"Hurry up and finish your breakfast, Whistlebinkie," said Mollie the
next morning after their return from abroad. "I want to run around to
the Unwiseman's House and see if everything is all right. I'm just crazy
to know how the burglar left the house."
"I-mall-ready," whistled Whistlebinkie. "I-yain't-very-ungry."
"Lost your appetite?" asked Mollie eyeing him anxiously, for she was a
motherly little girl and took excellent care of all her playthings.
"Yep," said Whistlebinkie. "I always do lose my appetite after eating
three plates of oat-meal, four chops, five rolls, six buckwheat cakes
and a couple of bananas."
"Mercy! How do you hold it all, Whistlebinkie?" said Mollie.
"Oh--I'm made o'rubber and my stummick is very 'lastic," explained
Whistlebinkie.
So hand in hand the little couple made off down the road to the
pleasant spot where the Unwiseman's house stood, and there in the front
yard was the old gentleman himself talking to his beloved boulder, and
patting it gently as he did so.
[Illustration: "I'M NEVER GOING TO LEAVE YOU AGAIN, BOLDY," HE WAS
SAYING]
"I'm never going to leave you again, Boldy," he was saying to the rock
as Mollie and Whistlebinkie came up. "It is true that the Rock of
Gibraltar is bigger and broader and more terrible to look at than you
are but when it comes right down to business it isn't any harder or to
my eyes any prettier. You are still my favorite rock, Boldy dear, so you
needn't be jealous." And the old gentleman bent over and kissed the
boulder softly.
"Good morning," said Mollie, leaning over the fence. "Whistlebinkie and
I have come down to see if everything is all right. I hope the
kitchen-stove is well?"
"Well the house is here, and all the bric-a-brac, and the leak has grown
a bit upon the ceiling, and the kitchen-stove is all right thank you,
but I'm afraid that old burgular has run off with my umbrella," said the
Unwiseman. "I can't find a trace of it anywhere."
"You don't really think he has stolen it do you?" asked Mollie.
"I don't know what to think," said the Unwiseman, shaking his head
gravely. "He had first class references, that burgular had, and claimed
to have done all the burguling for the very nicest people in the country
for the last two years, but these are the facts. He's gone and the
umbrella's gone too. I suppose in the burgular's trade like in
everything else you some times run across one who isn't as honest as he
ought to be. Occasionally you'll find a burgular who'll take things that
don't belong to him and it may be that this fellow that took my house
was one of that kind--but you never can tell. It isn't fair to judge a
man by disappearances, and it is just possible that the umbrella got
away from him in a heavy storm. It was a skittish sort of a creature
anyhow and sometimes I've had all I could do in windy weather to keep it
from running away myself. What do you think of my sign?"
"I don't see any sign," said Mollie, looking all around in search of the
object. "Where is it?"
"O I forgot," laughed the old gentleman gaily. "It's around on the other
side of the house--come on around and see it."
The callers walked quickly around to the rear of the Unwiseman's house,
and there, hanging over the kitchen door, was a long piece of board upon
which the Unwiseman had painted in very crooked black letters the
following words:
THE BRITISH MUSEUM JUNIOR
Admishun ten cents. Exit fifteen cents.
Burgulars one umbrella.
THE FINEST COLECTION OF ALPS AND SOFORTHS ON EARTH.
CHILDREN AND RUBER DOLLS FREE ON SATIDYS.
"Dear me--how interesting," said Mollie, as she read this remarkable
legend, "but--what does it mean?"
"It means that I've started a British Museum over here," said the
Unwiseman, "only mine is going to be useful, instead of merely
ornamental like that one over in London. For twenty-five cents a man can
get a whole European trip in my Museum without getting on board of a
steamer. I only charge ten cents to come in so as to get people to
come, and I charge fifteen cents to get out so as to make 'em stay until
they have seen all there is to be seen. People get awfully tired
travelling abroad, I find, and if you make it too easy for them to run
back home they'll go without finishing their trip. I charge burgulars
one umbrella to get in so that if my burgular comes back he'll have to
make good my loss, or stay out."
