With. 
 
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 Grace 
 
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 University of California Berkeley 
 
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MOLLIE AND 
 
 THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
HOLIDAY EDITIONS 
 
 of 
 JUVENILE CLASSICS 
 
 THE PRINCESS AND THE 
 GOBLIN 
 
 By George Macdonald 
 
 Twelve full-page illustrations in color, and the original 
 
 wood engravings. Decorated chaffer-headings and 
 
 lining-papers. Ornamental cloth, $1.50. 
 
 THE PRINCESS AND CURDIE 
 
 By George Macdonald 
 
 Twelve full -page illustrations in coltr, and decorated 
 chapter-headings and lining-papers. 
 Ornamental cloth, 
 
 AT THE BACK OF THE 
 NORTH WIND 
 
 By George Macdonald 
 
 Twelve full page illustrations in color. Decorated 
 
 chapter-headings and lining-papers. 
 
 Cloth, ornamental, jf/.j'O. 
 
 A DOG OF FLANDERS 
 
 By "Ouida" 
 
 Illustrated with full-page color plates, and decorated 
 
 chapter-headings and lining-papers. 
 
 Cloth, ornamental, $1.50. 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 Publishers Philadelphia 
 
"I'VE BEEN TRYING TO FIND OUT HOW TO TIE A SINKER TO THIS SOUP " 
 
 Page U7 
 
MOLLIE AND THE 
 
 UNWISEMAN 
 ABROAD 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN KENDRICK BANGS 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR ET 
 
 GRACE G. WIEDERSEIM 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 5? LONDON 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 1910 
 
COPYRIGHT 1910 
 BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 Published September, 1910. 
 
 Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company 
 The Washington Square Press, Philadelphia, U. S. A. 
 
TO 
 MY FRIENDS THE CHILDREN 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 FOREWORD 11 
 
 Introducing Two Heroes and a Heroine. 
 
 I. MOLLIE, WHISTLEBINKIE, AND THE UNWISEMAN 13 
 
 II. THE START 31 
 
 III. AT SEA 48 
 
 IV. ENGLAND 64 
 
 V. A CALL ON THE KING 81 
 
 VI. THEY GET SOME FOG AND Go SHOPPING 98 
 
 VII. THE UNWISEMAN VISITS THE BRITISH MUSEUM 114 
 
 VIII. THE UNWISEMAN'S FRENCH 130 
 
 IX. IN PARIS 147 
 
 X. THE ALPS AT LAST 163 
 
 XI. THE UNWISEMAN PLANS A CHAMOIS COMPANY 178 
 
 XII. VENICE 194 
 
 XIII. GENOA, GIBRALTAR, AND COLUMBUS 211 
 
 XIV. AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE 228 
 
 XV. HOME, SWEET HOME 245 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "I've Been Trying to Find Out How to Tie a Sinker to this 
 Soup " Frontispiece 
 
 "Take Care of Yourself, Fizzledinkie, and don't Blow too 
 much through the Top of Your Hat " 29 
 
 Molly Makes Her Courtesy to Mr. King 88 
 
 "These are the Kind His Majesty Prefers," said the girl 104 
 
 "Have You Seen the Ormolu Clock of Your Sister's Music 
 Teacher? " 154 
 
 " Out the Way There ! " cried the Unwiseman 168 
 
 The Chamois Evidently Liked this Verse for its Eyes Twinkled 182 
 
 They all Boarded a Gondola 199 
 
 The Unwiseman Looked the Official Coldly in the Eye 229 
 
 "I'm Never Going to Leave You Again, Boldy," he was saying 246 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 INTRODUCING TWO HEROES AND A HEROINE 
 
 I. 
 
 There were three little folks, and one was fair 
 
 Oh a rare little maid was she. 
 Her eyes were as soft as the summer air, 
 
 And blue as the summer sea. 
 Her locks held the glint of the golden sun; 
 
 And her smile shed the sweets of May; 
 Her cheek was of cream and roses spun, 
 
 And dimpled the livelong day. 
 
 II. 
 
 The second, well he was a rubber-doll, 
 
 Who talked through a whistling hat. 
 His speech ran over with folderol, 
 
 But his jokes they were never flat. 
 He squeaked and creaked with his heart care-free 
 
 Such things as this tale will tell, 
 But whether asleep or at work was he 
 
 The little maid loved him well. 
 
 III. 
 
 The third was a man O a very oueer man! 
 
