[Illustration:
A KIND OF PROCESSION FILED INTO THE HALL.
Frontispiece. See page 56
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
WALLYPUG OF WHY
BY
G. E. FARROW
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRY FURNISS AND
DOROTHY FURNISS
FOURTH EDITION
LONDON
C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LTD.
HENRIETTA STREET
1910
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
-------
Each Volume fully Illustrated
-------
Bound in green art linen. Price
2s. 6d. each.
-------
THE MISSING PRINCE.
THE WALLYPUG IN LONDON.
ADVENTURES IN WALLYPUGLAND.
THE LITTLE PANJANDRUM’S DODO.
THE MANDARIN’S KITE.
BAKER MINOR AND THE DRAGON.
THE NEW PANJANDRUM.
IN SEARCH OF THE WALLYPUG.
PROFESSOR PHILANDERPAN.
THE WALLYPUG IN FOGLAND.
THE WALLYPUG IN THE MOON; OR, HIS BADJESTY.
-------
The Presentation Edition of Mr. Farrow’s books,
in cloth gilt with gilt edges, price 5s. each,
is still on sale.
-------
C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LTD.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS.
-------
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE WAY TO WHY 7
II. THE FISH WITH A COLD 24
III. BREAKFAST FOR TEA 38
IV. GIRLIE SEES THE WALLYPUG 52
V. WHAT IS A GOO? 64
VI. THE WALLYPUG’S FANCY DINNER PARTY 77
VII. THE INVISIBLE JOKE 93
VIII. CAN A PIG PERCH? 107
IX. BUYING AN EXCUSE 124
X. THE RIDE WITH THE ALPHABET 135
XI. GIRLIE IS CARTWRECKED 147
XII. THE SPHINX AND THE BATHING-MACHINE WOMAN 159
XIII. WHAT HAPPENED AT WHY 174
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[Illustration]
Journeying through the land of Why
You’ll meet the strangest company,
Various creatures, great and small,
And something odd about them all—
A socialistic Cockatoo;
A most mysterious thing—a Goo;
The quaintest men; a charming maid
Two ancient ladies, prim and staid;
The Wallypug—pray, who is he?
I mustn’t tell you; read and see.
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The Wallypug of Why.
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CHAPTER I
_THE WAY TO WHY._
[Illustration]
IT was a very warm afternoon, and Girlie was sitting by the play-room
window watching the gold fish idly swimming about in her little
aquarium. She was feeling very “sigh” as she called it, that is, not
very happy, for her brothers were all away from home, and she had no one
to talk to. Even Boy, her youngest brother, was staying with some
friends at Broadstairs, and she thought it very hard that she should
have to wait at home for another week before joining him there. Her
aunt, with whom she was staying, had received a letter from him that
morning and had brought it up to Girlie to read.
“But it will only make me more sorry than ever that I am not there,”
thought poor Girlie. She had the letter in her hand and was trying to
decide whether she should read it or not when she caught sight of a few
words at the bottom of the first page, which was half drawn out of the
envelope:—
I have found a Goo
was written in Boy’s big, sprawling handwriting.
“Whatever is a Goo?” thought Girlie; and, instead of reading the rest of
the letter as most people would have done, she shut her eyes and tried
to think whether she had ever heard of, or seen such a thing. She was
trying hard to remember whether there was such a creature mentioned in
her Natural History book, and had just come to the conclusion that she
had never read of one, when she heard a little cough from the other end
of the room, and, opening her eyes, she saw Dumpsey Deazil, her
favourite doll, struggling up from the very uncomfortable position in
which she had been lying, with her head in a domino box and her feet on
Noah’s Ark.
[Illustration:
DUMPSEY DEAZIL.
]
Girlie stared with amazement, and the more so when Dumpsey Deazil,
having succeeded in getting on to her feet, walked awkwardly up to where
she was sitting, and holding out a stiff, sawdust-stuffed hand, said in
a squeaky little voice:
“So you want to know what a Goo is, do you?”
[Illustration:
“‘YOU DEAR OLD THING,’ CRIED GIRLIE.”
]
“Oh, you dear old thing!” cried Girlie, jumping up excitedly, and
catching Dumpsey Deazil up in her arms. “I always _knew_ that you could
talk if you only _would_, and now at last you are going to do so, just
as dolls always do in fairy tale books.”
