THE BEGGAR’S RETURN.
“Your Imperial Highnesses!” he began. “It’s the old Beggar again! Shall
we set the dogs at him?”
“Bring him here!” said the Emperor.
The Chancellor could scarcely believe his ears. “_Here_, your Imperial
Highness? Did I rightly understand——.”
“Bring him here!” the Emperor thundered once more. The Chancellor
tottered down the hall—and in another minute the crowd divided, and the
poor old Beggar was seen entering the Banqueting-Hall.
[Illustration: THE OLD BEGGAR’S RETURN]
He was indeed a pitiable object: the rags, that hung about him, were all
splashed with mud: his white hair and his long beard were tossed about
in wild disorder. Yet he walked upright, with a stately tread, as if
used to command: and—strangest sight of all—Sylvie and Bruno came with
him, clinging to his hands, and gazing at him with looks of silent love.
Men looked eagerly to see how the Emperor would receive the bold
intruder. Would he hurl him from the steps of the daïs? But no. To their
utter astonishment, the Emperor knelt as the beggar approached, and with
bowed head murmured “Forgive us!”
“Forgive us!” the Empress, kneeling at her husband’s side, meekly
repeated.
The Outcast smiled. “Rise up!” he said. “I forgive you!” And men saw
with wonder that a change had passed over the old beggar, even as he
spoke. What had seemed, but now, to be vile rags and splashes of mud,
were seen to be in truth kingly trappings, broidered with gold, and
sparkling with gems. All knew him now, and bent low before the Elder
Brother, the true Warden.
“Brother mine, and Sister mine!” the Warden began, in a clear voice that
was heard all through that vast hall. “I come not to disturb you. Rule
on, as Emperor, and rule wisely. For I am chosen King of Elfland.
To-morrow I return there, taking nought from hence, save only—save
only——” his voice trembled, and with a look of ineffable tenderness, he
laid his hands in silence on the heads of the two little ones who clung
around him.
But he recovered himself in a moment, and beckoned to the Emperor to
resume his place at the table. The company seated themselves again—room
being found for the Elfin-King between his two children—and the Lord
Chancellor rose once more, to propose the next toast.
“The next toast—the hero of the day—why, he isn’t here!” he broke off in
wild confusion.
Good gracious! Everybody had forgotten Prince Uggug!
“He was told of the Banquet, of course?” said the Emperor.
“Undoubtedly!” replied the Chancellor. “_That_ would be the duty of the
Gold Stick in Waiting.”
“Let the Gold Stick come forwards!” the Emperor gravely said.
The Gold Stick came forwards. “I attended on His Imperial Fatness,” was
the statement made by the trembling official. “I told him of the Lecture
and the Banquet——.”
“What followed?” said the Emperor: for the unhappy man seemed almost too
frightened to go on.
“His Imperial Fatness was graciously pleased to be sulky. His Imperial
Fatness was graciously pleased to box my ears. His Imperial Fatness was
graciously pleased to say ‘I don’t care!’”
“‘Don’t-care’ came to a bad end,” Sylvie whispered to Bruno. “I’m not
sure, but I _believe_ he was hanged.”
The Professor overheard her. “_That_ result,” he blandly remarked, “was
merely a case of mistaken identity.”
Both children looked puzzled.
“Permit me to explain. ‘Don’t-care’ and ‘Care’ were twin-brothers.
‘Care,’ you know, killed the Cat. And they caught ‘Don’t-care’ by
mistake, and hanged him instead. And so ‘Care’ is alive still. But he’s
very unhappy without his brother. That’s why they say ‘Begone, dull
Care!’”
“Thank you!” Sylvie said, heartily. “It’s very extremely interesting.
Why, it seems to explain _everything_!”
“Well, not quite _everything_,” the Professor modestly rejoined. “There
are two or three scientific difficulties——”
“What was your general impression as to His Imperial Fatness?” the
Emperor asked the Gold Stick.
“My impression was that His Imperial Fatness was getting more——”
“More _what_?”
All listened breathlessly for the next word.
“More PRICKLY!”
“He must be sent for _at once_!” the Emperor exclaimed. And the Gold
Stick went off like a shot. The Elfin-King sadly shook his head. “No
use, no use!” he murmured to himself. “Loveless, loveless!”
Pale, trembling, speechless, the Gold Stick came slowly back again.
“Well?” said the Emperor. “Why does not the Prince appear?”
“One can easily guess,” said the Professor. “His Imperial Fatness is,
without doubt, a little preoccupied.”
Bruno turned a look of solemn enquiry on his old friend. “What do that
word mean?”
But the Professor took no notice of the question. He was eagerly
listening to the Gold Stick’s reply.
“Please your Highness! His Imperial Fatness is——” Not a word more could
he utter.
The Empress rose in an agony of alarm. “Let us go to him!” she cried.
And there was a general rush for the door.
Bruno slipped off his chair in a moment. “May we go too?” he eagerly
asked. But the King did not hear the question, as the Professor was
speaking to him. “_Preoccupied_, your Majesty!” he was saying. “That is
what he is, no doubt!”
