jailer.
"And this fine gentleman," said the Potentate, looking in at the
Prince, "what did he do?"
The jailer glanced at the number, and the report.
"Robbed hen-roosts," he said.
"He must have done a good deal of it to afford to dress so well,"
said the Potentate, passing on, and looking into other cells. "It
seems to me that many of your prisoners are very young."
"It is best to take them young, my lord," said the jailer. "They are
very hard to catch when they grow up."
The Potentate then looked in at the Jolly-cum-pop, and asked what was
his offence.
"Conspiracy," was the answer.
"And where are the other conspirators?"
"There was only one," said the jailer.
Number Seventeen was the oldest of the courtiers.
"He appears to be an elderly man to have a grandmother," said the
Potentate. "She must be very aged, and that makes it all the worse
for him. I think he should be executed."
"Oh, no, my lord," cried the jailor. "I am assured that his crime was
quite unintentional."
"Then he should be set free," said the Potentate.
"I mean to say," said the jailer, "that it was just enough
intentional to cause him to be imprisoned here for a long time, but
not enough to deserve execution."
"Very well," said the Potentate, turning to leave; "take good care of
your prisoners, and send me a report every month."
"That will I do, my lord," said the jailer, bowing very low.
The Prince and his party had been very much surprised and incensed
when they found that they could not get out of their rooms, and they
had kicked and banged and shouted until they were tired, but the
jailer had informed them that they were to be confined there for
years; and when the Potentate arrived they had resigned themselves to
despair. The Jolly-cum-pop, however, was affected in a different way.
It seemed to him the most amusing joke in the world that a person
should deliberately walk into a prison-cell and be locked up for
several years; and he lay down on his little bed and laughed himself
to sleep.
That night one of the boys sat at his iron-barred window, wide awake.
He was a Truant, and had never yet been in any place from which he
could not run away. He felt that his school-fellows depended upon him
to run away and bring them assistance, and he knew that his
reputation as a Truant was at stake. His responsibility was so heavy
that he could not sleep, and he sat at the window, trying to think of
a way to get out. After some hours the moon arose, and by its light
he saw upon the grass, not far from his window, a number of little
creatures, which at first he took for birds or small squirrels; but
on looking more attentively he perceived that they were pigwidgeons.
They were standing around a flat stone, and seemed to be making
calculations on it with a piece of chalk. At this sight, the heart of
the Truant jumped for joy. "Pigwidgeons can do any thing," he said to
himself, "and these certainly can get us out." He now tried in
various ways to attract the attention of the pigwidgeons; but as he
was afraid to call or whistle very loud, for fear of arousing the
jailor, he did not succeed. Happily, he thought of a pea-shooter
which he had in his pocket, and taking this out he blew a pea into
the midst of the little group with such force that it knocked the
chalk from the hand of the pigwidgeon who was using it. The little
fellows looked up in astonishment, and perceived the Truant beckoning
to them from his window. At first they stood angrily regarding him;
but on his urging them in a loud whisper to come to his relief, they
approached the prison and, clambering up a vine, soon reached his
window-sill. The Truant now told his mournful tale, to which the
pigwidgeons listened very attentively; and then, after a little
consultation among themselves, one of them said: "We will get you out
if you will tell us how to divide five-sevenths by six."
The poor Truant was silent for an instant, and then he said: "That is
not the kind of thing I am good at, but I expect some of the other
fellows could tell you easily enough. Our windows must be all in a
row, and you can climb up and ask some of them; and if any one tells
you, will you get us all out?"
"Yes," said the pigwidgeon who had spoken before. "We will do that,
for we are very anxious to know how to divide five-sevenths by six.
We have been working at it for four or five days, and there won't be
any thing worth dividing if we wait much longer."
The pigwidgeons now began to descend the vine; but one of them
lingering a little, the Truant, who had a great deal of curiosity,
asked him what it was they had to divide.
"There were eight of us," the pigwidgeon answered, "who helped a
farmer's wife, and she gave us a pound of butter. She did not count
us properly, and divided the butter into seven parts. We did not
notice this at first, and two of the party, who were obliged to go
away to a distance, took their portions and departed, and now we can
not divide among six the five-sevenths that remain."
