WILLIAM ALL THE TIME
William was walking down the road, his hands in his pockets, his
mind wholly occupied with the Christmas pantomime. He was going to
the Christmas pantomime next week. His thoughts dwelt on rapturous
memories of previous Christmas pantomimes--of _Puss in Boots_, of _Dick
Whittington_, of _Red Riding Hood_. His mouth curved into a blissful
smile as he thought of the funny man--inimitable funny man with his red
nose and enormous girth. How William had roared every time he appeared!
With what joy he had listened to his uproarious songs! But it was
not the funny man to whom William had given his heart. It was to the
animals. It was to the cat in _Puss in Boots_, the robins in _The Babes
in the Wood_, and the wolf in _Red Riding Hood_. He wanted to be an
animal in a pantomime. He was quite willing to relinquish his beloved
future career of pirate in favour of that of animal in a pantomime. He
wondered....
It was at this point that Fate, who often had a special eye on William,
performed one of her lightning tricks.
A man in shirt-sleeves stepped out of the wood and looked anxiously up
and down the road. Then he took out his watch and muttered to himself.
William stood still and stared at him with frank interest. Then the
man began to stare at William, first as if he didn’t see him, and then
as if he saw him.
“Would you like to be a bear for a bit?” he said.
William pinched himself. He seemed to be awake.
“A b-b-bear?” he queried, his eyes almost starting out of his head.
“Yes,” said the man irritably, “a bear. B.E.A.R. bear. Animal--Zoo.
Never heard of a bear?”
William pinched himself again. He seemed to be still awake.
“Yes,” he agreed as though unwilling to commit himself entirely. “I’ve
heard of a bear all right.”
“Come on, then,” said the man, looking once more at his watch, once
more up the road, once more down the road, then turning on his heel and
walking quickly into the wood.
William followed, both mouth and eyes wide open. The man did not speak
as he walked down the path. Then suddenly down a bend in the path
they came upon a strange sight. There was a hut in a little clearing,
and round the hut was clustered a group of curious people--a Father
Christmas, holding his beard in one hand and a glass of ale in the
other; a rather fat Goldilocks, in the act of having yellow powder
lavishly applied to her face, several fairies and elves, sucking large
and redolent peppermints; a ferocious, but depressed-looking giant,
rubbing his hands together and complaining of the cold; and several
other strange and incongruous figures. In front of the hut was a large
species of camera with a handle, and behind stood a man smoking a pipe.
“Kid turned up?” he said.
William’s guide shook his head.
“No,” he said, “they’ve missed their train or lost their way, or
evaporated, or got kidnapped or something, but this happened to be
passing, and it looked the same size pretty near. What do you think?”
[Illustration: SUDDENLY DOWN A BEND IN THE PATH THEY CAME UPON A
STRANGE SIGHT.]
The man took his pipe from his mouth in order the better to concentrate
his whole attention on William. He looked at William from his muddy
boots to his untidy head. Then he reversed the operation, and looked
from his untidy head to his muddy boots. Then he scratched his head.
“Seems on the big side for the middle one,” he said.
At this point a hullabaloo arose from behind the shed, and a small bear
appeared, howling loudly.
“He tooken my bit of toffee,” yelled the bear in a very human voice.
“Aw, shut up!” said the man in his shirt-sleeves.
The small bear was followed by a large bear, protesting loudly.
“I gave him half’n mine ’n’e promised to give me half’n his’ ’n’ then
he tried to eat it all’n’----”
“Aw, shut up!” repeated the man. Then he turned to William.
“All you gotter do,” he said, “is to fix on the middle bear’s suit an’
do exactly what you’re told, an’ I’ll give you five shillings at the
end. See?”
“These roural places are a butiful chinge,” murmured Goldilocks’
mother, darkening her eyebrows as she spoke. “So calm and quart.”
“These Christmas shows,” grumbled the giant, flapping his arms
vigorously, “are the very devil.”
Here William found his voice. “Crumbs!” he ejaculated. Then, feeling
the expletive to be altogether inadequate to the occasion, quickly
added: “Gosh!”
“Take the kid round, someone,” said the shirt-sleeve man wearily, “and
fix on his togs, and let’s get on with the show.”
Here a Fairy Queen appeared from behind the hut.
“I don’t see how I’m possibly to go through with this here
performance,” she said in a voice of plaintive suffering. “I had
toothache all last night----”
“If you think,” said the shirt-sleeve man, “that you can hold up this
blessed show for a twopenny-halfpenny toothache----”
“If you’re going to be insulting----” said the Fairy Queen in shrill
indignation.
“Aw, shut up!” said the shirt-sleeve man.
Here Father Christmas, who had finished his ale, led William into the
hut. A bear’s suit lay on a chair.
