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[Illustration: _The Old Tobacco Shop_
_By William Bowen_]
The Old Tobacco Shop
Also By
WILLIAM BOWEN
The Enchanted Forest
The Old Tobacco Shop
[Illustration: "Lord bless us!" cried the hunch back. "Look at that!"]
_The Old Tobacco Shop_
_A True Account of What Befell
a Little Boy in Search
of Adventure_
_By
William Bowen_
_Though you believe it not, I care not much: but an honest man, and
of good judgment, believeth still what is told him, and that which
he finds written._--RABELAIS.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1921
_All rights reserved_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COPYRIGHT, 1921
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and Electrotyped. Published October, 1921
FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY
NEW YORK
To
BILLY AND JOHN
TWO LITTLE BOYS
PRINCIPAL PERSONS
Freddie
Mr. Toby
Aunt Amanda
Mr. Punch
The Churchwarden
Mr. Hanlon
The Sly Old Fox
The Old Codger with the Wooden Leg
Mr. Lemuel Mizzen
The Cabin-Boy
Marmaduke
Captain Lingo
Ketch the Practitioner
The Third Vice-President
Mr. Matthew Speak
Shiraz the Rug-Merchant
The King and Queen
Robert, Jenny, and James
Mr. Punch's Father
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. "Lord bless us!" cried the hunch back. "Look at that!" Frontispiece
2. "I'm Lemuel Mizzen, A.B., that's me!" 50
3. "L-l-Lem!" shrieked the parrot. "Who's your f-f-f-friends?" 86
4. Mr. Hanlon was standing on his feet by the log on
which his head had been cut off 134
5. Shiraz the Rug-Merchant looked at his visitors
with little beady black eyes 188
6. "Ah, yes," said Aunt Amanda, "there's no place like
the Old Tobacco Shop after all" 235
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Mr. Punch and the Clock-Tower 1
II. Aunt Amanda and the Two Old Codgers 9
III. Introducing the Churchwarden 22
IV. In which Mr. Hanlon makes a Great Impression 31
V. The Chinaman's Head 39
VI. Lemuel Mizzen, A.B. 48
VII. The Hands of the Clock come Together 54
VIII. Celluloid Cuffs and a Silk Hat 60
IX. The Odour of Sanctity 65
X. Captain Higginson and the Spanish Main 69
XI. A Mixed Company in search of Adventure 74
XII. The Voyage of the Sieve 81
XIII. The Cabin-Boy's Revenge 93
XIV. The Cruise of the Mattresses 107
XV. A Fall in the Dark 111
XVI. Captain Lingo and a Fine Piece of Head-Work 122
XVII. High Dudgeon and Low Dudgeon 139
XVIII. The Society for Piratical Research 146
XIX. A Knock at the Door 160
XX. The City of Towers 171
XXI. Shiraz the Rug-Merchant 178
XXII. Six Enchanted Souls 187
XXIII. From the Fire Back to the Frying-Pan 196
XXIV. Disenchantment Complete 200
XXV. The Old Man of the Mountain 209
XXVI. The King's Tower 216
XXVII. The Sorcerer's Den 222
XXVIII. The Old Tobacco Shop 231
THE OLD TOBACCO SHOP
CHAPTER I
MR. PUNCH AND THE CLOCK-TOWER
When the Little Boy first went to the Old Tobacco Shop, he stood a long
while before going in, to look at the wooden figure which stood beside
the door.
His father was sitting at home in his carpet-slippers, waiting for
tobacco for his pipe, but when the Little Boy saw the wooden figure he
forgot all about hurrying,--"Now don't be long," his mother had said,
and his father had said "Hurry back,"--but he forgot all about hurrying,
and stood and looked at the wooden figure a long time: a little
hunchbacked man, not so very much taller than himself, on a low wooden
box, holding out in one hand a packet of black wooden cigars. His back
was terribly humped up between his shoulders, his face was square and
bony, if wood can be said to be bony, he was bareheaded and bald-headed,
he had a wide mouth, and his high nose curved down over it and his
pointed chin curved up under it; and his breast stuck out in front
almost as much as his shoulders stuck out behind.
The Little Boy's name was Freddie; his mother called him that, and his
father usually called him Fred; but sometimes his father called him
Frederick, in fact whenever he didn't come back after he had been told
to hurry, and then his father looked at him--you know that look--and
said "Frederick!" just like that. But his mother never called him
anything but Freddie, even when he was late.
