'm at."

"I don't exactly understand why," said Mollie, "but the people in Venice
are ruled by Doggies."

"They're a queer lot from Buckingham Palace, London, down to this old
tow-path," said the Unwiseman, "and if I ever get home alive there's no
more abroad for your Uncle Me."

On the following day, Mollie's parents having seen all of Venice that
their limited time permitted, prepared to start for Genoa, whence the
steamer back to New York was to sail. Everything was ready, but the
Unwiseman was nowhere to be found. The hotel was searched from top to
bottom and not a sign of him. Giuseppe Zocco denied all knowledge of
him, and the carpet-bag gave no evidence that he had been in it the
night before as was his custom. Train-time was approaching and Mollie
was distracted. Even Whistlebinkie whistled under his breath for fear
that something had happened to the old gentleman.

"I hope he hasn't fallen overboard!" moaned Mollie, gazing anxiously
into the watery depths of the canal.

"Here he comes!" cried Whistlebinkie, jubilantly, and sure enough down
the canal seated on a small raft and paddling his way cautiously along
with his hands came the Unwiseman, singing the popular Italian ballad
"Margherita" at the top of his lungs.

"Gander ahoy!" he cried, as he neared the hotel steps. "Sheer off there,
Captain, and let me into Port."

The gondolier made room for him and the Unwiseman alighted.

"Where _have_ you been?" asked Mollie, throwing her arms about his neck.

"Up the canal a little way," he answered unconcernedly. "I wanted to
mail a letter to the Doggie in the Lion's Mouth."

"What about?" asked Mollie.

"Watertown, otherwise Venice," said the Unwiseman. "I had some
suggestions for its improvement and I didn't want to go way without
making them. There's a copy of my letter if you want to see it," he
added, handing Mollie a piece of paper upon which he had written as
follows:

  29 Grand Canal St., Venice, It.

      ANCIENT & HONORABLE BOW-WOWS:

      I have enjoyed my visit to your beautiful but wet old town very
      much and would respectfully advise you that there are several
      things you can do to keep it unspiled. These are as follows to wit
      viz:

      I. Bale it out once in a while and see that the barrel hoops in
      your Grand Canal are sifted out of it. They're a mighty poor
      stubstishoot for shad.

      II. Get a few trained whales in commission so that when a feller
      wants to go driving he won't have to go paddling.

      III. Stock your streets with trout, or flounders, or perch or even
      sardines in order that us Americans who feel like fishing won't
      have to be satisfied with a poor quality of straw hat.

      IV. During the fishing season compel artists returning from their
      work to wear beaver hats or something else that a fish-hook baited
      with macaroni won't catch into thus making a lot of trouble.

      V. Get together on your language. I speak the very best variety of
      banana-stand Italian and twenty-three out of twenty-four people to
      which I have made remarks in it have not been able to grasp my
      meaning.

      VI. Pigeons are very nice to have but they grow monotonous. Would
      suggest a half dozen first class American hens as an ornament to
      your piazza.

      VII. Stop calling yourself Doggies. It makes people laugh.

      With kind regards to the various Mrs. Ds, believe me to be with
      mucho da respecto,

  Yoursa da trool,
  Da Unadawisamann.

      P.S. If you ever go sailing abroad in your old town point her
      nose towards my country. We'll all be glad to see you over there
      and can supply you with all the water you need.

  Y da T,
  MISTER ME.

It was with these recommendations to the Doges that the Unwiseman left
Venice. Whether they were ever received or not I have never heard, but
if they were I am quite sure they made the "Doggies" yelp with delight.

XIII.

GENOA, GIBRALTAR, AND COLUMBUS

"Whatta da namea dissa cit?" asked the Unwiseman in his best Italian as
the party arrived at Genoa, whence they were to set sail for home the
next day.

"This is Genoa," said Mollie.

"What's it good for?" demanded the old gentleman, gazing around him in a
highly critical fashion.

"It's where Christopher Columbus was born," said Mollie. "Didn't you
know that?"

"You don't mean the gentleman who discovered the United States, do you?"
asked the Unwiseman, his face brightening with interest.

"The very same," said Mollie. "He was born right here in this town."

"Humph!" ejaculated the Unwiseman. "Queer place for a fellow like that
to be born in. You'd think a man who was going to discover America would
have been born a little nearer the United States than this. Up in
Canada for instance, or down around Cuba, so's he wouldn't have so far
to travel."

"Canada and Cuba weren't discovered either at that time," explained
Mollie, smiling broadly at the Unwiseman's ignorance.

"Really?" said the Unwiseman. "Well that accounts for it. I always
wondered why the United States wasn't discovered by somebody nearer
home, like a Canadian or a Cuban, or some fellow down around where the
Panama hats come from, but of course if there wasn't any Canadians or
Cubans or Panama hatters around to do it, it's as clear as pie." The old
gentleman paused a moment, and then he went on: "So this is the place
that would have been our native land if Columbus hadn't gone to sea, is
it? I think I'll take home a bottle of it to keep on the mantel-piece
alongside of my bottle of United States and label 'em' My Native Land,
Before and After.'"

"That's a very good idea," said Mollie. "Then you'll have a complete
set."

"I wonder," said the Unwiseman, rubbing his forehead reflectively, "I
wonder if he's alive yet."

"What, Christopher Columbus?" laughed Mollie.

"Yes," said the Unwiseman. "I haven't seen much in the papers about him
lately, but that don't prove he's dead."

"Why he discovered America in 1492," said Mollie.

"Well--let's see--how long ago was that? More'n forty years, wasn't it?"
said the Unwiseman.

"I guess it was more than forty years ago," giggled Mollie.

