I did not look but blindly hopped, And where do you suppose I stopped?
Bang! On my bedroom floor!
I do not say, had I been wise Enough that time to use my eyes-- As I"ve already said-- To Labrador I would have got: But this _is_ certain, I would not Have tumbled out of bed."
"The moral of which is, be careful how you go into things, and if you are not certain that you are coming out all right don"t go into them,"
added the major. "Why, when I was a mouse----"
"Oh, come, major--you couldn"t have been a mouse," interrupted the sprite. "You"ve just told us all about what you"ve been in the past, and you couldn"t have been all that and a mouse too."
"So I have," said the major, with a smile. "I"d forgotten that, and you are right, too. I couldn"t have been a mouse. I should have put what I was going to say differently. If I had ever been a mouse--that"s the way it should be--if I had ever been a mouse and had been foolish enough to stick my head into a mouse-trap after a piece of cheese without knowing that I should get it out again, I should not have been here to-day, in all likelihood. Therefore the general is right. Try on the invisible coat, Jimmieboy, and let"s see how it works before you risk calling on Fortyforefoot."
"Here it is," said the sprite, holding out his hands with apparently nothing in them.
Jimmieboy laughed a little, it seemed so odd to have a person say "here it is" and yet not be able to see the object referred to. He reached out his hand, however, to take the coat, relying upon the sprite"s statement that it was there, and was very much surprised to find that his hand did actually touch something that felt like a coat, and in fact was a coat, though entirely invisible.
"Shall I help you on with it?" asked the major.
"Perhaps you"d better," said Jimmieboy. "It feels a little small for me."
"That"s what I was afraid of," said the sprite. "You see it covers me all over from head to foot--that is the coat covers all but my head and the hood covers that--but you are very much taller than I am."
Here Jimmieboy, having at last got into the coat and b.u.t.toned it about him, had the strange sensation of seeing all of himself disappear excepting his head and legs. These remaining uncovered were of course still in sight.
"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed the major, merrily, as Jimmieboy walked around.
"That is the most ridiculous thing I ever saw. You"re nothing but a head and pair of legs."
Jimmieboy smiled and placed the hood over his head and the major roared louder than ever.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha!" he cried. "Oh, my--oh, dear! That"s funnier still--now you"re nothing but a pair of legs. Hee-hee-hee! Take it off quick or I"ll die with laughter."
Jimmieboy took off the hood.
"I"m afraid it won"t do, Spritey," he said. "Fortyforefoot would see my legs and if he caught them I"d be lost."
"That"s a fact," said the sprite, thoughtfully. "The coat is almost two feet too short for you."
"It"s more than two feet too short," laughed the major. "It"s two whole legs too short."
"This is no time for joking," said the sprite. "We"ve too much to talk about to use our mouths for laughing."
"All right," said the major. "I won"t get off any more, or if I do they won"t be the kind to make you laugh. They will be sad jokes--like yours.
But I say, boys," he added, "I have a scheme. It is of course the scheme of a soldier and may be attended by danger, but if it is successful all the more credit to the one who succeeds. We three people can attack Fortyforefoot openly, capture him, and not let him go until he provides us with the provisions."
"That sounds lovely," sneered the sprite. "But I"d like to know some of the details of this scheme. It is easy enough to say attack him, capture him and not let him go, but the question is, how shall we do all this?"
"It ought to be easy," returned the major. "There are only three things to be done. The first is to attack him. That certainly ought to be easy.
A kitten can attack an elephant if it wants to. The second is to capture him, which, while it seems hard, is not really so if the attack is properly made. The third is not to let him go."
"Clear as a fog," put in the sprite. "But go on."
"Now there are three of us--Jimmieboy, Spriteyboy and Yourstrulyboy,"
continued the major, "so what could be more natural than that we should divide up these three operations among us? Nothing! Therefore I propose that Jimmieboy here shall attack Fortyforefoot; the sprite shall capture him and throw him into a dungeon cell and I will crown the work by not letting him go."
"Magnificent!" said the sprite. "Jimmieboy and I take all the danger I notice."
"Yes," returned the major. "I am utterly unselfish about it. I am willing to put myself in the background and let you have all the danger and most of the glory. I only come in at the very end--but I don"t mind that. I have had glory enough for ten life-times, so why should I grudge you this one little bit of it? My feelings in regard to glory will be found on the fortieth page of Leaden Lyrics or the Ballads of Ben Bullet--otherwise myself. The verses read as follows:
"Though glory, it must be confessed, Is satisfying stuff, Upon my laurels let me rest For I have had enough.
Ne"er was a glorier man than I, Ne"er shall a glorier be, Than, trembling reader, you"ll espy-- When haply you spy me.
So bring no more--for while "tis good To have, "tis also plain A bit of added glory would Be apt to make me vain."
And I don"t want to be vain," concluded the major.
"Well, I don"t want any of your glory," said the sprite, "and if I know Jimmieboy I don"t think he does either. If you want to reverse your order of things and do the dangerous part of the work yourself, we will do all in our power to make your last hours comfortable, and I will see to it that the newspapers tell how bravely you died, but we can"t go into the scheme any other way."
"You talk as if you were the general"s prime minister, or his nurse,"
retorted the major, "whereas in reality I, being his chief of staff, am they if anybody are."
Here the major blushed a little because he was not quite sure of his grammar. Neither of his companions seemed to notice the mixture, however, and so he continued:
"General, it is for you to say. Shall my plan go or shall she stay?"
"Well, I think myself, major, that it is a little too dangerous for me, and if any other plan could be made I"d like it better," answered Jimmieboy, anxious to soothe the major"s feelings which were evidently getting hurt again. "Suppose I go back and order the soldiers to attack Fortyforefoot and bring him in chains to me?"
"Couldn"t be done," said the sprite. "The minute the chains were clapped on him he would change them into doughnuts and eat them all up."
"Yes," put in the major, "and the chances are he would turn the soldiers into a lot of toy balloons on a string and then cut the string."
"He couldn"t do that," said the sprite, "because he can"t turn people or animals into anything. His power only applies to things."
"Then what shall we do?" said Jimmieboy, in despair.
"Well, I think the best thing to do would be for me to change myself into a giant bigger than he is," said the sprite. "Then I could put you and the major in my pockets and call upon Fortyforefoot and ask him, in a polite way, to turn some pebbles and sticks and other articles into the things we want, and, if he won"t do it except he is paid, we"ll pay him if we can."
"What do you propose to pay him with?" asked the major. "I suppose you"ll hand him half a dozen checkerberries and tell him if he"ll turn them into ten one dollar bills he"ll have ten dollars. Fine way to do business that."
"No," said the sprite, mildly. "You can"t tempt Fortyforefoot with money. It is only by offering him something to eat that we can hope to get his a.s.sistance."
"Ah? And you"ll request him to turn a handful of pine cones into a dozen turkeys on toast, I presume?" asked the major.
"I shall do nothing of the sort. I shall simply offer to let him have you for dinner--you will serve up well in croquettes--Blueface croquettes--eh, Jimmieboy?" laughed the sprite.
The poor major turned white with fear and rage. At first he felt inclined to slay the sprite on the spot, and then it suddenly flashed across his mind that before he could do it the sprite might really turn himself into a giant and do with him as he had said. So he contented himself with turning pale and giving a sickly smile.
"That would be a good joke on me," he said. "But really, my dear Mr.
Sprite, I don"t think I would enjoy it, and after all I have a sort of notion that I would disagree with Fortyforefoot--which would be extremely unfortunate. I know I should rest like lead on his digestion--and that would make him angry with you and I should be sacrificed for nothing."