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) 📗
- Author: John Kendrick Bangs
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“I will,” said Diavolo, “But you haven’t told us of the other useful things he did for you yet.”
“I was about to do so,” said Mr. Munchausen. “In the first place, before he learned how to do little things about the house for me, Wriggletto acted as a watch-dog and you may be sure that nobody ever ventured to prowl around my house at night while Wriggletto slept out on the lawn. Para was quite full of conscienceless fellows, too, at that time, any one of whom would have been glad to have a chance to relieve me of my belongings if they could get by my watch-snake. Two of them tried it one dark stormy night, and Wriggletto when he discovered them climbing in at my window, crawled up behind them and winding his tail about them crept down to the banks of the Amazon, dragging them after him. There he tossed them into the river, and came back to his post once more.”
“Did you see him do it, Uncle Munch?” asked Angelica.
“No, I did not. I learned of it afterwards. Wriggletto himself said never a word. He was too modest for that,” said Mr. Munchausen. “One of the robbers wrote a letter to the Para newspapers about it, complaining that any one should be allowed to keep a reptile like that around, and suggested that anyhow people using snakes in place of dogs should be compelled to license them, and put up a sign at their gates:
BEWARE OF THE SNAKE!
“The man never acknowledged, of course, that he was the robber,—said that he was calling on business when the thing happened,—but he didn’t say what his business was, but I knew better, and later on the other robber and he fell out, and they confessed that the business they had come on was to take away a few thousand gold coins of the realm which I was known to have in the house locked in a steel chest.
“I bought Wriggletto a handsome silver collar after that, and it was generally understood that he was the guardian of my place, and robbers bothered me no more. Then he was finer than a cat for rats. On very hot days he would go off into the cellar, where it was cool, and lie there with his mouth wide open and his eyes shut, and catch rats by the dozens. They’d run around in the dark, and the first thing they’d know they’d stumble into Wriggletto’s mouth; and he swallowed them and licked his chops afterwards, just as you or I do when we’ve swallowed a fine luscious oyster or a clam.
“But pleasantest of all the things Wriggletto did for me—and he was untiring in his attentions in that way—was keeping me cool on hot summer nights. Para as you may have heard is a pretty hot place at best, lying in a tropical region as it does, but sometimes it is awful for a man used to the Northern climate, as I was. The act of fanning one’s self, so far from cooling one off, makes one hotter than ever. Maybe you remember how it was with the elephant in the poem:
“‘Oh my, oh dear!’ the elephant said,
‘It is so awful hot!
I’ve fanned myself for seventy weeks,
And haven’t cooled a jot.’
“And that was the way it was with me in Para on hot nights. I’d fan and fan and fan, but I couldn’t get cool until Wriggletto became a member of my family, and then I was all right. He used to wind his tail about a huge palm-leaf fan I had cut in the forest, so large that I couldn’t possibly handle it myself, and he’d wave it to and fro by the hour, with the result that my house was always the breeziest place in Para.”
“Where is Wriggletto now?” asked Diavolo.
“Heigho!” sighed Mr. Munchausen. “He died, poor fellow, and all because of that silver collar I gave him. He tried to swallow a jibola that entered my house one night on wickedness intent, and while Wriggletto’s throat was large enough when he stretched it to take down three jibolas, with a collar on which wouldn’t stretch he couldn’t swallow one. He didn’t know that, unfortunately, and he kept on trying until the jibola got a quarter way down and then he stuck. Each swallow, of course, made the collar fit more tightly and finally poor Wriggletto choked himself to death. I felt so badly about it that I left Para within a month, but meanwhile I had a suit of clothes made out of Wriggletto’s skin, and wore it for years, and then, when the clothes began to look worn, I had the skin re-tanned and made over into shoes and slippers. So you see that even after death he was useful to me. He was a faithful snake, and that is why when I hear people running down all snakes I tell the story of Wriggletto.”
“He used to wind his tail about a fan and he’d wave it to and fro by the hour.” Chapter XIII.
There was a pause for a few moments, when Diavolo said, “Uncle Munch, is that a true story you’ve been giving us?”
“True?” cried Mr. Munchausen. “True? Why, my dear boy, what a question! If you don’t believe it, bring me your atlas, and I’ll show you just where Para is.”
Diavolo did as he was told, and sure enough, Mr. Munchausen did exactly as he said he would, which Diavolo thought was very remarkable, but he still was not satisfied.
“You said he could write as well with himself as you or I could with a pen, Uncle Munch,” he said. “How was that?”
“Why that was simple enough,” explained Mr. Munchausen. “You see he was very black, and thirty-nine feet long and remarkably supple and slender. After a year of hard study he learned to bunch himself into letters, and if he wanted to say anything to me he’d simply form himself into a written sentence. Indeed his favourite attitude when in repose showed his wonderful gift in chirography as well as his affection for me. If you will get me a card I will prove it.”