"Why do you let children and rubber dolls in free?" asked Mollie,
reading the sign over a second time.
"I wrote that rule to cover you and old Squizzledinkie here," said the
old gentleman, with a kindly smile at his little guests. "Although it
really wasn't necessary because I don't charge any admission to people
who come in the front door and you could always come in that way. That's
the entrance to my home. The back-door I charge for because it's the
entrance to my museum, don't you see?"
"Clear as a blue china alley," said Whistlebinkie.
"Come in and see the exhibit," said the Unwiseman proudly.
And then as Mollie and Whistlebinkie entered the house their eyes fell
upon what was indeed the most marvellous collection of interesting
objects they had ever seen. All about the parlor were ranged row upon
row of bottles, large and small, each bearing a label describing its
contents, with here and there mysterious boxes, and broken tumblers and
all sorts of other odd things that the Unwiseman had brought home in his
carpet-bag.
"Bottle number one," said he, pointing to the object with a cane, "is
filled with Atlantic Ocean--real genuine briny deep--bottled it myself
and so I know there's nothing bogus about it. Number two which looks
empty, but really ain't, is full of air from the coast of Ireland,
caught three miles out from Queenstown by yours trooly, Mr. Me. Number
three, full of dust and small pebbles, is genuine British soil gathered
in London the day they put me out of the Museum. 'Tain't much to look
at, is it?" he added.
"Nothin' extra," said Whistlebinkie, inspecting it with a critical air
after the manner of one who was an expert in soils.
"Not compared to American soil anyhow," said the Unwiseman. "This hard
cake in the tin box is a 'Muffin by Special Appointment to the King,'"
he went on with a broad grin. "I went in and bought one after we had our
rumpus in the bake-shop, just for the purpose of bringing it over here
and showing the American people how vain and empty roilty has become. It
is not a noble looking object to my eyes."
"Mine neither," whistled Whistlebinkie. "It looks rather stale."
"Yes," said the Unwiseman. "And that's the only roil thing about it.
Passing along rapidly we come soon to a bottleful of the British
Channel," he resumed. "In order to get the full effect of that very
conceited body of water you want to shake it violently. That gives you
some idea of how the water works. It's tame enough now that I've got it
bottled but in its native lair it is fierce. You will see the
instructions on the bottle."
Sure enough the bottle was labeled as the Unwiseman said with full
instructions as to how it must be used.
"Shake for fifteen minutes until it is all roiled up and swells around
inside the bottle like a tidal wave," the instructions read. "You will
then get a small idea of how this disagreeable body of water behaves
itself in the presence of trusting strangers."
"Here is my bottle of French soil," said the Unwiseman, passing on to
the next object. "It doesn't look very different from English soil but
it's French all right, as you would see for yourself if it tried to
talk. I scooped it up myself in Paris. There's the book--French in Five
Lessons--too. That I call 'The French Language,' which shows people who
visit this museum what a funny tongue it is. That pill box full of sand
is a part of the Swiss frontier and the small piece of gravel next to it
is a piece of an Alp chipped off Mount Blanc by myself, so that I know
it is genuine. It will give the man who has never visited
Swaz--well--that country, a small idea of what an Alp looks like and
will correct the notion in some people's minds that an Alp is a wild
animal with a long hairy tail and the manners of a lion. The next two
bottles contain all that is left of a snow-ball I gathered in at
Chamouny, and a chip of the Mer de Glace glazier. They've both melted
since I bottled them, but I'll have them frozen up again all right when
winter comes, so there's no harm done."
"What's this piece of broken china on the table?" asked Mollie.
"That is a fragment of a Parisian butter saucer," said the Unwiseman.
"One of the waiters fell down stairs with somebody's breakfast at our
hotel in Paris one morning while we were there," he explained, "and I
rescued that from the debris. It is a perfect specimen of a broken
French butter dish."
"I don't think it's very interesting," said Mollie.
"Well to tell you the truth, I don't either, but you've got to remember,
my dear, that this is a British Museum and the one over in London is
chuck full of broken china, old butter plates and coffee cups from all
over everywhere, and I don't want people who care for that sort of thing
to be disappointed with my museum when they come here. Take that plaster
statue of Cupid that I bought in Venice--I only got that to please
people who care for statuary."