 But a funny old chap was he. 
 From back in the time when the world began 
 
 His like you never did see. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The things he'd "know," they were seldom so, 
 His views they were odd and strange, 
 
 And his heart was filled with the genial glow 
 Of love for his kitchen range. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Now the three set forth on a wondrous trip 
 
 To visit the lands afar; 
 And what befel on the shore and ship, 
 
 As she sailed across the bar, 
 These tales will make as plain as the day 
 
 To those who will go with me 
 And follow along in the prank and play 
 
 Of these, my travellers three. 
 
MOLLIE AND 
 
 THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 I. 
 
 MOLLIE, WHISTLEBINKIE, AND THE UNWISEMAN 
 
 MOLLIE was very much excited, and for an 
 excellent reason. Her Papa had at last decided 
 that it was about time that she and her Rubber- 
 Doll, Whistlebinkie, saw something of this great 
 big beautiful world, and had announced that in 
 a few weeks they would all pack their trunks and 
 set sail for Europe. Mollie had always wanted 
 to see Europe, where she had been told Kings 
 and Queens still wore lovely golden crowns in- 
 stead of hats, like the fairies in her story-book, 
 and the people spoke all sorts of funny lan- 
 guages, like French, and Spanish, and real live 
 Greek. As for Whistlebinkie, he did not care 
 much where he went as long as he was with 
 Mollie, of whom like the rest of the family he 
 was very fond. 
 
 13 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "But," said he, when he was told of the com- 
 ing voyage, "how about Mr. Me?" 
 
 Now Mr. Me was a funny old gentleman who 
 lived in a little red house not far away from 
 Mollie's home in the country. He claimed that 
 his last name was Me, but Mollie had always 
 called him the Unwiseman because there was so 
 much he did not know, and so little that he w r as 
 willing to learn. The little girl loved him none 
 the less for he was a very good natured old fellow, 
 and had for a long time been a play-mate of the 
 two inseparable companions, Mollie and Whis- 
 tlebinkie. The latter by the way was called 
 Whistlebinkie because whenever he became 
 excited he blew his words through the small 
 whistle in the top of his hat, instead of speaking 
 them gently with his mouth, as you and I would 
 do. 
 
 "Why, we'll have to invite him to go along, 
 too, if he can afford it," said Mollie. "Perhaps 
 we'd better run down to his house now, and tell 
 him all about it." 
 
 " Guess-s weed-better," Whistlebinkie agreed 
 through the top of his beaver, as usual. 
 
 And so the little couple set off down the hill, 
 
 14 
 
MOLLIE, WHISTLEBINKIE, AND THE UNWISEMAN 
 
 and were fortunate enough to find the old gen- 
 tleman at home. 
 
 "Break it to him gently," whispered Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "I will," answered Mollie, under her breath, 
 and then entering the Unwiseman's house she 
 greeted him cheerily. " Good Morning, Mr. Me," 
 she said. 
 
 "Is it?" asked the old gentleman, looking up 
 from his newspaper which he was reading upside- 
 down. " I haven't tasted it yet. I never judge 
 a day till it's been cooked." 
 
 "Tasted it?" laughed Mollie. "Can't you 
 tell whether a morning is good or not without 
 tasting it?" 
 
 "O I suppose you can if you want to," replied 
 the Unwiseman. "If you make up your mind 
 to believe everything you see, why you can be- 
 lieve a morning's good just by looking at it, but 
 I prefer to taste mine before I commit myself as 
 to whether they are good or bad." 
 
 " Perfly- 'bsoyd !" chortled Whistlebinkie 
 through the top of his hat. 
 
 "What's that?" cried Mollie. 
 
 "Still talks through his hat, doesn't he ? " said 
 
 15 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 the Unwiseman. " Must think it's one of these 
 follytones." 
 
 * ' Never-erd-o-sutcha-thing !' ' whistled Whis- 
 tlebinkie. " What's a follytone ? " 
 
 'You are a niggeramus," jeered the Unwise- 
 man. "Ho! Never heard of a follytone. Ain't 
 he silly, Mollie?" 
 
 "I don't think I ever heard of one either, Mr. 
 Unwiseman," said Mollie. 
 
 "Well- well- well," ejaculated the Unwiseman 
 in great surprise. "Why a follytone is one of 
 those little boxes you have in the house with a 
 number like 7-2-3- J-Hokoben that you talk 
 business into to some feller off in Chicago or up 
 in Boston. You just pour your words into the 
 box and they fall across a wire and go scooting 
 along like lightning to this person you're talkin' 
 to." 
 