He grasped his money tight in his hand, as he had been told to do, and
stood and looked at the little hunchbacked wooden man holding out his
packet of black wooden cigars. "I wonder," thought Freddie, "what makes
him so crooked?" He walked around him and looked at his back. He walked
around in front of him again and wondered if the black cigars in his
hand would smoke; he decided he would ask about it. The little man wore
blue knee breeches and black stockings and buckled shoes, and his coat
was cut away in front over his stomach and had two tails behind, down to
his knees. It was easy to see that he wasn't a boy, though, even if he
did wear knee breeches; you only had to look at his face, for he had the
kind of hard boniness in his face that grown-ups have. Freddie made up
his mind that he liked him, anyway; and it must have been hard to have
to stand out there all day without moving, rain or shine, and offer that
bunch of cigars to all the people who went by, and never get a single
soul to take them. Freddie put out his other hand (not the one with the
money in it) towards the cigars, but he quickly drew it back, for he
looked at the little man's face at the same time, and there was
something about his eyes--anyhow, he stood back a little.
"Better be careful o' Mr. Punch, young feller," said a deep voice from
the shop door.
Freddie looked, and in the doorway, leaning against the doorpost, with
his hands in his trousers' pockets, and one foot crossed over the
other, stood a little man, not so very much taller than himself, and
certainly no taller than the figure on the stand, who stared at Freddie
as if he knew all about human boys and did not trust them out of his
sight. Freddie looked at him and then at the wooden figure beside the
door; they might have been brothers. The little man had a hump on his
back, and his breast stuck out in front; his head was big and square,
and he had high cheek-bones; his face was bony and his mouth wide, and
his big nose curved down and his chin curved up; but he did not wear
knee breeches; his trousers were the trousers of grown-ups, and his coat
was a square coat, buttoned tight over his chest from top to bottom. He
was bareheaded, and he had plenty of hair, brushed from the top of his
head down towards his forehead. He looked as if he belonged to the
tobacco shop; or perhaps the tobacco shop belonged to him.
He stared at Freddie without blinking, and there was something in his
eyes--anyway, Freddie stepped back, and held his money tighter in his
hand behind him.
"You'd _better_ stand away from Mr. Punch," said the hunchbacked man,
without moving.
"Yes, sir," said Freddie.
"Did you say 'why'? Because you know I'm terrible deef, and can't never
hear boys when they talk down in their stomicks. I'll _tell_ you why, as
long as you ast me. Do you see that clock on the church-tower over
there?" He nodded his big wooden head up the street, without taking his
hands from his pockets. Freddie looked, and there the clock was, plain
enough. "Well," said the hunchbacked man, "I'll tell you, seeing as you
insist upon it, and won't take no for an answer: but you mustn't never
tell it to no one. Do you promise me that? Cross your heart?"
"Yes, sir," said Freddie.
"Done," said the hunchback. "Mr. Punch's father lives up there behind
that clock. And sometimes, just exactly when the two hands of that clock
come together, one on top of the other, mind you, like you lay one stick
along another, Mr. Punch's father comes out and stands on that there
sill under the clock; he's a little old man with a long white beard; and
he stands there and puts his hand to his mouth and calls down here to
Mr. Punch, and Mr. Punch climbs down off his little perch and goes over
to that church, and climbs up the inside of that tower to the very top
and meets his father! And I've heard tell that they have regular high
jinks up there all by theirselves, and vittles! more vittles and drink
than you ever seen at one time; yes, sir; a regular feast, as sure as
you're born; and they don't only eat vittles; no, sir; if they can only
get hold of a nice plump little boy or two, with plenty o' meat to him,
that's what they like best; and if it happens to be night-time, there's
a lot of queer ones with 'em up there, and all sorts of queer
noises--you ask the sextant over there about it--_he's_ heard 'em; and
if you should just happen to be around when Mr. Punch climbs down off of
this here perch, you'd better look out; for he's just as likely as not
to snatch you up and carry you off with him up there into that
church-tower to his father, and if he does _that_, that's the last of
you; and your ma and your pa could cry their eyes out, and it wouldn't
be no use; you'd be _gone_! And never come back no more. They say
there's many a boy been took up into that tower by Mr. Punch here when
his father comes out and calls him. But he don't _always_ come out when
the hands of the clock come together; nobody ever knows when he's going
to do it, no sirree; Mr. Punch himself never knows when his father's
going to call him. Lord bless us!" cried the little hunchback, looking
up again in alarm at the clock in the church-tower. "Lord bless us,
look at that!"
Freddie stared at the clock. It was twenty-five minutes past five. He
knew how to tell twelve o'clock and ten minutes to ten, but he had never
got as far as twenty-five minutes past five; he could easily see,
however, that the big hand was almost on top of the little hand. He
edged away further from the wooden figure on the box; he was almost sure
that the hand which held the cigars moved a little.
The hunchbacked man in the doorway stood up straight on his two feet and
took his hands out of his pockets.
"Look alive, young feller!" he said. "It's pretty near time! In another
minute! I can't help it if Mr. Punch's father comes out and--Quick, boy!
Come here to me, before it's too late! I'll see if I can save you!"