“The kid wot was to wear this not having turned up,” he said by way of
explanation, “and you by all accounts bein’ willin’ to oblige for a
small consideration, we shall have to see what can be done. I suppose,”
he added, “you have no objection?”
“Me?” said William, whose eyes and mouth had grown more and more
circular every minute. “_Me_--objection? Golly! I should think _not_.”
The little bear and the big bear surveyed him critically.
“He’s too _big_,” said the little bear contemptuously.
“His hair’s too long,” contributed the big bear.
“His face is too dirty.”
“His ears is too long.”
“His nose is too flat.”
“His head’s too big.”
“His----”
William speedily and joyfully put an end to the duet and Father
Christmas wearily disentangled the struggling mass.
“It may be a bit on the small side,” he conceded as he deposited the
small bear upside down beneath the table, “but we’ll do what we can.”
Here the shirt-sleeve man appeared at the window.
“That’s right,” he said kindly. “Take all day about it. Don’t hurry! We
all enjoy hanging about and waiting for you.”
Father Christmas offered to retire from his post in favour of the
shirt-sleeve man, and the shirt-sleeve man hastily retreated.
Then came the task of fitting William into the skin. It was not an easy
task.
“You’re bigger,” said Father Christmas, “than what you look in the
distance. Considerable.”
William could not stand quite upright in the skin, but by stooping
slightly he could see and speak through the open mouth of the head. In
an ecstasy of joy he pummelled the big bear, the little bear gladly
joined in the fray and a furry ball of three struggling bears rolled
out of the door of the hut.
The shirt-sleeve man rang a bell.
“After this somewhat lengthy interlude,” he said. “By the way, may I
inquire the name of our new friend?”
William proudly shouted his name through the aperture in the bear’s
head.
“Well, Billiam,” he said jocularly, “do just what I tell you and you’ll
be all right. Now all clear off a minute, please. We’ve only a few
scenes to do here.”
“Location,” he read from a paper in his hand, “hut in wood. Enter
fairies with Fairy Queen. Dance.”
“How I am expected to dance,” said the Fairy Queen bitterly, “tortured
by toothache, I can’t think.”
“You don’t dance with your teeth,” said the shirt-sleeve man
unsympathetically. “Let’s go through it once before we turn on the
machine. You’ve rehearsed it often enough. Now, come on.”
They danced a dance that made William gape in surprise and admiration,
so dainty and airy was it.
“Enter Father Christmas,” went on the shirt-sleeve man.
“What I can’t think,” said Father Christmas, fastening on his beard,
“is what a Father Christmas’s doing in this effect.”
“Nor a giant,” said the giant sadly.
“It’s for a Christmas show,” said the shirt-sleeve man. “You’ve gotter
have a Father Christmas in a Christmas show, or else how’d people know
it’s a Christmas show? And you’ve gotter have a giant in a fairy tale
whether there is one in it or not.”
Father Christmas joined the dance--gave presents to all the fairies,
then retired behind the hut to his private store of refreshment.
“Enter Goldilocks,” said the shirt-sleeve man. “Now where the dickens
is that kid?”
Goldilocks, fat, fair and rosy, appeared from behind a tree where she
had been eating bananas.
She peered down the middle bear’s mouth.
“It’s a new one,” she said.
“The other hasn’t turned up,” said the man. “This is Billiam, who is
taking on the middle one for the small consideration of five shillings.”
“He’s put out his tongue at me,” she screamed in shrill indignation.
At this the big bear, whose adoration of Goldilocks was very obvious,
closed with William, and Goldilocks’ mother screamed shrilly.
The giant separated the two bears and Goldilocks came to the hut with
an expression of patient suffering meant to represent intense physical
weariness. She gave a start of joy at the sight of the hut, which
apparently she did not see till she had almost passed it. She entered.
She gave a second start of joy at the sight of three porridge plates.
She tasted the first two and consumed the third. She wandered into the
other room. She gave a third start of joy at the sight of three beds.
She tried them all and went to sleep beautifully and realistically on
the smallest. William was lost in admiration.
“Come on, bears,” said the man in shirt-sleeves. “Billiam, walk between
them. Don’t jump. _Walk_. In at the door. That’s right. Now, Billiam,
look at your plate, then shake your head at the big bear.”
Trembling with joy William obeyed. The big bear, in the privacy of
the open mouth, put out his tongue at William with a hostile grimace.
William returned it.
“Now to the little one,” said the man in shirt-sleeves. But William was
still absorbed in the big one. Enraged by a particularly brilliant feat
in the grimacing line which he felt he could not outshine, he put out a
paw and tripped up the big bear’s chair. The big bear promptly picked
up a porridge plate and broke it on William’s head. The little bear
hurled himself ecstatically into the conflict. Father Christmas wearily
returned to his work of separating them.
