The paper was folded and addressed to 'His Excellency the Liglid of
Ule,' and Tobene slipped it under the gate. Then the little party sat
down to wait. Old Alison took out her knitting, and as she worked, told
the others of her adventures in search of them. 'I had to come alone,'
she said: 'every one else was frightened.'
X
One hour passed, two hours, three hours, and then a flag of truce
appeared above the ramparts.
'Here, Mr. Flamp,' said Alison, 'get up and wave this in reply'; and she
gave her handkerchief to the Flamp.
He mounted slowly on his hind feet, and, stepping to the wall, waved the
handkerchief over it. A few minutes went by, and then the Liglid's
scared face appeared at a loophole. Seeing Tilsa, Tobene, and Alison
sitting comfortably in the shade cast by the Flamp's huge body, he
seemed to be reassured.
'Alison,' he called out, 'are those really the children?'
'No doubt of it, sir,' said Alison.
'Then wait a little longer,' said the Liglid as he vanished.
He went at once to the Council Chamber and summoned a meeting of the
wise men of Ule. 'Apparently,' he said, 'we have misjudged this creature
for many years; but our duty now is simple: to draw up as quickly as may
be an address of welcome to our eccentric visitor.'
An hour later, a procession of the men of eminence of the city, followed
by the inhabitants, marched along the streets to the northern gate. At
the Liglid's word of command, the barricades were removed and the gate
flung open.
Tilsa and Tobene at once ran to their grandfather and kissed him, while
Alison dropped a curtsey. The Flamp stood up and bowed as gracefully as
he could, and the Liglid returned the salute, not without some shaking
in the knees.
In faltering tones, which afterwards grew more steady, he begged of the
Flamp the 'honour of his attention for a few moments,' and forthwith
read the address of welcome. It was flowery and extravagant in style,
and contained not a few statements which sent a spasm across the Flamp's
wide expanse of face, such as might be caused by an attempt to suppress
laughter.
At the end, the Flamp bowed again and laid a massive paw upon his heart.
Then he replied. He began by thanking the Liglid for his kind welcome,
continued with the expression of his determination to do in the future
all that he could for the good of the city, and ended with a eulogy of
Tilsa and Tobene.
'They are, if I may use the word,' he said feelingly, 'kids which any
city should be proud of. And to be the grandfather of such bricks ought
to be as good as smush and a perpetual delight. And their nurse, ma'am
Alison here, is an old lady as is worthy of them.'
The crowd cheered these remarks again and again, and Tilsa and Tobene,
who were not accustomed to such publicity, hardly knew where to look. As
for old Alison, she curtseyed and went on with her knitting. 'Children,'
she said to herself, 'that travel in search of Flamps wear out their
stockings. Flattery or no flattery, new stockings must be made.'
Other speeches followed, for Ule was famous for its oratory, the best
being from a young statesman who made the admirable suggestion that in
commemoration of this auspicious day, a new order of merit should be
established, called the Order of the Friends of the Flamp, membership to
be conferred upon all persons conspicuous for spontaneous acts of
kindness. Further, he proposed that the first persons to add the letters
F.F., signifying Friend of the Flamp, to their names, should be Tilsa,
Tobene, and old Alison. The project was received with the wildest
enthusiasm, and the order was then and there founded. And to the end of
the history of Ule, no honour was esteemed more highly by the citizens
than the simple affix F.F.
The formal part of the proceedings being finished, the Liglid proclaimed
the day a general holiday and in the name of the city invited the Flamp
to a grand banquet. Afterwards came sports of all kinds on the plain, in
which the Flamp took part, carrying enormous loads of children up and
down at a hand gallop, until the Commissioner of Works begged him to
move more slowly, owing to the danger caused to the public buildings of
Ule by the tremor of the earth. Never in the memory of the oldest
inhabitant had such a day of jollification and excitement been spent.
Of course the Flamp was the chief attraction, but Tilsa and Tobene and
old Alison were very considerable lions too, and a hundred times they
told the story of their adventures. Presuming on his relationship to the
explorers, the Liglid, it must be confessed, endeavoured to take to
himself some credit for the proceedings, but it is doubtful if he was
believed.
One worthy deed, however, he did perform: he publicly burned the Bill
for the Circumvention of the Flamp, amid deafening applause.
At last, late in the evening, the Flamp said good-bye, promising to come
again soon, and swung off across the plain, the people waving farewell
to him from the city wall. And as he moved along, he chanted to himself
a new song, which, although not much better in rhyme and metre, was
vastly more cheerful than his old dirge. This was the first line of it:
'_O life, I think, is a jolly good thing._'