Please do not steal my kitchen stove. If you need a stove steal
something else like the telephone book or that empty bottle of
Woostershire Sauce standing on the parlor mantel-piece with the
daisy in it, and sell them to buy a new stove with the money. I've
had that stove for ten years and it has only just learned how to
cook and it would be very annoying to me to have to get a new one
and have to teach it how I like my potatoes done. You know the one
I mean. It's the only stove in the house, so you can't get it
mixed up with any other. If you do I shall persecute you to the
full extent of the law and have you arrested for petty parsimony
when I get back. If you find yourself strongly tempted to steal it
the best thing to do is to keep it red hot with a rousing fire on
its insides so that it will be easier for you to keep your hands
off.
Yours trooly,
THE UNWISEMAN.
P.S. Take the poker if you want to but leave the stove. It's a
wooden poker and not much good anyhow.
Yours trooly,
THE UNWISEMAN.
"There!" he said as he finished writing out the message. "I guess
that'll fix it all right."
"It-tortoo," whistled Whistlebinkie through the top of his hat.
"What?" said Mollie, severely.
"It-ought-to-fix-it," repeated Whistlebinkie.
And the Unwiseman ran up the deck to the wireless telegraph office. In a
moment he returned, his face full of joy.
"I guess I got the best of 'em that time!" he chortled gleefully. "What
do you suppose Mollie? They actually wanted me to pay twenty-one
dollars and sixty cents for that telegram. The very idea!"
"Phe-ee-ew!" whistled Whistlebinkie.
"Very far from few," retorted the Unwiseman. "It was many rather than
few and I told the man so. 'I can buy five new kitchen stoves for that
amount of money,' said I. 'I can't help that,' said the man. 'I guess
you can't,' said I. 'If you could the price o' kitchen stoves would go
up'."
"What did you do?" asked Mollie.
"I told him I was just as wireless as he was, and I tossed my message up
in the air and last time I saw it it was flying back to New York as
tight as it could go," said the Unwiseman. "I guess I can send a message
without wires as well as anybody else. It's a great load off my mind to
have it fixed, I can tell you," he added.
"What have you been doing with yourself since I saw you last, Mr. Me?"
asked Mollie, as her old friend seated himself on the foot-rest of her
steamer chair.
"O I've managed to keep busy," said the Unwiseman, gazing off at the
rolling waves.
Whistlebinkie laughed.
"See-zick?" he whistled.
"What me?" asked the Unwiseman. "Of course not--we sailors don't get
sea-sick like land-lubbers. No, sirree. I've been a little miserable due
to my having eaten something that didn't agree with me--I very foolishly
ate a piece of mince pie about five years ago--but except for that I've
been feeling first rate. For the most part I've been watching the screw
driver--they've got a big steam screw driver down-stairs in the cellar
that keeps the screws to their work, and I got so interested watching it
I've forgotten all about meals and things like that."
"Have you seen horrizon yet?" asked Whistlebinkie.
"Yes," returned the Unwiseman gloomily. "It's about the stupidest thing
you ever saw. See that long line over there where the sky comes down and
touches the water?"
"Yep," said Whistlebinkie.
"Well that's what they call the horrizon," said the Unwiseman
contemptuously. "It's nothin' but a big circle runnin' round and round
the scenery, day and night, now and forever. It won't go near anybody
and it won't let anybody go near it. I guess it's just about the most
unsociable fish that ever swam the sea. Speakin' about fish, what do you
say to trollin' for a whale this afternoon?"
"That would be fine!" cried Mollie. "Have you any tackle?"
"Oh my yes," replied the Unwiseman. "I've got a half a mile o' trout
line, a minnow hook and a plate full o' vermicelli."
"Vermicelli?" demanded Mollie.
"Yes--don't you know what Vermicelli is? It's sort of baby macaroni,"
explained the Unwiseman.
"What good is it for fishing?" asked Whistlebinkie.
"I don't know yet," said the Unwiseman "but between you and me I don't
believe if you baited a hook with it any ordinary fish who'd left his
eyeglasses on the mantel-piece at home could tell it from a worm. I
neglected to bring any worms along in my native land bottle, and I've
searched the ship high and low without finding a place where I could dig
for 'em, so I borrowed the vermicelli from the cook instead."