"Well--say fifty then," said the Unwiseman. "I'm pretty nearly that old
myself. I was born in 1839, or 1843, or some such year, and as I
remember it we'd been discovered then--but that wouldn't make him so
awfully old you know. A man can be eighty and still live. Look at old
Methoosalum--he was nine hundred."

"Oh well," said Mollie, "there isn't any use of talking about it.
Columbus has been dead a long time----"

"All I can say is that I'm very sorry," interrupted the Unwiseman, with
a sad little shake of his head. "I should very much like to have gone
over and called on him just to thank him for dishcovering the United
States. Just think, Mollie, of what would have happened if he hadn't!
You and I and old Fizzledinkie here would have had to be Eye-talians, or
Switzers, and live over here all the time if it hadn't been for him, and
our own beautiful native land would have been left way across the sea
all alone by itself and we'd never have known anything about it."

"We certainly ought to be very much obliged to Mr. Columbus for all he
did for us," said Mollie.

"I-guess-somebuddyelse-wudda-donit," whistled Whistlebinkie. "They
cuddn'-ta-helptit-with-all-these-socean steamers-going-over-there
every-day."

"That's true enough," said the Unwiseman, "but we ought to be thankful
to Columbus just the same. Other people _might_ have done it, but the
fact remains that he _did_ do it, so I'm much obliged to him. I'd sort
of like to do something to show my gratitude."

"Better write to his family," grinned Whistlebinkie.

"For a rubber doll with a squeak instead of brain in his head that's a
first rate idea, Fizzledinkie," said the old gentleman. "I'll do it."

And so he did. The evening mail from the Unwiseman's hotel carried with
it a souvenir postal card addressed to Christopher Columbus, Jr., upon
which the sender had written as follows:

  GENOA, Aug. 23, 19--.

      DEAR CHRISTOPHER:

      As an American citizen I want to thank you for your Papa's very
      great kindness in dishcovering the United States. When I think
      that if he hadn't I might have been born a Switzer or a French
      John Darm it gives me a chill. I would have called on you to say
      this in person if I'd had time, but we are going to sail tomorrow
      for home and we're pretty busy packing up our carpet-bags and
      eating our last meals on shore. If you ever feel like dishcovering
      us on your own account and cross over the briny deep yourself,
      don't fail to call on me at my home where I have a fine kitching
      stove and an umbrella which will always be at your disposal.

  Yours trooly,
  THE UNWISEMAN, U. S. A.

Later in the evening to the same address was despatched another postal
reading:

      P.S. If you happen to have an extra photograph of your Papa lying
      around the house that you don't want with his ortygraph on it I
      shall be glad to have you send it to me. I will have it framed
      and hung up in the parlor alongside of General Washington and
      President Roosevelt who have also been fathers of their country
      from time to time.

  Yours trooly,
  THE UNWISEMAN, U. S. A.

"I'm glad I did that," said the Unwiseman when he told Mollie of his two
messages to Christopher, Jr. "I don't think people as a rule are careful
enough these days to show their thanks to other people who do things for
them. It don't do any harm to be polite in matters of that kind and some
time it may do a lot of good. Good manners ain't never out of place
anywhere anyhow."

In which praiseworthy sentiment I am happy to say both Mollie and
Whistlebinkie agreed.

The following day the travellers embarked on the steamer bound for New
York. This time, weary of his experience as a stowaway on the trip over,
the Unwiseman contented himself with travelling in his carpet-bag and
not until after the ship had passed along the Mediterranean and out
through the straits of Gibraltar, did he appear before his companions.
His first appearance upon deck was just as the coast of Africa was
fading away upon the horizon. He peered at this long and earnestly
through a small blue bottle he held in his hand, and then when the last
vestige of the scene sank slowly behind the horizon line into the sea,
he corked the bottle up tightly, put it into his pocket and turned to
Mollie and Whistlebinkie.

"Well," he said, "that's done--and I'm glad of it. I've enjoyed this
trip very much, but after all I'm glad I'm going home. Be it ever so
bumble there's no place like home, as the Bee said, and I'll be glad to
be back again where I can sleep comfortably on my kitchen-stove, with my
beloved umbrella standing guard alongside of me, and my trusty leak
looking down upon me from the ceiling while I rest."

"You missed a wonderful sight," said Mollie. "That Rock of Gibraltar was
perfectly magnificent."

"I didn't miss it," said the Unwiseman. "I peeked at it through the
port-hole and I quite agree with you. It is the cutest piece of rock
I've seen in a long time. It seemed almost as big to me as the boulder
in my back yard must seem to an ant, but I prefer my boulder just the
same. Gibrallyper's too big to do anything with and it spoils the view,
whereas my boulder can be rolled around the place without any trouble
and doesn't spoil anything. I suppose they keep it there to keep Spain
from sliding down into the sea, so it's useful in a way, but after all
I'm just as glad it's here instead of out on my lawn somewhere."

"What have you been doing all these days?" asked Mollie.

"O just keeping quiet," said the Unwiseman. "I've been reading up on
Christopher Columbus and--er--writing a few poems about him. He was a
wonderful man, Columbus was. He proved the earth was round when
everybody else thought it was flat--and how do you suppose he did it?"

"By sailin' around it," said Whistlebinkie.

"That was after he proved it," observed the Unwiseman, with the superior
air of one who knows more than somebody else. "He proved it by making an
egg stand up on its hind legs."

"What?" cried Mollie.

"I didn't know eggs had hind legs," said Whistlebinkie.

"Ever see a chicken?" asked the Unwiseman.

"Yes," said Whistlebinkie.

"Well, a chicken's only an advanced egg," said the Unwiseman.

"That's true," said Mollie.

"And chickens haven't got anything but hind legs, have they?" demanded
the old gentleman.