“Of course _all_ dolls can talk if they like,” said Dumpsey Deazil;
“only they never do so, except when they wish. But about the Goo, do you
really want to know what it is?”
“Yes, I do,” said Girlie, “because I don’t remember ever having heard of
such a thing.”
“Well, I don’t quite know what it is myself,” said Dumpsey Deazil, “but
I can take you to the land of Why if you like, where all the questions
and answers come from, and then you can find out for yourself, you
know.”
“Oh! that would be splendid!” exclaimed Girlie. “Is it a very long way
off though?”
“Yes, it is rather a long way,” admitted Dumpsey Deazil; “but it would
not take us long to get there by the way in which we should go.”
“How is that?” asked Girlie. “By train?”
“Oh dear, no!” cried Dumpsey Deazil; “by a _much_ quicker way than that.
You have just to take hold of one of my hands and, shutting your eyes
very tightly, count up to one hundred aloud, and then when you open them
again you will find yourself there.”
“What a funny way to travel,” said Girlie. “I am sure, though, that I
should like it very much indeed. Can we go now, this very minute?”
“Yes,” said Dumpsey Deazil; “but, before we start, you must promise me
that you will be very kind to the Wallypug, for he is a kind of relation
of mine.”
“The Wallypug! Good gracious! Whoever is he?” exclaimed Girlie.
“You will see when you get to Why,” said Dumpsey Deazil mysteriously.
“Now then, are you ready? Remember, though, you must _be sure_ and not
let go of my hand till you have counted up to one hundred, or you will
lose me.”
“All right!” promised Girlie, taking hold of Dumpsey Deazil’s hand and
screwing up her eyes very tightly. “One, two——”
She was sorely tempted to open her eyes, however, when she felt herself
being carried off her feet; still, she felt very comfortable and it
seemed to her that she was floating rapidly through the air.
* * * * *
“Eighty-five, eighty-six! Oh dear! somebody has taken hold of my other
hand now,” cried Girlie. “I really _must_ look.”
And, opening her eyes, she found herself in a country lane.
A benevolent-looking little old gentleman, dressed in knee breeches and
wearing a huge broad-brimmed hat, was holding her wrist with one hand,
while in the other he held a toy watch.
Dumpsey Deazil was floating rapidly away in the distance, frantically
waving her arms and screaming out in an agonised voice,—
“I told you not to open your eyes until you had got to one hundred!”
[Illustration:
“DUMPSEY DEAZIL WAS FLOATING RAPIDLY AWAY.”
]
Girlie watched her disappear over the hedge, and then turned in dismay
to the little old gentleman, who was still holding her hand and beaming
upon her with a reassuring smile.
“Your friend was taking you through the air rather too quickly to be
good for your health, so I thought that I had better stop you,” he said.
“Well, then, I think it was very rude of you,” said Girlie, who felt
greatly alarmed at having lost Dumpsey Deazil. “I don’t know, I am sure,
however I am going to get home again now,” she continued, feeling half
inclined to cry.
“Excuse me, you should never say ‘_I don’t know_,’” said the old
gentleman. “It is a very bad plan. If you really do not know anything,
you should always pretend that you do. I invariably do so, and I ought
to know, for I am the Wallypug’s Doctor-in-law.”
“Oh! Who _is_ the Wallypug, please?” asked Girlie curiously, “and I’m
afraid I don’t know what a doctor-in-law is, either.”
“One question at a time, my child,” said the old gentleman. “Who the
Wallypug is you will soon find out for yourself; and a doctor-in-law is
something between a father-in-law and a step-father, a sort of
half-a-stepfather, in fact. That will be six-and-eightpence, please,”
and the Doctor-in-law held out his hand with a smile.
“What for?” exclaimed Girlie.
“Professional advice,” said the Doctor-in-law blandly.
“What advice?” asked Girlie; “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Didn’t I _advise_ you never to say, ‘I don’t know’?” explained the
Doctor-in-law.
“But I didn’t ask you to give me any advice at all,” cried Girlie in
dismay.
