Part 29 (1/2)
”To the President?” cried Mollie.
”Yes--I want him to know I'm home in the first place, and in the second place I want to tell him that the next time he wants to collect his salary from me, I'll take it as a personal favor if he'll come himself and not send Uncle Sam Maginnis after it. I can stand a good deal for my country's sake but when a Custom House inspector prys into my private affairs and then calls them junk just because the President needs a four and a quarter thousandth of a cent, it makes me very, very angry. It's been as much as I could do to keep from saying 'Thunder' ever since I landed, and that ain't the way an American citizen ought to feel when he comes back to his own beautiful land again after three months' absence.
It's like celebrating a wanderer's return by hitting him in the face with a boot-jack, and I don't like it.”
The window was opened and with much deliberation the Unwiseman despatched his message to the President, announcing his return and protesting against the tyrannous behavior of Mr. Maginnis, the Custom House Inspector, after which the little party continued on their way until they reached their native town. Here they separated, Mollie and Whistlebinkie going to their home and the Unwiseman to the queer little house that he had left in charge of the burglar at the beginning of the summer.
”If I ever go abroad again,” said the Unwiseman at parting, ”which I never ain't going to do, I'll bring a big Bengal tiger back in my bag that ain't been fed for seven weeks, and then we'll have some fun when Maginnis opens the bag!”
XV.
HOME, SWEET HOME
”Hurry up and finish your breakfast, Whistlebinkie,” said Mollie the next morning after their return from abroad. ”I want to run around to the Unwiseman's House and see if everything is all right. I'm just crazy to know how the burglar left the house.”
”I-mall-ready,” whistled Whistlebinkie. ”I-yain't-very-ungry.”
”Lost your appet.i.te?” asked Mollie eyeing him anxiously, for she was a motherly little girl and took excellent care of all her playthings.
”Yep,” said Whistlebinkie. ”I always do lose my appet.i.te after eating three plates of oat-meal, four chops, five rolls, six buckwheat cakes and a couple of bananas.”
”Mercy! How do you hold it all, Whistlebinkie?” said Mollie.
”Oh--I'm made o'rubber and my stummick is very 'lastic,” explained Whistlebinkie.
So hand in hand the little couple made off down the road to the pleasant spot where the Unwiseman's house stood, and there in the front yard was the old gentleman himself talking to his beloved boulder, and patting it gently as he did so.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”I'M NEVER GOING TO LEAVE YOU AGAIN, BOLDY,” HE WAS SAYING]
”I'm never going to leave you again, Boldy,” he was saying to the rock as Mollie and Whistlebinkie came up. ”It is true that the Rock of Gibraltar is bigger and broader and more terrible to look at than you are but when it comes right down to business it isn't any harder or to my eyes any prettier. You are still my favorite rock, Boldy dear, so you needn't be jealous.” And the old gentleman bent over and kissed the boulder softly.
”Good morning,” said Mollie, leaning over the fence. ”Whistlebinkie and I have come down to see if everything is all right. I hope the kitchen-stove is well?”
”Well the house is here, and all the bric-a-brac, and the leak has grown a bit upon the ceiling, and the kitchen-stove is all right thank you, but I'm afraid that old burgular has run off with my umbrella,” said the Unwiseman. ”I can't find a trace of it anywhere.”
”You don't really think he has stolen it do you?” asked Mollie.
”I don't know what to think,” said the Unwiseman, shaking his head gravely. ”He had first cla.s.s references, that burgular had, and claimed to have done all the burguling for the very nicest people in the country for the last two years, but these are the facts. He's gone and the umbrella's gone too. I suppose in the burgular's trade like in everything else you some times run across one who isn't as honest as he ought to be. Occasionally you'll find a burgular who'll take things that don't belong to him and it may be that this fellow that took my house was one of that kind--but you never can tell. It isn't fair to judge a man by disappearances, and it is just possible that the umbrella got away from him in a heavy storm. It was a skittish sort of a creature anyhow and sometimes I've had all I could do in windy weather to keep it from running away myself. What do you think of my sign?”
”I don't see any sign,” said Mollie, looking all around in search of the object. ”Where is it?”
”O I forgot,” laughed the old gentleman gaily. ”It's around on the other side of the house--come on around and see it.”
The callers walked quickly around to the rear of the Unwiseman's house, and there, hanging over the kitchen door, was a long piece of board upon which the Unwiseman had painted in very crooked black letters the following words:
THE BRITISH MUSEUM JUNIOR Admishun ten cents. Exit fifteen cents.
Burgulars one umbrella.
THE FINEST COLECTION OF ALPS AND SOFORTHS ON EARTH.
CHILDREN AND RUBER DOLLS FREE ON SATIDYS.