"Thass-a-fact," whistled Whistlebinkie.

"And Columbus proved it by making the egg stand up?" asked Mollie.

"That's what history tells us," said the Unwiseman. "All the Harvard and
Yale professors of the day said the earth was flat, but Columbus knew
better, so he just took an egg and proved it. That's one of the things
I've put in a poem. Want to hear it?"

"Indeed I do," said Mollie. "It must be interesting."

"It is--it's the longest poem I ever wrote," said the Unwiseman, and
seeking out a retired nook on the steamer's deck the droll old fellow
seated himself on a coil of rope and read the following poem to Mollie
and Whistlebinkie.

COLUMBUS AND THE EGG.

  "Columbus was a gentleman
    Who sailed the briny sea.
  He was a bright young Genoan
    In sunny Italy
  Who once discovered just the plan
    To find Amerikee."

"Splendid!" cried Mollie, clapping her hands with glee.

"Perfly-bully!" chortled Whistlebinkie, with a joyous squeak.

"I'm glad you like it," said the Unwiseman, with a smile of pleasure.
"But just you wait. The best part of it's to come yet."

And the old gentleman resumed his poem:

  "He sought the wise-men of his time,
    And when the same were found,
  He went and whispered to them, 'I'm
    Convinced the Earth is round,
  Just like an orange or a lime--
    I'll bet you half a pound!'

  "Each wise-man then just shook his head--
    Each one within his hat.
  'Go to, Columbus, child,' they said.
    '_We_ know the Earth is flat.
  Go home, my son, and go to bed
    And don't talk stuff like that.'

  "But Christopher could not be hushed
    By fellows such as they.
  His spirit never could be crushed
    In such an easy way,
  And with his heart and soul unsquushed
    He plunged into the fray."

"What's a fray?" asked Whistlebinkie.

"A fight, row, dispute, argyment," said the Unwiseman. "Don't
interrupt. We're coming to the exciting part."

And he went on:

  "'I'll prove the world is round,' said he
    'For you next Tuesday night,
  If you will gather formally
    And listen to the right.'
  And all the wise-men did agree
    Because they loved a fight.

  "And so the wise-men gathered there
    To hear Columbus talk,
  And some were white as to the hair
    And some could hardly walk,
  And one looked like a Polar Bear
    And one looked like an Auk."

"How-dju-know-that?" asked Whistlebinkie. "Does the history say all
that?"

"No," said the Unwiseman. "The history doesn't say anything about their
looks, but there's a picture of the whole party in the book, and it was
just as I say especially the Polar Bear and the Auk. Anyhow, they were
all there and the poem goes on to tell about it.

  "Now when about the room they sat
    Columbus he came in;
  Took off his rubbers and his hat,
    Likewise his tarpaulin.
  He cleared his throat and stroked the cat
    And thuswise did begin."

"There wasn't any cat in the picture," explained the Unwiseman, "but I
introduced him to get a rhyme for hat and sat. Sometimes you have to do
things like that in poetry and according to the rules if you have a
license you can do it."

"Have you got a license?" asked Whistlebinkie.

"Not to write poetry, but I've got a dog-license," said the Unwiseman,
"and I guess if a man pays three dollars to keep a dog and doesn't keep
the dog he's got a right to use the license for something else. I'll
risk it anyhow. So just keep still and listen.

  "'You see this egg?' Columbus led.
    'Now watch me, sirs, I begs.
  I'll make it stand upon its head
    Or else upon its legs.'
  And instantly 'twas as he said
    As sure as eggs is eggs.

  "For whether 'twas an Egg from school
    Or in a circus taught,
  Or whether it was just a cool
    Egg of unusual sort,
  That egg stood up just like a spool
    According to report."

"I bet he smashed in the end of it," said Whistlebinkie.

"Maybe it was a scrambled egg, maybe he stuck a pin in an end of it.
Maybe he didn't. Anyhow, he made it stand up," said the Unwiseman, "and
I wish you'd stop squeakyrupting when I'm reading."

"Go ahead," said Whistlebinkie meekly. "It's a perfly spulendid piece o'
potery and I can't help showing my yadmiration for it."

"Well keep your yadmiration for the yend of it," retorted the Unwiseman.
"We'll be in New York before I get it finished at this rate."

Whistlebinkie promised not to squeak again and the Unwiseman resumed.

  "'O wonderful!' the wise-men cried.
    'O marvellous,' said they.
  And then Columbus up and tried
    The egg the other way,
  And still it stood up full of pride
    Or so the histories say.

  "Again the wise-men cried aloud,
    'O wizard, marvellous!
  Of all the scientific crowd
    This is the man for us--
  O Christopher we're mighty proud
    Of you, you little cuss!'"

"That wasn't very polite," began Whistlebinkie.

"Now Squeaky," said the Unwiseman.

"'Scuse!" gasped Whistlebinkie.

And the Unwiseman went on:

  "'For men who make an omlette
    We really do not care;
  To poach an egg already yet
    Is easy everywhere;
  But he who'll teach it etiquette--
    He is a genius rare.

  "'So if _you_ say the Earth is round
    We think it must be so.
  Your reasoning's so very sound,
    Columbus don't you know.
  Come wizard, take your half-a-pound
    Before you homeward go.'"

Whistlebinkie began to fidget again and his breath came in little short
squeaks.

"But I don't see," he began. "It didn't prove----"

"Wait!" said the Unwiseman. "Don't you try to get in ahead of the
finish. Here's the last verse, and it covers your ground.

  "And thus it was, O children dear,
    Who gather at my knee,
  Columbus showed the Earth the sphere
    It since has proved to be;
  Though how the Egg trick made it clear,
    I'm blest if I can see."