“Oh! if I waited till people _asked_ me for advice I should never get
any clients!” said the Doctor-in-law; “and you might as well give me the
other guinea at the same time,” he continued.
“What other guinea? What _do_ you mean?” asked Girlie.
“The guinea for professional attendance when you first arrived here,”
said the Doctor-in-law. “I always charge a guinea for that.”
“But I didn’t want you to attend to me,” said Girlie indignantly. “I
wish you hadn’t.”
“If I waited till people _wanted_ me to attend to them I should get no
patients,” admitted the Doctor-in-law; “so I always attend to people
when I think they require it, whether they wish me to do so, or not. I
must really insist on the fee, please. Let’s see, that will be three
pounds seven altogether, won’t it?” he continued, making a calculation
in his pocket-book.
“Certainly not!” said Girlie; “how can you make that out?”
“Well, you see, if you add them together they come to about that,” said
the Doctor-in-law.
“I am sure they don’t,” cried Girlie.
“It’s very rude to contradict your elders,” remarked the Doctor-in-law
severely. “I am surprised at you. Give me the money at once, please.”
“But I have no money with me,” said Girlie, getting rather frightened.
“Dear me, this is very serious,” said the old gentleman, looking
genuinely grieved. “Do you really mean to tell me,” he continued, “that
you are travelling about the country without any money at all in your
pocket?”
“Yes,” said Girlie. “You see, I didn’t know that I was coming here, or
that I should require any.”
“Oh! that’s an absurd excuse, my dear,” said the Doctor-in-law. “But
what’s that in your hand?” he continued, staring at her right hand.
Girlie opened it, and found a crumpled piece of paper in it, though how
it came there she could never tell. Smoothing it out, she found it to be
a kind of money-order with the words, “Please to pay the bearer the sum
of five pounds. Signed, THE WALLYPUG,” written on it.
“Oh! a Wallypug order for five pounds; that will do very nicely,” said
the Doctor-in-law, taking it from her and putting it into his pocket.
“And now you will only owe me the odd sixpence,” he said.
“What odd sixpence?” asked Girlie. “I don’t remember anything about a
sixpence.”
“Well,” said the Doctor-in-law, “if you don’t remember it, _it’s very
odd_, therefore it must be an odd sixpence; don’t you see, my dear?” and
he held out his hand again.
“But I’ve already given you five pounds instead of three pounds seven,”
said Girlie, getting hopelessly muddled.
“Well, my dear, don’t let _that_ worry you in the least,” said the
Doctor-in-law kindly; “I’ll overlook it this time, and, if you can’t
find the sixpence, I don’t mind taking your watch instead. I see that
you have a very pretty one.”
“I think it’s very unkind and greedy of you, then!” said Girlie, turning
very red and feeling greatly frightened; for her watch had been given to
her by her aunt, and she was allowed to wear it only now and then as a
great treat.
“Not at all, my dear; you don’t look at these things in the right
light,” said the Doctor-in-law. “Don’t you see that, if you can’t pay me
the money, it is only fair that you should give me your watch?”
“But it is worth a great deal more than sixpence,” argued Girlie.
“Not at all!” said the Doctor-in-law, flourishing his watch about at the
end of the chain. “Mine only cost a penny.”
“Yes, but yours doesn’t go,” objected Girlie; “mine does, you know.”
“Does what?” asked the Doctor-in-law.
“Go!” said Girlie.
“Oh, well, then, I don’t want it,” said the Doctor-in-law hurriedly. “I
don’t want a watch that will _go_, I want one that will stay. Why, if my
watch was to _go_, I should always have to be going after it! and,
talking about going, I must be off or I shall be late for the Wallypug.
You can pay me the half-crown when we meet again.” And, with a nod and a
smile, the little old gentleman pocketed his watch and hurried off.
“Oh! if you please!” cried Girlie, running after him, “could you direct
me to——”
“Can’t stop!” interrupted the Doctor-in-law; “my time is far too
valuable, and besides, you have no money.” And walking rapidly away, he
got over a stile and disappeared into a field beyond.
“Oh dear me! whatever _shall_ I do now?” thought poor Girlie, looking
about her in dismay.
There was nobody in sight, so she decided to sit down on the bank and
wait until some one came past who would direct her to somewhere or
other.
