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"I don't know yet," said the Unwiseman "but between you and me I don't believe if you baited a hook with it any ordinary fish who'd left his eyeglasses on the mantel-piece at home could tell it from a worm. I neglected to bring any worms along in my native land bottle, and I've searched the ship high and low without finding a place where I could dig for 'em, so I borrowed the vermicelli from the cook instead."
"Does-swales-like-woyms?" whistled Whistlebinkie.
"I don't know anything about swales," said the Unwiseman.
"I meant-twales," said Whistlebinkie.
"Never heard of a twale neither," retorted the Unwiseman. "Just what sort of a rubber fish is a twale?"
"He means whales," Mollie explained.
"Why don't he say what he means then?" said the Unwiseman scornfully. "I never knew such a feller for twisted talk. He ties a word up into a double bow knot and expects everybody to know what he means right off the handle. I don't know whether whales like vermicelli or not. Seems to me though that a fish that could bite at a disagreeable customer like Jonah would eat anything whether it was vermicelli or just plain catterpiller."
"Well even if they did you couldn't pull 'em aboard with a trout line anyhow," snapped Whistlebinkie. "Whales is too heavy for that."
"Who wants to pull 'em aboard, Smarty?" retorted the Unwiseman. "I leave it to Mollie if I ever said I wanted to pull 'em aboard. Quite the contrary opposite. I'd rather not pull a whale on board this boat and have him flopping around all over the deck, smashing chairs and windows, and knockin' people overboard with his tail, and spouting water all over us like that busted fire-hose the firemen turned on me when I thought I'd caught fire from my pipe."
"You did say you'd take us fishing for whales, Mr. Me," Mollie put in timidly.
"That's a very different thing," protested the Unwiseman. "Fishin' for whales is a nice gentle sport as long as you don't catch any. But of course if you're going to take his side against me, why you needn't go."
And the Unwiseman rose up full of offended dignity and walked solemnly away.
"Dear me!" sighed Mollie. "I'm so sorry he's angry."
"Nuvver-mind," whistled Whistlebinkie. "He won't stay mad long. He'll be back in a little while with some more misinformation."
Whistlebinkie was right, for in five minutes the old gentleman returned on the run.
"Hurry up, Mollie!" he cried. "The sailor up on the front piazza says there's a school of Porpoises ahead. I'm going to ask 'em some questions."
Mollie and Whistlebinkie sprang quickly from the steamer chairs and hurried along after the Unwiseman.
"I've heard a lot about these Schools of Fish," the Unwiseman observed as they all leaned over the rail together. "And I never believed there was such a thing, because all the fish I ever saw were pretty stupid – leastways there never were any of them could answer any of the questions I put to 'em. That may have been because being out o' water they were very uncomfortable and feelin' kind of stiff and bashful, but out here it ought to be different and I'm going to examine 'em and see what they're taught."
"Here they come!" cried Mollie, as a huge gathering of porpoises plunging and tumbling over each other appeared under the lee of the vessel. "My what a lot!"
"Hi there, Porpy!" shouted the Unwiseman. "Por-pee, come over here a minute. What will seven times eight bananas divided by three mince pies multiplied by eight cream cakes, subtracted from a Monkey with two tails leave?"
The old man cocked his head to one side as if trying to hear the answer.
"Don't hear anything, do you?" he asked in a moment.
"Maybe they didn't hear you," suggested Mollie.
"Askem-something-geezier," whistled Whistlebinkie.
"Something easier?" sniffed the Unwiseman. "There couldn't be anything easier than that. It will leave a very angry monkey. You just try to subtract something from a monkey some time and you'll see. However it is a long question so I'll give 'em another."
The old gentleman leaned forward again and addressing the splashing fish once more called loudly out:
"If that other sum is too much for you perhaps some one of you can tell me how many times seven divided by eleven is a cat with four kittens," he inquired.
Still there was no answer. The merry creatures of the sea were apparently too busy jumping over each other and otherwise indulging in playful pranks in the water.
"They're mighty weak on Arithmetic, that's sure," sneered the Unwiseman. "I guess I'll try 'em on jography. Hi there, Porpee – you big black one over there – where's Elmira, New York?"
The Porpoise turned a complete somersault in the air and disappeared beneath the water.
"Little Jackass!" growled the Unwiseman. "Guess he hasn't been going to school very long not to be able to say that Elmira, New York, is at Elmira, New York. Maybe we'll have better luck with that deep blue Porpoise over there. Hi-you-you blue Porpoise. What's the chief product of the lunch counter at Poughkeepsie?"
Again the Unwise old head was cocked to one side to catch the answer but all the blue porpoise did was to wiggle his tail in the air, as he butted one of his brother porpoises in the stomach. The Unwiseman looked at them with an angry glance.
