II. Any one caught dropping an aitch on the public sidewalks will
be fined two dollars.
III. Aitches dropped by accident must be picked up to once
immediately and without delay.
IV. All aitches found roaming about the city streets unaccompanied
by their owners will be promptly arrested by the pleece and kept
in the public pound until called for after which they will be
burnt, and the person calling for them fined two dollars.
V. All persons whether they be a pleeceman or a Dook or other
nobil personidges seeing a strange aitch lying on the sidewalk, or
otherwise roaming at random without any visible owner whether it
is his or not must pick it up to once immediately and without
delay under penalty of the law.
VI. Capital H's must be muzzled before took out in public and must
be securely fastened by glue or otherwise to the words they are
the beginning of.
VII. Anybody tripping up on the aitch of another person thus
carelessly left lying about can sue for damages and get two
dollars for a broken leg, five dollars for a broken nose, seven
dollars and a half for a black eye, and so on up, from the person
leaving the aitch thus carelessly about, or a year's imprisonment,
or both.
VIII. A second offense will be punished by being sent to South
Africa for five years when if the habit is continued more severe
means will be taken like being made to live in Boston or some
other icebound spot.
IX. School teachers catching children using aitches in this manner
will keep them in after school and notify their parents who will
spank them and send them to bed without their supper.
X. Pleecemen will report all aitches found on public streets to
the public persecutor and will be paid at the rate of six cents a
million for all they pick up.
I think if your madjesty will have these rules and regulations
printed on a blue pasteboard card in big red letters and hung up
all over everywhere you will be able, your h. r. h., to unbait
this terrible nuisance.
Yoors trooly,
THE UNWISEMAN.
P.S. It may happen, your h. r. h., that some of your subjex can't
help themselves in this aitch dropping habit, and it would
therefore be mercyful of you to provide letter boxes on all the
street cornders where they could drop their aitches into without
breaking the rules of your high and mighty highness.
Give my love to the roil family.
Yoors trooly,
THE UNWISEMAN.
"There," he said when he had scribbled the letter off with his lead
pencil. "If the King can only read that it ought to make him much
obliged to me for helping him out of a very bad box. This Island ain't
so big, map or no map, that they can afford to have it smothered in
aitches as it surely will be if the habit ain't put a stop to. I wonder
what the King's address is."
"I don't know," said Whistlebinkie with a grin. "He and I ain't never
called on each other yet."
"Is King his last name or his first, I wonder," said the Unwiseman,
scratching his head wonderingly.
"His first name is Edward," said Mollie. "It used to be Albert Edward,
but he dropped the Albert."
"Edward what?" demanded the Unwiseman. "Don't they call him Edward
Seventh?"
"Yes they do," said Mollie.
"Then I guess I'll address it to Edward S. King, Esquire, Number Seven,
London--that's where all the kings live when they're home," said the
Unwiseman.
And so the letter went addressed to Edward S. King, Esquire, Number
Seven, London, England, but whether His Majesty ever received it or not
I do not know. Certainly if he did he never answered it, and that makes
me feel that he never received it, for the King of England is known as
the First Gentleman of Europe, and I am quite sure that one who deserves
so fine a title as that would not leave a polite letter like the
Unwiseman's unanswered. Mollie's father was very much impressed when he
heard of the Unwiseman's communication.
"I shouldn't be surprised if the King made him a Duke, for that," he
said. "It is an act of the highest statesmanship to devise so simple a
plan to correct so widespread an evil. If the Unwiseman were only an
Englishman he might even become Prime Minister."
"No," said the Unwiseman later, when Mollie told him what her father had
said. "He couldn't make me Prime Minister because I haven't ever studied
zoology and couldn't preach a sermon or even take up a collection
properly, but as for being a Duke--well if he asked me as a special
favor I might accept that. The Duke of Me--how would that sound,
Mollie?"
"Oh it would be perfectly beautiful!" cried Mollie overwhelmed by the
very thought of anything so grand.
"Or Baron Brains--eh?" continued the Unwiseman.
"That would just suit you," giggled Whistlebinkie. "Barren Brains is you
all over."
"Thank you, Fizzledinkie," said the Unwiseman. "For once I quite agree
with you. I guess I'll call on some tailor up in London and see what it
would cost me to buy a Duke's uniform so's to be ready when the King
sends for me. It would be fine to walk into his office with a linen
duster on and have him say, 'From this time on Mister Me you're a Duke.
Go out and get dressed for tea,' and then turn around three times, bow
to the Queen, whisk off the duster and stand there in the roil presence
with the Duke's uniform already on. I guess he'd say that was American
enterprise all right."
"You'd make a hit for sure!" roared Whistlebinkie dancing up and down
with glee.
"I'll do it!" ejaculated the Unwiseman with a look of determination in
his eyes. "If I can get a ready-made Duke's suit for $8.50 I'll do it.
Even if it never happened I could wear the suit to do my gardening in
when I get home. Did your father say anything about this being England
or not?"
"Yes," said Mollie. "He said it was England all right. He's been here
before and he says you can always tell it by the soldiers walking around
with little pint measures on their heads instead of hats, and little
boys in beaver hats with no tails to their coats."
"All right," said the Unwiseman. "I'm satisfied if he is--only the man
that got up that map ought to be spoken to about making it pink when it
is only a dull yellow dusty gray, and only four inches long instead of
five miles. Some stranger trying to find it in the dark some night might
stumble over it and never know that he'd got what he was looking for.