"That is a pretty hard thing," said the Truant, "but I am sure some
of the boys can tell you how to do it."
The pigwidgeons visited the next four cells, which were occupied by
four boys, but not one of them could tell how to divide five-sevenths
by six. The Prince was questioned, but he did not know; and neither
did the course-marker, nor the map-maker. It was not until they came
to the cell of the oldest girl that they received an answer. She was
good at mental arithmetic; and, after a minute's thought, she said,
"It would be five forty-seconds."
"Good!" cried the pigwidgeons. "We will divide the butter into
forty-two parts, and each take five. And now let us go to work and
cut these bars."
Three of the six pigwidgeons were workers in iron, and they had their
little files and saws in pouches by their sides. They went to work
manfully, and the others helped them, and before morning one bar was
cut in each of the seventeen windows. The cells were all on the
ground floor, and it was quite easy for the prisoners to clamber out.
That is, it was easy for all but the Jolly-cum-pop. He had laughed so
much in his life that he had grown quite fat, and he found it
impossible to squeeze himself through the opening made by the removal
of one iron bar. The sixteen other prisoners had all departed; the
pigwidgeons had hurried away to divide their butter into forty-two
parts, and the Jolly-cum-pop still remained in his cell, convulsed
with laughter at the idea of being caught in such a curious
predicament.
"It is the most ridiculous thing in the world," he said. "I suppose I
must stay here and cry until I get thin." And the idea so tickled
him, that he laughed himself to sleep.
The Prince and his party kept together, and hurried from the prison
as fast as they could. When the day broke they had gone several
miles, and then they stopped to rest. "Where is that Jolly-cum-pop?"
said the Prince. "I suppose he has gone home. He is a pretty fellow
to lead us into this trouble and then desert us! How are we to find
the way back to his house? Course-marker, can you tell us the
direction in which we should go?"
"Not until to-night, your Highness," answered the course-marker,
"when I can set my instrument by the stars."
The Prince's party was now in a doleful plight. Every one was very
hungry; they were in an open plain, no house was visible, and they
knew not which way to go. They wandered about for some time, looking
for a brook or a spring where they might quench their thirst; and
then a rabbit sprang out from some bushes. The whole party
immediately started off in pursuit of the rabbit. They chased it
here, there, backward and forward, through hollows and over hills,
until it ran quite away and disappeared. Then they were more tired,
thirsty, and hungry than before; and, to add to their miseries, when
night came on the sky was cloudy, and the course-marker could not set
his instrument by the stars. It would be difficult to find sixteen
more miserable people than the Prince and his companions when they
awoke the next morning from their troubled sleep on the hard ground.
Nearly starved, they gazed at one another with feelings of despair.
"I feel," said the Prince, in a weak voice, "that there is nothing I
would not do to obtain food. I would willingly become a slave if my
master would give me a good breakfast."
"So would I," ejaculated each of the others.
About an hour after this, as they were all sitting disconsolately
upon the ground, they saw, slowly approaching, a large cart drawn by
a pair of oxen. On the front of the cart, which seemed to be heavily
loaded, sat a man, with a red beard, reading a book. The boys, when
they saw the cart, set up a feeble shout, and the man, lifting his
eyes from his book, drove directly toward the group on the ground.
Dismounting, he approached Prince Hassak, who immediately told him
his troubles and implored relief. "We will do any thing," said the
Prince, "to obtain food."
Standing for a minute in a reflective mood, the man with the red
beard addressed the Prince in a slow, meditative manner: "How would
you like," he said, "to form a nucleus?"
"Can we get any thing to eat by it?" eagerly asked the Prince.
"Yes," replied the man, "you can."
"We'll do it!" immediately cried the whole sixteen, without waiting
for further information.
"Which will you do first," said the man, "listen to my explanations,
or eat?"
"Eat!" cried the entire sixteen in chorus.
The man now produced from his cart a quantity of bread, meat, wine,
and other provisions, which he distributed generously, but
judiciously, to the hungry Prince and his followers. Every one had
enough, but no one too much. And soon, revived and strengthened, they
felt like new beings.
"Now," said the Prince, "we are ready to form a nucleus, as we
promised. How is it done?"
