I think if your madjesty will have these rules and regulations printed on a blue pasteboard card in big red letters and hung up all over everywhere you will be able, your h. r. h., to unbait this terrible nuisance.
Yoors trooly, THE UNWISEMAN.
P.S. It may happen, your h. r. h., that some of your subjex can"t help themselves in this aitch dropping habit, and it would therefore be mercyful of you to provide letter boxes on all the street cornders where they could drop their aitches into without breaking the rules of your high and mighty highness.
Give my love to the roil family.
Yoors trooly, THE UNWISEMAN.
"There," he said when he had scribbled the letter off with his lead pencil. "If the King can only read that it ought to make him much obliged to me for helping him out of a very bad box. This Island ain"t so big, map or no map, that they can afford to have it smothered in aitches as it surely will be if the habit ain"t put a stop to. I wonder what the King"s address is."
"I don"t know," said Whistlebinkie with a grin. "He and I ain"t never called on each other yet."
"Is King his last name or his first, I wonder," said the Unwiseman, scratching his head wonderingly.
"His first name is Edward," said Mollie. "It used to be Albert Edward, but he dropped the Albert."
"Edward what?" demanded the Unwiseman. "Don"t they call him Edward Seventh?"
"Yes they do," said Mollie.
"Then I guess I"ll address it to Edward S. King, Esquire, Number Seven, London--that"s where all the kings live when they"re home," said the Unwiseman.
And so the letter went addressed to Edward S. King, Esquire, Number Seven, London, England, but whether His Majesty ever received it or not I do not know. Certainly if he did he never answered it, and that makes me feel that he never received it, for the King of England is known as the First Gentleman of Europe, and I am quite sure that one who deserves so fine a t.i.tle as that would not leave a polite letter like the Unwiseman"s unanswered. Mollie"s father was very much impressed when he heard of the Unwiseman"s communication.
"I shouldn"t be surprised if the King made him a Duke, for that," he said. "It is an act of the highest statesmanship to devise so simple a plan to correct so widespread an evil. If the Unwiseman were only an Englishman he might even become Prime Minister."
"No," said the Unwiseman later, when Mollie told him what her father had said. "He couldn"t make me Prime Minister because I haven"t ever studied zoology and couldn"t preach a sermon or even take up a collection properly, but as for being a Duke--well if he asked me as a special favor I might accept that. The Duke of Me--how would that sound, Mollie?"
"Oh it would be perfectly beautiful!" cried Mollie overwhelmed by the very thought of anything so grand.
"Or Baron Brains--eh?" continued the Unwiseman.
"That would just suit you," giggled Whistlebinkie. "Barren Brains is you all over."
"Thank you, Fizzled.i.n.kie," said the Unwiseman. "For once I quite agree with you. I guess I"ll call on some tailor up in London and see what it would cost me to buy a Duke"s uniform so"s to be ready when the King sends for me. It would be fine to walk into his office with a linen duster on and have him say, "From this time on Mister Me you"re a Duke.
Go out and get dressed for tea," and then turn around three times, bow to the Queen, whisk off the duster and stand there in the roil presence with the Duke"s uniform already on. I guess he"d say that was American enterprise all right."
"You"d make a hit for sure!" roared Whistlebinkie dancing up and down with glee.
"I"ll do it!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Unwiseman with a look of determination in his eyes. "If I can get a ready-made Duke"s suit for $8.50 I"ll do it.
Even if it never happened I could wear the suit to do my gardening in when I get home. Did your father say anything about this being England or not?"
"Yes," said Mollie. "He said it was England all right. He"s been here before and he says you can always tell it by the soldiers walking around with little pint measures on their heads instead of hats, and little boys in beaver hats with no tails to their coats."
"All right," said the Unwiseman. "I"m satisfied if he is--only the man that got up that map ought to be spoken to about making it pink when it is only a dull yellow dusty gray, and only four inches long instead of five miles. Some stranger trying to find it in the dark some night might stumble over it and never know that he"d got what he was looking for.
Where are we going to from here?"
"We"re going straight up to London," said Mollie. "The train goes in an hour--just after lunch. Will you come and have lunch with us?"
"No thank you," replied the Unwiseman. "I"ve got a half dozen lunches saved up from the ship there in my carpet bag, and I"ll eat a couple of those if I get hungry."
"Saved up from the ship?" cried Mollie.
