BACK AGAIN AT WHY.
KIS-SMEE was overjoyed to get out of the train, and eagerly strained at
the chain which his Majesty had affixed to his collar, in his endeavor
to get through the barrier.
The porter, however, who pretended not to know us, demanded our tickets.
“It’s all right,” said his Majesty, smilingly. “I’m the Wallypug, you
know.”
“Nonsense,” said the porter. “The Wallypug was ugly enough, goodness
knows, but he hadn’t a _blue_ face like you; besides, Wallypug or no
Wallypug, you don’t get through here without a ticket, I can tell you.”
Here was a pretty pickle. We had not thought in the least about
tickets, and in fact had no idea that any would be required.
“I certainly shan’t let you pass the barrier without,” said the porter,
in answer to our explanations.
“But what are we to do?” asked the Wallypug. “Can’t we pay at this end?”
“Certainly not. My instructions are to demand a ticket of every one
passing this barrier, and unless you give me one you cannot go through.”
“But I tell you we haven’t any. Can’t you tell us what to do?”
“Go back for them, I should say,” said the porter, yawning
unconcernedly. “Now then, one thing or another. Are you going to give
me the tickets or not?”
“How can we give them to you if we haven’t any?” demanded the Wallypug.
The porter slammed the door to impatiently, and went a little way up
the platform, turning around to call out warningly, “If we find any
suspicious-looking characters hanging about the station premises we
shoot them.”
[Illustration: THE PORTER DEMANDED OUR TICKETS.]
“What nonsense!” cried the Wallypug, rattling and kicking the gate.
“We can’t stop here all day. Let’s call the station-master. Hi! hi!
station-master!” he shouted.
No one answered for a few minutes, but eventually a door some little
distance up the platform opened, and the old station-master made his
appearance, puffing and blowing, and followed by the porter, carrying a
huge blunderbuss.
“Now then, what’s all this noise about?” he demanded.
“We want to get out, if you please,” said the Wallypug.
“Where are your tickets,” demanded the station-master.
“We are very sorry,” I began in explanation.
“Hold your tongue, and speak when you are spoken to,” interrupted the
station-master.
“Where are your tickets?”
“They haven’t any,” explained the porter officiously. “They are trying
to defraud the company.”
“H’m, funny-looking lot of people, too,” remarked the station-master.
“Who are they, do you know?”
“That,” said the porter, pointing to his Majesty, “says he is the
Wallypug.”
“What! _that_ color!” objected the station-master. “The Wallypug!
Indeed, what nonsense!”
“But, indeed, I am the Wallypug,” declared his Majesty, “and we turned
this color after we drank the tea, you know.”
“Turned blue through drinking tea!” said the station-master
incredulously.
“Ha! ha! a _likely_ story,” laughed the porter derisively.
“Perhaps it will wear off in time,” said the Wallypug, “like being
sunburnt does.”
“Very well then, you had better stop here till it does,” said the
station-master. “Look here!” he cried, turning to the porter, “you stop
here at the barrier, and don’t let them through until they have turned
a respectable color, and you can recognize them.”
“But it may take weeks,” began his Majesty.
“Hold your tongue!” said the station-master sharply. “If you have any
nonsense with them, shoot them,” he added to the porter, depositing the
blunderbuss beside the barrier, and going back to the other end of the
platform.
Whatever we should have done I cannot think, if just at that moment the
porter’s wife had not put her head out of the signal-box and called to
him to “come in at once and mind the baby,” while she “did a little
shopping.”
“But he’s on duty, ma’am,” expostulated the station-master.
“I don’t care anything about _that;_ you come in at once, Bill,”
shouted the woman, and the porter meekly left the barrier and
disappeared within the signal-box.
Of course we all rushed through the gate at once, and the
station-master catching sight of Kis-Smee, who had meanwhile slipped
his chain, fled up the platform in dismay.
Kis-Smee, evidently thinking him fair game, started off in pursuit,
and it was not till the station-master had bolted into his office and
locked the door that we could get him to come back to our call.
[Illustration: FLED UP THE PLATFORM IN DISMAY.]
So soon as we got into the street we met the Turtle and the Pelican,
walking arm-in-arm, and each smoking a cigarette.
“Hullo, Wallypug!” exclaimed the Pelican. “Why, we thought you were at
Wei-hai-wei.”
“Wer-har-wei, you mean,” laughed his Majesty.
“It’s all the same,” announced the Pelican. “Well, how have you been
getting on?”
His Majesty explained as briefly as possible the adventures we had
passed through, and then inquired how affairs were progressing at Why.
“Oh, not very well, I’m afraid,” said the Pelican. “You see, there
has been no one to take the lead since you’ve been away. We tried a
Republican form of government, and elected Oom-Hi as president, but he
became so extravagant—wanted a new top-hat every day, and insisted on
a gilded coach to ride in; and at last we caught him tampering with the
public funds, so we had to dismiss him. Have you heard about Broncho?”
“No,” said his Majesty.
“Well, it didn’t answer as a cough mixture, so Oom-Hi turned it into a
patent meat extract, and called it Vimbril, and it killed ever so many
people.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed the Wallypug, anxiously. “Any one I know?”
“Madame and a few other folk,” was the reply; “and the Doctor-in-Law is
not expected to recover.”
“Good gracious! Why, we thought them at the other end of the world.
However did they get back to Why again?”
“Oh, they sent us a cablegram when they got to China, and we let down
an enormously long rope and pulled them up the shute again, you know.
But it was a very long journey, and they had nothing to eat on the
way. So as soon as we hauled them up we gave them each a large dose of
Vimbril. Madame expired at once,” he added, with a sob.
The tears were streaming down the Turtle’s nose as he sympathetically
joined in the Pelican’s weeping.
“What about the Doctor-in-Law?” inquired his Majesty, solicitously.
“Oh, he has a very strong constitution, you know, and he may pull
through. We’ve got him back at the palace in his old quarters.”
“Poor fellow! Poor fellow!” said the Wallypug, sympathetically. “Let’s
go and see what we can do for him.”
I thought this very kind of his Majesty, considering all he had
suffered through the Doctor-in-Law’s ingratitude; but the good-hearted
little fellow was full of sympathy, and hurried towards the palace with
all speed.