The Tarzan Twins, like all well-behaved twins, were born on the same
day and, although they were not as "alike as two peas," still they
resembled one another quite closely enough to fulfil that particular
requirement of twinship; but even there they commenced breaking the
rules that have been governing twins during the past several millions
of years, for Dick had a shock of the blackest sort of black hair,
while Doc's hair was the sunny hue of molasses candy. Their noses were
alike, their blue eyes were alike; alike were their chins and their
mouths. Perhaps Doc's eyes twinkled more and his mouth smiled more than
Dick's for Dick did much of his twinkling and smiling inside and inside
the boys were very much alike, indeed.
But in one respect they shattered every rule that has been laid down
for twins from the very beginning of time, for Dick had been born in
England and Doc in America; a fact which upsets everything right at the
beginning of the story and proves, without any shadow of a doubt, that
they were not twins at all.
Why then did they look so much alike and why did everyone call them
the Tarzan Twins? One could almost start a guessing contest with a
conundrum like this, but the trouble is that no one would guess the
correct solution, though the answer is quite simple. Dick's mother and
Doc's mother were sisters--twin sisters--and they looked so much alike
that they looked _more_ alike than two peas, and as each boy resembled
his mother--the result was--they resembled each other.
Their mothers were American girls. One of them married an American
and stayed at home--that was Doc's mother; and the other married an
Englishman and sailed away to live on another continent in another
hemisphere--and she was Dick's mother. When the boys were old enough to
go away to school their parents had a brilliant idea, which was that
the boys should receive half of their education in America and half in
England. And this story will prove that the best laid plans of mice and
mothers sometimes go wrong, for no one planned that the boys should get
any of their education in Africa, whereas, as a matter of fact, Fate
was arranging that they should learn more in the jungles of the Dark
Continent than was ever between the covers of any school book.
When they were fourteen years old, Dick and Doc were attending an
excellent English school where there were a great many future dukes and
earls and arch-bishops and lord mayors, who, when they saw how much
Dick and Doc resembled one another, called them "The Twins." Later,
when they learned that Dick's father was distantly related to Lord
Greystoke, who is famous all over the world as Tarzan of the Apes, the
boys commenced to call Dick and Doc, "The Tarzan Twins"--so that is how
the nickname grew and became attached to them.
As everyone knows tar means white in the language of the great
apes, and go means black, so Doc, with his light hair, was known as
Tarzan-tar and Dick, whose hair was black, was called Tarzan-go. It was
all right to be called Tarzan-tar and Tarzan-go, until the other boys
began to make fun of them because they could climb trees no better than
many another boy and, while they were fair in athletic sports, they did
not excel. It was right there and then that Dick and Doc decided that
they would live up to their new names, for they did not enjoy being
laughed at and made fun of, any more than any other normal, red-blooded
boy does.
It is simply staggering to discover what a boy can accomplish if he
makes up his mind to it and so it was not long before Dick and Doc
did excel in nearly all athletic sports and when it came to climbing
trees--well, Tarzan himself would have had no reason to be ashamed of
them. Though their scholastic standing may have suffered a little in
the following months of athletic effort, their muscles did not, and as
vacation time approached, Dick and Doc had become as hard as nails and
as active as a couple of manus, which you will know, if your education
has not been neglected, is the ape-word for monkeys.
Then it was that the big surprise came in a letter that Dick received
from his mother. Tarzan of the Apes had invited them all to visit
him and spend two months on his great African estate! The boys were
so excited that they talked until three o'clock the next morning and
flunked in all their classes that day.
[Illustration: The boys talked until three o'clock the next morning.]
The disappointment that followed later when it was learned that Dick's
father, who was an army officer, could not get leave of absence and
Dick's mother would not go without him; the letters and cablegrams that
were exchanged between England and America, and England and Africa;
the frantic appeals of the boys to their parents are interesting only
in the result they effected; which was that the boys were to go by
themselves, Tarzan of the Apes having promised to meet them at the end
of the railway with fifty of his own Waziri warriors, thus assuring
their safe passage through savage Africa to the far-away home of the
ape-man. And this brings us to the beginning of our story.