“May we go and see him?” Bruno repeated. The King nodded assent, and the
children ran off. In a minute or two they returned, slowly and gravely.
“Well?” said the King. “What’s the matter with the Prince?”
“He’s—what _you_ said,” Bruno replied, looking at the Professor. “That
hard word.” And he looked to Sylvie for assistance.
“Porcupine,” said Sylvie.
“No, no!” the Professor corrected her. “‘_Pre-occupied_,’ you mean.”
[Illustration: ‘PORCUPINE!’]
“No, it’s _porcupine_,” persisted Sylvie. “Not that other word at all.
And please will you come? The house is all in an uproar.” (“And oo’d
better bring an uproar-glass wiz oo!” added Bruno.)
We got up in great haste, and followed the children upstairs. No one
took the least notice of _me_, but I wasn’t at all surprised at this, as
I had long realised that I was quite invisible to them all—even to
Sylvie and Bruno.
All along the gallery, that led to the Prince’s apartment, an excited
crowd was surging to and fro, and the Babel of voices was deafening:
against the door of the room three strong men were leaning, vainly
trying to shut it—for some great animal inside was constantly bursting
it half open, and we had a glimpse, before the men could push it back
again, of the head of a furious wild beast, with great fiery eyes and
gnashing teeth. Its voice was a sort of mixture—there was the roaring of
a lion, and the bellowing of a bull, and now and then a scream like a
gigantic parrot. “There is no judging by the voice!” the Professor cried
in great excitement. “What is it?” he shouted to the men at the door.
And a general chorus of voices answered him “Porcupine! Prince Uggug has
turned into a Porcupine!”
“A new Specimen!” exclaimed the delighted Professor. “Pray let me go in.
It should be labeled at once!”
But the strong men only pushed him back. “Label it, indeed! Do you want
to be eaten up?” they cried.
“Never mind about Specimens, Professor!” said the Emperor, pushing his
way through the crowd. “Tell us how to keep him safe!”
“A large cage!” the Professor promptly replied. “Bring a large cage,” he
said to the people generally, “with strong bars of steel, and a
portcullis made to go up and down like a mouse-trap! Does any one happen
to have such a thing about him?”
It didn’t sound a likely sort of thing for any one to have about him;
however, they brought him one directly: curiously enough, there happened
to be one standing in the gallery.
“Put it facing the opening of the door, and draw up the portcullis!”
This was done in a moment.
“Blankets now!” cried the Professor. “This is a most interesting
Experiment!”
There happened to be a pile of blankets close by: and the Professor had
hardly said the word, when they were all unfolded and held up like
curtains all around. The Professor rapidly arranged them in two rows, so
as to make a dark passage, leading straight from the door to the mouth
of the cage.
“Now fling the door open!” This did not need to be done: the three men
had only to leap out of the way, and the fearful monster flung the door
open for itself, and, with a yell like the whistle of a steam-engine,
rushed into the cage.
“Down with the portcullis!” No sooner said than done: and all breathed
freely once more, on seeing the Porcupine safely caged.
The Professor rubbed his hands in childish delight. “The Experiment has
succeeded!” he proclaimed. “All that is needed now is to feed it three
times a day, on chopped carrots and——.”
“Never mind about its food, just now!” the Emperor interrupted. “Let us
return to the Banquet. Brother, will you lead the way?” And the old man,
attended by his children, headed the procession down stairs. “See the
fate of a loveless life!” he said to Bruno, as they returned to their
places. To which Bruno made reply, “I always loved Sylvie, so I’ll never
get prickly like that!”
“He _is_ prickly, certainly,” said the Professor, who had caught the
last words, “but we must remember that, however porcupiny, he is royal
still! After this feast is over, I’m going to take a little present to
Prince Uggug—just to soothe him, you know: it isn’t pleasant living in a
cage.”
“What’ll you give him for a birthday-present?” Bruno enquired.
“A small saucer of chopped carrots,” replied the Professor. “In giving
birthday-presents, _my_ motto is—cheapness! I should think I save forty
pounds a year by giving—oh, _what_ a twinge of pain!”
“What is it?” said Sylvie anxiously.
“My old enemy!” groaned the Professor. “Lumbago—rheumatism—that sort of
thing. I think I’ll go and lie down a bit.” And he hobbled out of the
Saloon, watched by the pitying eyes of the two children.
“He’ll be better soon!” the Elfin-King said cheerily. “Brother!” turning
to the Emperor, “I have some business to arrange with you to-night. The
Empress will take care of the children.” And the two Brothers went away
together, arm-in-arm.
The Empress found the children rather sad company. They could talk of
nothing but “the dear Professor,” and “what a pity he’s so ill!”, till
at last she made the welcome proposal “Let’s go and see him!”
The children eagerly grasped the hands she offered them: and we went off
to the Professor’s study, and found him lying on the sofa, covered up
with blankets, and reading a little manuscript-book. “Notes on Vol.
Three!” he murmured, looking up at us. And there, on a table near him,
lay the book he was seeking when first I saw him.
“And how are you now, Professor?” the Empress asked, bending over the
invalid.