"Well all I've got to say about you," he shouted, "is that your father and mother are wasting their money sending you to school!"
To which one of the Porpoises seemed to reply by sticking his head up out of the crest of a wave and sneezing at the Unwiseman.
"Haven't even learned good manners!" roared the old gentleman.
Whereupon the whole school indulged in a mighty scrimmage in the water jumping over, under and upon each other and splashing the spray high in the air until finally Whistlebinkie in his delight at the sight cried out,
"I-guess-sitz-the-football-team!"
"I guess for once you're right, Whistlebinkie," cried the Unwiseman. "And that accounts for their not knowing anything about 'rithmetic, jography or Elmira. When a feller's a foot-ball player he don't seem to care much for such higher education as the Poughkeepsie lunch counter, or how many is five. I knew the boys were runnin' foot-ball into the ground on land, but I never imagined the fish were running it into the water at sea. Too bad – too bad."
And again the Unwiseman took himself off and was not seen again the rest of the day. Nor did Mollie and Whistlebinkie see much of him for the rest of the voyage for the old fellow suddenly got it into his head that possibly there were a few undiscovered continents about, the first sight of which would win for him all of the glory of a Christopher Columbus, and in order to be unquestionably the very first to catch sight of them, he climbed up to the top of the fore-mast and remained there for two full days. Fortunately neither the Captain nor the Bo'-sun's mate noticed what the old gentleman was doing or they would have put him in irons not as a punishment but to protect him from his own rash adventuring. And so it was that the Unwiseman was the first person on board to catch a glimpse of the Irish Coast, the which he announced with a loud cry of glee.
"Land ho – on the starboard tack!" he cried, and then he slid down the mast-head and rushed madly down the deck crying joyfully, "I've discovered a continent. Hurray for me. I've discovered a continent."
"Watcher-goin'-t'do-with it?" whistled Whistlebinkie.
"Depends on how big it is," said the Unwiseman dancing gleefully. "If it's a great big one I'll write my name on it and leave it where it is, but if it's only a little one I'll dig it up and take it home and add it to my back yard."
But alas for the new Columbus! It soon turned out that his new discovery was only Ireland which thousands, not to say millions, had discovered long before he had, so that the glory which he thought he had won soon faded away. But the old gentleman was very amiable about it after he got over his first disappointment.
"I don't care," he confided to Mollie later on. "There isn't anything in discovering continents anyway. Look at Columbus. He discovered America, but somebody else came along and took it away from him and as far as I can find out he don't even own an abandoned farm in the United States to-day. So what's the good?"
"Thass-wat-I-say," whistled Whistlebinkie. "I wouldn't give seven cents to discover all the continents there is. I'd ruther be a live rubber doll than a dead dishcover anyhow."
Later in the afternoon when the ship had left Queenstown, Mollie found the Unwiseman sitting in her steamer chair hidden behind a copy of the London Times which had been brought aboard, and strange to relate he had it right-side up and was eagerly running through its massive columns.
"Looking for more pollywogs?" the little girl asked.
"No," said the Unwiseman. "I'm trying to find the latest news from America. I want to see if that burgular has stole my stove. So far there don't seem to be anything about it here, so the chances are it's still safe."
"Do you think they'd cable it across?" asked Mollie.
"What the stove?" demanded the Unwiseman. "You can't send a stove by cable, stupid."
"No – the news," said Mollie. "It wouldn't be very important, would it?"
"It would be important to me," said the Unwiseman, "and inasmuch as I bought and paid for their old paper I've got a right to expect 'em to put the news I want in it. If they don't I'll sue 'em for damages and buy a new stove with the money."
The next morning bright and early the little party landed in England.
IV
ENGLAND
The Unwiseman's face wore a very troubled look as the little party of travellers landed at Liverpool. He had doffed his sailor's costume and now appeared in his regular frock coat and old fashioned beaver hat, and carried an ancient carpet-bag in his hand, presenting to Mollie and Whistlebinkie a more familiar appearance than while in his sea-faring clothes, but he was evidently very much worried about something.
"Cheer up," whistled Whistlebinkie noting his careworn expression. "You look as if you were down to your last cream-cake. Wass-er-matter?"
"I think they've fooled us," replied the Unwiseman with a doubtful shake of his gray head. "This don't look like England to me, and I've been wondering if that ship mightn't be a pirate ship after all that's carried us all off to some strange place with the idea of thus getting rid of us, so that the Captain might go home and steal our kitchen-stoves and other voluble things."
"Pooh!" ejaculated Whistlebinkie. "What makes you thinkit-taint England?"
"It's too big in the first place," replied the Unwiseman, "and in the second it ain't the right color. Just look at this map and you'll see."
Here Mr. Me took a map of the world out of his pocket and spread it out before Whistlebinkie.