 "Oh," laughed Mollie. "You mean a tele- 
 phone." 
 
 "I call 'em follytones," said the Unwiseman 
 coolly. 'Your voice sounds so foolish over 'em. 
 I never tried 'em but once" here the old man 
 began to chuckle. "Somebody told me Phila- 
 delphia wanted me, and of course I knew right 
 
 16 
 
MOLLIE, WHISTLEBINKIE, AND THE UNWISEMAN 
 
 away they were putting up a joke on me be- 
 cause I ain't never met Philadelphia and Phila- 
 delphia ain't never met me, so I just got a little 
 squirt gun and filled it up with water and 
 squirted it into the box. I guess whoever was 
 trying to make me believe he was Philadelphia 
 got a good soaking that time." 
 
 "I guess-smaybe-he-didn't," whistled Whis- 
 tlebinkie. 
 
 "Well he didn't get me anyhow," snapped 
 the Unwiseman. "You don't catch me send- 
 ing my voice to Philadelphia when the chances 
 are I may need it any minute around here to 
 frighten burgulars away with. The idea of a 
 man's being so foolish as to send his voice way 
 out to Chicago on a wire with nobody to look 
 after it, stumps me. But that ain't what we 
 were talking about." 
 
 "No," said Mollie gravely. "We were talk- 
 ing about tasting days. You said you cooked 
 them, I believe." 
 
 "That's what I said," said the Unwiseman. 
 
 "I never knew anybody else to do it," said 
 Mollie. "What do you do it for? " 
 
 "Because I find raw days very uncomfort- 
 
 </ 2 17 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 able," explained the Unwiseman. "I prefer 
 fried-days." 
 
 "Everyday'll be Friday by and by," carolled 
 Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "It will with me," said the old man. "I was 
 born on a Friday, I was never married on a Fri- 
 day, and I dyed on Friday." 
 
 'You never died, did you? " asked Mollie. 
 
 "Of course I did," said the Unwiseman. "I 
 used to have perfectly red hair and I dyed it gray 
 so that young people like old Squeaky-hat here 
 would have more respect for me." 
 
 " Do-choo-call-me-squeekyat !" cried Whis- 
 tlebinkie angrily. 
 
 "All right, Yawpy-tile, I won't only " 
 
 the Unwiseman began. 
 
 "Nor-y a wpy- tile-neither," whistled Whistle- 
 binkie, beginning to cry. 
 
 "Here, here!" cried the Unwiseman. "Stop 
 your crying. Just because you're made of rub- 
 ber and are waterproof ain't any reason for 
 throwing tears on my floor. I won't have it. 
 What do you want me to call you, Wheezikid ? " 
 
 "No," sobbed Whistlebinkie. "My name's 
 Whizzlebinkie." 
 
 18 
 
MOLLIE, WHISTLEBINKIE, AND THE UNWISEMAN 
 
 "Very well then," said the Unwiseman. "Let 
 it be Fizzledinkie only you must show proper 
 respect for my gray hairs. If you don't I'll 
 have had all my trouble dyeing for nothing." 
 
 Whistlebinkie was about to retort, but Mollie 
 perceiving only trouble between her two little 
 friends if they went on at this rate tried to change 
 the subject by going back to the original point of 
 discussion. "How do you taste a day to see if 
 it's all right ? " she asked. 
 
 "I stick my tongue out the window," said the 
 Unwiseman, "and it's a good thing to do. I re- 
 member once down at the sea-shore a young 
 lady asked me if I didn't think it was just a sweet 
 day, and I stuck my tongu.e out of the window 
 and it was just as salt as it could be. Tasted 
 like a pickle. 'No, ma'am, it ain't,' says I. 
 'Quite the opposite, it's quite briny,' says I. If 
 I'd said it was sweet she'd have thought I was as 
 much of a niggeramus as old Fizz " 
 
 "Do you always read your newspaper upside- 
 down ? " Mollie put in hastily to keep the Un- 
 wiseman from again hurting Whistlebinkie's 
 feelings. 
 