"Well I'm glad you put that last voyse in," said Whistlebinkie, "because
I don't see either."

"Oh--I guess they thought a man who could train an egg to stand up was a
pretty smart man," said Mollie, "and they didn't want to dispute with
him."

"I shouldn't be surprised if that was it," said the Unwiseman. "I
noticed too in the picture that Columbus was about twice as big as any
of the wise-men, and maybe that had something to do with it too. Anyhow,
he was pretty smart."

"Is that all you wrote?" asked Whistlebinkie.

"No," said the Unwiseman. "I did another little one called 'I Wonder.'
There are a lot of things the histories don't tell you anything about,
so I've put 'em all in a rhyme as a sort of hint to people who are going
to write about him in the future. It goes like this:

  "When Christopher Columbus came ashore,
  The day he landed in Americor
  I wonder what he said when first he tried
  Down in the subway trains to take a ride?

  "When Christopher Columbus went up town
  And looked the country over, up and down,
  I wonder what he thought when first his eye
  Was caught by the sky-scrapers in the sky?

  "When Christopher put up at his hotel
  And first pushed in the button of his bell
  And upward came the boy who orders takes,
  I wonder if he ordered buckwheat cakes?

  "When Christopher went down to Washington
  To pay his call the President upon
  I wonder if the President felt queer
  To know that his discoverer was here?

  "I wonder when his slow-poke caravels
  Were tossed about by heavy winds and swells,
  If he was not put out and mad to spy
  The ocean steamers prancing swiftly by?"

"I don't know about other people," said the Unwiseman, "but little
things like that always interest me about as much as anything else, but
there's nary a word about it in the papers, and as far as my memory is
concerned when he first came I was too young to know much about what was
going on. I do remember a big parade in his honor, but I think that was
some years after the discovery."

"I guess it was," said Mollie, with a laugh. "There wasn't anything but
Indians there when he arrived."

"Really? How unfortunate--how very unfortunate," said the Unwiseman. "To
think that on the few occasions that he came here he should meet only
Indians. Mercy! What a queer idea of the citizens of the United States
he must have got. Really, Mollie, I don't wonder that instead of
settling down in New York, or Boston, or Chicago, he went back home
again to live. Nothing but Indians! Well, well, well!"

And the Unwiseman wandered moodily back to his carpet-bag.

"With so many nice people living in America," he sighed, "it does seem
too bad that he should meet only Indians who, while they may be very
good Indians indeed, are not noted for the quality of their manners."

And so the little party passed over the sea, and I did not meet with
them again until I reached the pier at New York and discovered the
Unwiseman struggling with the Custom House Inspectors.

XIV.

AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE

"Hi there--where are you going with that carpet-bag?" cried a gruff
voice, as the Unwiseman scurried along the pier, eager to get back home
as speedily as possible after the arrival of the steamer at New York.

"Where do you suppose I'm going?" retorted the Unwiseman, pausing in his
quick-step march back to the waiting arms of his kitchen-stove. "Doesn't
look as if I was walkin' off to sea again, does it?"

"Come back here with that bag," said the man of the gruff voice, a tall
man with a shiny black moustache and a blue cap with gold trimmings on
his head.

"What, me?" demanded the Unwiseman.

"Yes, you," said the man roughly. "What business have you skipping out
like that with a carpet-bag as big as a house under your arm?"

"It's my bag--who's got a better right?" retorted the Unwiseman. "I
bought and paid for it with my own money, so why shouldn't I walk off
with it?"

"Has it been inspected?" demanded the official.

"It don't need to be--there ain't any germans in it," said the
Unwiseman.

"Germans?" laughed the official.

"Yes--Mike robes--you know----" continued the Unwiseman.

"O, you mean germs," said the official. "Well, I didn't say disinfected.
I said inspected. You can't lug a bag like that in through here without
having it examined, you know. What you got in it?"

[Illustration: THE UNWISEMAN LOOKED THE OFFICIAL COLDLY IN THE EYE]

The Unwiseman placed his bag on the floor of the pier and sat on it and
looked the other coldly in the eye.

"Who are you anyhow?" he asked. "What right have you to ask me such
impident questions as, What have I got in this bag?"

"Well in private life my name's Maginnis," said the official, "but down
here on this dock I'm Uncle Sam, otherwise the United States of America,
that's who."

The Unwiseman threw his head back and roared with laughter.

"I do not mean to be rude, my dear Mr. Maginnis," he said, "but I really
must say Tutt, Tush, Pshaw and Pooh. I may even go so far as to say
Pooh-pooh--which is twice as scornful as just plain pooh. _You_ Uncle
Sam? You must think I'm as green as apples if you think I'll believe
that."

"It is true nevertheless," said the official sternly, "and unless you
hand over that bag at once----"

"Well I know better," said the Unwiseman angrily. "Uncle Sam has a red
goatee and you've got nothing but a shiny black moustache that looks
like a pair of comic eyebrows that have slipped and slid down over your
nose. Uncle Sam wears a blue swallow-tail coat with brass buttons on it,
and a pair of red and white striped trousers like a peppermint stick,
and you've got nothin' but an old pea-jacket and blue flannel pants on,
and as for the hat, Uncle Sam wears a yellow beaver with fur on it like
a coon-cat, while that thing of yours looks like a last summer's
yachtin' cap spruced up with brass. You're a very smart man, Mr.
Maginnis, but you can't fool an old traveller like me. I've been to
Europe, I have, and I guess I know the difference between a fire-engine
and a clothes horse. Uncle Sam indeed!"

"I must inspect the contents of that bag," said the official firmly. "If
you resist it will be confiscated."