"See that?" he said pointing to England in one corner. "I've measured it off with a tape measure and it's only four inches long and about an inch and a half wide. This place we're in now is more'n five miles long and, as far as I can see two or three miles across. And look at the color on the map."
"Tspink," said Whistlebinkie.
"I don't know what you mean by tspink," said the Unwiseman, "but – "
"It's-pink," explained Whistlebinkie.
"Exactly," said the Unwiseman. "That's just what it is, but that ain't the color of this place. Seems to me this place is a sort of dull yellow dusty brown. And besides I don't see any houses on the map and this place is just chock-full of them."
"O well, I guess it's all right," said Whistlebinkie. "Maybe when we get further in we'll find it grows pinker. Cities ain't never the same color as the country you know."
"Possibly," said the Unwiseman, "but even then that wouldn't account for the difference in size. Why should the map say it's four inches by an inch and a half, when anybody can see that this place is five miles by three just by looking at it?"
"I guess-smaybe it's grown some since that map was made," suggested Whistlebinkie. "Being surrounded by water you'd think it would grow."
Just then a British policeman walked along the landing stage and Whistlebinkie added, "There's a p'liceman. You might speak to him about it."
"Good idea," said the Unwiseman. "I'll do it." And he walked up to the officer.
"Good morning, Robert," said he. "You'll pardon my curiosity, but is this England?"
"Yessir," replied the officer politely. "You are on British soil, sir."
"H'm! British, eh?" observed the Unwiseman. "Just what is that? French for English, I suppose."
"This is Great Britain, sir," explained the officer with a smile. "Hingland is a part of Great Britain."
"Hingland?" asked the Unwiseman with a frown.
"Yessir – this is Hingland, sir," replied the policeman, as he turned on his heel and wandered on down the stage leaving the Unwiseman more perplexed than when he had asked the question.
"It looks queerer than ever," said the Unwiseman when he had returned to Whistlebinkie. "These people don't seem to have agreed on the name of this place, which I consider to be a very suspicious circumstance. That policeman said first it was England, then he said it was Great Britain, and then he changed it to Hingland, while Mollie's father says it's Liverpool. It's mighty strange, and I wish I was well out of it."
"Why did you call the p'liceman Robert, Mr. Me?" asked Whistlebinkie, who somehow or other did not seem to share the old gentleman's fears.
"O I read somewhere that the English policemen were all Bobbies," the Unwiseman replied. "But I didn't feel that I'd ought to be so familiar as to call him that until I'd got to know him better, so I just called him Robert."
Later on Mollie explained the situation to the old fellow.
"Liverpool," she said, "is a part of England and England is a part of Great Britain, just as Binghamton is a part of New York and New York is a part of the United States of America."
"Ah – that's it, eh?" he answered. "And how about Hingland?"
"That is the way some of the English people talk," explained Mollie. "A great many of them drop their H's," she added.
"Aha!" said the Unwiseman, nodding his head. "I see. And the police go around after them picking them up, eh?"
"I guess that's it," said Mollie.
"Because if they didn't," continued the Unwiseman, "the streets and gutters would be just over-run with 'em. If 20,000,000 people dropped twenty-five H's apiece every day that would be 500,000,000 H's lyin' around. I don't believe you could drive a locomotive through that many – Mussy Me! It must keep the police busy pickin' 'em up."
"Perfly-awful!" whistled Whistlebinkie.
"I'm going to write a letter to the King about it," said the Unwiseman, "and send him a lot of rules like I have around my house to keep people from being so careless."
"That's a splendid idea," cried Mollie, overjoyed at the notion. "What will you say?"
"H'm!" said the Unwiseman. "Let me see – I guess I'd write like this: " and the strange old man sat down on a trunk and dashed off the following letter to King Edward.
Dear Mister King:
Liverpool, June 10, 19 – .
I understand that the people of your Island is very careless about their aitches and that the pleece are worked to a frazzil pickin' 'em up from the public highways. Why don't you by virtue of your exhausted rank propagate the following rules to unbait the nuisance?
I. My subjex must be more careful of their aitches.
II. Any one caught dropping an aitch on the public sidewalks will be fined two dollars.
III. Aitches dropped by accident must be picked up to once immediately and without delay.
IV. All aitches found roaming about the city streets unaccompanied by their owners will be promptly arrested by the pleece and kept in the public pound until called for after which they will be burnt, and the person calling for them fined two dollars.
V. All persons whether they be a pleeceman or a Dook or other nobil personidges seeing a strange aitch lying on the sidewalk, or otherwise roaming at random without any visible owner whether it is his or not must pick it up to once immediately and without delay under penalty of the law.
VI. Capital H's must be muzzled before took out in public and must be securely fastened by glue or otherwise to the words they are the beginning of.