"I will explain the matter to you in a few words," said the man with
the red beard. "For a long time I have been desirous to found a city.
In order to do this one must begin by forming a nucleus. Every great
city is started from a nucleus. A few persons settle down in some
particular spot, and live there. Then they are a nucleus. Then other
people come there, and gather around this nucleus, and then more
people come and more, until in course of time there is a great city.
I have loaded this cart with provisions, tools, and other things that
are necessary for my purpose, and have set out to find some people
who would be willing to form a nucleus. I am very glad to have found
you and that you are willing to enter into my plan; and this seems a
good spot for us to settle upon."
"What is the first thing to be done?" said the Prince.
"We must all go to work," said the man with the red beard, "to build
dwellings, and also a school-house for these young people. Then we
must till some ground in the suburbs, and lay the foundations, at
least, of a few public buildings."
"All this will take a good while, will it not?" said the Prince.
"Yes," said the man, "it will take a good while; and the sooner we
set about it, the better."
Thereupon tools were distributed among the party, and Prince,
courtiers, boys, girls, and all went to work to build houses and form
the nucleus of a city.
When the jailer looked into his cells in the morning, and found that
all but one of his prisoners had escaped, he was utterly astounded,
and his face, when the Jolly-cum-pop saw him, made that individual
roar with laughter. The jailer, however, was a man accustomed to deal
with emergencies. "You need not laugh," he said, "every thing shall
go on as before, and I shall take no notice of the absence of your
companions. You are now numbered One to Seventeen inclusive, and you
stand charged with highway robbery, forgery, treason, smuggling,
barn-burning, bribery, poaching, usury, piracy, witchcraft, assault
and battery, using false weights and measures, burglary,
counterfeiting, robbing hen-roosts, conspiracy, and poisoning your
grandmother by proxy. I intended to-day to dress the convicts in
prison garb, and you shall immediately be so clothed."
"I shall require seventeen suits," said the Jolly-cum-pop.
"Yes," said the jailer, "they shall be furnished."
"And seventeen rations a day," said the Jolly-cum-pop.
"Certainly," replied the jailer.
"This is luxury," roared the Jolly-cum-pop. "I shall spend my whole
time in eating and putting on clean clothes."
Seventeen large prison suits were now brought to the Jolly-cum-pop.
He put one on, and hung up the rest in his cell. These suits were
half bright yellow and half bright green, with spots of bright red,
as big as saucers.
The jailer now had doors cut from one cell to another. "If the
Potentate comes here and wants to look at the prisoners," he said to
the Jolly-cum-pop, "you must appear in cell number One, so that he
can look through the hole in the door, and see you; then, as he walks
along the corridor, you must walk through the cells, and whenever he
looks into a cell, you must be there."
"He will think," merrily replied the Jolly-cum-pop, "that all your
prisoners are very fat, and that the little girls have grown up into
big men."
"I will endeavor to explain that," said the jailer.
For several days the Jolly-cum-pop was highly amused at the idea of
his being seventeen criminals, and he would sit first in one cell and
then in another, trying to look like a ferocious pirate, a
hard-hearted usurer, or a mean-spirited chicken thief, and laughing
heartily at his failures. But, after a time, he began to tire of
this, and to have a strong desire to see what sort of a tunnel the
Prince's miners and rock-splitters were making under his house. "I
had hoped," he said to himself, "that I should pine away in
confinement, and so be able to get through the window-bars; but with
nothing to do, and seventeen rations a day, I see no chance of that.
But I must get out of this jail, and, as there seems no other way, I
will revolt." Thereupon he shouted to the jailer through the hole in
the door of his cell: "We have revolted! We have risen in a body, and
have determined to resist your authority, and break jail!"
When the jailer heard this, he was greatly troubled. "Do not proceed
to violence," he said; "let us parley."
"Very well," replied the Jolly-cum-pop, "but you must open the cell
door. We cannot parley through a hole."
The jailer thereupon opened the cell door, and the Jolly-cum-pop,
having wrapped sixteen suits of clothes around his left arm as a
shield, and holding in his right hand the iron bar which had been cut
from his window, stepped boldly into the corridor, and confronted the
jailer and his myrmidons.
