Mr. Munchausen <br />Being a True Account of Some of the Recent Adventures beyond the Styx of the L by John Kendrick Bangs (best novels in english TXT) 📗

The Twins had been on the lookout for the Baron for at least an hour, and still he did not come, and the little Imps were beginning to feel blue over the prospect of getting the usual Sunday afternoon story. It was past four o’clock, and for as long a time as they could remember the Baron had never failed to arrive by three o’clock. All sorts of dreadful possibilities came up before their mind’s eye. They pictured the Baron in accidents of many sorts. They conjured up visions of him lying wounded beneath the ruins of an apartment house, or something else equally heavy that might have fallen upon him on his way from his rooms to the station, but that he was more than wounded they did not believe, for they knew that the Baron was not the sort of man to be killed by anything killing under the sun.

“I wonder where he can be?” said Angelica, uneasily to her brother, who was waiting with equal anxiety for their common friend.

 “Oh, he’s all right!” said Diavolo, with a confidence he did not really feel. “He’ll turn up all right, and even if he’s two hours late he’ll be here on time according to his own watch. Just you wait and see.”

And they did wait and they did see. They waited for ten minutes, when the Baron drove up, smiling as ever, but apparently a little out of breath. I should not dare to say that he was really out of breath, but he certainly did seem to be so, for he panted visibly, and for two or three minutes after his arrival was quite unable to ask the Imps the usual question as to their very good health. Finally, however, the customary courtesies of the greeting were exchanged, and the decks were cleared for action.

“What kept you, Uncle Munch?” asked the Twins, as they took up their usual position on the Baron’s knees.

“What what?” replied the warrior. “Kept me? Why, am I late?”

“Two hours,” said the Twins. “Dad gave you up and went out for a walk.”

 “Nonsense,” said the Baron. “I’m never that late.”

Here he looked at his watch.

“Why I do seem to be behind time. There must be something wrong with our time-pieces. I can’t be two hours late, you know.”

“Well, let’s say you are on time, then,” said the Twins. “What kept you?”

“A very funny accident on the railroad,” said the Baron lighting a cigar. “Queerest accident that ever happened to me on the railroad, too. Our engine ran away.”

The Twins laughed as if they thought the Baron was trying to fool them.

“Really,” said the Baron. “I left town as usual on the two o’clock train, which, as you know, comes through in half an hour, without a stop. Everything went along smoothly until we reached the Vitriol Reservoir, when much to the surprise of everybody the train came to a stand-still. I supposed there was a cow on the track, and so kept in my seat for three or four minutes as did every one else. Finally the conductor came through and  called to the brakeman at the end of our car to see if his brakes were all right.

“‘It’s the most unaccountable thing,’ he said to me. ‘Here’s this train come to a dead stop and I can’t see why. There isn’t a brake out of order on any one of the cars, and there isn’t any earthly reason why we shouldn’t go ahead.’

“‘Maybe somebody’s upset a bottle of glue on the track,’ said I. I always like to chaff the conductor, you know, though as far as that is concerned, I remember once when I was travelling on a South American Railway our train was stopped by highwaymen, who smeared the tracks with a peculiar sort of gum. They’d spread it over three miles of track, and after the train had gone lightly over two miles of it the wheels stuck so fast ten engines couldn’t have moved it. That was a terrible affair.”

“I don’t think we ever heard of that, did we?” asked Angelica.

“I don’t remember it,” said Diavolo.

“Well, you would have remembered it, if you had ever heard of it,” said the Baron. “It was too dreadful to be forgotten—not for us, you know,  but for the robbers. It was one of the Imperial trains in Brazil, and if it hadn’t been for me the Emperor would have been carried off and held for ransom. The train was brought to a stand-still by this gluey stuff, as I have told you, and the desperadoes boarded the cars and proceeded to rifle us of our possessions. The Emperor was in the car back of mine, and the robbers made directly for him, but fathoming their intention I followed close upon their heels.

“‘You are our game,’ said the chief robber, tapping the Emperor on the shoulder, as he entered the Imperial car.

“‘Hands off,’ I cried throwing the ruffian to one side.

“He scowled dreadfully at me, the Emperor looked surprised, and another one of the robbers requested to know who was I that I should speak with so much authority. ‘Who am I?’ said I, with a wink at the Emperor. ‘Who am I? Who else but Baron Munchausen of the Bodenwerder National Guard, ex-friend of Napoleon of France, intimate of the Mikado of Japan, and famed the  world over as the deadliest shot in two hemispheres.’

“The desperadoes paled visibly as I spoke, and after making due apologies for interfering with the train, fled shrieking from the car. They had heard of me before.

“‘I thank you, sir,’ began the Emperor, as the would-be assassins fled, but I cut him short. ‘They must not be allowed to escape,’ I said, and with that I started in pursuit of the desperate fellows, overtook them, and glued them with the gum they had prepared for our detention to the face of a precipice that rose abruptly from the side of the railway, one hundred and ten feet above the level. There I left them. We melted the glue from the tracks by means of our steam heating apparatus, and were soon booming merrily on our way to Rio Janeiro when I was fêted and dined continuously for weeks by the people, though strange to say the Emperor’s behaviour toward me was very cool.”

“And did the robbers ever get down?” asked the Twins.

“Yes, but not in a way they liked,” Mr. Munchausen  replied. “The sun came out, and after a week or two melted the glue that held them to the precipice, whereupon they fell to its base and were shattered into pieces so small there wasn’t an atom of them to be found when a month later I passed that way again on my return trip.”

“And didn’t the Emperor treat you well, Uncle Munch?” asked the Imps.

“No—as I told you he was very cool towards me, and I couldn’t understand it, then, but I do now,” said the Baron. “You see he was very much in need of ready cash, the Emperor was, and as the taxpayers were already growling about the expenses of the Government he didn’t dare raise the money by means of a tax. So he arranged with the desperadoes to stop the train, capture him, and hold him for ransom. Then when the ransom came along he was going to divide up with them. My sudden appearance, coupled with my determination to rescue him, spoiled his plan, you see, and so he naturally wasn’t very grateful. Poor fellow, I was very sorry for it afterward, because he really was an excellent ruler, and his plan of raising the  money he needed wasn’t a bit less honest than most other ways rulers employ to obtain revenue for State purposes.”

“Well, now, let’s get back to the runaway engine,” said the Twins. “You can tell us more about South America after you get through with that. How did the engine come to run away?”

“It was simple enough,” said the Baron. “The engineer, after starting the train came back into the smoking car to get a light for his pipe, and while he was