"Does-swales-like-woyms?" whistled Whistlebinkie.
"I don't know anything about swales," said the Unwiseman.
"I meant-twales," said Whistlebinkie.
"Never heard of a twale neither," retorted the Unwiseman. "Just what
sort of a rubber fish is a twale?"
"He means whales," Mollie explained.
"Why don't he say what he means then?" said the Unwiseman scornfully. "I
never knew such a feller for twisted talk. He ties a word up into a
double bow knot and expects everybody to know what he means right off
the handle. I don't know whether whales like vermicelli or not. Seems to
me though that a fish that could bite at a disagreeable customer like
Jonah would eat anything whether it was vermicelli or just plain
catterpiller."
"Well even if they did you couldn't pull 'em aboard with a trout line
anyhow," snapped Whistlebinkie. "Whales is too heavy for that."
"Who wants to pull 'em aboard, Smarty?" retorted the Unwiseman. "I leave
it to Mollie if I ever said I wanted to pull 'em aboard. Quite the
contrary opposite. I'd rather not pull a whale on board this boat and
have him flopping around all over the deck, smashing chairs and windows,
and knockin' people overboard with his tail, and spouting water all over
us like that busted fire-hose the firemen turned on me when I thought
I'd caught fire from my pipe."
"You did say you'd take us fishing for whales, Mr. Me," Mollie put in
timidly.
"That's a very different thing," protested the Unwiseman. "Fishin' for
whales is a nice gentle sport as long as you don't catch any. But of
course if you're going to take his side against me, why you needn't go."
And the Unwiseman rose up full of offended dignity and walked solemnly
away.
"Dear me!" sighed Mollie. "I'm so sorry he's angry."
"Nuvver-mind," whistled Whistlebinkie. "He won't stay mad long. He'll be
back in a little while with some more misinformation."
Whistlebinkie was right, for in five minutes the old gentleman returned
on the run.
"Hurry up, Mollie!" he cried. "The sailor up on the front piazza says
there's a school of Porpoises ahead. I'm going to ask 'em some
questions."
Mollie and Whistlebinkie sprang quickly from the steamer chairs and
hurried along after the Unwiseman.
"I've heard a lot about these Schools of Fish," the Unwiseman observed
as they all leaned over the rail together. "And I never believed there
was such a thing, because all the fish I ever saw were pretty
stupid--leastways there never were any of them could answer any of the
questions I put to 'em. That may have been because being out o' water
they were very uncomfortable and feelin' kind of stiff and bashful, but
out here it ought to be different and I'm going to examine 'em and see
what they're taught."
"Here they come!" cried Mollie, as a huge gathering of porpoises
plunging and tumbling over each other appeared under the lee of the
vessel. "My what a lot!"
"Hi there, Porpy!" shouted the Unwiseman. "Por-pee, come over here a
minute. What will seven times eight bananas divided by three mince pies
multiplied by eight cream cakes, subtracted from a Monkey with two tails
leave?"
The old man cocked his head to one side as if trying to hear the answer.
"Don't hear anything, do you?" he asked in a moment.
"Maybe they didn't hear you," suggested Mollie.
"Askem-something-geezier," whistled Whistlebinkie.
"Something easier?" sniffed the Unwiseman. "There couldn't be anything
easier than that. It will leave a very angry monkey. You just try to
subtract something from a monkey some time and you'll see. However it is
a long question so I'll give 'em another."
The old gentleman leaned forward again and addressing the splashing fish
once more called loudly out:
"If that other sum is too much for you perhaps some one of you can tell
me how many times seven divided by eleven is a cat with four kittens,"
he inquired.
Still there was no answer. The merry creatures of the sea were
apparently too busy jumping over each other and otherwise indulging in
playful pranks in the water.
"They're mighty weak on Arithmetic, that's sure," sneered the Unwiseman.
"I guess I'll try 'em on jography. Hi there, Porpee--you big black one
over there--where's Elmira, New York?"
The Porpoise turned a complete somersault in the air and disappeared
beneath the water.