"It will be useless for you to resist," he said. "You are but four,
and we are seventeen. If you had been wise you would have made us all
cheating shop-keepers, chicken thieves, or usurers. Then you might
have been able to control us; but when you see before you a desperate
highwayman, a daring smuggler, a blood-thirsty pirate, a wily
poacher, a powerful ruffian, a reckless burglar, a bold conspirator,
and a murderer by proxy, you well may tremble!"
The jailer and his myrmidons looked at each other in dismay.
"We sigh for no blood," continued the Jolly-cum-pop, "and will
readily agree to terms. We will give you your choice: Will you allow
us to honorably surrender, and peacefully disperse to our homes, or
shall we rush upon you in a body, and, after overpowering you by
numbers, set fire to the jail, and escape through the crackling
timbers of the burning pile?"
The jailer reflected for a minute. "It would be better, perhaps," he
said, "that you should surrender and disperse to your homes."
The Jolly-cum-pop agreed to these terms, and the great gate being
opened, he marched out in good order. "Now," said he to himself, "the
thing for me to do is to get home as fast as I can, or that jailer
may change his mind." But, being in a great hurry, he turned the
wrong way, and walked rapidly into a country unknown to him. His walk
was a very merry one. "By this time," he said to himself, "the Prince
and his followers have returned to my house, and are tired of
watching the rock-splitters and miners. How amused they will be when
they see me come back in this gay suit of green and yellow, with red
spots, and with sixteen similar suits upon my arm! How my own dogs
will bark at me! And how my own servants will not know me! It is the
funniest thing I ever knew of!" And his gay laugh echoed far and
wide. But when he had gone several miles without seeing any signs of
his habitation, his gayety abated. "It would have been much better,"
he said, as he sat down to rest under the shade of a tree, "if I had
brought with me sixteen rations instead of these sixteen suits of
clothes."
The Jolly-cum-pop soon set out again, but he walked a long distance
without seeing any person or any house. Toward the close of the
afternoon he stopped, and, looking back, he saw coming toward him a
large party of foot travellers. In a few moments, he perceived that
the person in advance was the jailer. At this the Jolly-cum-pop could
not restrain his merriment. "How comically it has all turned out!" he
exclaimed. "Here I've taken all this trouble, and tired myself out,
and have nearly starved myself, and the jailer comes now, with a
crowd of people, and takes me back. I might as well have staid where
I was. Ha! ha!"
The jailer now left his party and came running toward the
Jolly-cum-pop. "I pray you, sir," he said, bowing very low, "do not
cast us off."
"Who are you all?" asked the Jolly-cum-pop, looking with much
surprise at the jailer's companions, who were now quite near.
"We are myself, my three myrmidons, and our wives and children. Our
situations were such good ones that we married long ago, and our
families lived in the upper stories of the prison. But when all the
convicts had left we were afraid to remain, for, should the Potentate
again visit the prison, he would be disappointed and enraged at
finding no prisoners, and would, probably, punish us grievously. So
we determined to follow you, and to ask you to let us go with you,
wherever you are going. I wrote a report, which I fastened to the
great gate, and in it I stated that sixteen of the convicts escaped
by the aid of outside confederates, and that seventeen of them
mutinied in a body and broke jail."
"That report," laughed the Jolly-cum-pop, "your Potentate will not
readily understand."
"If I were there," said the jailer, "I could explain it to him; but,
as it is, he must work it out for himself."
"Have you any thing to eat with you?" asked the Jolly-cum-pop.
"Oh, yes," said the jailer, "we brought provisions."
"Well, then, I gladly take you under my protection. Let us have
supper. I have had nothing to eat since morning, and the weight of
sixteen extra suits of clothes does not help to refresh one."
The Jolly-cum-pop and his companions slept that night under some
trees, and started off early the next morning. "If I could only get
myself turned in the proper direction," said he, "I believe we should
soon reach my house."
The Prince, his courtiers, the boys and girls, the course-marker, and
the map-maker worked industriously for several days at the foundation
of their city. They dug the ground, they carried stones, they cut
down trees. This work was very hard for all of them, for they were
not used to it. After a few days' labor, the Prince said to the man
with the red beard, who was reading his book: "I think we have now
formed a nucleus. Any one can see that this is intended to be a
city."