"I don't know what confiscated means," returned the Unwiseman valiantly,
"but any man who goes through this bag of mine goes through me first.
I'm sittin' on the lock, Mr. Maginnis, and I don't intend to move--no,
not if you try to blast me away. A man's carpet-bag is his castle and
don't you forget it."

"What's the matter here?" demanded a policeman, who had overheard the
last part of this little quarrel.

"Nothing much," said the Unwiseman. "This gentleman here in the
messenger boy's clothes says he's the President o' the United States,
Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Army and Navy, all rolled into one,
thinking that by so doing he can get hold of my carpet-bag. That's all.
Anybody can see by lookin' at him that he ain't even the Department of
Agriculture. The United States Government! Really it makes me laugh."

Here the Unwiseman grinned broadly, and the Policeman and the official
joined in.

"He's a new kind of a smuggler, officer," said Mr. Maginnis, "or at
least he acts like one. I caught him trotting off with that bag under
his arm, and he refuses to let me inspect it."

"I ain't a smuggler!" retorted the Unwiseman indignantly.

"You'll have to let him look through the bag, Mister," said the
Policeman. "He's a Custom House Inspector and nobody's allowed to take
in baggage of any sort that hasn't been inspected."

"Is that the law?" asked the Unwiseman.

"Yep," said the Policeman.

"What's the idea of it?" demanded the Unwiseman.

"Well the United States Government makes people pay a tax on things that
are made on the other side," explained the Inspector. "That's the way
they make the money to pay the President's salary and the other running
expenses of the Government."

"Oh--that's it, eh?" said the Unwiseman. "Well you'd ought to have told
me that in the beginning. I didn't know the Government needed money to
pay the President. I thought all it had to do was to print all it
needed. Of course if the President's got to go without his money unless
I help pay, I'll be only too glad to do all I can to make up the amount
you're short. He earns every penny of it, and it isn't fair to make him
wait for it. About how much do you need to even it up? I've only got
four dollars left and I'm afraid I'll have to use a little of it myself,
but what's left over you're welcome to, only I'd like the President to
know I chipped in. How much does he get anyhow?"

"Seventy-five thousand dollars," said the Inspector.

"And there are 80,000,000 people in the country, ain't there?" asked the
Unwiseman.

"About that?" said the Inspector.

"So that really my share comes to--say four and a quarter thousandths of
a cent--that it?" demanded the Unwiseman.

"Something like that," laughed the Inspector.

"Well then," said the Unwiseman, taking a copper coin from his pocket,
"here's a cent. Can you change it?"

"We don't do business that way," said the Inspector impatiently. "We
examine your baggage and tax that--that's all. If you refuse to let us,
we confiscate the bag, and fine you anywhere from $100 to $5000. Now
what are you going to do?"

"What he says is true," said the Policeman, "and I'd advise you to save
trouble by opening up the bag."

"O well of course if _you_ say so I'll do it, but I think it's mighty
funny just the same," said the Unwiseman, rising from the carpet-bag and
handing it over to the Inspector. "In the first place it's not polite
for an entire stranger to go snooping through a gentleman's carpet-bag.
In the second place if the Secretary of the Treasury hasn't got enough
money on hand when pay-day comes around he ought to state the fact in
the newspapers so we citizens can hustle around and raise it for him
instead of being held up for it like a highwayman, and in the third
place it's very extravagant to employ a man like Mr. Maginnis here for
three dollars a week or whatever he gets, just to collect four and a
quarter thousandths of a cent. I don't wonder there ain't any money in
the treasury if that's the way the Government does business."

So the inspection of the Unwiseman's carpet bag began. The first thing
the Inspector found upon opening that wonderful receptacle was "French
in Five Lessons."

"What's that?" he asked.

"That's a book," replied the Unwiseman. "It teaches you how to talk
French in five easy lessons."

"What did you pay for it?" asked the Inspector.

"I didn't pay anything for it," said the Unwiseman. "I found it."

"What do you think it's worth?" queried the Inspector.

"Nothing," said the Unwiseman. "That is, all the French I got out of it
came to about that. It may have been first class looking French, but
when I came to use it on French people they didn't seem to recognize it,
and it had a habit of fading away and getting lost altogether, so as far
as I'm concerned it ain't worth paying duty on. If you're going to tax
me for that you can confisticate it and throw it at the first cat you
want to scare off your back-yard fence."

"What's this?" asked the Inspector, taking a small tin box out of the
bag.

"Ginger-snaps, two bananas and an eclair," said the Unwiseman. "I shan't
pay any duty on them because I took 'em away with me when I left home."

"I don't know whether I can let them in duty-free or not," said the
Inspector, with a wink at the Policeman.

"Well I'll settle that in a minute," said the Unwiseman, and reaching
out for the tin-box in less than two minutes he had eaten its contents.
"You can't tax what ain't, can you?" he asked.

"Of course not," said the Inspector.

"Well then those ginger-snaps ain't, and the bananas ain't and the
eclair ain't, so there you are," said the Unwiseman triumphantly. "Go on
with your search, Uncle Sammy. You haven't got much towards the
President's salary yet, have you!"

The Inspector scorned to reply, and after rummaging about in the bag
for a few moments, he produced a small box of macaroni.

"I guess we'll tax you on this," he said. "What is it?"

"Bait," said the Unwiseman.

"I call it macaroni," said the Inspector.

"You can call it what you please," said the Unwiseman. "I call it
bait--and it's no good. I can dig better bait than all the macaroni in
the world in my back yard. I fish for fish and not for Eye-talians, so I
don't need that kind. If I can't keep it without paying taxes for it,
confisticate it and eat it yourself. I only brought it home as a
souvenir of Genoa anyhow."

"I don't want it," said the Inspector.

