THE SOCIETY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF ALSANDER
This impossible story of a mad king and a throne going begging.
_An anticipated critic._
The unfortunate indisposition of the old King of Bavaria....
The Prince of Wied is spoken of as a likely candidate
for the throne of Albania.
_The Daily Papers._
There is a King in a Tragedy of Maeterlinck who woefully exclaims,
"Wherever I am, nothing happens." But the old fellow was accustomed to
uneventfulness; Norman had reason to expect something better of life,
and the mysterious words of the old poet had led him to hope for thrills
and sensations. The four days succeeding the day of the interview with
Peronella, described in the last chapter, drew blanks in the game of his
destiny. On the fifth day he was walking moodily about, trying to
extract amusement from the inquisitive glances with which a subtly
deceived populace already eyed him, when he heard a voice at his
shoulder saying in good English, "Keep it up," but though he turned
quickly he could see no one in the street who appeared at all guilty of
the observation, which might have been ventriloquial.
Another week passed, and the old resolve to leave Alsander again took
possession of Norman's mind. Remorse at his hypocrisy, and longings for
Peronella, gnawed his heart: while he felt that if he did not speedily
retire from the scene startling harm would come of what was really a
loveless passion. He decided, however, not to leave her without getting
her a present, which he shrewdly (but I think unjustly) suspected would
compensate the girl for the loss of a lover. And of course he remembered
that the old Poet, whom by now he had almost given up as a fraud, had
given special advice in this matter too. Well, he could but follow it,
and see if there was anything to be found for Peronella in the little
dark shop the Poet had recommended, and which he himself had discovered
almost his first day in Alsander. He therefore invited her to come with
him and choose herself a present.
When they arrived in front of the little shop it looked more fascinating
than ever. It had evidently been rearranged, and seemed to Norman to
exhibit more amusing things in its narrow frontage than all the other
shops in Alsander set on end. For it contained snuff-boxes, shawls,
dirty old silver, tattered bits of embroidery, carved walking sticks,
some worm-eaten books, last century oak settees, Turkish zarfs, Hittite
cylinders, Chinese saucers full of Greek and Roman coins, real stones
and bits of glass, animals in beaten bronze ware from Damascus, very old
leather bottles from England, some forged Egyptian antiquities, some
very horrible cameos, some rather pretty intaglios, about three quarters
of what had been a fine Persian rug, and boxes of things and cases of
things and bales of things and trays of things, and all of them finely
powdered with a most pestilential dust.
They entered. Peronella, spitting and sneezing without restraint,
exclaimed loudly and bitterly (with utter disregard to the feelings of
the shopkeeper, a pretty, slender, dark-eyed, young fellow, who seemed
quite out of place among his musty surroundings) that there was nothing
to be found there and _what_ he had dragged her there for _she_ couldn't
imagine when there was that nice new shop where they sold wonders from
Ulmreich ever so much nearer home. Norman, undaunted, was preparing to
turn the shop upside down to show Peronella what marvels were to be
found there if one only knew, when he was surprised to hear the
shopkeeper exclaim quietly and rapidly in English, "Send her away, I
want to talk to you." Now this was indeed startling, for it was only an
accident that had led him to the shop on that particular day. However,
at all events, Norman, eager to fathom the mystery, rose to the
occasion. Perhaps this was the poet's hand and he had recommended the
shop on purpose.
"Look here, Peronella," he said, immediately. "If you don't like the
dust (and it _is_ dusty here) why don't you go home without me? I'll
stay here and find something. Besides, I would much rather bring you
home a surprise."
"But suppose I don't like it," she objected. "You told me I might
choose, and I'm sure there is nothing in this dusty, musty rat cupboard
of a place."
"I'll arrange that it can be changed. Or I'll get something you do like
as well," he added, with ridiculous vainglory, for his hundred pounds
were ebbing faster than the sands of time.
"Very well," said Peronella, half convinced and pouting. "If you don't
want me, I'll go." And more in pique than compliance she left him alone
with the fine young shopman, who was really a remarkably graceful young
man, and one who obviously had no doubts as to his own good looks.
Indeed he had ostentatiously set them off by wearing the national
costume of Alsander--puffed breeches, pleated silk shirt, and a short
loose coat with wing-like sleeves, of dark blue gracefully lined with
gold. This costume appeared all the more striking to Norman, as he had
never seen one before; for it is rarely worn by the Alsandrians except
on ceremonial occasions.