 *' Always," he replied. "I find it saves me a 
 
 19 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 lot of money. You see the paper lasts a great 
 deal longer when you read it upside-down than 
 when you read it upside-up. Reading it upside- 
 up you can go through a newspaper in about a 
 week, but when you read it upside-down it lasts 
 pretty nearly two months. I've been at work on 
 that copy of the Gazette six weeks now and I've 
 only got as far as the third column of the second 
 page from the end. I don't suppose I'll reach 
 the news on the first column of page one much 
 before three weeks from next Tuesday. I think 
 it's very wasteful to buy a fresh paper every day 
 when by reading it upside-down backwards you 
 can make the old one last two months." 
 
 "Do-bleeve-youkn-reada-tall," growled Whis- 
 tlebinkie. 
 
 "What's that?" cried the old man. 
 
 " I-don't-be-lieve-you-can-read-at-all !" said 
 Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "O as for that," laughed the old man, "I 
 never said I could. I don't take a newspaper 
 to read anyhow. What's the use? Fill your 
 head up with a lot of stuff it's a trouble to forget." 
 
 "What do you take it for?" asked Mollie, 
 amazed at this confession. 
 
 20 
 
MOLLIE, WHISTLEBINKIE, AND THE UNWISEMAN 
 
 "I'm collecting commas and Qs," said the 
 Unwiseman. "I always was fond of pollywogs 
 and pug-dogs, and the commas are the living 
 image of pollywogs, and the letter Q always re- 
 minds me of a good natured pug-dog sitting 
 down with his back turned toward me. I've 
 made a tally sheet of this copy of the Gazette and 
 so far I've found nine thousand and fifty-three 
 commas, and thirty-nine pugs." 
 
 Whistlebinkie forgot his wrath in an explosion 
 of mirth at this reply. He fairly rolled on the 
 floor with laughter. 
 
 "Don't be foolish, Fizzledinkie," said the 
 Unwiseman severely. "A good Q is just as 
 good as a pug-dog. He's just as fat, has a fine 
 curly tail and he doesn't bite or keep you awake 
 nights by barking at the moon or make a nuis- 
 ance of himself whining for chicken-bones while 
 you are eating dinner; and as far as the commas 
 are concerned they're better even than polly- 
 wogs, because they don't wiggle around so much 
 or turn into bull-frogs and splash water all over 
 the place." 
 
 "There-raintenny-fleeson-cues-sneether,"whis- 
 tled Whistlebinkie. 
 
 21 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "I didn't catch that," said the Unwiseman. 
 "Talk through your nose just once and maybe 
 I'll be able to guess what you're trying to say." 
 
 "He says there are not any fleas on Qs," said 
 Mollie with a reproving glance at Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "As to that I can't say," said the Unwiseman. 
 "I never saw any but anyhow I don't object 
 to fleas on pug-dogs." 
 
 "You don't?" cried Mollie. "Why they're 
 horrid, Mr. Unwiseman. They bite you all up." 
 
 "Perfly-awful," whistled Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "You're wrong about that," said the Unwise- 
 man. "They don't bite you at all while they're 
 on the pug-dog. It's only when they get on you 
 that they bite you. That's why I say I don't 
 mind 'em on the pug-dogs. As long as they stay 
 there they don't hurt me." 
 
 Here the Unwiseman rose from his chair and 
 walking across the room opened a cupboard and 
 taking out an old clay pipe laid it on one of the 
 andirons where a log was smouldering in the 
 fire-place. 
 
 " I always feel happier when I'm smoking my 
 pipe," he said resuming his seat and smiling 
 pleasantly at Mollie. 
 
MOLLIE, WHISTLEBINKIE, AND THE UNWISEMAN 
 
 "Put it in the fire-place to warm it?"asked 
 Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Of course not, Stupid," replied the Unwise- 
 man scornfully. "I put it in the fire-place to 
 smoke it. That's the cheapest and healthiest 
 way to smoke a pipe. I don't have to buy any 
 tobacco to keep it filled, and as long as I leave it 
 over there on the andiron I don't get any of the 
 smoke up my nose or down my throat. I tried 
 it the other way once and there wasn't any fun 
 in it that I could see. The smoke got in all my 
 flues and I didn't stop sneezing for a week. It 
 was dreadful, and once or twice I got scared and 
 sent for the fire-engines to put me out. I was so 
 full of smoke it seemed to me I must be on fire. 
 It wasn't so bad the first time because the fire- 
 men just laughed and went away, but the second 
 time they came they got mad at what they called 
 a second false alarm and turned the hose on me. 
 I tell you I was very much put out when they did 
 that, and since that time I've given up smoking 
 that way. I never wanted to be a chimney any- 
 how. What's the use? If you're going to be 
 anything of that sort it's a great deal better to be 
 an oven so that some kind cook-lady will keep 
 
 23 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 filling you up with hot-biscuits, and sponge-cake, 
 and roast turkey." 
 
