Kitabı oku: «Mr. Munchausen», sayfa 6
XI
THE BARON AS A RUNNER
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 there the coupling-pin between the engine and the train broke, and off skipped the engine twice as fast as it had been going before. The relief from the weight of the train set its pace to a mile a minute instead of a mile in two minutes, and there we were at a dead stop in front of the Vitriol Station with nothing to move us along. When the engineer saw what had happened he fainted dead away, because you know if a collision had occurred between the runaway engine and the train ahead he would have been held responsible.”
“Couldn’t the fireman stop the engine?” asked the Twins.
“No. That is, it wouldn’t be his place to do it, and these railway fellows are queer about that sort of thing,” said the Baron. “The engineers would go out upon a strike if the railroad were to permit a stoker to manage the engine, and besides that the stoker wouldn’t undertake to do it at a stoker’s wages, so there wasn’t any help to be looked for there. The conductor happened to be nearsighted, and so he didn’t find out that the engine was missing until he had wasted ten or twenty minutes examining the brakes, by which time, of course, the runaway was miles and miles up the track. Then the engineer came to, and began to wring his hands and moan in a way that was heart-rending. The conductor, too, began to cry, and all the brakemen left the train and took to the woods. They weren’t going to have any of the responsibility for the accident placed on their shoulders. Whether they will ever turn up again I don’t know. But I realised as soon as anybody else that something had to be done, so I rushed into the telegraph office and telegraphed to all the station masters between the Vitriol Reservoir and Cimmeria to clear the track of all trains, freight, local, or express, or somebody would be hurt, and that I myself would undertake to capture the runaway engine. This they all promised to do, whereupon I bade good-bye to my fellow-travellers, and set off up the track myself at full speed. In a minute I strode past Sulphur Springs, covering at least eight ties at a stretch. In two minutes I thundered past Lava Hurst, where I learned that the engine had twenty miles start of me. I made a rapid calculation mentally – I always was strong in mental arithmetic, which showed that unless I was tripped up or got side-tracked somewhere I might overtake the runaway before it reached Noxmere. Redoubling my efforts, my stride increased to twenty ties at a jump, and I made the next five miles in two minutes. It sounds impossible, but really it isn’t so. It is hard to run as fast as that at the start, but when you have got your start the impetus gathered in the first mile’s run sends you along faster in the second, and so your speed increases by its own force until finally you go like the wind. At Gasdale I had gained two miles on the engine, at Sneakskill I was only fifteen miles behind, and upon my arrival at Noxmere there was scarcely a mile between me and the fugitive. Unfortunately a large crowd had gathered at Noxmere to see me pass through, and some small boy had brought a dog along with him and the dog stood directly in my path. If I ran over the dog it would kill him and might trip me up. If I jumped with the impetus I had there was no telling where I would land. It was a hard point to decide either way, but I decided in favour of the jump, simply to save the dog’s life, for I love animals. I landed three miles up the road and ahead of the engine, though I didn’t know that until I had run ten miles farther on, leaving the engine a hundred yards behind me at every stride. It was at Miasmatica that I discovered my error and then I tried to stop. It was almost in vain; I dragged my feet over the ties, but could only slow down to a three-minute gait. Then I tried to turn around and slow up running backward; this brought my speed down ten minutes to the mile, which made it safe for me to run into a hay-stack at the side of the railroad just this side of Cimmeria. Then, of course, I was all right. I could sit down and wait for the engine, which came booming along forty minutes later. As it approached I prepared to board it, and in five minutes was in full control. That made it easy enough for me to get back here without further trouble. I simply reversed the lever, and back we came faster than I can describe, and just one hour and a half from the time of the mishap the runaway engine was restored to its deserted train and I reached your station here in good order. I should have walked up, but for my weariness after that exciting run, which as you see left me very much out of breath, and which made it necessary for me to hire that worn-out old hack instead of walking up as is my wont.”
“Yes, we see you are out of breath,” said the Twins, as the Baron paused. “Would you like to lie down and take a rest?”
“Above all things,” said the Baron. “I’ll take a nap here until your father returns,” which he proceeded at once to do.
While he slept the two Imps gazed at him curiously, Angelica, a little suspiciously.
“Bub,” said she, in a whisper, “do you think that was a true story?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Diavolo. “If anybody else than Uncle Munch had told it, I wouldn’t have believed it. But he hates untruth. I know because he told me so.”
