At the Court of Mudge
Neither the clown nor the boy spoke for several minutes. To tell
the truth, they were breathless. Then the clown sat up and looked
doubtfully at the orphan.
"Well, here we are," he said, winking more from force of habit than
because he felt particularly jolly.
"Yes, sir!" gulped the orphan, swallowing hard.
"Now don't call me sir," begged the clown, making conversation to gain
time. "Don't call me sir because I worked in a circus. My name is
Notta--Notta Bit More. I was the last of twelve children, and my mother
and father could not agree on a name for me. Every time my mother
said, 'Call him Augustus Elmer More,' my father said, 'not a bit of
it.' After while, being a clown himself and a joker by trade, he began
calling me 'Notta Bit More' and Notta I've been ever since." The clown
winked again. "Call me Notta, won't you?"
"Yes, sir," replied the orphan, swallowing again and trying not to cry.
Seeing this, Notta turned a double somersault and stood on his head.
"And what is _your_ name?" he asked, waving his legs cheerfully.
"Bobbie Downs," sniffed the orphan, with another swallow.
"How did you get it?" The clown dropped down beside the little boy.
"I think it came with me, sir," said Bobbie faintly.
"Well, if you don't mind, we'll change it to Bob Up--for that's what
we've done--and Bob Up sounds more lively than Bobbie Downs, don't you
think?"
While Notta was talking he was glancing anxiously around him. "Bob," he
said finally, "I think we've fallen in with another circus. See, there
are the tents, and I hear lions roaring."
"So do I," said Bobbie beginning to look more interested than
frightened.
"Yes, it's either a circus or a sea shore without any sea," continued
the clown, running his fingers through the sand. "But anyway, here I am
and here you are, and so long as you are here we'll bob up together.
Let's go on to the main tent and see the show."
Bobbie stood up and shook the water from his cap. They were both
dripping wet from the storm they had passed through, but the sun and
wind of this queer desert country soon dried them off and, conversing
almost cheerfully, they trudged through the deep sand toward a large
blue, striped tent.
"I've done a heap of traveling in my time," confided Notta, "but never
in just this way. I've run into some strange places and walked into
others; but this is the first time I ever talked myself into a country.
There we were in a circus, quiet and natural like, then that rhyme
pops into my head. I say it and off we go like a couple of skyrockets.
We were just talked into this country, Bob, my boy, and a mighty
tricky business I call it. But never mind, we'll just follow the rules
anyway."
"What rules?" asked Bob, looking curiously at some tall palm trees,
waving in the distance. He had never supposed palm trees existed
outside of geography books.
"Why," explained Notta, "just four simple little rules I made up to use
in case of danger or trouble. First," he pulled out his little finger,
"first I disguise myself. If that fails, I'm extree-mly polite. If
politeness doesn't do, I tell a joke. If the joke fails, I shout
something no one can understand and run like sixty. So don't you worry,
Bob; stick to me and run when I run and everything will turn out right.
Do you know what makes me so fat?"
Bob shook his head.
"Disguises!" whispered Notta triumphantly. "I use them for padding.
Mighty handy when I tumble about. Yes, sir, in here." Notta fondly
patted his bulging suit. "In here I have six marvelous disguises ready
to put on at a moment's notice, and in here," Notta tapped his powdery
forehead, "in here, I've sixty different jokes, and lots of things I
don't understand myself, so you see we are prepared for everything."
"Yes, sir," said Bobbie solemnly, for he was a very solemn little
boy. Living in an orphan asylum had made him that way and, as for
adventures, he had never had an adventure in his life. There were
lessons and meals and punishments, and once in a while a fight among
the older boys, but no one in that big, busy home had time to talk to
Bobbie Downs, nor answer his questions. So Bobbie had grown quieter and
more solemn each year of the seven he had spent in the dull gray asylum.
Notta looked at the little boy curiously as he trudged along beside
him. The kindly clown decided that he was going to like Bob Up, and
right there he decided that Bob Up was going to have a little fun.
"I'll bet he's never laughed out loud in his whole life," thought the
clown to himself, and began running over in his head the funniest jokes
that he knew. He had just determined on the one about the pig and the
pound of bacon, when an ear splitting screech knocked all thought of
joking out of his mind. A huge figure, with bristling blue whiskers,
had stepped out from behind a palm tree, taken one look at the two
strangers and then disappeared in the direction of the blue tent,
shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Is it Blue Beard?" quavered Bob, clutching Notta.
