In The City of The Figure Heads
“It reminds me of something disagreeable,” answered Kabumpo, as he eyed
the flag. Nevertheless he quickened his steps and in a moment they came
to a clearing in the forest, surrounded by a tall black picket fence.
The only thing visible above the fence was the strange black flag, and
as the forest on either side was too dense to penetrate and there seemed
to be no way around, Kabumpo thumped loudly on the center gate.
It was flung open at once, so suddenly that Kabumpo, who had his head
pressed against the bars, fell on his knees and shot Pompadore clear
over his head. Altogether it was a very undignified entrance.
“Oh! Oh! Now we shall have some fun!” screamed a high, thin voice, and
immediately the cry was taken up by hundreds of other voices. A perfect
swarm of strange creatures surrounded the two travelers. The Elegant
Elephant took one look, put back his ears and snatched Pompa from the
paving stones.
“Stop that!” he rumbled threateningly. “Who are you anyway?” The crowd
paid no attention to the Elegant Elephant’s question, but continued to
dance up and down and scream with glee. Clutching Kabumpo’s ear, Pompa
peered down with many misgivings. They were entirely surrounded by thin,
spry little people, who had figures instead of heads, and the fours,
eights, sevens and ciphers bobbing up and down made it terribly
confusing.
“Let’s go!” said Pompa, who was growing dizzier every minute. But the
Figure Heads were wedged so closely around them Kabumpo could not move
and they were shouting so lustily that the Elegant Elephant’s voice was
drowned in the hubbub. Finally, Kabumpo’s eyes began to snap angrily
and, taking a deep breath, he threw up his trunk and trumpeted like
fifty ferry-boat whistles. The effect was immediate and astonishing.
Half of the Figure Heads fell on their faces, and the other half fell on
their backs and stared vacantly up at the sky.
“Conduct us to your Ruler!” roared Kabumpo, in the dead silence that
followed.
“How’d you know we had a Ruler?” asked a Seven, getting cautiously to
its feet.
“Most countries have,” said the Elegant Elephant shortly.
“He’s got no right to order us around,” said a Six, sitting up and
jerking its thumb at Kabumpo.
“Yes—but!” Seven frowned at Six and put his hands over his ears. “This
way,” he said gruffly, and Kabumpo, stepping carefully, for many of the
Figure Heads were still on their backs, followed Seven.
If the inhabitants of this strange city were queer, their city was even
more so. The air was dry and choky and the houses were dull, oblong
affairs, set in rows and rows with never a garden in sight. Each street
had a large signpost on the corner, but they were not like the signs one
usually sees in cities. For these were _plus_ and _minus_ signs with
here and there a _long division_ sign.
“I suppose everything in this street’s divided up,” mumbled Pompadore,
looking up at a division sign curiously.
[Illustration: (unlabelled)]
“Hope they don’t subtract any of our belongings,” whispered Kabumpo, as
they turned into Minus Alley. “Look, Pompa, at the houses. Ever see
anything like ’em before?”
“They remind me of something disagreeable,” mused the Prince. “Why,
they’re _books_, Kabumpo, great big arithmetic books!” Pompa pointed at
one.
“You mean they are shaped like books,” said the Elegant Elephant. “I
never saw books with windows and doors!”
“A lot you know!” said Seven, looking back scornfully, but Kabumpo was
too interested to care. Out of the windows of the big book houses leaped
hundreds of the little Figure Heads, and they laughed and jeered at
Pompa and Kabumpo.
“Ho! Ho!” yelled one, leaning out so far it nearly fell on its Eight.
“Wait till the Count sees ’em. He’ll make an example of ’em!”
“What an awful country,” whispered Pompadore, ducking just in time, as a
Four snatched at his hair from an open window. But just then they turned
a corner and entered a large gloomy court. Sitting on a square and solid
wood throne, surrounded by a guard of Figure Heads, sat the Giant Ruler
of this strange city.
“What have you got there, Seven?” roared the Ruler.
“I am the Elegant Elephant and this is the Prince of Pumperdink,”
announced Kabumpo before Seven could answer. Pompadore, himself, could
say nothing for he had never before been addressed by a wooden Ruler in
his life. And that is exactly what the King of the Figure Heads was—an
ordinary school ruler, twice as large as a man, with arms and legs and a
great square head set atop of his thin flat body.
[Illustration: (unlabelled)]
“I don’t care a rap _who_ you are. I want to know _what_ you are?” said
the Ruler.