Where are we going to from here?"
"We're going straight up to London," said Mollie. "The train goes in an
hour--just after lunch. Will you come and have lunch with us?"
"No thank you," replied the Unwiseman. "I've got a half dozen lunches
saved up from the ship there in my carpet bag, and I'll eat a couple of
those if I get hungry."
"Saved up from the ship?" cried Mollie.
"Yep," said the Unwiseman. "I've got a bottle full of that chicken broth
they gave us the first day out that I didn't even try to eat; six or
seven bottlefuls of beef tea, and about two dozen ginger-snaps, eight
pounds of hard-tack, and a couple of apple pies. I kept ordering things
all the way across whether I felt like eating them or not and whatever I
didn't eat I'd bottle up, or wrap up in a piece of paper and put away in
the bag. I've got just three dinners, two breakfasts and four lunches in
there. When I get to London I'm going to buy a bunch of bananas and have
an eclaire put up in a tin box and those with what I've already got
ought to last me throughout the whole trip."
"By the way, Mr. Me," said Mollie, a thoughtful look coming into her
eyes. "Do you want me to ask my Papa to buy you a ticket for London? I
think he'd do it if I asked him."
"I know he would," said Whistlebinkie. "He's one of the greatest men in
the world for doing what Mollie asks him to."
"No thank you," replied the Unwiseman. "Of course if he had invited me
to join the party at the start I might have been willing to have went at
his expense, but seeing as how I sort of came along on my own hook I
think I'd better look after myself. I'm an American, I am, and I kind of
like to be free and independent like."
"Have you any money with you?" asked Mollie anxiously.
"No," laughed the Unwiseman. "That is, not more'n enough to buy that
Duke's suit for $8.50 with. What's the use of having money? It's only a
nuisance to carry around, and it makes you buy a lot of things you don't
want just because you happen to have it along. People without money get
along a great deal cheaper than people with it. Millionaires spend twice
as much as poor people. Money ain't very sociable you know and it sort
of hates to stay with you no matter how kind you are to it. So I didn't
bring any along except the aforesaid eight-fifty."
"Tisn't much, is it," said Mollie.
"Not in dollars, but it's a lot in cents--eight hundred and fifty of
'em--that's a good deal," said the Unwiseman cheerfully. "Then each cent
is ten mills--that's--O dear me--such a lot of mills!"
"Eight thousand five hundred," Mollie calculated.
"Goodness!" cried the Unwiseman. "I hope there don't anybody find out
I've got all that with me. I'd be afraid to go to sleep for fear
somebody'd rob me."
"But _how_--how are you going to get to London?" asked Mollie anxiously.
"It's too far to walk."
"O I'll get there," said the Unwiseman.
"He'll probably get a hitch on the cow-catcher," suggested
Whistlebinkie.
"Don't you worry," laughed the Unwiseman. "It'll be all right, only--"
here he paused and looked about him to make sure that no one was
listening. "Only," he whispered, "I wish somebody would carry my
carpet-bag. It's a pretty big one as you can see, and I _might_--I don't
say I would--but I might have trouble getting to London if I had to
carry it."
"I'll be very glad to take care of it," said Mollie. "Should I have it
checked or take it with me in the train?"
"Better take it with you," said the Unwiseman. "I haven't any key and
some of these railway people might open it and eat up all my supplies."
"Very well," said Mollie. "I'll see that it's put in the train and I
won't take my eyes off it all the way up to London."
So the little party went up to the hotel. The Unwiseman's carpet-bag was
placed with the other luggage, and the family went in to luncheon
leaving the Unwiseman to his own devices. When they came out the old
fellow was nowhere to be seen and Mollie, much worried about him boarded
the train. Her father helped her with the carpet-bag, the train-door was
closed, the conductor came for the tickets and with a loud clanging of
bells the train started for London. It was an interesting trip but poor
little Mollie did not enjoy it very much. She was so worried to think
of the Unwiseman all alone in England trying some new patent way of his
own for getting over so many miles from Liverpool to the capital of the
British Empire.
"We didn't even tell him the name of our hotel, Whistlebinkie," she
whispered to her companion. "How will he ever find us again in this big
place."
"O-he'll-turn-up orright," whistled Whistlebinkie comfortingly. "He
knows a thing or two even if he is an Unwiseman."
And as it turned out Whistlebinkie was right, for about three minutes
after their arrival at the London hotel, when the carpet-bag had been
set carefully aside in one corner of Mollie's room, the cracked voice of
the Unwiseman was heard singing:
"O a carpet-bag is more comfortabler
Than a regular Pullman Car.
Just climb inside and with never a stir,
Let no one know where you are;
And then when the train goes choo-choo-choo
And the ticket man comes arown,
You'll go without cost and a whizz straight through
To jolly old London-town.
To jolly, to jolly, to jolly, to jolly, to jolly old London-town."
"Hi there, Mollie--press the latch on this carpet-bag!" the voice
continued.
"Where are you?" cried Mollie, gazing excitedly about her.
"In here," came the voice from the cavernous depths of the carpet-bag.
"In the bag," gasped Mollie, breathless with surprise.
"_The_ same--let me out," replied the Unwiseman.
And sure enough, when Mollie and Whistlebinkie with a mad rush sped to
the carpet-bag and pressed on the sliding lock, the bag flew open and
Mr. Me himself hopped smilingly up out of its wide-stretched jaws.