"Little Jackass!" growled the Unwiseman. "Guess he hasn't been going to
school very long not to be able to say that Elmira, New York, is at
Elmira, New York. Maybe we'll have better luck with that deep blue
Porpoise over there. Hi-you-you blue Porpoise. What's the chief product
of the lunch counter at Poughkeepsie?"
Again the Unwise old head was cocked to one side to catch the answer but
all the blue porpoise did was to wiggle his tail in the air, as he
butted one of his brother porpoises in the stomach. The Unwiseman looked
at them with an angry glance.
"Well all I've got to say about you," he shouted, "is that your father
and mother are wasting their money sending you to school!"
To which one of the Porpoises seemed to reply by sticking his head up
out of the crest of a wave and sneezing at the Unwiseman.
"Haven't even learned good manners!" roared the old gentleman.
Whereupon the whole school indulged in a mighty scrimmage in the water
jumping over, under and upon each other and splashing the spray high in
the air until finally Whistlebinkie in his delight at the sight cried
out,
"I-guess-sitz-the-football-team!"
"I guess for once you're right, Whistlebinkie," cried the Unwiseman.
"And that accounts for their not knowing anything about 'rithmetic,
jography or Elmira. When a feller's a foot-ball player he don't seem to
care much for such higher education as the Poughkeepsie lunch counter,
or how many is five. I knew the boys were runnin' foot-ball into the
ground on land, but I never imagined the fish were running it into the
water at sea. Too bad--too bad."
And again the Unwiseman took himself off and was not seen again the rest
of the day. Nor did Mollie and Whistlebinkie see much of him for the
rest of the voyage for the old fellow suddenly got it into his head
that possibly there were a few undiscovered continents about, the first
sight of which would win for him all of the glory of a Christopher
Columbus, and in order to be unquestionably the very first to catch
sight of them, he climbed up to the top of the fore-mast and remained
there for two full days. Fortunately neither the Captain nor the
Bo'-sun's mate noticed what the old gentleman was doing or they would
have put him in irons not as a punishment but to protect him from his
own rash adventuring. And so it was that the Unwiseman was the first
person on board to catch a glimpse of the Irish Coast, the which he
announced with a loud cry of glee.
"Land ho--on the starboard tack!" he cried, and then he slid down the
mast-head and rushed madly down the deck crying joyfully, "I've
discovered a continent. Hurray for me. I've discovered a continent."
"Watcher-goin'-t'do-with it?" whistled Whistlebinkie.
"Depends on how big it is," said the Unwiseman dancing gleefully. "If
it's a great big one I'll write my name on it and leave it where it is,
but if it's only a little one I'll dig it up and take it home and add it
to my back yard."
But alas for the new Columbus! It soon turned out that his new discovery
was only Ireland which thousands, not to say millions, had discovered
long before he had, so that the glory which he thought he had won soon
faded away. But the old gentleman was very amiable about it after he got
over his first disappointment.
"I don't care," he confided to Mollie later on. "There isn't anything in
discovering continents anyway. Look at Columbus. He discovered America,
but somebody else came along and took it away from him and as far as I
can find out he don't even own an abandoned farm in the United States
to-day. So what's the good?"
"Thass-wat-I-say," whistled Whistlebinkie. "I wouldn't give seven cents
to discover all the continents there is. I'd ruther be a live rubber
doll than a dead dishcover anyhow."
Later in the afternoon when the ship had left Queenstown, Mollie found
the Unwiseman sitting in her steamer chair hidden behind a copy of the
London _Times_ which had been brought aboard, and strange to relate he
had it right-side up and was eagerly running through its massive
columns.
"Looking for more pollywogs?" the little girl asked.
"No," said the Unwiseman. "I'm trying to find the latest news from
America. I want to see if that burgular has stole my stove. So far there
don't seem to be anything about it here, so the chances are it's still
safe."
"Do you think they'd cable it across?" asked Mollie.
"What the stove?" demanded the Unwiseman. "You can't send a stove by
cable, stupid."
"No--the news," said Mollie. "It wouldn't be very important, would it?"
"It would be important to me," said the Unwiseman, "and inasmuch as I
bought and paid for their old paper I've got a right to expect 'em to
put the news I want in it. If they don't I'll sue 'em for damages and
buy a new stove with the money."
The next morning bright and early the little party landed in England.