"Yep," said the Unwiseman. "I"ve got a bottle full of that chicken broth they gave us the first day out that I didn"t even try to eat; six or seven bottlefuls of beef tea, and about two dozen ginger-snaps, eight pounds of hard-tack, and a couple of apple pies. I kept ordering things all the way across whether I felt like eating them or not and whatever I didn"t eat I"d bottle up, or wrap up in a piece of paper and put away in the bag. I"ve got just three dinners, two breakfasts and four lunches in there. When I get to London I"m going to buy a bunch of bananas and have an eclaire put up in a tin box and those with what I"ve already got ought to last me throughout the whole trip."
"By the way, Mr. Me," said Mollie, a thoughtful look coming into her eyes. "Do you want me to ask my Papa to buy you a ticket for London? I think he"d do it if I asked him."
"I know he would," said Whistlebinkie. "He"s one of the greatest men in the world for doing what Mollie asks him to."
"No thank you," replied the Unwiseman. "Of course if he had invited me to join the party at the start I might have been willing to have went at his expense, but seeing as how I sort of came along on my own hook I think I"d better look after myself. I"m an American, I am, and I kind of like to be free and independent like."
"Have you any money with you?" asked Mollie anxiously.
"No," laughed the Unwiseman. "That is, not more"n enough to buy that Duke"s suit for $8.50 with. What"s the use of having money? It"s only a nuisance to carry around, and it makes you buy a lot of things you don"t want just because you happen to have it along. People without money get along a great deal cheaper than people with it. Millionaires spend twice as much as poor people. Money ain"t very sociable you know and it sort of hates to stay with you no matter how kind you are to it. So I didn"t bring any along except the aforesaid eight-fifty."
"Tisn"t much, is it," said Mollie.
"Not in dollars, but it"s a lot in cents--eight hundred and fifty of "em--that"s a good deal," said the Unwiseman cheerfully. "Then each cent is ten mills--that"s--O dear me--such a lot of mills!"
"Eight thousand five hundred," Mollie calculated.
"Goodness!" cried the Unwiseman. "I hope there don"t anybody find out I"ve got all that with me. I"d be afraid to go to sleep for fear somebody"d rob me."
"But _how_--how are you going to get to London?" asked Mollie anxiously.
"It"s too far to walk."
"O I"ll get there," said the Unwiseman.
"He"ll probably get a hitch on the cow-catcher," suggested Whistlebinkie.
"Don"t you worry," laughed the Unwiseman. "It"ll be all right, only--"
here he paused and looked about him to make sure that no one was listening. "Only," he whispered, "I wish somebody would carry my carpet-bag. It"s a pretty big one as you can see, and I _might_--I don"t say I would--but I might have trouble getting to London if I had to carry it."
"I"ll be very glad to take care of it," said Mollie. "Should I have it checked or take it with me in the train?"
"Better take it with you," said the Unwiseman. "I haven"t any key and some of these railway people might open it and eat up all my supplies."
"Very well," said Mollie. "I"ll see that it"s put in the train and I won"t take my eyes off it all the way up to London."
So the little party went up to the hotel. The Unwiseman"s carpet-bag was placed with the other luggage, and the family went in to luncheon leaving the Unwiseman to his own devices. When they came out the old fellow was nowhere to be seen and Mollie, much worried about him boarded the train. Her father helped her with the carpet-bag, the train-door was closed, the conductor came for the tickets and with a loud clanging of bells the train started for London. It was an interesting trip but poor little Mollie did not enjoy it very much. She was so worried to think of the Unwiseman all alone in England trying some new patent way of his own for getting over so many miles from Liverpool to the capital of the British Empire.
"We didn"t even tell him the name of our hotel, Whistlebinkie," she whispered to her companion. "How will he ever find us again in this big place."
"O-he"ll-turn-up orright," whistled Whistlebinkie comfortingly. "He knows a thing or two even if he is an Unwiseman."
And as it turned out Whistlebinkie was right, for about three minutes after their arrival at the London hotel, when the carpet-bag had been set carefully aside in one corner of Mollie"s room, the cracked voice of the Unwiseman was heard singing:
"O a carpet-bag is more comfortabler Than a regular Pullman Car.
Just climb inside and with never a stir, Let no one know where you are; And then when the train goes choo-choo-choo And the ticket man comes arown, You"ll go without cost and a whizz straight through To jolly old London-town.