Part 21 (2/2)

”Wattonearth do-you-do with a-nold beevor-at?” whistled Whistlebinkie.

”I use it as a post-office box to mail cross letters in,” said the Unwiseman gravely. ”It's saved me lots of trouble.”

”Cross letters?” asked Mollie. ”You never write cross letters to anybody do you?”

”I'm doing it all the time,” said the Unwiseman. ”Whenever anything happens that I don't like I sit down and write a terrible letter to the people that do it. That eases off my feelings, and then I mail the letters in the hat.”

”And does the Post-man come and get them?” asked Mollie.

”No indeed,” said the Unwiseman. ”That's where the beauty of the scheme comes in. If I mailed 'em in the post-office box on the lamp-post, the post-man would take 'em and deliver them to the man they're addressed to and I'd be in all sorts of trouble. But when I mail them in my hat n.o.body comes for them and n.o.body gets them, and so there's no trouble for anybody anywhere.”

”But what becomes of them?” asked Mollie.

”I empty the hat on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of every month and use them for kindling in my kitchen-stove,” said the Unwiseman. ”It's a fine scheme. I keep out of trouble, don't have to buy so much kindling wood, and save postage.”

”That sounds like a pretty good idea,” said Mollie.

”It's a first cla.s.s idea,” returned Mr. Me, ”and I'm proud of it. It's all my own and if I had time I'd patent it. Why I was invited to a party once by a small boy who'd thrown a snow-ball at my house and wet one of the s.h.i.+ngles up where I keep my leak, and I was so angry that I sat down and wrote back that I regretted very much to be delighted to say that I'd never go to a party at his house if it was the only party in the world besides the Republican; that I didn't like him, and thought his mother's new spring bonnet was most unbecoming and that I'd heard his father had been mentioned for Alderman in our town and all sorts of disgraceful things like that. I mailed this right in my hat and used it to boil an egg with a month later, while if I'd mailed it in the post-office box that boy'd have got it and I couldn't have gone to his party at all.”

”Oh--you went, did you?” laughed Mollie.

”I did and I had a fine time, six eclairs, three plates of ice cream, a pound of chicken salad, and a pocketful of nuts and raisins,” said the Unwiseman. ”He turned out to be a very nice boy, and his mother's spring bonnet wasn't hers at all but another lady's altogether, and his father had not even been mentioned for Water Commissioner. You see, my dear, what a lot of trouble mailing that letter in the old beaver hat saved me, not to mention what I earned in the way of food by going to the party which I couldn't have done had it been mailed in the regular way.”

Here the old gentleman began to yodel happily, and to tell pa.s.sersby in song that he was a ”Gay Swiss Laddy with a carpet-bag, That never knew fear of the Alpine crag, For his eye was bright and his conscience clear, As he leapt his way through the atmosphere, Tra-la-la, tra-la-la, Trala-lolly-O.”

”I do-see-how-yood-make-that-shammy-useful,” said Whistlebinkie. ”Except to try your poems on and I don't b'lieve he's a good judge o' potery.”

”He's a splendid judge of queer noises,” said the Unwiseman, severely.

”He knew enough to jump a mile whenever you squeaked.”

”Watt-else-coodie-doo?” asked Whistlebinkie through his hat. ”You haven't any silver to keep polished and there aren't enough queer noises about your place to keep him busy.”

”What else coodie-do?” retorted the Unwiseman, giving an imitation of Whistlebinkie that set both Mollie and the rubber doll to giggling. ”Why he could polish up the handle of my big front door for one thing. He could lie down on his back and wiggle around the floor and make it s.h.i.+ne like a lookin' gla.s.s for another. He could rub up against my kitchen stove and keep it bright and s.h.i.+ning for a third--that's some of the things he couldie-doo, but I wouldn't confine him to work around my house. I'd lead him around among the neighbors and hire him out for fifty cents a day for general shammy-skin house-work. I dare say Mollie's mother would be glad to have a real live shammy around that she could rub her tea-kettles and coffee pots on when it comes to cleaning the silver.”

”They can buy all the shammys they need at the grocer's,” said Whistlebinkie scornfully.

”Dead ones,” said the Unwiseman, ”but nary a live shammy have you seen at the grocer's or the butcher's or the milliner's or the piano-tuner's.

That's where Wigglethorpe----”

”Wigglethorpe?” cried Whistlebinkie.

”Yes Wigglethorpe,” repeated the Unwiseman. ”That's what I have decided to call my shammy when I get him because he will wiggle.”

”He don't thorpe, does he?” laughed Whistlebinkie.

”He thorpes just as much as you bink,” retorted the Unwiseman. ”But as I was saying, Wigglethorpe, being alive, will be better than any ten dead ones because he won't wear out, maids won't leave him around on the parlor floor, and just because he wiggles, the silver and the hardwood floors and front door handles will be polished up in half the time it takes to do it with a dead one. At fifty cents a day I could earn three dollars a week on Wigglethorpe----”

”Which would be all profit if you fed him on potery,” said Whistlebinkie with a grin.

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