“If you aren’t satisfied with your bonus,” said the shirt-sleeve man to
William, “take it out of me, not the scenery. You’ve just done about
five shillings’ worth of damage already. Now let’s get on.”
[Illustration: HE MET A BOY WHO FLED FROM HIM WITH YELLS OF TERROR, AND
TO WILLIAM IT SEEMED AS IF HE HAD DRUNK OF ECSTACY’S VERY FOUNT.]
The rest of the scene went off fairly well, but William was growing
bored. It wasn’t half such fun as he thought it would be. He wasn’t
feeling quite sure of his five shillings after those smashed plates.
The only thing for which he felt a deep and lasting affection, from
which he felt he could never endure to be parted, was his bear-skin.
It was rather small and very hot, but it gave him a thrill of pleasure
unlike anything he had ever known before. He was a bear. He was an
animal in a pantomime. He began to dislike immensely the shirt-sleeve
man, and the hut, and the Fairy Queen, and the giant, and all the
rest of them, but he loved his bear suit. It was while the giant was
having a scene by himself that the brilliant idea came to William.
He was standing behind a tree. No one was looking at him. He moved
very quietly further away. Still no one looked at him. He moved yet
further away and still no one looked at him. In a few seconds he was
leaping and bounding through the wood alone in the world with the
bear-skin. He was a bear. He was a bear in a wood. He ran. He jumped.
He turned head over heels. He climbed a tree. He ran after a rabbit. He
was riotously, blissfully happy. He met a boy who fled from him with
echoing yells of terror, and to William it seemed as if he had drunk
of ecstasy’s very fount. He ran on and on, roaring occasionally, and
occasionally rolling in the leaves. Then something happened. He gave
a particularly violent jump and strained the skin which was already
somewhat tight. The skin did not burst, but the head came down very far
on to William’s head and wedged itself tightly. He could not see out
of its open mouth now. He could just see out of one of the eye-holes,
but only just. His mouth was wedged tightly in the head and he found he
could not speak plainly. He put up his paws and pulled at the head to
loosen it, but with no results. It was very tightly wedged. William’s
spirits drooped. It was all very well being a bear in a wood as long
as one could change oneself to a boy at will. It was a very different
thing being fastened to a bear-skin for life. He supposed that in time,
if he went on growing to a man, he’d burst the bear-skin. On the other
hand, he couldn’t get to his mouth now, so he couldn’t eat, and he’d
not be able to grow at all. Starvation stared him in the face. He was
hungry already. He decided to return home and throw himself on the
mercy of his family. Then he remembered that his family were all out
that afternoon. His mother was at a mother’s meeting at the Vicarage.
He decided to go straight to the Vicarage. Perhaps the united efforts
of the mothers of the village might succeed in getting his head off.
He went out from the woods on to the road but was discouraged by the
behaviour of a woman who was passing. She gave an unearthly yell,
tore a leg of mutton from her basket, flung it at William’s head,
and ran for dear life down the road, screaming as she went. William,
much depressed, returned to the woods and reached the Vicarage by a
circuitous route. Feeling too shy to ring the bell and interview a
housemaid in his present costume, he walked round the house to the
French windows of the dining-room where the meeting was taking place.
He stood pathetically in the doorway of the window.
“Mother,” he began plaintively in a muffled and almost inaudible voice,
but it would have made little difference had he spoken in his usual
strident tones. The united scream of the mothers’ meeting would have
drowned it. Never in the whole course of his life had William seen a
room empty so quickly. It was like magic. Almost before his plaintive
and muffled “Mother” had left his lips, the room was empty. Only two
dozen overturned chairs, an overturned table, and several broken
ornaments marked the line of retreat. The room was empty.
The entire mothers’ meeting, headed by the vicar’s wife and the
vicarage cook and housemaid, were dashing down the main road of the
village, screaming as they went. William sadly surveyed the desolate
scene before him and retreated again to the woods. He leant against a
tree and considered the whole situation.
“Hello, Billiam!”
Turning his head to a curious angle and peering out of one of the
bear’s eye-holes, he recognised Goldilocks.
“Hello!” he returned in a spiritless voice.
“Why did you run away?” she said.
“Dunno,” he said. “I wanted the old skin. Wish I’d never seed it.”
“You do talk funny,” she said. “I can’t hear what you say.”
And so far was William’s spirit broken that he only sighed.
[Illustration: NEVER IN THE WHOLE COURSE OF HIS LIFE HAD WILLIAM SEEN A
ROOM EMPTY SO QUICKLY.]
“I saw you going,” she went on, “and I went after you, but you ran so
fast that I lost you. Then I went round a bit by myself. I say, they
won’t be able to get on with the old thing without us. I heard them
shouting for us. Isn’t it fun? An’ I heard some people screaming in the
road. What was that?”