“For I haven’t the remotest idea where I am,” she thought. “I don’t even
know how many miles I am from home. I wonder,” she went on, “how many
miles one can travel through the air while you count eighty-five. I
suppose it depends upon how quickly you are travelling. Perhaps I could
make a sum of it and do it by rule of three. Let’s see! If it takes one
girl one minute to count sixty, how many miles can a girl and a doll
travel through the air while you count eighty-five? I suppose you have
to multiply the minutes by the miles, and divide by the number of
people,” she thought; and was so very busy trying to _do this sum in her
head_, as she described it, that she did not notice a young man walking
down the lane, till he had nearly reached her.
Girlie could scarcely keep from laughing when she first saw him, for he
looked such a _very_ comical person; he had long hair, and wore glasses,
and carried his hands dangling in front of him. (“For all the world like
a kangaroo,” thought Girlie.)
He came and sat down quite close to her, and after staring at her for
some time, smiled in a patronising kind of way.
[Illustration:
“HE LOOKED SUCH A VERY COMICAL PERSON.”
]
“Don’t you think me very handsome?” he said at last.
“Well, I am afraid not,” stammered Girlie, who did not like to hurt his
feelings by telling him what she really did think about him.
“Dear me! then your eyes must be seen to, decidedly,” said the young
man. “Why, you must be nearly blind not to see that I am very, _very_
beautiful; and I am a very _important_ person, too,” he continued
impressively.
“Are you really?” asked Girlie, who could scarcely keep serious.
“Yes, I am a very superior individual indeed. I am the King’s Minstrel,
enormously rich, and I am going to marry the Wallypug’s niece. I
_compose_ better than any one else in the world.”
“Really!” said Girlie. “What do you compose?”
“Draughts,” said the King’s Minstrel. “Of course you have heard of
composing draughts.”
“Yes,” said Girlie. “They are things to send you to sleep, aren’t they?”
“Sometimes,” said the King’s Minstrel. “Mine keep you awake, though, and
that’s why they are so much better than anybody else’s.”
“Isn’t it very difficult to compose?” asked Girlie.
“Yes; it requires a great brain like mine to do it properly,” replied
the King’s Minstrel conceitedly. “Would you like to hear my latest
composition?” he asked.
“Yes, please,” said Girlie, folding her hands in her lap and preparing
to listen.
The King’s Minstrel took a roll of music from under his arm and, after
coughing importantly, began to sing in a very harsh and discordant
voice—
“‘Won’t you walk into my parlour?’ said the spider to the fly,
How I wonder what you are, up above the world so high.
‘I’m going a-milking, sir,’ she said,
And when she got there the poor dog was dead.
“Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie,
Gin a body, kiss a body, need a body cry.
Humpty-dumpty sat on a wall,
And if I don’t hurt her she’ll do me no harm.”
“There! isn’t it lovely?” he asked when he had finished.
“Why, it’s perfect _nonsense_!” cried Girlie; “it’s just a lot of
separate lines from nursery rhymes all strung together; and, besides,
there’s no sense in it,” she added.
“That shows you don’t know anything at all about it,” said the King’s
Minstrel contemptuously. “Any respectable person knows that there never
_should_ be any sense in really good poetry; the less you are able to
understand it the better it is; and it wouldn’t be a composition,” he
went on, “if it wasn’t _composed_ of several bits of other poems. The
great thing is to get it to rhyme. You see this all rhymes beautifully.”
“I’m sure the last two lines don’t!” said Girlie decidedly.
“Oh!” said the King’s Minstrel, looking rather confused, “you see, you
have to pronounce ‘_harm_’ as near like ‘_wall_’ as you can; you often
have to do that in poetry, you know. Besides, people always pardon
little slips of that kind in really clever people, like myself.
Good-bye! You _may_ have the honour of meeting me again later,” he
continued, preparing to go.
“Oh, I was going to ask you,” cried Girlie hurriedly, “whether you could
kindly direct me to Why, or tell me the way to get home again.”
“I beg your pardon, but I make it a point _never_ to do anything useful.
I am purely _ornamental_,” said the King’s Minstrel, bowing politely and
then strutting away with a conceited air, leaving Girlie once more alone
in the lane.
------------------------------------------------------------------------