“Discharge!”
and gallantly going at the head of his men on his crutches, shouted
“Victory!” After they were brought to a stand at one end of the ground,
he gave the order—
“Stand a tease!”
Upon this the Brown Bessies turned round upon the men and began to plague
them most horribly, pulling their hair, poking fingers into their ears,
and pricking them with pins. The men stood it for some time wonderfully,
but at last began to bawl out.
[Sidenote: LOOK TO YOUR DRESSING.]
[Illustration]
“No bawl practice without my orders!” shouted the Colonel; and then
tremendously loud—
“ALL DRESS!”
Everybody immediately stopped. The Brown Bessies at once produced combs
and brushes, and commenced a vigorous hair-dressing, and the men began
putting on white kid-gloves.
“What is the meaning of that?” said Ranulf.
[Sidenote: PRESTO! CHANGE!]
“Preparing for ball practice,” said the Colonel. “In our tactics we go in
for leading the enemy a pretty dance. That’s far the best way.”
“Change ranks!”
he shouted. The boys could not afterwards make out how it had happened,
but the Colonel had scarcely given this order when, instead of being
on the dull, dingy parade-ground, they stood on a most lovely floor
that seemed all to be made of ivory inlaid with gold. The Brown Bessies
were brown no longer, but fair ladies beautifully dressed; the men were
in splendid costumes; the band had no triangles, but discoursed most
lovely music. The boys, looking round, saw they were in an immense hall,
lighted by ten thousand wax candles; and as all the walls were mirror,
the brilliant scene repeated itself as far as the eye could see, and
probably further. But the most beautiful thing of all was, that when
the ladies and gentlemen began to dance, instead of bouncing about in a
crowd, bumping and knocking one another, each couple floated from the
ground, gliding along in the air smoothly and gracefully; and as the
music rose and fell, fast and then slow, they flew, now in joyous bounds,
now gracefully circling in soft dreamy waves, now whirling with birdlike
speed, anon wafted along like a gossamer borne on the almost motionless
air of a summer day; the measure having always such grace and ease in its
fury, such firm-swept curve in its calm, that the little fellows stood
gazing in rapt delight.
[Sidenote: SOMETHING LIKE DANCING.]
When the dance was over, half the mirrors on the walls folded back,
moved by unseen hands, and the ladies and gentlemen strolled out to a
lovely terrace, rich with flowers of every hue, where fountains threw
water in sparkling diamonds to the sun. As each couple emerged from the
building, a flower that grew on the parterre detached a lovely blossom,
which, floating in the air towards them, growing ever larger and larger,
moved wherever they turned their steps, shading them from the sun, and
surrounding them with its perfume. Strange, too, that it did not appear
to be matter of chance which flower performed formed this friendly
office, for the blossom that floated over the heads of each pair that
roamed the garden, was always of a colour harmonising admirably with
the costume beneath. A couple dressed in pale blue were attended by a
primrose; two that wore green had a lovely snow-white lily for their
shade; a third pair, who were in white, rejoiced in the protection of a
scarlet geranium; and a fourth, in a pearly grey, had a most delicate
pink blossom for their attendant.
[Sidenote: HARMONY OF COLOURS.]
It was a lovely sight, but small boys soon get tired of the beautiful
unless there is some fun going; so after our trio had gazed for a time on
the people with their varied dresses, they began to long for something
more exciting. Looking about, they saw at one end of the lawn a large
gateway, and started off at a run to see whither it led. On getting near
the gate, they observed a funny little man sitting on the arch above it,
who, the moment they came up, said, “Put them down.”
“We don’t carry anything,” said Norval.
[Sidenote: WHAT’S HE UP TO.]
“Yes you do, though,” said the little man. “What names do you bear?”
[Illustration]
The boys told him, at which he gave a triumphant sniff, and said, “If
you bear names, look at your dictionary and see what bear means. My
dictionary says it means carry. Don’t carry them any longer; put them
down.”
“What is he up to?” said Jaques, bewildered.
“Up to the top of the door, don’t you see, stoopid?” said the little man.
“Sometimes I’m up to anything, but just at present I’m only up to the top
of a door. Why do you make me a contradiction of myself?”
“But we don’t,” said Norval.
[Sidenote: DOWN, DOWN, DERRY DOWN.]
“Oh yes, you do. Here I am up at the top of the door, and yet you make me
be down upon you at the same time. It’s very inconvenient to be put in
two places at once; so don’t do it again, that’s all.”
“But you can’t be in two situations at once,” said Jaques.
“But I say you can,” said the little man, “and more than two. You can
be in the heat of an argument, in the middle of a cold audience, in the
wrong box, and in the hope of getting out of it, and in a great mistake
in thinking so, all at once. So once more I say, put them down.”
“But what are we to put down, and where are we to put them, whatever they
may be?” said Norval.
“Didn’t I say your names (everybody visiting towers should put down their
names)? and where would you think of putting names down but in a book, I
should like to know?” said the little man.
“But where is the book?” said Jaques; “I don’t see any.”
“Oh, most ill-informed little boy! in the visitors’ book, to be sure.”
[Sidenote: WRITING UP THE BOOKS.]
“But where is it?”
“You know that best. Surely you know where your own book is?”
“But you said the visitors’ book.”
“Well, and are you not a visitor? so if you put it down in your book it
will be in the visitor’s book, won’t it?”
This seemed to be nothing short of downright nonsense to the boys; but
to please the little man, they took out their pocket-books, and gravely
wrote their own names in them.
“Now, let me see,” said the little man, producing a pair of spectacles
with eyes as big as saucers.