"What service can I be to you, sir?" said Norman. Himself a shopkeeper,
he knew the value of a gentlemanly treatment, and did not allow his
curiosity to get the better either of his self-control or of his
manners.
"The question," replied the dealer in antiques, in a very soft and
gentle voice, "is not so much what you can do for me as what you can do
for yourself."
"And what can I do for myself?" inquired Norman, wondering at the fine
but feminine beauty of the young man.
"The question is not really so much what you can do for yourself as what
you can do for Alsander."
"The question is," retorted Norman, with some heat, "exactly how long
the pantomime season is going to last?"
"The reply in general is for as long as woman gives birth to child: in
particular, for as long as the A.A.A. is uncertain of your devotion."
"And what is the A.A.A.?"
"It is," replied the shopman, "the Association for the Advancement of
Alsander."
"I am sure that it is an admirable society."
"Like all earthly institutions," observed the dandified young shopman,
with a sententiousness ill befitting his years, "it has its defects, but
want of precaution is not one of them."
"And where does it meet?"
"Here," said the shopman, briefly.
"And when does it meet?"
"Now," was the reply, followed almost immediately by a clatter and a
crash as if all the machinery of a steam-mill had started with a jerk.
Norman had just time to see the shutters going down; then he found
himself in total darkness.
"What in Hell do you mean by this?" he cried out, thunderstruck: but the
shopman gave no answer or other sign of existence, and Norman suddenly
realized with dismay that he was alone and a prisoner. For a moment or
two he groped and fumbled in the dark. Then he remembered his matches.
He found three and lit them one by one. They cast all sorts of curious
and flickering shadows from odd-shaped objects like crocodile gods and
water-skins; one by one they went out. Norman was only the wiser in as
far as the little light had lasted long enough for him to find out that
the end of the shop had no exit and that his interloctuor had certainly
disappeared, and he therefore spared himself the trouble of stumbling
about in the dark for a means of escape. "This is fun," he thought
boyishly, and sat down on what he had seen to be a horribly dusty and
cracked Chippendale chair to await proceedings. When ten minutes had
passed he began to scratch his head; after twenty minutes the room had
grown insufferably stifling and the philosophic mood had passed: after
half-an-hour he had formulated a scheme in accordance with which he
would use the hindquarters of a large brass elephant, probably Indian,
which he had noticed faintly glimmering on a shelf, as a battering ram.
His idea was that with so heavy an implement he could break a hole in
the shutters, which seemed to have closed automatically, or at least by
hammering attract the attention of some passers by in the street
outside. He was about to act on this ingenious plan and had already
grasped the elephant firmly by one leg when his ear was attracted by a
noise of heavy breathing from behind the shop, and a fumbling sound
which suggested the turning of keys. The next instant a sort of
panel-door opened at the back of the shop, flooding the place with a
light that made Norman blink, and a butler, who, with his side whiskers,
livery and portly presence looked so like a butler that he positively
made Norman gasp, said in the most servile and insinuating English,
"_Would_ you step this way, sir?"
Norman stepped, hoping that a chance had come at last of discovering the
meaning, if any, of what he now felt sure was a superb and intricate
joke. He followed the butler-like butler down a bare corridor and was
ushered into a large room, which he judged from a symbol AA, which was
hung on a bit of cardboard on the wall opposite and was the first thing
that struck his eye, could be nothing else than the head-quarters of the
Alsander Advancement Association. But the room, which was neither
sumptuous nor sordid, but eminently respectable, was a disappointment to
Norman, and so were the presumed Associates, to whom the same adjectives
were applicable. They were sitting at the end of the room behind a long
table for all the world as if they were a board of examiners, and were
all dressed in badly-cut frock coats. In front of each was a sheet of
clean foolscap, pen, ink, and blotting paper. The young shopman sat in
the centre in a slightly more comfortable chair, radiant in his
extravagant costume as a parrot among crows; but Norman scanned their
faces in vain to find the old Poet whom he naturally expected would be
present on this mysterious occasion.
"Take a chair, my man, take a chair," said a wizened little old fellow,
with a fussy, irritable voice.
"Certainly," said Norman, not pleased with the style of address, and he
seated himself opposite the shopman, where the single unoccupied chair
in the room was placed.
"I hear," observed the little old man gain, but in grave and serious
tones, "that you are a candidate for the Crown of Alsander."