"Let us go, Willie," said Maude. "Do not waste any more Time. We have no Time to lose, let alone time to spare! Shall we kill Time?"
She had barely finished speaking when Mr Swinglebinks and his Time Exchange disappeared, and they were alone with the Zankiw.a.n.k. But not for long, for almost immediately a troop of school children came bounding home from school, but children with the oddest heads and faces ever seen. They were all carrying miniature bellows in their hands, which they were working up and down with great energy.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"Oh, Mr Zankiw.a.n.k, what is the matter with those children in short frocks and knickerbockers? Look at their heads!"
The Zankiw.a.n.k gazed, but expressed no surprise, and yet the children, if they were children, certainly looked very queer, for the boys had got aged, care-worn faces with moustaches and whiskers, while the little girls, in frocks just reaching to their knees, had women"s faces, with their hair done up in plaits and chignons and Grecian knot fashion, with elderly bonnets perched on the top.
"That," said the Zankiw.a.n.k, "is the force of habit."
"What habit, please? It does not suit them," said Maude.
"You are mistaken. Good habits become second nature."
"And what do bad habits become?" queried Willie.
"Bad habits," answered the Zankiw.a.n.k severely, "become no one."
"And these must be bad habits," exclaimed Willie, pointing to the children, "for they do not become them."
"I thought their clothes fitted them very well."
"We don"t mean their clothes," cried Maude. "We mean their general appearance."
"Ah! you are referring to the unnatural history aspect of the case. You mean their heads, of course. They do _not_ fit properly. I have noticed it myself. It comes of expecting too much, and overdoing it; it is all the result of what so many people are fond of doing--putting old heads on young shoulders."
So the mystery was out. The old heads were unmistakably on young shoulders. And how very absurd the children looked! Not a bit like happy girls and boys, as they would have been had they possessed their own heads instead of over-grown and over-developed minds and brains. Old heads never do look well on young shoulders, and it is very foolish of people to think they do. It makes them children of a larger growth before their time, and is just as bad as having young heads on old shoulders. The moral of which is, that you should never be older than you are nor younger than you are not.
"But what are they doing with those bellows?" enquired Willie and Maude together.
"Raising the wind," promptly responded the Zankiw.a.n.k, "or trying to.
When folk grow old before their time you will generally find that it is owing to the bother they had in raising the wind to keep the pot boiling."
"But you don"t keep the pot boiling with wind," they protested.
"Oh yes you do, in Topsy-Turvey Land, though personally I believe it to be most unright!"
"Un--what?" exclaimed Maude.
"Unright. When a thing is wrong it must be unright. Just the same as when a thing is right it is unwrong."
While the Zankiw.a.n.k was giving this very lucid explanation the "Old heads on young shoulders" children went sedately and mournfully away, just as a complete train of newspaper carts dashed up to a large establishment with these words printed outside--
ATNAGAGDLINt.i.t RALINGINGINARMIK LUSARUMINa.s.sUMIK.
"Good gracious, what awful looking words! It surely must be Welsh?" The two children put the question to the Zankiw.a.n.k.
"No, that is not Welsh. That is the way the Esquimaux of Greenland speak. It is the name of their paper, and means something to read, interesting news of all sorts. But in this newspaper they never print any news of any sort. They supply the paper to the Topsy-Turveyites every morning quite blank, so that you can provide yourself with your own news. Being perfectly blank, the editors succeed in pleasing all their subscribers."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"Well, I do not see any advantage in that."
"There you go again!" cried the Zankiw.a.n.k. "You always want something with an advantage. What"s the use of an advantage, I should like to know? You can only lose it. You cannot give it away. Do try to be original. But listen, n.o.body"s coming."
They both looked round wondering what the Zankiw.a.n.k meant by his strange perversities, but could not see anyone.
"We can see n.o.body," they said.
"Of course. Here he is!"
Well! Was it a shadow? Something was there without a doubt, and certainly without a body. It was a sort of skeleton, or a ghost, or perhaps a Mahatma! But it was not a Mahatma--it was in fact n.o.body, of whom you have of course heard.
"At last, at last!" screamed the delighted Zankiw.a.n.k, "with your eyes wide open and your faculties unimpaired you see n.o.bODY! And what a memory n.o.body has!"
"How can n.o.body have a memory? Besides, we can see n.o.body!" said Maude, more perplexed than she had ever been.
"Exactly, n.o.body has a charming memory. Memory, as you know, is the sense you forget with it!"
"Memory," corrected Willie, "is the sense, if it is a sense, or impression you remember with."
"Oh, what dreadful Grammar! Remember with! How can you finish a sentence with a preposition? What do you remember with it?" demanded the Zankiw.a.n.k reprovingly.
"Anything--everything you want to," replied Willie.
"Another preposition! Ah, if we could only remember as easily as we forget!"
"You are wandering from the subject," suggested Maude. "The subject is n.o.body, and you have told us nothing about it."
"H"m," said the Zankiw.a.n.k. "You have confessed that you can see n.o.body, therefore I will request him to sing you a topical song. Now keep your attention earnestly directed towards n.o.body and listen."
Knowing from past experience that the Zankiw.a.n.k would have his own way, Maude and Willie, having no one else to think about, thought of n.o.body, and to their amazement they heard these words sung as from a long way off, in a very hollow tone of voice:--
n.o.bODY"S NOTHING TO n.o.bODY.
O n.o.body"s Nothing to n.o.body, And yet he is something too; Though No-body"s No-Body it yet is so odd he Always finds nothing to do!
When n.o.body does nothing wrong, They say it is the cat; Though n.o.body be long and strong And very likely fat.
His name is heard from morn till night, He"s known in ev"ry place; He does the deeds that are unright, Though no one sees his face.
n.o.body broke the Dresden vase, n.o.body ate the cream; n.o.body smashed that pipe of pa"s,-- It happened in a dream.
n.o.body lost Sophia"s doll, n.o.body fired Jim"s gun; n.o.body nearly choked poor Poll-- n.o.body saw it done!
n.o.body cracks the china cups, n.o.body steals the spoons; n.o.body in the kitchen sups, Or talks of honeymoons!
n.o.body courts the parlour-maid, She told us so herself!
That n.o.body, I"m much afraid, Is quite a tricky elf.