They held up their books, and the little man took a glance through his
spectacles. The moment he saw the writing he gave a start of surprise and
disgust, and nearly tumbled off his perch.
“Woe is me!” he exclaimed, wringing his hands. “Is this the effect of
Education Acts and School Boards? Why, they are upside up, when I told
you it was down they were to be.”
[Sidenote: ON THE KEY VIVE.]
“But they are down in the book,” said Norval.
“No,” said the little man, sorrowfully, “they are not even that. They
are up at the very top of the page, all of them. Oh dear! it upsets me
completely,” he added, as, bending down, he raised his legs in the air
and stood upon his head.
“Ah, now,” he said, “it is all right! they are down now. You see if I
were standing on ceremony I could not have let you pass, but standing on
my head heals up the difficulty. It’s a pate-nt way of my own. Now you
may pass on.”
“But the gate is not open,” said Jaques.
“Well, open it,” said the little man.
“But we have not got a key.”
“Well, then, if you have not got A key, try the key of B.”
Jaques looked puzzled, and said, “I don’t understand.”
[Sidenote: STACCATO PASSAGE.]
“There,” said the little man, pointing to a rope attached to the bolt of
the gate—“you’re A flat; B E sharp now, and C what F-ect ten or a dozen
treble G-erks applied altogether to the bar at the base there may have
in the D-velopment of a passage.”
This speech made the boys look at one another, and laugh. “Well,” said
the little man, “passages generally do open with a chord seem funny as it
may; so just try.”
At this, Norval seized the rope, and, tugging it vigorously, the gate
swung slowly on its hinges.
“Ah! what lovely opening bars!” cried the little man, beating time with
one leg; “there never was a passage better done on the P an’ O.”
The remark may be made here, in passing, that a match against time with
both legs is common, but to beat time with one leg! extraordinary feat!!!
The passage must have been very legato, or it could not have been done.
When the gate was fully open, the boys all said, “Thank you.”
“Oh, never mind thanking me; it’s been a case of stuck-at-a passage long
enough; get through it in treble quick time, and be happy.”
[Sidenote: THE TALK OF THE HOUSE.]
No second bidding was needed, and the little fellows, running through the
gateway, found themselves in a courtyard in which stood a high tower,
whose stones looked like transparent green glass, and the lines between
them as if raspberry-jam had been used for lime.
After looking at it for a few moments, Jaques exclaimed, “I wonder what
the tower is for?”
“Nothing at all at present, thank you; I’m not ’ungry,” replied a _forte_
voice, in somewhat stony accents.
“Why, it can speak,” cried Jaques, quite astonished.
“Of course I can. If ’ouses may talk, why should not I?”
“But houses don’t talk,” said Ranulf.
[Sidenote: BIGGARLY ARGUMENTS.]
“’Ouses don’t talk, don’t they? Ha, ha, ha!” shouted the tower, till its
sides shook so that the boys were afraid it would tumble, and its tiers
would have fallen, only they had not the cheek to run down. “Ha, ha, ha,
ha! So you think ’ouses can’t talk. Now I’ve ’eard it said they talk too
much. Look at the ’Ouse of Commons, and you’ll see that you never made a
Biggar mistake; it seems to do nothing but talk.”
“Ah, but,” said Jaques, “that’s different; it’s not a great high stone
thing, like you.”
“Not stone, and not ’igh! Is that all you know? Isn’t a glad stone always
getting up in it, and ain’t the dizzy ’ights at the top? But I shan’t
talk to you hany more.”
“Why not, please?” said Jaques, timidly.
“Why not! you are not a purpose, nor a heffect, nor a hend,—are you?”
“No,” said Jaques.
“Then I shan’t talk to you. When I talk I always talk to some purpose, or
to some heffect, or to some hend. I like the last best. Give me some hend
to talk to, and I’ll talk no hend.”
“Some end of what?” asked Norval; “is it the end of a stick, or a cigar,
or what?”
“Oh, to the hend of time, or hanything. Make a hend of yourself, and you
will see how I’ll talk to you then.”
[Sidenote: FORTITER.]
The boys did not quite see that to be the talk of a tower was a
sufficient temptation to suicide, so remained silent.
“Well, I’m glad, at all hevents, you’ve made a bend of something; making
a hend of speaking is better than making a hend of nothing. Now that
you’ve made a hend, I can talk to it, if you will promise that the bend
will attend to the hend, that the bend in view may in the bend be brought
to a hend, and that——”
“Why,” said Norval, interrupting, “I beg your pardon, but you said you
would talk no end, and it seems to me it is all end together.”
[Sidenote: REVIEWING EXTRAORDINARY.]
At this the tower completely forgot itself, indeed went off into a
towering passion, and stormed away for ever so long. Some people may
think that it is strange a tower should storm itself, instead of being
stormed; but the fact was that its mortar being ill tempered, it exploded
spontaneously. The way in which a tower flies into a passion is very
difficult to describe, and it will not be attempted here. Suffice it to
say, that of course it used its wings. Its rage was so great as to make
it speechless, which, from the rubbish it had been talking on end before,
was just as well, for though it kept on end, it did so silently. The boys
began to walk round it, and on getting to the other side, they found a
very low door, over which was a large placard:—
VISITORS
WHO HAVE
NO VIEWS OF THEIR OWN
WILL FIND SOME
AT THE TOP OF THIS TOWER.
_Those who change their views charged extra._
FRAMES OF MIND FOR THE VIEWS MAY BE HAD
AT MODERATE PRICES.
ADMISSION FREE.
ON WHOLEYDAYS HALF-PRICE.