"No," said the man with the red beard, "nothing is truly a nucleus
until something is gathered around it. Proceed with your work, while
I continue my studies upon civil government."
Toward the close of that day the red-bearded man raised his eyes from
his book and beheld the Jolly-cum-pop and his party approaching.
"Hurrah!" he cried, "we are already attracting settlers!" And he went
forth to meet them.
When the prince and the courtiers saw the Jolly-cum-pop in his bright
and variegated dress, they did not know him; but the boys and girls
soon recognized his jovial face, and, tired as they were, they set up
a hearty laugh, in which they were loudly joined by their merry
friend. While the Jolly-cum-pop was listening to the adventures of
the Prince and his companions, and telling what had happened to
himself, the man with the red beard was talking to the jailer and his
party, and urging them to gather around the nucleus which had been
here formed, and help to build a city.
"Nothing will suit us better," exclaimed the jailer, "and the sooner
we build a town wall so as to keep off the Potentate, if he should
come this way, the better shall we be satisfied."
The next morning, the Prince said to the red-bearded man: "Others
have gathered around us. We have formed a nucleus, and thus have done
all that we promised to do. We shall now depart."
The man objected strongly to this, but the Prince paid no attention
to his words. "What troubles me most," he said to the Jolly-cum-pop,
"is the disgraceful condition of our clothes. They have been so torn
and soiled during our unaccustomed work that they are not fit to be
seen."
"As for that," said the Jolly-cum-pop, "I have sixteen suits with me,
in which you can all dress, if you like. They are of unusual
patterns, but they are new and clean."
"It is better," said the Prince, "for persons in my station to appear
inordinately gay than to be seen in rags and dirt. We will accept
your clothes."
Thereupon, the Prince and each of the others put on a prison dress of
bright green and yellow, with large red spots. There were some
garments left over, for each boy wore only a pair of trousers with
the waistband tied around his neck, and holes cut for his arms; while
the large jackets, with the sleeves tucked, made very good dresses
for the girls. The Prince and his party, accompanied by the
Jolly-cum-pop, now left the red-bearded man and his new settlers to
continue the building of the city, and set off on their journey. The
course-marker had not been informed the night before that they were
to go away that morning, and consequently did not set his instrument
by the stars.
"As we do not know in which way we should go," said the Prince, "one
way will be as good as another, and if we can find a road let us take
it; it will be easier walking."
In an hour or two they found a road and they took it. After
journeying the greater part of the day, they reached the top of a low
hill, over which the road ran, and saw before them a glittering sea
and the spires and houses of a city.
"It is the city of Yan," said the course-marker.
"That is true," said the Prince; "and as we are so near, we may as
well go there."
The astonishment of the people of Yan, when this party, dressed in
bright green and yellow, with red spots, passed through their
streets, was so great that the Jolly-cum-pop roared with laughter.
This set the boys and girls and all the people laughing, and the
sounds of merriment became so uproarious that when they reached the
palace the King came out to see what was the matter. What he thought
when he saw his nephew in his fantastic guise, accompanied by a party
apparently composed of sixteen other lunatics, cannot now be known;
but, after hearing the Prince's story, he took him into an inner
apartment, and thus addressed him: "My dear Hassak: The next time you
pay me a visit, I beg for your sake and my own, that you will come in
the ordinary way. You have sufficiently shown to the world that, when
a Prince desires to travel, it is often necessary for him to go out
of his way on account of obstacles."
"My dear uncle," replied Hassak, "your words shall not be forgotten."
After a pleasant visit of a few weeks, the Prince and his party (in
new clothes) returned (by sea) to Itoby, whence the Jolly-cum-pop
soon repaired to his home. There he found the miners and
rock-splitters still at work at the tunnel, which had now penetrated
half-way through the hill on which stood his house. "You may go
home," he said, "for the Prince has changed his plans. I will put a
door to this tunnel, and it will make an excellent cellar in which to
keep my wine and provisions."
The day after the Prince's return his map-maker said to him: "Your
Highness, according to your commands I made, each day, a map of your
progress to the city of Yan. Here it is."
The Prince glanced at it and then he cast his eyes upon the floor.
"Leave me," he said. "I would be alone."