Freddie gave another look at the clock; the hands were surely almost
together, and quick as a flash he darted to the hunchback and hid behind
him and held on to his coat, peeping around him through the doorway. The
little man put his arm about Freddie and held him close; it was a strong
muscular arm, and Freddie felt quite safe. The little man could not have
been laughing, for his face was as solemn and wooden-looking as ever;
but Freddie could feel his body shaking all over, he couldn't tell why.
"You'd better come in and see Aunt Amanda," he said, "before it's too
late. You'll be safe in there."
He took Freddie by the hand and drew him into the shop.
The Old Tobacco Shop stands at the corner of two streets, as you surely
must know if you have ever been in the city that lies on the river
called Patapsco, which runs along ever so far out of a great bay where
ships sail from all over the world, called Chesapeake Bay. It is an old
brick house, and you go into the shop by the door that opens in the side
just round the corner, not in the front, for there isn't any door at the
front, but only a window with pipes and cigars and tobacco in it, and
the stuffed head of a bull-dog with a pipe in his mouth. The house is
only one story and a half high, and has a steep gabled roof, with two
dormer windows in the slope of the roof above the side of the house, and
one dormer window in the slope of the roof above the shop-window in
front, where the bull-dog is. All the other houses fronting in the row
are good high two-story houses; why this corner house never grew up like
the others, no one knows.
When Freddie was standing at the corner of the street, before he had
seen the wooden figure offering his bundle of wooden cigars there beside
the door, he looked down the street that runs along the side of the
shop, across the street that crosses it, and saw the masts of tall ships
in the harbor beside the wharves; some with their sails up, some with
their sails hanging most untidily, and some with their sails neatly
rolled up and tied; and he would certainly have gone down there, only
his father had told him to hurry.
Freddie lived in a fine two-story brick house in a row like this one, a
long, long way off; three squares off (they say "squares" in that city
when they mean a straight line between two streets and not a square at
all) down the same street on which the Old Tobacco Shop fronts; and it
really takes a good while to go all that way, for there is a boy
half-way down, a big boy, who belongs to a Gang, and likes to bully
little boys, and you have to watch your chance to get out of his way,
and there is a place with a knot-hole in the fence where you can see all
kinds of rusty springs and bed-rails and birdcages and barrel hoops
piled up inside the yard, and a tin-can factory where you can pick up
little round pieces of tin just as good as dollars, and a church (where
the clock is) with a fat old man sitting on the pavement in a chair
tilted back against the church wall smoking a long pipe, who doesn't
mind being stared at from the curbstone, and a street-car track where
you have to look out for the horse-car, which is very dangerous when the
horse begins to trot, and--but Freddie hadn't lived long in his fine
two-story house in that street, and these things were new to him and
took time. But the newest and biggest thing he had yet found (not that
it was really big, you know) was the wooden hunchback outside the door
of the Old Tobacco Shop; and you have seen how much time _that_ took.
Freddie found himself inside the shop, and his hand grasped tight by the
big strong hand of the hunchback, so tight that he wriggled a little to
get loose; but the hunchback only held him tighter. "Come along," he
said, "you'd better come in here and see my Aunt Amanda, or Mr. Punch
may step out and get you; and _then_ where would you be?"
Freddie looked back out of doors over his shoulder, but it did not seem
as if Mr. Punch meant to step out that time. He breathed easier. The
shop was a very little shop, with shelves on the wall behind the
counter, and a window in front where he saw the back of the bull-dog's
head. The two show-cases on the counter were full of pipes of all kinds,
and cigars and tobacco and cigarettes, and piled on the shelves were
boxes of cigars and jars and tins of tobacco, and on the wooden top of
the counter between the two show-cases stood a tobacco-cutter and a
little pair of scales with a scoop lying beside it and little iron
weights in a box. The counter ran from the front window lengthwise to
the back of the shop, and at the back, on your left as you went in, was
a closed door. A wooden chair with arms stood beside the front window.
You could get behind the counter only by a swinging gate at the back
end. There was a delightful warm odour about the place, very much the
same odour Freddie liked to smell when his father opened his old
tobacco-box on the mantel-piece in the sitting-room upstairs and filled
his pipe, when he came home in the evening and put on his
carpet-slippers and spread out that everlasting newspaper that had no
pictures in it. He never could understand why his mother opened all the
windows the next morning.
"All right, young feller," said the hunchback, "we'll get on the other
side of that door, and then we'll be safe. Here we are."
They reached the door at the back of the shop, and the hunchback opened
it and pulled Freddie into the back room and closed the door behind
them. Freddie hung back a little, but his hand was gripped tight, and he
couldn't have got away if he had tugged with all his might. He was not
so much afraid now of Mr. Punch and his father, but he didn't know what
this little man was going to do with him; and besides, his father had
told him to hurry.
In this back room, near a window which looked out on the street, sat a
lady. The hunchback marched Freddie up to her and stopped there before
her, and wagged his head sidewise towards the Little Boy. The hunchback
and the Little Boy stood hand in hand, and the lady looked at them
steadily.