"Then give it to the policeman," said the Unwiseman. "I tell you right
now I wouldn't pay five cents to keep a piece of macaroni nine miles
long. Be careful the way you handle that sailor suit of mine. I had it
pressed in London and I want to keep the creases in the trousers just
right the way the King wears his."

"Where did you buy them?" asked the Inspector, holding the duck trousers
up in the air.

"Right here in this town before I stole on board the _Digestic_," said
the Unwiseman.

"American made, are they?" asked the Inspector.

"Yes," said the Unwiseman. "You can tell that by lookin' at 'em. They're
regular canvas-back ducks with the maker's name stamped on the buttons."

Closer inspection of the garment proved the truth of the Unwiseman's
assertion and the Inspector proceeded.

"Didn't you make any purchases abroad?" he asked. "Clothes or jewels or
something?"

"I didn't buy any clothes at all," said the Unwiseman. "I did ask the
price of a Duke's suit and a Knight gown, but I didn't buy either of
them. You don't have to pay duty on a request for information, do you?"

"You are sure you didn't buy any?" repeated the Inspector.

"Quite sure," said the Unwiseman. "A slight misunderstanding with the
King combined with a difference of opinion with his tailor made it
unnecessary for me to lay in a stock of royal raiment. And the same
thing prevented my buying any jewels. If I'd decided to go into the
Duke business I probably should have bought a few diamond rings and a
half a dozen tararas to wear when I took breakfast with the roil family,
but I gave that all up when I made up my mind to remain a farmer.
Tararas and diamond rings kind of get in your way when you're pulling
weeds and planting beets, so why should I buy them?"

"How about other things?" asked the Inspector. "You say you've been
abroad all summer and haven't bought anything?"

"I didn't say anything of the sort," said the Unwiseman. "I bought a lot
of things. In London I bought a ride in a hansom cab, in Paris I bought
a ride in a one horse fakir, and in Venice I bought a ride in a
Gandyola. I bought a large number of tarts and plates of ice cream in
various places. I bought a couple of souvenir postal cards to send to
Columbus's little boy. In Switzerland I didn't buy anything because the
things I wanted weren't for sale such as pet shammys and Alps and
Glaziers and things like that. There's only two things that I can
remember that maybe ought to be taxed. One of 'em's an air gun to shoot
alps with and the others a big alpen-stock engraved with a red hot iron
showing what mountains I didn't climb. The Alpen-stock I used as a fish
pole in Venice and lost it because my hook got stuck in an artist's
straw hat, but the air gun I brought home with me. You can tax it if you
want to, but I warn you if you do I'll give it to you and then you'll
have to pay the tax yourself."

Having delivered himself of this long harangue, the Unwiseman, quite out
of breath, sat down on Mollie's trunk and waited for new developments.
The Inspector apparently did not hear him, or if he did paid no
attention. The chances are that the Unwiseman's words never reached his
ears, for to tell the truth his head was hidden way down deep in the
carpet-bag. It was all of three minutes before he spoke, and then with
his face all red with the work he drew his head from the bag and,
gasping for air observed, wonderingly:

"I can't find anything else but a lot of old bottles in there. What
business are you in anyhow?" he asked. "Bottles and rags?"

"I am a collector," said the Unwiseman, with a great deal of dignity.

"Well--after all I guess we'll have to let you in free," said the
Inspector, closing the bag with a snap and scribbling a little mark on
it with a piece of chalk to show that it had been examined. "The
Government hasn't put any tax on old bottles and junk generally so
you're all right. If all importers were like you the United States would
have to go out of business."

"Junk indeed!" cried the Unwiseman, jumping up wrathfully. "If you call
my bottles junk I'd like to know what you'd say to the British Museum.
That's a scrap heap, alongside of this collection of mine, and I don't
want you to forget it!"

And gathering his belongings together the Unwiseman in high dudgeon
walked off the pier while the Inspector and the Policeman watched him go
with smiles on their faces so broad that if they'd been half an inch
broader they would have met behind their necks and cut their heads off.

"I never was so insulted in my life," said the Unwiseman, as he told
Mollie about it in the carriage going up to the train that was to take
them back home. "He called that magnificent collection of mine junk."

"What was there in it?" asked Mollie.

"Wait until we get home and I'll show you," said the Unwiseman. "It's
the finest collection of--well just wait and see. I'm going to start a
Museum up in my house that will make that British Museum look like
cinder in a giant's eye. How did you get through the Custom House?"

"Very nicely," said Mollie. "The man wanted me to pay duty on
Whistlebinkie at first, because he thought he was made in Germany, but
when he heard him squeak he let him in free."

"I should think so," said the Unwiseman. "There's no German in his
squeak. He couldn't get a medium sized German word through his hat. If
he could I think he'd drive me crazy. Just open the window will you
while I send this wireless message to the President."

"To the President?" cried Mollie.

"Yes--I want him to know I'm home in the first place, and in the second
place I want to tell him that the next time he wants to collect his
salary from me, I'll take it as a personal favor if he'll come himself
and not send Uncle Sam Maginnis after it. I can stand a good deal for my
country's sake but when a Custom House inspector prys into my private
affairs and then calls them junk just because the President needs a four
and a quarter thousandth of a cent, it makes me very, very angry. It's
been as much as I could do to keep from saying 'Thunder' ever since I
landed, and that ain't the way an American citizen ought to feel when he
comes back to his own beautiful land again after three months' absence.
It's like celebrating a wanderer's return by hitting him in the face
with a boot-jack, and I don't like it."