"Where is it?" asked Mollie, searching the room with her eye for the
Cupid.
"I've spread it out through the Museum so as to make it look more like a
collection," said the Unwiseman. "I got a tack-hammer as soon as I got
home last night and fixed it up. There's an arm over on the
mantel-piece. His chest and left leg are there on top of the piano,
while his other arm with his left ear and right leg are in the kitchen.
I haven't found places for his stummick and what's left of his head yet,
but I will before the crowd begins to arrive."
"Why Mr. Me!" protested Mollie, as she gazed mournfully upon the scraps
of the broken Cupid. "You didn't really smash up that pretty little
statue?"
"I'm afraid I did, Mollie," said the Unwiseman sadly. "I hated to do it,
but this is a Museum my dear, and when you go into the museum business
you've to do it according to the rules. One of the rules seems to be 'No
admission to Unbusted Statuary,' and I've acted accordingly. I don't
want to deceive anybody and if I gave even to my kitchen-stove the idea
that these first class museums over in Europe have anything but
fractures in them----"
"Fragments, isn't it?" suggested Mollie.
"It's all the same," said the Unwiseman, "Fractures or fragments, there
isn't a complete statue anywhere in any museum that I ever saw, and in
educating my kitchen-stove in Art I'm going to follow the lead of the
experts."
"Well I don't see the use of it," sighed Mollie, for she had admired the
pretty little plaster Cupid very much indeed.
"No more do I, Mollie dear," said the Unwiseman, "but rules are rules
and we've got to obey them. This is the Grand Canal at Venice," he added
holding up a bottle full of dark green water in order to change the
subject. "And here is what I call a Hoople-fish from the Adriatic."
"What on earth is a Hoople-fish?" cried Mollie with a roar of laughter
as she gazed upon the object to which the Unwiseman referred, an old
water soaked strip of shingley wood.
"It is the barrel hoop I caught that day I went fishing from the hotel
balcony," explained the Unwiseman. "I wish I'd kept the artist's straw
hat I landed at the same time for a Hat-fish to complete my collection
of Strange Shad From Venice, but of course that was impossible. The
artist seemed to want it himself and as he had first claim to it I
didn't press the matter. The barrel-hoop will serve however to warn
Americans who want to go salmon fishing on the Grand Canal just what
kind of queer things they'll catch if they have any luck at all."
"What's this?" asked Whistlebinkie, peering into a little tin pepper pot
that appeared to contain nothing but sand.
"You must handle that very carefully," said the Unwiseman, taking it in
one hand, and shaking some of the sand out of it into the palm of the
other. "That is the birth-place of Christopher Columbus, otherwise the
soil of Genoa. I brought home about a pail-ful of it, and I'm going to
have it put up in forty-seven little bottles to send around to people
that would appreciate having it. One of 'em is to go to the President to
be kept on the White House mantel-piece in memory of Columbus, and the
rest of them I shall distribute to the biggest Museums in each one of
the United States. I don't think any State in the Union should be
without a bottle of Columbus birth-place, in view of all that he did for
this country by discovering it. There wouldn't have been any States at
all of it hadn't been for him, and it strikes me that is a very simple
and touching way of showing our gratitude."
"Perfectly fine!" cried Mollie enthusiastically. "I don't believe
there's another collection like this anywhere in all the world, do you?"
she added, sweeping the room with an eye full of wondering admiration
for the genius that had gathered all these marvellous things together.
"No--I really don't," said the Unwiseman. "And just think what a fine
thing it will be for people who can't afford to travel," he went on.
"For twenty-five cents they can come here and see everything we
saw--except a few bogus kings and things like that that ain't really
worth seeing--from the French language down to the Venetian Hoople-fish,
from an Alp and a Glazier to a Specially Appointed Muffin to the King
and Columbus's birth-place. I really think I shall have to advertise it
in the newspapers. A Trip Abroad Without Leaving Home, All for a
Quarter, at the Unwiseman's Museum. Alps a Specialty."