“We are travelers,” spoke up Pompa, swallowing hard—“travelers in search
of a Proper Princess.”
“Well, you won’t find any here,” grunted the Ruler shortly. “We don’t
believe in ’em!”
“Would you mind telling me the name of your Kingdom,” asked Pompa,
somewhat cast down by these words.
“You have no heads,” announced the Ruler calmly, “or you would have
known that this is Rith Metic. _I_,” he hammered himself upon the wooden
chest—“I am its Ruler and every inch a King—King of the Figure Heads,”
he added, glaring around as if he expected someone to contradict him.
“All right! All right!” wheezed Kabumpo, bowing his head twice. “I knew
twelve inches made a foot rule, but I never knew they made a King Rule.
But could you give us some luncheon and allow us to pass peaceably
through your Kingdom?”
“Pass through!” exclaimed the King, standing up indignantly. “We don’t
pass anyone through here. You’ve got to work your way through. Pass
through, indeed! And when you’ve worked your way through we’ll put you
in a problem and make an example of you.”
“They’ll make a very good example, your Majesty,” said a tall thin
individual standing next to the Ruler. He eyed the two cunningly. “If a
thin Prince sets out on a fat elephant to find a Proper Princess, how
many yards of fringe will the elephant lose from his robe and how bald
will the Prince be at the end of the journey? I don’t believe anyone
could figure that out,” he murmured gleefully.
“It might be done by subtraction,” said the King, looking at the two
critically.
“Great hay stacks!” rumbled Kabumpo, glaring over his shoulder to see if
he had lost any fringe so far. “What have we gotten into?”
“Bald!” gulped Pompa, rubbing his head. “Do you mean to say you take
poor innocent travelers and make them into arithmetic problems?”
“Why not?” said the thin one, who looked exactly like a giant lead
pencil. “And please address me as Count, after this—Count It Up is my
name. What’s the matter with living in a problem, my boy? Life is a
problem, after all, and you will get used to it in time. I’ll try to
assign you to a comfortable book and you’ll find book-keeping a lot more
simple than house-keeping. This way, please!”
“Please go,” yawned the Ruler, waving his hand. “The Count will take you
in charge now.” And so dazed was the Elegant Elephant by all this
strange reasoning that he tamely followed the lead pencil person.
“Good-bye!” shouted the Ruler hoarsely. “Start them on simple
additions,” he said as they moved off.
The street ahead was filled with Figure Heads and as Kabumpo paused they
began forming themselves into sums. The first row sat down, the next
knelt behind them, the third stood up, the fourth nimbly leaped upon the
shoulders of the third, and so on, until a long addition confronted the
travelers.
“Now,” said Count It Up in his blunt way, “as you haven’t figures for
heads, let us see if you have heads for figures.” Kabumpo pushed back
his pearl headdress and drops of perspiration began to run down his
trunk. Prince Pompa, lying flat on Kabumpo’s head, started to add up the
first line of figures.
“Eighty-three,” he announced anxiously.
“Say three and eight to carry,” snapped Count It Up. “Here, Three!” A
Three stepped out of the crowd and placed itself under the line. “I’ve
got to be carried!” cried Eight, looking sulkily at Pompa.
“Carried!” snorted Kabumpo, snatching Eight into the air. “Well, I’ll
attend to you. You do the adding, Pompa, and I’ll do the carrying.”
He landed the Eight head down at the bottom of the line of Figure Heads
and swung his trunk carelessly while he waited for his next victim. So,
slowly and painfully, Pompa counted up the long lines and Kabumpo
carried and if they made the slightest mistake the Figure Heads shouted
with scorn and danced about till the confusion was terrible. When an
example was finished, the Figure Heads in it marched away but another
would immediately form lines ahead so that it took them a whole hour to
go two blocks.
[Illustration: Slowly and Painfully Pompa Counted up the Long Lines]
“Oh!” groaned Pompa at last, “We’ll never get through this, Kabumpo.
Look at those awful fractions ahead! Can’t I skip fractions?” he asked
looking pleadingly at Count It Up.
“Certainly not!” said the pencilly man stroking his shiny hair, which
was straight and black and grew up into a sharp point. “You shall skip
nothing!”
“That gives me an idea,” whispered Kabumpo huskily. “Why shouldn’t we
skip altogether? We’re bigger than they are. Why—”
“How are you getting on?” At the sound of that hoarse, familiar voice
both the Prince and Kabumpo jumped.