 "I should think so," said Mollie. "That's 
 one of the nice things about being a little girl 
 you're not expected to smoke." 
 
 "Well I don't know about that," said the 
 Unwiseman. "Far as I can remember I never 
 was a little girl so I don't know what was ex- 
 pected of me as such, but as far as I'm concerned 
 I'm perfectly willing to let the pipe get smoked 
 in the fire-place, and keep my mouth for expres- 
 sing thoughts and eating bananas and eclairs 
 with, and my throat for giving three cheers on 
 the Fourth of July, and swallowing apple pie. 
 That's what they were made for and hereafter 
 that's what I'm going to use 'em for. Where's 
 Miss Flaxilocks ?" 
 
 Miss Flaxilocks was Mollie' s little friend and 
 almost constant companion, the French doll with 
 the deepest of blue eyes and the richest of golden 
 hair from which she got her name. 
 
 "She couldn't come to-day," explained Mollie. 
 
 "Stoo-wexited," whistled Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "What's that?" asked the Unwiseman. 
 "Sounds like a clogged-up radiator." 
 
 24 
 
MOLLIE, WHISTLEBINKIE, AND THE UNWISEMAN 
 
 "He means to say that she is too excited to 
 come," said Mollie. "The fact is, Mr. Unwise- 
 man, we're all going abroad 
 
 "Abroad?" demanded the Unwiseman. 
 "Where's that?" 
 
 "Hoh!" jeered Whistlebinkie. "Doesn't 
 know where abroad is!" 
 
 "How should I know where abroad is?" re- 
 torted the Unwiseman. "I never had any. What 
 is it anyhow? A new kind of pie?" 
 
 "No," laughed Mollie. "Abroad is Europe, 
 and England and 
 
 "And Swizz-izzer-land," put in Whistlebinkie. 
 
 " Swizz-what ?" cried the Unwiseman. 
 
 "Switzerland," said Mollie. "It's Switzer- 
 land, Whistlebinkie." 
 
 "Thass-watised, Swizz-izzerland," said Whis- 
 tlebinkie. 
 
 "What's the good of them?" asked the Un- 
 wiseman. 
 
 "O they're nice places to visit," said Mollie. 
 
 "Do you walk there?" asked the Unwiseman. 
 
 "No of course not," said Mollie with a 
 smile. 'They're thousands of miles away, 
 across the ocean. '* 
 
 25 
 
MOLLIE AND THE TJNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "Across the ocean?" ejaculated the Unwise- 
 man. "Mercy! Ain't the ocean that wet place 
 down around New Jersey somewhere ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Mollie. "The Atlantic Ocean." 
 
 "Humph!" said the Unwiseman. "How you 
 going to get across ? There ain't any bridges 
 over it, are there ?" 
 
 "No indeed," said Mollie. 
 
 "Nor no trolleys ?" demanded the Unwiseman. 
 
 Mollie's reply was a loud laugh, and Whistle- 
 binkie whistled with glee. 
 
 "Going in a balloon, I suppose," sneered the 
 Unwiseman. "That is all of you but old Sizzer- 
 inktum here. I suppose he's going to try and 
 jump across. Smart feller, old Sizzerinktum." 
 
 "I ain't neither!" retorted Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Ain't neither what smart?" said the Un- 
 wiseman. 
 
 "No ain't goin' to jump," said Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "Good thing too," observed the Unwiseman 
 approvingly. "If you did you'd bounce so high 
 when you landed that / don't believe you'd ever 
 come down." 
 
 "We're going in a boat," said Mollie. "Not 
 
 26 
 
MOLLIE, WHISTLEBINKIE, AND THE UNWISEMAN 
 
 a row boat nor a sail boat," she hastened to ex- 
 plain, "but a great big ocean steamer, large 
 enough to carry over a thousand people, and 
 fast enough to cross in six days." 
 
 "Silly sort of business," said the Unwiseman. 
 "What's the good of going to Europe and Swaz- 
 zoozalum or whatever the place is when you 
 haven't seen Albany or Troy, or New Rochelle 
 and Yonkers, or Michigan and Patterson?" 
 