“That’s the way I feel about it,” said Angelica. “Of course, he can run as fast as that, because he is very strong, but what I can’t see is how an engine ever could run away from its train.”
“That’s what stumps me,” said Diavolo.
XII
MR. MUNCHAUSEN MEETS HIS MATCH
(Reported by Henry W. Ananias for the Gehenna Gazette.)
When Mr. Munchausen, accompanied by Ananias and Sapphira, after a long and tedious journey from Cimmeria to the cool and wooded heights of the Blue Sulphur Mountains, entered the portals of the hotel where the greater part of his summers are spent, the first person to greet him was Beelzebub Sandboy, – the curly-headed Imp who acted as “Head Front” of the Blue Sulphur Mountain House, his eyes a-twinkle and his swift running feet as ever ready for a trip to any part of the hostelry and back. Beelzy, as the Imp was familiarly known, as the party entered, was in the act of carrying a half-dozen pitchers of iced-water upstairs to supply thirsty guests with the one thing needful and best to quench that thirst, and in his excitement at catching sight once again of his ancient friend the Baron, managed to drop two of the pitchers with a loud crash upon the office floor. This, however, was not noticed by the powers that ruled. Beelzy was not perfect, and as long as he smashed less than six pitchers a day on an average the management was disposed not to complain.
“There goes my friend Beelzy,” said the Baron, as the pitchers fell. “I am delighted to see him. I was afraid he would not be here this year since I understand he has taken up the study of theology.”
“Theology?” cried Ananias. “In Hades?”
“How foolish,” said Sapphira. “We don’t need preachers here.”
“He’d make an excellent one,” said Mr. Munchausen. “He is a lad of wide experience and his fish and bear stories are wonderful. If he can make them gee, as he would put it, with his doctrines he would prove a tremendous success. Thousands would flock to hear him for his bear stories alone. As for the foolishness of his choice, I think it is a very wise one. Everybody can’t be a stoker, you know.”
At any rate, whatever the reasons for Beelzebub’s presence, whether he had given up the study of theology or not, there he was plying his old vocation with the same perfection of carelessness as of yore, and apparently no farther along in the study of theology than he was the year before when he bade Mr. Munchausen “good-bye forever” with the statement that now that he was going to lead a pious life the chances were he’d never meet his friend again.
“I don’t see why they keep such a careless boy as that,” said Sapphira, as Beelzy at the first landing turned to grin at Mr. Munchausen, emptying the contents of one of his pitchers into the lap of a nervous old gentleman in the office below.
“He adds an element of excitement to a not over-exciting place,” explained Mr. Munchausen. “On stormy days here the men make bets on what fool thing Beelzy will do next. He blacked all the russet shoes with stove polish one year, and last season in the rush of his daily labours he filled up the water-cooler with soft coal instead of ice. He’s a great bell-boy, is my friend Beelzy.”
A little while later when Mr. Munchausen and his party had been shown to their suite, Beelzy appeared in their drawing-room and was warmly greeted by Mr. Munchausen, who introduced him to Mr. and Mrs. Ananias.
“Well,” said Mr. Munchausen, “you’re here again, are you?”
“No, indeed,” said Beelzy. “I ain’t here this year. I’m over at the Coal-Yards shovellin’ snow. I’m my twin brother that died three years before I was born.”
“How interesting,” said Sapphira, looking at the boy through her lorgnette.
Beelzy bowed in response to the compliment and observed to the Baron:
“You ain’t here yourself this season, be ye?”
“No,” said Mr. Munchausen, drily. “I’ve gone abroad. You’ve given up theology I presume?”
“Sorter,” said Beelzy. “It was lonesome business and I hadn’t been at it more’n twenty minutes when I realised that bein’ a missionary ain’t all jam and buckwheats. It’s kind o’ dangerous too, and as I didn’t exactly relish the idea o’ bein’ et up by Samoans an’ Feejees I made up my mind to give it up an’ stick to bell-boyin’ for another season any how; but I’ll see you later, Mr. Munchausen. I’ve got to hurry along with this iced-water. It’s overdue now, and we’ve got the kickinest lot o’ folks here this year you ever see. One man here the other night got as mad as hookey because it took forty minutes to soft bile an egg. Said two minutes was all that was necessary to bile an egg softer’n mush, not understanding anything about the science of eggs in a country where hens feeds on pebbles.”