The window was opened and with much deliberation the Unwiseman
despatched his message to the President, announcing his return and
protesting against the tyrannous behavior of Mr. Maginnis, the Custom
House Inspector, after which the little party continued on their way
until they reached their native town. Here they separated, Mollie and
Whistlebinkie going to their home and the Unwiseman to the queer little
house that he had left in charge of the burglar at the beginning of the
summer.

"If I ever go abroad again," said the Unwiseman at parting, "which I
never ain't going to do, I'll bring a big Bengal tiger back in my bag
that ain't been fed for seven weeks, and then we'll have some fun when
Maginnis opens the bag!"

XV.

HOME, SWEET HOME

"Hurry up and finish your breakfast, Whistlebinkie," said Mollie the
next morning after their return from abroad. "I want to run around to
the Unwiseman's House and see if everything is all right. I'm just crazy
to know how the burglar left the house."

"I-mall-ready," whistled Whistlebinkie. "I-yain't-very-ungry."

"Lost your appetite?" asked Mollie eyeing him anxiously, for she was a
motherly little girl and took excellent care of all her playthings.

"Yep," said Whistlebinkie. "I always do lose my appetite after eating
three plates of oat-meal, four chops, five rolls, six buckwheat cakes
and a couple of bananas."

"Mercy! How do you hold it all, Whistlebinkie?" said Mollie.

"Oh--I'm made o'rubber and my stummick is very 'lastic," explained
Whistlebinkie.

So hand in hand the little couple made off down the road to the
pleasant spot where the Unwiseman's house stood, and there in the front
yard was the old gentleman himself talking to his beloved boulder, and
patting it gently as he did so.

[Illustration: "I'M NEVER GOING TO LEAVE YOU AGAIN, BOLDY," HE WAS
SAYING]

"I'm never going to leave you again, Boldy," he was saying to the rock
as Mollie and Whistlebinkie came up. "It is true that the Rock of
Gibraltar is bigger and broader and more terrible to look at than you
are but when it comes right down to business it isn't any harder or to
my eyes any prettier. You are still my favorite rock, Boldy dear, so you
needn't be jealous." And the old gentleman bent over and kissed the
boulder softly.

"Good morning," said Mollie, leaning over the fence. "Whistlebinkie and
I have come down to see if everything is all right. I hope the
kitchen-stove is well?"

"Well the house is here, and all the bric-a-brac, and the leak has grown
a bit upon the ceiling, and the kitchen-stove is all right thank you,
but I'm afraid that old burgular has run off with my umbrella," said the
Unwiseman. "I can't find a trace of it anywhere."

"You don't really think he has stolen it do you?" asked Mollie.

"I don't know what to think," said the Unwiseman, shaking his head
gravely. "He had first class references, that burgular had, and claimed
to have done all the burguling for the very nicest people in the country
for the last two years, but these are the facts. He's gone and the
umbrella's gone too. I suppose in the burgular's trade like in
everything else you some times run across one who isn't as honest as he
ought to be. Occasionally you'll find a burgular who'll take things that
don't belong to him and it may be that this fellow that took my house
was one of that kind--but you never can tell. It isn't fair to judge a
man by disappearances, and it is just possible that the umbrella got
away from him in a heavy storm. It was a skittish sort of a creature
anyhow and sometimes I've had all I could do in windy weather to keep it
from running away myself. What do you think of my sign?"

"I don't see any sign," said Mollie, looking all around in search of the
object. "Where is it?"

"O I forgot," laughed the old gentleman gaily. "It's around on the other
side of the house--come on around and see it."

The callers walked quickly around to the rear of the Unwiseman's house,
and there, hanging over the kitchen door, was a long piece of board upon
which the Unwiseman had painted in very crooked black letters the
following words:

  THE BRITISH MUSEUM JUNIOR
  Admishun ten cents.     Exit fifteen cents.
  Burgulars one umbrella.
  THE FINEST COLECTION OF ALPS AND SOFORTHS ON EARTH.
  CHILDREN AND RUBER DOLLS FREE ON SATIDYS.

"Dear me--how interesting," said Mollie, as she read this remarkable
legend, "but--what does it mean?"

"It means that I've started a British Museum over here," said the
Unwiseman, "only mine is going to be useful, instead of merely
ornamental like that one over in London. For twenty-five cents a man can
get a whole European trip in my Museum without getting on board of a
steamer. I only charge ten cents to come in so as to get people to
come, and I charge fifteen cents to get out so as to make 'em stay until
they have seen all there is to be seen. People get awfully tired
travelling abroad, I find, and if you make it too easy for them to run
back home they'll go without finishing their trip. I charge burgulars
one umbrella to get in so that if my burgular comes back he'll have to
make good my loss, or stay out."

"Why do you let children and rubber dolls in free?" asked Mollie,
reading the sign over a second time.

"I wrote that rule to cover you and old Squizzledinkie here," said the
old gentleman, with a kindly smile at his little guests. "Although it
really wasn't necessary because I don't charge any admission to people
who come in the front door and you could always come in that way. That's
the entrance to my home. The back-door I charge for because it's the
entrance to my museum, don't you see?"

"Clear as a blue china alley," said Whistlebinkie.

"Come in and see the exhibit," said the Unwiseman proudly.

And then as Mollie and Whistlebinkie entered the house their eyes fell
upon what was indeed the most marvellous collection of interesting
objects they had ever seen. All about the parlor were ranged row upon
row of bottles, large and small, each bearing a label describing its
contents, with here and there mysterious boxes, and broken tumblers and
all sorts of other odd things that the Unwiseman had brought home in his
carpet-bag.

"Bottle number one," said he, pointing to the object with a cane, "is
filled with Atlantic Ocean--real genuine briny deep--bottled it myself
and so I know there's nothing bogus about it. Number two which looks
empty, but really ain't, is full of air from the coast of Ireland,
caught three miles out from Queenstown by yours trooly, Mr. Me. Number
three, full of dust and small pebbles, is genuine British soil gathered
in London the day they put me out of the Museum. 'Tain't much to look
at, is it?" he added.