 "O well, said Mollie, "Papa's tired and he's 
 going to take a vacation and we're all going along 
 to help him rest, and Flaxilocks is so excited 
 about going back to Paris where she was born 
 that I have had to keep her in her crib all the 
 time to keep her from getting nervous procras- 
 tination." 
 
 "I see," said the Unwiseman. "But I don't 
 see why if people are tired they don't stay home 
 and go to bed. That's the way to rest. Just 
 lie in bed a couple of days without moving." 
 
 "Yes," said Mollie. "But Papa needs the 
 salt air to brace him up." 
 
 "What of it?" demanded the Unwiseman. 
 "Can't you get salt air without going across the 
 ocean ? Seems to me if you just fill up a pillow 
 
 27 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 with salt and sleep on that, the way you do on 
 one of those pine-needle pillows from the Dad- 
 irondacks, you'd get all the salt air you wanted, 
 or build a salt cellar under your house and run 
 pipes from it up to your bedroom to carry the air 
 through." 
 
 "It wouldn't be the same, at all," said Mollie. 
 "Besides we're going to see the Alps." 
 
 "Oh that's different. Of course if you're 
 going to see the Alps that's very different, "said 
 the Unwiseman. "I wouldn't mind seeing an 
 Alp or two myself. I always was interested in 
 animals. I've often wondered why they never 
 had any Alps at the Zoo." 
 
 "I guess they're too big to bring over," said 
 Mollie gravely. 
 
 "Maybe so, but even then if they catch 'em 
 young I don't see," began the Unwiseman. 
 
 Whistlebinkie's behavior at this point was 
 such that Mollie, fearing a renewal of the usual 
 quarrel between her friends ran hastily on to the 
 object of their call and told the Unwiseman that 
 they had come to bid him good-bye. 
 
 "I wish you were going with us," she said as 
 she shook the old gentleman's hand. 
 
"TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, FIZZLEDINKIE, AND DON'T BLOW TOO MUCH 
 THROUGH THE TOP OF YOUR HAT" 
 
MOLLIE, WHISTLEBINKIE, AND THE UNWISEMAN 
 
 "Thank you very much," he replied. "I 
 suppose it would be nice, but I have too many 
 other things to attend to and I don't see how I 
 could spare the time. In the first place I've got 
 all those commas and Qs to look after, and then 
 if I went away there' d be nobody around to see 
 that my pipe was smoked every day, or to finish 
 up my newspaper. Likewise also too in addition 
 the burgulars might get into my house some 
 night while I was away and take the wrong 
 things because I haven't been able yet to let 'em 
 know just what I'm willing to have 'em run off 
 with, so you see how badly things would get 
 mixed if I went away." 
 
 "I suppose they would," sighed Mollie. 
 
 "There'd be nobody here to exercise my um- 
 brella on wet days, either," continued the old 
 gentleman, "or to see that the roof leaked just 
 right, or to cook my meals and eat 'em. No I 
 don't just see how I could manage it." And so 
 the old gentleman bade his visitors good-bye. 
 
 "Take care of yourself, Fizzledinkie," he 
 observed to Whistlebinkie, "and don't blow too 
 much through the top of your hat. I've heard 
 of boats being upset by sudden squalls, and you 
 
 29 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 might get the whole party in trouble by the care- 
 less use of that hat of yours." 
 
 Mollie and her companion with many waves 
 of their hands back at the Unwisemaii made off 
 up the road homeward. The old gentleman 
 gazed after them thoughtfully for awhile, and 
 then returned to his work on his newspaper. 
 
 "Queer people some of 'em," he muttered 
 as he cut out his ninety-ninth Q and noted the 
 ten-thousand-six-hundred-and-thirty-eighth com- 
 ma on his pollywog tally sheet. " Mighty queer. 
 With a country of their own right outside their 
 front door so big that they couldn't walk around 
 it in less than forty-eight hours, they've got to go 
 abroad just to see an old Alp cavorting around 
 in Whizzizalum or whatever else that place 
 Whistlebinkie was trying to talk about is named. 
 I'd like to see an Alp myself, but after all as long 
 as there's plenty of elephants and rhinoceroses 
 up at the Zoo what's the good of chasing around 
 after other queer looking beasts getting your feet 
 wet on the ocean, and having your air served up 
 with salt in it ? " 
 
 And as there was nobody about to enlighten 
 the old gentleman on these points he went to bed 
 that night with his question unanswered. 
 