"Bob," said the clown, swallowing hard, "I don't know, but we'll just
try rule one." Fumbling in the bosom of his suit he dragged out a brown
bundle, and before the little boy could wink had stepped into it and
dropped on all fours.
"I'm a lion," panted Notta, "and if I roar loudly enough I may frighten
them off. Stick close to me, Bob, and try to remember the rules. If I
run, you run--understand?"
"Yes, sir!" gasped Bob, his eyes as round as cookies, for Notta's
disguise was so real that he was almost afraid himself. Scarcely had
Notta cleared his throat for a growl than a white robed company burst
out of the blue tent, and descended upon them in a whirl of sand
and scimitars. Bob was as brave as any boy, but his retired life in
an orphan asylum had not prepared him for anything like this. Tears
started to his eyes. With a scream of fright, he grasped Notta's woolly
mane.
"You'd better stop crying and get ready to run," whispered the clown
nervously and finished his sentence with such a roar that Bob jumped
quite three feet. But the wild white company kept right on coming and,
before Notta could get another growl going, a net was thrown over his
head, a dozen of the blue whiskered villains were upon him and next
instant he was rolling over and over in the sandy road.
Bob had shut his eyes tight, expecting to be snatched himself, but
when nothing happened he opened them and saw with a little gasp that
they were hustling Notta, with pricks and prods, towards the billowing
blue tent. This was Bob's first adventure and he might have run away,
but something inside of him, that he hadn't known about, kept him
there. Right in that moment, and all of a sudden, Bob discovered that
he was fonder of this clown whom he had known only a few moments than
of anyone he had ever known before. He felt that if something terrible
was going to happen to Notta it might as well happen to him too.
"Bob Up," the clown had called him. Well, bob up he would. With
trembling legs, he ran after the shouting company, and managed to
squeeze into the royal tent unnoticed, behind the broad back of
Tazzywaller. For as you have all guessed long before now, it was to
Mudge that Notta had transported himself and the little boy.
Notta's disguise, though somewhat askew, still held together and he
was growling terribly to keep up his courage, at the same time looking
anxiously around for Bob. His lion head had been knocked sideways, so
that he could only see out of one eye, but what he managed to see with
one eye was enough to make him quake with terror. The Mudgers were
shouting and hopping about in front of a large blue throne, pointing
at him with their flashing scimitars. Then a tall, particularly thin
fellow seized him by the ear. It was Panapee.
"Lion," cried Panapee haughtily, "this is your new master, Mustafa of
Mudge. Your Highness, here is the lion you were just wishing for!"
"An odd looking beast," puffed the ruler of Mudge, tugging at his
mustache.
"An awful looking creature I call it," sniffed Tazzywaller, who was
jealous to think another lion really had been captured after he said
there were no more.
"Maybe it's the Cowardly Lion," mused Mustafa. "I see that his knees
are trembling. Are you the Cowardly Lion?" he demanded, pointing his
scimitar at poor Notta. The clown roared dismally, to prove he was no
coward. How was he to know that in the land of Oz all animals can and
are expected to talk? Why, he did not even know he was in Oz, and in
the hands of the Mudgers.
"He refuses to answer," said Mustafa gloomily. "Well, a dumb lion is
better than no lion at all. Take him away, Panny, and lock him up with
the other lions. I hope he's a good fighter. Let me see, that makes ten
thousand for you to feed, Tazzywaller, if the others don't chew this
one up."
He rubbed his hands joyfully together. "I'll come out later on and see
how they take to him. But I am not going to be satisfied until I have
the Cowardly Lion, Panny. This lion is a cowardly lion but not _the_
Cowardly Lion. Take him away!"
Mustafa picked up the lion book and, waving Notta out of the tent, fell
to looking at the picture of the Cowardly Lion of Oz.
All during this conversation Notta's hair had been prickling under
his mane. Ten thousand lions! Sizzling sawdust! Better face these
wild-looking men than that. Rule one had failed, it was time to try
rule two.
"Come on," growled the Mudger at his head and gave the rope around his
neck a sharp tug. But before the clown had a chance to move or speak,
there was a shrill scream, and out rushed Bob Up, almost upsetting old
Tazzywaller. He flung both arms around the trembling lion.
"You shan't take him away," cried the little boy stormily. "It isn't a
lion. It's Notta!"
"Notta?" roared Mustafa, lurching forward and looking at Bobbie with
astonishment.
"Not a lion," cried the clown, rising on his hind legs and hastily
removing his lion head.