William sighed again. Then he shouted: “Try’n pull my head loose.
_Hard._”
She complied. She pulled till William yelled again.
“You’ve nearly took my ears off,” he said angrily in his muffled,
sepulchral voice.
But the head was wedged on as tightly as ever.
She went to the edge of the wood and peered across the road.
“There’s a place there,” she said, “with lots of men in. Go’n’ ask
them.”
William somewhat reluctantly (for his previous experiences had sadly
disillusioned him with human nature in general) went through the trees
to the roadside.
He looked back at the white-clad form of Goldilocks.
“Wait for me,” he whispered hoarsely.
Anxious to attract as little notice as possible, he crept on all fours
round to the door of the public-house. He poked in his head nervously.
“Please, can some’n----” he began politely, but in the clatter that
arose the ghostly whisper was lost. Several glasses and a chair were
flung at his head. Amid shoutings and uproar the innkeeper went for
his gun, but on his return William had departed, and the innkeeper,
who knew the better part of valour, contented himself with bolting the
door and fetching sal-volatile for his wife. After a decent interval he
unlocked the door and the inmates crept cautiously home one by one.
“A great, furious brute,” they were heard to say. “Must have escaped
from a circus----”
“If we hadn’t been quick----”
“We ought to get up a party with guns----”
“Let’s go and warn the school, or it’ll get the kids----”
On reaching their homes most of them found their wives in hysterics on
the kitchen floor after a hasty return from the mothers’ meeting.
Meanwhile William sat beneath a tree in the wood in an attitude of
utter despondency, his head on his paws.
“Why didn’t you _tell_ them,” said Goldilocks impatiently.
“I tell everyone,” said William. “Nobody’ll _listen_ to me. They make a
noise and throw things. I’m go’n’ home.”
He rose and held out a paw. He felt utterly and miserably cut off from
his fellow-men. He clung pathetically to Goldilock’s presence.
“Come with me,” he said.
Hand in hand, a curious couple, they went through the woods to the back
of William’s house. “If I die,” he said at once, “afore we get home,
you’d better bury me. There’s a spade in the back garden.”
He took her round to the shed in his back garden.
“You stay here,” he whispered. “An’ I’ll try and get my head took off
an’ then get us somethin’ to eat.”
Cautiously and apprehensively he crept into the house. He could hear
his mother talking to the cook in the kitchen.
“It stood right in the window,” she was saying in a trembling voice.
“Not a very big animal but so ferocious-looking. We got out just in
time--it was just getting ready to spring. It----”
William crept to the open kitchen door and assumed his most plaintive
expression, forgetting for the moment that his expression could not be
seen. Just as he was opening his mouth to speak cook turned round and
saw him. The scream that cook emitted sent William scampering up to his
room in utter terror.
“It’s gone up--plungin’ into Master William’s room--the _brute!_ Thank
evving the little darlin’s out playin’. Oh, mum, the cunnin’ brute’s
a-shut the door. Oh, my! It turned me inside out--it did. Oh, I darsn’t
go an’ lock it in, but that’s what ought to be done----”
“We--we’ll get someone with a gun,” said Mrs. Brown weakly. “We--oh,
here’s the master.”
Mr. Brown entered as she spoke. “I’ve got terrible news for you,” he
said.
Mrs. Brown burst into tears.
“Oh, John, nothing could be worse than--than--John, it’s upstairs.
Do get a gun--in William’s room. And--oh, my goodness, suppose he’s
there--suppose it’s mangling him--_do_ go----”
Mr. Brown sat calmly in his chair.
“William,” he said, “has eloped with a _jeune première_ and a
bear-skin. An entire Christmas pantomime is searching the village for
him. They’ve spent the afternoon searching the wood and now they are
searching the village. Father Christmas is drinking ale in a pub. He
discovered that William had paid it a visit. A Fairy Queen is sitting
outside the pub complaining of toothache, and Goldilocks’ mother is
complimenting the vicar on the rural beauty of his village, in the
intervals of weeping over the loss of her daughter. I gathered that
William had visited the vicarage. There’s a giant complaining of the
cold, and a man in his shirt-sleeves whose language is turning the
air blue for miles around. I was coming up from the station and was
introduced to them as William’s father. I had some difficulty in
calming them, but I promised to do what I could to find the missing
pair. I’m rather keen on finding William. I don’t think I can do better
than hand him over to them for a few minutes. As for the missing
damsel----”
Mrs. Brown found her voice.
“Do you mean----?” she gasped feebly, “do you mean that it was William
all the time?”
Mr. Brown rose wearily.
“Of course,” he said. “Isn’t everything _always_ William all the time?”