As the sharp steel blade of the knife cut through the crisp yellow lemon the eyes of the Unwiseman opened wide and bulged with astonishment.
"What on earth are you doing, Miss Whistlebinkie?" he said. "Why do you destroy that beautiful thing?"
It was Mollie"s turn to be surprised.
"I don"t know what you mean," she said. "Why shouldn"t I cut the lemon?
How can I make a lemonade without cutting it?"
"Humph!" said the Unwiseman, with a half sneer on his lips. "You"ll go to the poor-house if you waste things like that. Why, I"ve had lemonade for a year out of one lemon, and it hasn"t been cut open yet. I drop it in a gla.s.s of water and let it soak for ten minutes. That doesn"t use up the lemon juice as your plan does, and it makes one of the bitterest sour drinks that you ever drank--however, this is your lemonade treat, and it isn"t for me to criticize. My book of etiquette says that people out calling must act according to the rules of the house they are calling at. If you asked me to have some oyster soup and then made it out of sa.s.safras or snow-b.a.l.l.s, it would be my place to eat it and say I never tasted better oyster soup in my life. That"s a funny thing about being polite. You have to do and say so many things that you don"t really mean. But go ahead. Make your lemonade in your own way. I"ve got to like it whether I like it or not. It isn"t my lemon you are wasting."
Mollie resumed the making of the lemonade while the Unwiseman looked about him, discovering something that was new and queer to him every moment. He seemed to be particularly interested in the water pipes.
"Strange idea that," he said, turning the cold water on and off all the time. "You have a little brook running through your house whenever you want it. Ever get any fish out of it?"
"No," said Mollie, with a laugh. "We couldn"t get very big fish through a faucet that size."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Why don"t you have larger faucets and catch the fish?"]
"That"s what I was thinking," said the Unwiseman, turning the water on again; "and furthermore, I think it"s very strange that you don"t fix it so that you can get fish. A trout isn"t more than four inches around.
You could get one through a six-inch pipe without any trouble unless he got mad and stuck his fins out. Why don"t you have larger faucets and catch the fish? I would. If there aren"t any fish in the brook you can stock it up without any trouble, and it would save you the money you pay to fish-markets as well as the nuisance of going fishing yourself and putting worms on hooks."
A long hilarious whistle from the pantry door caused the Unwiseman to look up sharply.
"What was that?" he said.
"Smee," came the whistling voice.
"It"s Whistlebinkie," said Mollie.
"Is his real name Smee?" asked the Unwiseman. "I thought Whistlebinkie was his name."
"So it is," said Mollie. "But when he gets excited he always runs his words together and speaks them through the top of his hat. By "smee" he meant "it"s me." Come in, Whistlebinkie."
"I shall not notice him," said the Unwiseman, stiffly. "Remember what I said to you about my family. He opens front doors for pay."
"Donteither," whistled Whistlebinkie.
"You wrong him, Mr. Unwiseman," said Mollie. "He isn"t paid for opening the front door. He just does it for fun."
"Oh! well, that"s different," said the proud visitor. "If he does it just for fun I can afford to recognize him--though I must say I can"t see what fun there is in opening front doors. How do you do, Whistlebinkie?"
"Pretwell," said Whistlebinkie. "How are you?"
"I hardly know what to say," replied the Unwiseman, scratching his head thoughtfully. "You see, Miss Mollie, when I got up my conversation for this call I didn"t calculate on Whistlebinkie here. I haven"t any remarks prepared for him. Of course, I could tell him that I am in excellent health, and that I think possibly it will rain before the year is over; but, after all, that"s very ordinary kind of talk, and we"ll have to keep changing the subject all the time to get back to my original conversation with you."
"Whistlebinkie needn"t talk at all," said Mollie. "He can just whistle."
"Or maybe I could go outside and put in a few remarks for him here and there, and begin the call all over again," suggested the Unwiseman.
"Oh, no! Dodoothat," began Whistlebinkie.
"Now what does he mean by dodoothat?" asked the visitor, with a puzzled look on his face.
"He means don"t do that--don"t you, Whistlebinkie? Answer plainly through your mouth and let your hat rest," said Mollie.
"That--swat--I--meant," said Whistlebinkie, as plainly as he could. "He--needn"t--botherto--talk--toomee--to me, I mean. I only--want--to--listen--towhim."
"What"s towhim?" asked the Unwiseman.
"To you is what he means. He says he"s satisfied to listen to you when you talk."
"Tha.s.sit," Whistlebinkie hurried to say, meaning, I suppose, "that"s it."
"Ah!" said the Unwiseman, with a pleased smile. "That"s it, eh? Well, permit me to say that I think you are a very wonderfully wise rubber doll, Mr. Whistlebinkie. I may go so far as to say that in this view of the case I think you are the wisest rubber doll I ever met. You like my conversation, do you?"
"Deedido," whistled Whistlebinkie. "I think it"s fine!"
"I owe you an apology, Whistlebinkie," said the Unwiseman, gazing at the doll in an affectionate way. "I thought you opened front doors for pay, instead of which I find that you are one of the wisest, most interesting rubber celebrities of the day. I apologize for even thinking that you would accept pay for opening a front door, and I will esteem it a great favor if you will let me be your friend. Nay, more. I shall make it my first task to get up a conversation especially for you. Eh? Isn"t that fine, Whistlebinkie? I, Me, the Unwiseman, promise to devote fifteen or twenty minutes of his time to getting up talk for you, talk with thinking in it, talk that amounts to something, talk that ninety-nine talkers out of a hundred conversationalists couldn"t say if they tried; and all for you. Isn"t that honor?"
"Welliguess!" whistled Whistlebinkie.
"Very well, then. Listen," said the Unwiseman. "Where were we at, Miss Mollie?"
"I believe," said Mollie, squeezing a half a lemon, "I believe you were saying something about putting fish through the faucet."
"Oh, yes! As I remember it, the faucets were too small to get the fish through, and I was pondering why you didn"t have them larger."
"That was it," said Mollie. "You thought if the faucets were larger it would save fish-hooks and worms."
"Exactly," said the Unwiseman. "And I wonder at it yet. I"d even go farther. If I could have a trout-stream running through my house that I could turn on and off as I pleased, I"d have also an estuary connected with the Arctic regions through which whales could come, and in that way I"d save lots of money. Just think what would happen if you could turn on a faucet and get a whale. You"d get oil enough to supply every lamp in your house. You wouldn"t have to pay gas bills or oil bills, and besides all that you could have whale steaks for breakfast, and whenever your mother wanted any whale-bone, instead of sending to the store for it, she"d have plenty in the house. If you only caught one whale a month, you"d have all you could possibly need."
"It certainly is a good idea," said Mollie. "But I don"t think----"
"Wait a minute, please," said the Unwiseman, hastily. "That don"t think remark of yours isn"t due until I"ve turned on this other faucet."
Suiting his action to his word, the Unwiseman turned on the hot-water faucet, and plunging his hand into the water, slightly scalded his fingers.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Ouch!" he cried; "the brook must be afire!"]
"Ouch!" he cried. "The brook must be afire! Now who ever heard of that?
The idea of a brook being on fire! Really, Miss Whistlebinkie, you ought to tell your papa about this. If you don"t, the pipes will melt and who knows what will become of your house? It will be flooded with burning water!"
"Oh, no!--I guess not. That water is heated down stairs in the kitchen, in the boiler."
"But--but isn"t it dangerous?" the Unwiseman asked, anxiously.
"Not at all," said Mollie. "You"ve been mistaken all along, Mr. Me.
There isn"t any brook running through this house."