“Pebbles?” cried Mr. Munchausen. “What, do they lay Roc’s eggs?”
Beelzy grinned.
“No, sir – they lay hen’s eggs all right, but they’re as hard as Adam’s aunt.”
“I never heard of chickens eating pebbles,” observed Sapphira with a frown. “Do they really relish them?”
“I don’t know, Ma’am,” said Beelzy. “I ain’t never been on speakin’ terms with the hens, Ma’am, and they never volunteered no information. They eat ’em just the same. They’ve got to eat something and up here on these mountains there ain’t anything but gravel for ’em to eat. That’s why they do it. Then when it comes to the eggs, on a diet like that, cobblestones ain’t in it with ’em for hardness, and when you come to bite ’em it takes a week to get ’em soft, an’ a steam drill to get ’em open – an’ this feller kicked at forty minutes! Most likely he’s swearin’ around upstairs now because this iced-water ain’t came; and it ain’t more than two hours since he ordered it neither.”
“What an unreasonable gentleman,” said Sapphira.
“Ain’t he though!” said Beelzy. “And he ain’t over liberal neither. He’s been here two weeks now and all the money I’ve got out of him was a five-dollar bill I found on his bureau yesterday morning. There’s more money in theology than there is in him.”
With this Beelzebub grabbed up the pitcher of water, and bounded out of the room like a frightened fawn. He disappeared into the dark of the corridor, and a few moments later was evidently tumbling head over heels up stairs, if the sounds that greeted the ears of the party in the drawing-room meant anything.
The next morning when there was more leisure for Beelzy the Baron inquired as to the state of his health.
“Oh it’s been pretty good,” said he. “Pretty good. I’m all right now, barrin’ a little gout in my right foot, and ice-water on my knee, an’ a crick in my back, an’ a tired feelin’ all over me generally. Ain’t had much to complain about. Had the measles in December, and the mumps in February; an’ along about the middle o’ May the whoopin’ cough got a holt of me; but as it saved my life I oughtn’t to kick about that.”
Here Beelzy looked gratefully at an invisible something – doubtless the recollection in the thin air of his departed case of whooping cough, for having rescued him from an untimely grave.
“That is rather curious, isn’t it?” queried Sapphira, gazing intently into the boy’s eyes. “I don’t exactly understand how the whooping cough could save anybody’s life, do you, Mr. Munchausen?”
“Beelzy, this lady would have you explain the situation, and I must confess that I am myself somewhat curious to learn the details of this wonderful rescue,” said Mr. Munchausen.
“Well, I must say,” said Beelzy, with a pleased smile at the very great consequence of his exploit in the lady’s eyes, “if I was a-goin’ to start out to save people’s lives generally I wouldn’t have thought a case o’ whoopin’ cough would be of much use savin’ a man from drownin’, and I’m sure if a feller fell out of a balloon it wouldn’t help him much if he had ninety dozen cases o’ whoopin’ cough concealed on his person; but for just so long as I’m the feller that has to come up here every June, an’ shoo the bears out o’ the hotel, I ain’t never goin’ to be without a spell of whoopin’ cough along about that time if I can help it. I wouldn’t have been here now if it hadn’t been for it.”
“You referred just now,” said Sapphira, “to shooing bears out of the hotel. May I inquire what useful function in the ménage of a hotel a bear-shooer performs?”
“What useful what?” asked Beelzy.
“Function – duty – what does the duty of a bear-shooer consist in?” explained Mr. Munchausen. “Is he a blacksmith who shoes bears instead of horses?”
“He’s a bear-chaser,” explained Beelzy, “and I’m it,” he added. “That, Ma’am, is the function of a bear-shooer in the menagerie of a hotel.”
Sapphira having expressed herself as satisfied, Beelzebub continued.
“You see this here house is shut up all winter, and when everybody’s gone and left it empty the bears come down out of the mountains and use it instead of a cave. It’s more cosier and less windier than their dens. So when the last guest has gone, and all the doors are locked, and the band gone into winter quarters, down come the bears and take possession. They generally climb through some open window somewhere. They divide up all the best rooms accordin’ to their position in bear society and settle down to a regular hotel life among themselves.”