 30 
 
II. 
 
 THE START 
 
 OTHER good byes had been said; the huge 
 ocean steamer had drawn out of her pier and, 
 with Mollie and Whistlebinkie on board, to- 
 gether with Flaxilocks and the rest of the family, 
 made her way down the bay, through the Nar- 
 rows, past Sandy Hook and out to sea. The 
 long low lying shores of New Jersey, with their 
 white sands and endless lines of villas and 
 summer hotels had gradually sunk below the 
 horizon and the little maid was for the first 
 time in her life out of sight of land. 
 , "Isn't it glorious!" cried Mollie, as she 
 breathed in the crisp fresh air, and tasted just 
 a tiny bit of the salt spray of the ocean on her lip. 
 
 "I guesso," whistled Whistlebinkie, with a 
 little shiver. "Think-ide-like-it-better-'fwe-had- 
 alittle-land-in-sight. " 
 
 "O no, Whistlebinkie," returned Mollie, "it's 
 a great deal safer this way. There are rocks 
 near the shore but outside here the water is ever 
 so deep more'n six feet I guess. I'd be per- 
 
 31 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 fectly happy if the Unwiseman was only with us." 
 Just then up through one of the big yawning 
 ventilators, that look so like sea-serpents with 
 their big flaming mouths stretched wide open 
 as if to swallow the passengers on deck, came a 
 cracked little voice singing the following song 
 to a tune that seemed to be made up as it went 
 
 along : 
 
 "Yo-ho! 
 
 Yo-ho 
 
 O a sailor's life for me! 
 I love to nail 
 The blithering gale, 
 As I sail the bounding sea. 
 For I'm a glorious stowaway, 
 I've thrown my rake and hoe away, 
 On the briny deep to go away, 
 Yeave-ho Yeave-ho Yo-hee ! " 
 
 "Where have I heard that voice before!" 
 cried Mollie clutching Whistlebinkie by the 
 hand so hard that he squeaked. 
 
 "ItVsizz!" whistled Whistlebinkie excitedly. 
 
 "It's what?" cried Mollie. 
 
 "It's his!" repeated Whistlebinkie more cor- 
 rectlv- - 
 
 |i 
 
 "Whose the Unwiseman's ? " Mollie whis- 
 pered with delight. 
 
THE START 
 
 " Thass-swat-I-think, " said Whistlebinkie. 
 And then the song began again drawing nearer 
 each moment. 
 
 "Yeave-ho, 
 Yo-ho, 
 
 I love the life so brave. 
 
 I love to swish 
 Like the porpoise fish 
 Over the foamy wave. 
 So let the salt wind blow-away, 
 All care and trouble throw-away, 
 And lead the life of a Stowaway 
 Yeave-ho Yeave-ho Yo-hee ! " 
 
 "It is he as sure as you're born, Whistle- 
 binkie!" cried Mollie in an ecstacy of delight. 
 "I wonder how he came to come." 
 
 "I 'dno," said Whistlebinkie. "I guess he's 
 just went and gone." 
 
 As Whistlebinkie spoke sure enough, the 
 tin wiseman himself clambered out of the venti- 
 lator and leaped lightly on the deck alongside 
 of them still singing: 
 
 "Yeave-ho, 
 Yo-ho, 
 
 1 love the At-lan-tic. 
 
 The water's wet 
 And you can bet 
 The motion makes me sick. 
 3 33 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 But let the wavelets flow away 
 You cannot drive the glow away 
 From the heart of the happy Stowaway. 
 Yeave-ho Yeave-ho Yo-hee ! " 
 
 Dear me, what a strange looking figure he 
 was as he jumped down and greeted Mollie and 
 Whistlebinkie ! In place of his old beaver hat 
 he wore a broad and shiny tarpaulin. His 
 trousers which were of white duck stiffly starched 
 were neatly creased down the sides, ironed as 
 flat as they could be got, nearly two feet wide 
 and as spick and span as a snow-flake. On his 
 feet he wore a huge pair of goloshes, and thrown 
 jauntily around his left shoulder and thence 
 down over his right arm to his waist was what 
 appeared to be a great round life preserver, 
 filled with air, and heavy enough to support 
 ten persons of his size. 
 