"Here's a couple of empty bottles," said Whistlebinkie, who had been
snooping curiously about the room.
"Yes," said the Unwiseman. "I've more than that. I'm sorry to say that
some of my exhibits have faded away. The first one was filled with
London fog, and as you remember I lost that when the cork flew out the
day they dejected me from the British Museum. That other bottle when I
put the cork in it contained a view of Gibraltar and the African Coast
through the port-hole of the steamer, but it's all faded out, just as
the bird's-eye view of the horizon out in the middle of the ocean that I
had in a little pill bottle did. There are certain things you can't keep
even in bottles--but I shall show the Gibraltar bottle just the same. A
bottle of that size that once contained that big piece of rock and the
African Coast to boot, is a wonderful thing in itself."
In which belief Mollie and Whistlebinkie unanimously agreed.
"Was the kitchen-stove glad to see you back?" asked Whistlebinkie.
"Well--it didn't say very much," said the Unwiseman, with an
affectionate glance out into the kitchen, "but when I filled it up with
coal, and started the fire going, it was more than cordial. Indeed
before the evening was over it got so very warm that I had to open the
parlor windows to cool it off."
"It's pretty nice to be home again, isn't it," said Mollie.
"Nice?" echoed the old gentleman. "I can just tell you, Miss Mollie
Whistlebinkie, that the finest thing I've seen since I left home, finer
than all the oceans in the world, more beautiful than all the Englands
in creation, sweeter than all the Frances on the map, lovelier than any
Alp that ever poked its nose against the sky, dearer than all the
Venices afloat--the greatest, most welcome sight that ever greeted my
eyes was my own brass front door knob holding itself out there in the
twilight of yesterday to welcome me home and twinkling in the fading
light of day like a house afire as if to show it was glad to see me
back. That's why the minute I came into the yard I took off my hat and
knelt down before that old brass knob and kissed it."
The old man's voice shook just a little as he spoke, and a small
teardrop gathered and glistened in a corner of his eye--but it was a
tear of joy and content, not of sorrow.
"And then when I turned the knob and opened the door," he went on,
"well--talk about your Palaces with all their magnificent shiny floors
and gorgeous gold framed mirrors and hall-bedrooms as big as the Madison
Square Garden--they couldn't compare to this old parlor of mine with the
piano over on one side of the room, the refrigerator in the other, the
leak beaming down from the ceiling, and my kitchen-stove peeking in
through the door and sort of keeping an eye on things generally. And not
a picture in all that 9643 miles of paint at the Loover can hold a
candle to my beloved old Washington Crossing the Delaware over my
mantel-piece, with the British bombarding him with snow-balls and the
river filled to the brim with ice-bergs--no sirree! And best of all,
nobody around to leave their aitches all over the place for somebody
else to pick up, or any French language to take a pretty little bird and
turn it into a wazzoh, or to turn a good honest hard boiled egg into an
oof, but everybody from Me myself down to the kitchen-stove using the
good old American language whenever we have something to say and holding
our tongues in the same when we haven't."
"Hooray for us!" cried Whistlebinkie, dancing with glee.
"That's what I say," said the Unwiseman. "America's good enough for me
and I'm glad I'm back."
"Well I feel the same way," said Mollie. "I liked Europe very much
indeed but somehow or other I like America best."
"And for a very good reason," said the Unwiseman.
"What?" asked Mollie.
"Because it's Home," said the Unwiseman.
"I guess-thassit," said Whistlebinkie.
"Well don't guess again, Fizzledinkie," said the Unwiseman, "because
that's the answer, and if you guessed again you might get it wrong."
And so it was that Mollie and the Unwiseman and Whistlebinkie finished
their trip abroad, and returned better pleased with Home than they had
ever been before, which indeed is one of the greatest benefits any of us
get out of a trip to Europe, for after all that fine old poet was right
when he said:
"East or West
Home is best."
In closing I think I ought to say that the Unwiseman's umbrella turned
up in good order the next morning, and where do you suppose?
Why up on the roof where the kind-hearted burglar had placed it to
protect the Unwiseman's leak from the rain!
So he seems to have been a pretty honest old burglar after all.