IT IS REQUESTED THAT ANY WANT OF ATTENTION
BY THE
COMPANY’S THUMBLERS AND CHAINDROPPERS
BE REPORTED TO
THIS BOARD.
_Be fair to Pickpockets._
PORTERS ARE CAUTIONED
NOT
TO SHOW CIVILITY TO PASSENGERS ON ANY
PRETENCE WHATEVER.
INFRINGEMENT OF THIS RULE
WILL BE PRECEDED BY
INSTANT DISMISSAL.
[Sidenote: POLITICAL PLATFORM.]
[Sidenote: MAN-TRAPS.]
[Sidenote: WAYWARD.]
[Illustration]
The great clock, instead of using his hands to show the hours, kept
putting them to his nose at everybody that looked at him, and the big
station-bell stuck out his tongue most impudently. The mess that took
place on the platform was extraordinary—one point which Blunderland
railroads have in common with common ones. The porters were tremendously
busy picking their teeth and discussing the affairs of the nation, and
smiled blandly to those who asked them to do anything. When at last they
did move, their proceedings were of the strangest. One took hold of a
lady and dragged her along the platform, singing out, “Whose baggage
is this?” Another seized two fashionable young ladies, put them on his
truck, and accosting an old dowager, asked, “Are these your traps, mum?”
A third picked up two children by the legs, swung them over his shoulder,
and asked their father, “Shall I put the small things inside the cab,
sir?” The boys, seeing what a mess things were in, ran off to get out of
the station as fast as they could, for they heard the station-master say
that he thought they were lost luggage, and had better be locked up.
They made first for a large placard marked “THE WAY OUT,” with a hand
pointing on it, but found that it led into a stone wall.
[Sidenote: ALL A BOARD.]
[Illustration]
“Everything seems to go by contrary here,” said Norval; “let us take
the direction that seems least likely.” So seeing a placard marked “No
passage this way,” they went straight down the archway opposite it, and
found themselves outside the station at once, and in a broad roadway.
The foot-pavement was in the middle of the street, and the road on either
side of it next the houses, which would have been very inconvenient had
it not been that, as in Blundertown things are quite different from
other towns, the roadway was beautifully clean. On the opposite side of
the street from the station there was a building which, from its grand
proportions and ornamental style, the boys thought must be a palace. As
they stood looking at it, a black board, such as they had often seen
used at school for writing sums on, made its appearance at the door and
gravely walked down the steps. The board had two arms, one hand grasping
a pointer, and the other a piece of chalk and a towel. It came forward,
walking very clumsily with its wooden feet, and the whole appearance was
so ridiculous that the boys could not help laughing. The board seemed to
see this somehow, raised his piece of chalk and wrote on himself,
“_Do you know who I am?_”
[Sidenote: SELF-IMPORTANT FRAME.]
The boys confessed they did not. The board raised the hand with the towel
and wiped himself, and then wrote,
[Illustration]
“_I am the School Board_,”
pointing to the words with a grand sweep of the stick, as much as to say,
“What do you think of that?” They were not at all overawed by this great
announcement, and the ridiculous flourish of the pointer made them look
at one another and laugh again. At this the board looked blacker than
ever, and angrily wiping himself wrote,
“_You must make a bow to the board_.”
[Sidenote: SPLITTING WITH LAUGHTER.]
“Oh, all right!” said Jaques; and they all made a low mock bow, shaking
with laughter. When they raised their heads after bowing, they saw that
the board was wiped again, and that it wrote,
“_If you do that you will break me_.”
“How can laughing break you?” said Norval.
“_Solvuntur risu tabulæ._
_Boards are broken with laughter._—
_Free translation._”
wrote the board.
“Well, then, we won’t any more,” said Norval; and they all kept down
their laughter as well as they could.
[Sidenote: THE MEAN QUANTITY.]
“That is kind,” wrote the board. “We too often have splits in our School
Boards; but as you have stopped, I feel sound again.”
“Feel sound! surely you can’t do that; hear it, you mean,” said Jaques.
_Board._—“You mean what? Finish your sentence. Boards are generally
thought extravagant, and not mean.”
_Jaques._—“I don’t mean you’re mean. I mean you mean——”
_Board._—“If you are doing a verb, it is—
I mean. Thou meanest.
_not_
I mean. You mean.”
_Jaques._—“But I did not intend to say that you were mean or meanest;
indeed I didn’t.”
_Board._—“You said mean, didn’t you?”
_Jaques._—“Yes.”
_Board._—“And you did mean to say mean.”
_Jaques._—“Yes; but——”
_Board._—“Stop. You did mean mean when you said mean.”
_Jaques._—“Yes, but I didn’t mean——”
[Sidenote: WHINE FROM THE WOOD.]
_Board._—“Stop. If you did mean mean, how can you say that you didn’t
mean?”
_Jaques._—“But when I say mean, I don’t mean the mean that you mean. You
mean mean something; it’s unfair.”
_Board._—“Not by any manner of means. You need not put on an indignant
mien in addition to all the other means.”
_Jaques._—“But I mean to say that I did not mean to say the mean that you
mean, when you say mean, but did mean the mean that isn’t mean.”
_Board._—“Take care, young man; you will become a hopeless prodigal if
you don’t look better after your means.”
How long this kind of thing might have gone on it is impossible to tell;
but it was put an end to by a little boy coming out of the school, and
taking the School Board by the ear, saying—
“What are you idling your time here for, sir? be off into school at once.”
“Oh dear, sir! please, sir,” whined the board, as he piped, or rather
pipeclayed, his eye, “I won’t do it any more, sir. Let me off this time,
sir; ah, you might, sir!”
[Sidenote: PRATING AND RATING.]
The boy let the board go, and it immediately walked its chalks into
school, wiping its eyes with the towel. He then turned to our heroes, and
said politely—
“These School Boards are a perfect nuisance, what with the power of
rating they have got, and the power of prating they assume, things are
coming to a pretty pass.”
In this our heroes thoroughly agreed with him.
“Perhaps you would like to step in and see our mode of tuition.”
They were quite proud at the idea of being treated as visitors, like the
grown-up ladies and gentlemen who came to their own school, and said they
would like it very much, so the boy led the way to the building.