"Nothin' extra," said Whistlebinkie, inspecting it with a critical air
after the manner of one who was an expert in soils.

"Not compared to American soil anyhow," said the Unwiseman. "This hard
cake in the tin box is a 'Muffin by Special Appointment to the King,'"
he went on with a broad grin. "I went in and bought one after we had our
rumpus in the bake-shop, just for the purpose of bringing it over here
and showing the American people how vain and empty roilty has become. It
is not a noble looking object to my eyes."

"Mine neither," whistled Whistlebinkie. "It looks rather stale."

"Yes," said the Unwiseman. "And that's the only roil thing about it.
Passing along rapidly we come soon to a bottleful of the British
Channel," he resumed. "In order to get the full effect of that very
conceited body of water you want to shake it violently. That gives you
some idea of how the water works. It's tame enough now that I've got it
bottled but in its native lair it is fierce. You will see the
instructions on the bottle."

Sure enough the bottle was labeled as the Unwiseman said with full
instructions as to how it must be used.

"Shake for fifteen minutes until it is all roiled up and swells around
inside the bottle like a tidal wave," the instructions read. "You will
then get a small idea of how this disagreeable body of water behaves
itself in the presence of trusting strangers."

"Here is my bottle of French soil," said the Unwiseman, passing on to
the next object. "It doesn't look very different from English soil but
it's French all right, as you would see for yourself if it tried to
talk. I scooped it up myself in Paris. There's the book--French in Five
Lessons--too. That I call 'The French Language,' which shows people who
visit this museum what a funny tongue it is. That pill box full of sand
is a part of the Swiss frontier and the small piece of gravel next to it
is a piece of an Alp chipped off Mount Blanc by myself, so that I know
it is genuine. It will give the man who has never visited
Swaz--well--that country, a small idea of what an Alp looks like and
will correct the notion in some people's minds that an Alp is a wild
animal with a long hairy tail and the manners of a lion. The next two
bottles contain all that is left of a snow-ball I gathered in at
Chamouny, and a chip of the Mer de Glace glazier. They've both melted
since I bottled them, but I'll have them frozen up again all right when
winter comes, so there's no harm done."

"What's this piece of broken china on the table?" asked Mollie.

"That is a fragment of a Parisian butter saucer," said the Unwiseman.
"One of the waiters fell down stairs with somebody's breakfast at our
hotel in Paris one morning while we were there," he explained, "and I
rescued that from the debris. It is a perfect specimen of a broken
French butter dish."

"I don't think it's very interesting," said Mollie.

"Well to tell you the truth, I don't either, but you've got to remember,
my dear, that this is a British Museum and the one over in London is
chuck full of broken china, old butter plates and coffee cups from all
over everywhere, and I don't want people who care for that sort of thing
to be disappointed with my museum when they come here. Take that plaster
statue of Cupid that I bought in Venice--I only got that to please
people who care for statuary."

"Where is it?" asked Mollie, searching the room with her eye for the
Cupid.

"I've spread it out through the Museum so as to make it look more like a
collection," said the Unwiseman. "I got a tack-hammer as soon as I got
home last night and fixed it up. There's an arm over on the
mantel-piece. His chest and left leg are there on top of the piano,
while his other arm with his left ear and right leg are in the kitchen.
I haven't found places for his stummick and what's left of his head yet,
but I will before the crowd begins to arrive."

"Why Mr. Me!" protested Mollie, as she gazed mournfully upon the scraps
of the broken Cupid. "You didn't really smash up that pretty little
statue?"

"I'm afraid I did, Mollie," said the Unwiseman sadly. "I hated to do it,
but this is a Museum my dear, and when you go into the museum business
you've to do it according to the rules. One of the rules seems to be 'No
admission to Unbusted Statuary,' and I've acted accordingly. I don't
want to deceive anybody and if I gave even to my kitchen-stove the idea
that these first class museums over in Europe have anything but
fractures in them----"

"Fragments, isn't it?" suggested Mollie.

"It's all the same," said the Unwiseman, "Fractures or fragments, there
isn't a complete statue anywhere in any museum that I ever saw, and in
educating my kitchen-stove in Art I'm going to follow the lead of the
experts."

"Well I don't see the use of it," sighed Mollie, for she had admired the
pretty little plaster Cupid very much indeed.

"No more do I, Mollie dear," said the Unwiseman, "but rules are rules
and we've got to obey them. This is the Grand Canal at Venice," he added
holding up a bottle full of dark green water in order to change the
subject. "And here is what I call a Hoople-fish from the Adriatic."

"What on earth is a Hoople-fish?" cried Mollie with a roar of laughter
as she gazed upon the object to which the Unwiseman referred, an old
water soaked strip of shingley wood.

"It is the barrel hoop I caught that day I went fishing from the hotel
balcony," explained the Unwiseman. "I wish I'd kept the artist's straw
hat I landed at the same time for a Hat-fish to complete my collection
of Strange Shad From Venice, but of course that was impossible. The
artist seemed to want it himself and as he had first claim to it I
didn't press the matter. The barrel-hoop will serve however to warn
Americans who want to go salmon fishing on the Grand Canal just what
kind of queer things they'll catch if they have any luck at all."

"What's this?" asked Whistlebinkie, peering into a little tin pepper pot
that appeared to contain nothing but sand.

"You must handle that very carefully," said the Unwiseman, taking it in
one hand, and shaking some of the sand out of it into the palm of the
other. "That is the birth-place of Christopher Columbus, otherwise the