“But what do they feed upon?” asked Sapphira.
“Oh they’ll eat anything when they’re hungry,” said Beelzy. “Sofa cushions, parlor rugs, hotel registers – anything they can fasten their teeth to. Last year they came in through the cupola, burrowin’ down through the snow to get at it, and there they stayed enjoyin’ life out o’ reach o’ the wind and storm, snug’s bugs in rugs. Year before last there must ha’ been a hundred of ’em in the hotel when I got here, but one by one I got rid of ’em. Some I smoked out with some cigars Mr. Munchausen gave me the summer before; some I deceived out, gettin’ ’em to chase me through the winders, an’ then doublin’ back on my tracks an’ lockin’ ’em out. It was mighty wearin’ work.
“Last June there was twice as many. By actual tab I shooed two hundred and eight bears and a panther off into the mountains. When the last one as I thought disappeared into the woods I searched the house from top to bottom to see if there was any more to be got rid of. Every blessed one of the five hundred rooms I went through, and not a bear was left that I could see. I can tell you, I was glad, because there was a partickerly ugly run of ’em this year, an’ they gave me a pile o’ trouble. They hadn’t found much to eat in the hotel, an’ they was disappointed and cross. As a matter of fact, the only things they found in the place they could eat was a piano stool and an old hair trunk full o’ paper-covered novels, which don’t make a very hearty meal for two hundred and eight bears and a panther.”
“I should say not,” said Sapphira, “particularly if the novels were as light as most of them are nowadays.”
“I can’t say as to that,” said Beelzy. “I ain’t got time to read ’em and so I ain’t any judge. But all this time I was sufferin’ like hookey with awful spasms of whoopin’ cough. I whooped so hard once it smashed one o’ the best echoes in the place all to flinders, an’ of course that made the work twice as harder. So, naturally, when I found there warn’t another bear left in the hotel, I just threw myself down anywhere, and slept. My! how I slept. I don’t suppose anything ever slept sounder’n I did. And then it happened.”
Beelzy gave his trousers a hitch and let his voice drop to a stage whisper that lent a wondrous impressiveness to his narration.
“As I was a-layin’ there unconscious, dreamin’ of home and father, a great big black hungry bruin weighin’ six hundred and forty-three pounds, that had been hidin’ in the bread oven in the bakery, where I hadn’t thought of lookin’ for him, came saunterin’ along, hummin’ a little tune all by himself, and lickin’ his chops with delight at the idee of havin’ me raw for his dinner. I lay on unconscious of my danger, until he got right up close, an’ then I waked up, an’ openin’ my eyes saw this great black savage thing gloatin’ over me an’ tears of joy runnin’ out of his mouth as he thought of the choice meal he was about to have. He was sniffin’ my bang when I first caught sight of him.”
“Mercy!” cried Sapphira, “I should think you’d have died of fright.”
“I did,” said Beelzy, politely, “but I came to life again in a minute. ‘Oh Lor!’ says I, as I see how hungry he was. ‘This here’s the end o’ me;’ at which the bear looked me straight in the eye, licked his chops again, and was about to take a nibble off my right ear when ‘Whoop!’ I had a spasm of whoopin’. Well, Ma’am, I guess you know what that means. There ain’t nothin’ more uncanny, more terrifyin’ in the whole run o’ human noises, barrin’ a German Opery, than the whoop o’ the whoopin’ cough. At the first whoop Mr. Bear jumped ten feet and fell over backwards onto the floor; at the second he scrambled to his feet and put for the door, but stopped and looked around hopin’ he was mistaken, when I whooped a third time. The third did the business. That third whoop would have scared Indians. It was awful. It was like a tornado blowin’ through a fog-horn with a megaphone in front of it. When he heard that, Mr. Bear turned on all four of his heels and started on a scoot up into the woods that must have carried him ten miles before I quit coughin’.
“An’ that’s why, Ma’am, I say that when you’ve got to shoo bears for a livin’, an attack o’ whoopin’ cough is a useful thing to have around.”
Saying which, Beelzy departed to find Number 433’s left boot which he had left at Number 334’s door by some odd mistake.
“What do you think of that, Mr. Munchausen?” asked Sapphira, as Beelzy left the room.
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Munchausen, with a sigh. “I’m inclined to think that I am a trifle envious of him. The rest of us are not in his class.”