The Professor looked up, and smiled feebly. “As devoted to your Imperial
Highness as ever!” he said in a weak voice. “All of me, that is not
Lumbago, is Loyalty!”
“A sweet sentiment!” the Empress exclaimed with tears in her eyes. “You
seldom hear anything so beautiful as that—even in a Valentine!”
“We must take you to stay at the seaside,” Sylvie said, tenderly. “It’ll
do you ever so much good! And the Sea’s so grand!”
“But a Mountain’s grander!” said Bruno.
“What is there grand about the Sea?” said the Professor. “Why, you could
put it all into a teacup!”
“_Some_ of it,” Sylvie corrected him.
“Well, you’d only want a certain number of tea-cups to hold it _all_.
And _then_ where’s the grandeur? Then as to a Mountain—why, you could
carry it all away in a wheel-barrow, in a certain number of years!”
“It wouldn’t look grand—the bits of it in the wheel-barrow,” Sylvie
candidly admitted.
“But when oo put it together again——” Bruno began.
“When you’re older,” said the Professor, “you’ll know that you _ca’n’t_
put Mountains together again so easily! One lives and one learns, you
know!”
“But it needn’t be the _same_ one, need it?” said Bruno. “Won’t it do,
if _I_ live, and if _Sylvie_ learns?”
“I _ca’n’t_ learn without living!” said Sylvie.
“But I _can_ live without learning!” Bruno retorted. “Oo just try me!”
“What I meant, was—” the Professor began, looking much puzzled,
“—was—that you don’t know _everything_, you know.”
“But I _do_ know everything I know!” persisted the little fellow. “I
know ever so many things! Everything, ’cept the things I _don’t_ know.
And Sylvie knows all the rest.”
The Professor sighed, and gave it up. “Do you know what a Boojum is?”
“_I_ know!” cried Bruno. “It’s the thing what wrenches people out of
their boots!”
“He means ‘bootjack,’” Sylvie explained in a whisper.
“You ca’n’t wrench people out of _boots_,” the Professor mildly
observed.
Bruno laughed saucily. “Oo _can_, though! Unless they’re _welly_ tight
in.”
“Once upon a time there was a Boojum——” the Professor began, but stopped
suddenly. “I forget the rest of the Fable,” he said. “And there was a
lesson to be learned from it. I’m afraid I forget _that_, too.”
“_I’ll_ tell oo a Fable!” Bruno began in a great hurry. “Once there were
a Locust, and a Magpie, and a Engine-driver. And the Lesson is, to learn
to get up early——”
“It isn’t a bit interesting!” Sylvie said contemptuously. “You shouldn’t
put the Lesson so soon.”
“When did you invent that Fable?” said the Professor. “Last week?”
“No!” said Bruno. “A deal shorter ago than that. Guess again!”
“I ca’n’t guess,” said the Professor. “How long ago?”
“Why, it isn’t invented yet!” Bruno exclaimed triumphantly. “But I
_have_ invented a lovely one! Shall I say it?”
“If you’ve _finished_ inventing it,” said Sylvie. “And let the Lesson be
‘to try again’!”
“No,” said Bruno with great decision. “The Lesson are ‘_not_ to try
again’!” “Once there were a lovely china man, what stood on the
chimbley-piece. And he stood, and he stood. And one day he tumbleded
off, and he didn’t hurt his self one bit. Only he _would_ try again. And
the next time he tumbleded off, he hurted his self welly much, and
breaked off ever so much varnish.”
“But how did he come back on the chimney-piece after his first tumble?”
said the Empress. (It was the first sensible question she had asked in
all her life.)
“_I_ put him there!” cried Bruno.
“Then I’m afraid you know something about his tumbling,” said the
Professor. “Perhaps you pushed him?”
To which Bruno replied, very seriously, “Didn’t pushed him _much_—he
were a _lovely_ china man,” he added hastily, evidently very anxious to
change the subject.
“Come, my children!” said the Elfin-King, who had just entered the room.
“We must have a little chat together, before you go to bed.” And he was
leading them away, but at the door they let go his hands, and ran back
again to wish the Professor good night.
[Illustration: ‘GOOD-NIGHT, PROFESSOR!’]
“Good night, Professor, good night!” And Bruno solemnly shook hands with
the old man, who gazed at him with a loving smile, while Sylvie bent
down to press her sweet lips upon his forehead.
“Good night, little ones!” said the Professor. “You may leave me now—to
ruminate. I’m as jolly as the day is long, except when it’s necessary to
ruminate on some very difficult subject. All of me,” he murmured
sleepily as we left the room, “all of me, that isn’t _Bonhommie_, is
Rumination!”
“_What_ did he say, Bruno?” Sylvie enquired, as soon as we were safely
out of hearing.
“I _think_ he said ‘All of me that isn’t Bone-disease is Rheumatism.’
Whatever _are_ that knocking, Sylvie?”
Sylvie stopped, and listened anxiously. It sounded like some one kicking
at a door. “I _hope_ it isn’t that Porcupine breaking loose!” she
exclaimed.
“Let’s go on!” Bruno said hastily. “There’s nuffin to wait for, oo
know!“