Diavolo brought Mr. Munchausen the card and upon it he drew the following:
“There,” said Mr. Munchausen. “That’s the way Wriggletto always used to lie when he was at rest. His love for me was very affecting.”
THE POETIC JUNE-BUG, TOGETHER WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE GILLYHOOLY BIRD
“Uncle Munch,” said Diavolo one afternoon as a couple of bicyclers sped past the house at breakneck speed, “which would you rather have, a bicycle or a horse?”
“Well, I must say, my boy, that is a difficult question to answer,” Mr. Munchausen replied after scratching his head dubiously for a few minutes. “You might as well ask a man which he prefers, a hammock or a steam-yacht. To that question I should reply that if I wanted to sell it, I’d rather have a steam-yacht, but for a pleasant swing on a cool piazza in midsummer or under the apple-trees, a hammock would be far preferable. Steam-yachts are not much good to swing in under an apple tree, and very few piazzas that I know of are big enough—”
“Oh, now, you know what I mean, Uncle Munch,” Diavolo retorted, tapping Mr. Munchausen upon the end of his nose, for a twinkle in Mr. Munchausen’s eye seemed to indicate that he was in one of his chaffing moods, and a greater tease than Mr. Munchausen when he felt that way no one has ever known. “I mean for horse-back riding, which would you rather have?”
“Ah, that’s another matter,” returned Mr. Munchausen, calmly. “Now I know how to answer your question. For horse-back riding I certainly prefer a horse; though, on the other hand, for bicycling, bicycles are better than horses. Horses make very poor bicycles, due no doubt to the fact that they have no wheels.”
Diavolo began to grow desperate.
“Of course,” Mr. Munchausen went on, “all I have to say in this connection is based merely on my ideas, and not upon any personal experience. I’ve been horse-back riding on horses, and bicycling on bicycles, but I never went horse-back riding on a bicycle, or bicycling on horseback. I should think it might be exciting to go bicycling on horse-back, but very dangerous. It is hard enough for me to keep a bicycle from toppling over when I’m riding on a hard, straight, level well-paved road, without experimenting with my wheel on a horse’s back. However if you wish to try it some day and will get me a horse with a back as big as Trafalgar Square I’m willing to make the effort.”
Angelica giggled. It was lots of fun for her when Mr. Munchausen teased Diavolo, though she didn’t like it quite so much when it was her turn to be treated that way. Diavolo wanted to laugh too, but he had too much dignity for that, and to conceal his desire to grin from Mr. Munchausen he began to hunt about for an old newspaper, or a lump of coal or something else he could make a ball of to throw at him.
“Which would you rather do, Angelica,” Mr. Munchausen resumed, “go to sea in a balloon or attend a dumb-crambo party in a chicken-coop?”
“I guess I would,” laughed Angelica.
“That’s a good answer,” Mr. Munchausen put in. “It is quite as intelligent as the one which is attributed to the Gillyhooly bird. When the Gillyhooly bird was asked his opinion of giraffes, he scratched his head for a minute and said,
“‘The question hath but little wit
That you have put to me,
But I will try to answer it
With prompt candidity.
The automobile is a thing
That’s pleasing to the mind;
And in a lustrous diamond ring
Some merit I can find.
Some persons gloat o’er French Chateaux;
Some dote on lemon ice;
While others gorge on mixed gateaux,
Yet have no use for mice.
I’m very fond of oyster-stew,
I love a patent-leather boot,
But after all, ’twixt me and you,
The fish-ball is my favourite fruit.’”
“Hoh” jeered Diavolo, who, attracted by the allusion to a kind of bird of which he had never heard before, had given up the quest for a paper ball and returned to Mr. Munchausen’s side, “I don’t think that was a very intelligent answer. It didn’t answer the question at all.”
“That’s true, and that is why it was intelligent,” said Mr. Munchausen. “It was noncommittal. Some day when you are older and know less than you do now, you will realise, my dear Diavolo, how valuable a thing is the reply that answereth not.”
Mr. Munchausen paused long enough to let the lesson sink in and then he resumed.
“The Gillyhooly bird is a perfect owl for wisdom of that sort,” he said. “It never lets anybody know what it thinks; it never makes promises, and rarely speaks except to mystify people. It probably has just as decided an opinion concerning giraffes as you or I have, but it never lets anybody into the secret.”
“What is a Gillyhooly bird, anyhow?” asked Diavolo.
“He’s a bird that never sings for fear of straining his voice; never flies for fear of wearying his wings; never eats for fear of spoiling his digestion; never stands up for fear of bandying his legs
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