“You don’t mind me asking, I hope?” Clinging to the high picket fence
and looking anxiously through the bars was the Curious Cottabus.
“Have you found the Greatest Common Divisor yet?”
“Who’s he?” asked the Elegant Elephant suspiciously.
“Isn’t there any way out of Rith Metic but this?” wailed Pompa, looking
at the Cottabus pleadingly. He was too tired to mind being questioned.
The curious beast was delighted to have this new opportunity to talk to
the travelers.
“Will you answer a few questions if I tell you?” asked the Cottabus,
raising itself with great difficulty and looking over the palings.
“Yes—yes—anything,” promised Pompa.
“Do you care for strawberry tarts?” asked the Cottabus, twitching its
nose very rapidly.
“Of course,” said the Prince. “Oh! Do hurry. Count It Up will be back in
a moment!” He had run ahead to arrange a new problem and the rest of the
Figure Heads paid no attention to the queer creature clinging to the
palings.
“Are you going to invite the Scarecrow to your wedding?” gulped the
Cottabus.
“I don’t know any Scarecrow,” said Pompa, “so how could I?”
“Are you fond of that old elephant?” The Cottabus waved at Kabumpo, who
stamped first one foot then another and fairly snorted with rage.
“All right,” sighed the Curious Cottabus, “that makes my fifty
questions.”
Hanging on to the fence with one paw it waved the other backward and
forward as it chanted:
“How many tics in Rith Metic?
Tell me that and tell me quick!
But if you can’t it’s not my fault,
So simply turn a wintersault!”
The head of the Cottabus disappeared.
“Now isn’t that provoking,” gulped the Prince. “After it promised to
help us, too!”
“I meant summersault,” wheezed the Cottabus, reappearing suddenly—
“And if you can’t it’s not your fault,
So simply turn a summersault!”
it recited dolefully, and losing its balance fell off the fence and
landed with a thud on the ground below.
“Here! Hurry along!” scolded Count It Up, prodding Kabumpo with a sharp
pencil. “The next is a nice little problem in fractions.”
“I wonder if it meant anything?” mused Pompadore, as Kabumpo approached
the new problem. “’If you can’t its not your fault, so simply turn a
summersault.’ Anyway it wouldn’t hurt to try. Stop a minute, Kabumpo!”
Sliding down the Elegant Elephant’s trunk, the Prince put his head on
the ground and very carefully and deliberately turned a somersault. At
his first motion Count It Up gave a deafening scream, fell on his head
and broke off his point, while the Figure Heads began to run in every
direction.
[Illustration: (unlabelled)]
“Do it again! Do it again!” cried Kabumpo joyfully. So Pompa turned
another somersault and another, and another, and _another_, till not a
Figure Head was in sight. Even the Figure Heads at the windows of the
houses tumbled out and dashed madly around the corner. Before they could
return, Kabumpo snatched up Pompa and tore through the deserted streets
of Rith Metic till he came to the black iron gate at the other end of
the city. Butting it open with his head, the Elegant Elephant dashed
through and never stopped running till he was miles away from there.
“Have to rest a bit and eat some leaves,” puffed Kabumpo, at last
slowing down. “Whe—w!”
“Wish I could eat leaves,” sighed the Prince, as Kabumpo began lunching
off the tree tops. “But, never mind, we’re out of Rith Metic! Wasn’t it
lucky that Cottabus followed us? I never would have thought of getting
out of sums by somersaulting. Would you?”
“Only sensible thing it ever said, probably,” answered the Elegant
Elephant, with his mouth full of leaves. “There’s a lot more to be
learned by traveling than by studying, my boy. Somersaults for
sums—let’s always remember that!”
Pompa did not answer. He slid down Kabumpo’s trunk and began hunting
anxiously around for something to eat. Not far away he found a large nut
tree and, gathering a handful of nuts, he sat down and began to crack
them on a white marble slab near by. Next instant Kabumpo heard a thud
and a muffled cry.
The Prince of Pumperdink had vanished, as if by magic.
“Where are you?” screamed the Elegant Elephant, pounding through the
brush. “Pompa! Pompa! He’s disappeared,” gasped Kabumpo, rushing over to
the marble slab. There was not a sign of the Royal Prince of Pumperdink
anywhere, but carved carefully on the white stone were these words:
Please Knock Before You Fall In.
“Fall in!” snorted Kabumpo, his eyes rolling wildly. “Great Gooch!”
[Illustration: (unlabelled)]