 "Shiver my timbers if it ain't Mollie!" he 
 roared as he caught sight of her. "And Whistle- 
 binkie too Ahoy there, Fizzledinkie. What's 
 the good word?" 
 
 "Where on earth did you come from?" asked 
 Mollie overjoyed. 
 
 "I weighed anchor in the home port at seven 
 
 34 
 
THE START 
 
 bells last night; set me course nor-E by sou- 
 sou-west, made for the deep channel running 
 past the red, white and blue buoy on the star- 
 board tack, reefed my galyards in the teeth o' 
 the blithering gale and sneaked aboard while 
 Captain Binks of the good ship Nancy B. was 
 trollin' for oysters off the fishin' banks after 
 windin' up the Port watch, " replied the Unwise- 
 man. "It's a great life, ain't it," he added 
 gazing admiringly about him at the wonderful 
 ship and then over the rail at the still more 
 wonderful ocean. 
 
 "But how did you come to come?" asked 
 Mollie. 
 
 "Well ye see after you'd said goodbye to me 
 the other day, I .was sort of upset and for the 
 first time in my life I got my newspaper right 
 side up and began to read it that way," the old 
 gentleman explained. "And I fell on a story 
 of the briny deep in which a young gentleman 
 named Billy The Rover Bold sailed from the 
 Spanish main to Kennebunkport in a dory, 
 capturing seventeen brigs, fourteen galleons and 
 a pirate band on the way. It didn't say fourteen 
 galleons of what, but thinkin' it might be soda 
 
 35 
 
MOLLIE AND THE TJNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 water, it made my mouth water to think of it, so 
 I decided to rent my house and come along. 
 About when do you think we'll capture any 
 Brigs?" 
 
 'You rented your house?" asked Mollie in 
 amazement. 
 
 "Yes to a Burgular, " said the Unwiseman. 
 "I thought that was the best way out of it. If 
 the burgular has your house, thinks I, he won't 
 break into it, spoiling your locks, or smashing 
 your windows and doors. What he's got like- 
 wise moreover he won't steal, so the best thing 
 to do is to turn everything over to him right in 
 the beginning and so save your property. So I 
 advertised. Here it is, see?" And the Unwise- 
 man produced the following copy of his adver- 
 tisement. 
 
 FOR TO BE LET 
 
 ONE FIRST CLASS PREMISSES 
 
 ALL MODDERN INCONVENIENCES 
 
 HOT AND COAL GAS 
 SIXTEEN MILES FROM POLICE STATION 
 
 POSESSION RIGHT AWAY OFF 
 ONLY BURGULARS NEED APPLY. 
 
 Address, The Unwiseman, At Home. 
 
 36 
 
THE START 
 
 "One of 'em called the next night and he's 
 taken the house for six months," the Unwise- 
 man went on. "He's promised to keep the 
 house clean, to smoke my pipe, look after my 
 Qs and commas, eat my meals regularly, and 
 exercise the umbrella on wet days. It was a 
 very good arrangement all around. He was a 
 very nice polite burgular and as it happened had 
 a lot of business he wanted to attend to right in 
 our neighborhood. He said he'd keep an eye on 
 your house too, and I told him about how to get 
 in the back way where the cellar window won't 
 lock. He promised for sure he'd look into it. " 
 
 "Very kind of him I'm sure," said Mollie 
 dubiously. 
 
 "You'd have liked him very much nicest 
 burgular I ever met. Had real taking ways," 
 said the Unwiseman. 
 
 " Howd - ulike - being - outer - sighter - land ? " 
 asked Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Who, me?" asked the Unwiseman. "I 
 wouldn't like it at all. I took precious good care 
 that I shouldn't be neither." 
 
 "Nonsense," said Mollie. "How can you 
 help yourself?" 
 
 37 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "This way, " said the Unwiseman with a proud 
 smile of superiority, taking a bottle from his 
 pocket. "See that?" he added. 
 
 " Yes, " said Mollie. " What is it ? " 
 
 "It's land, of course," replied the Unwise- 
 man, holding the bottle up in the light. "Real 
 land off my place at home. Just before I left the 
 house it occurred to me that it would be pleas- 
 ant to have some along and I took a shovel and 
 went out and got a bottle full of it. It makes 
 me feel safer to have the land in sight all the 
 way over and then it will keep me from being 
 homesick when I'm chasing those Alps down 
 in Swazoozalum. " 
 
 " Swizz-izzerland ! " corrected Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Swit-zer-land!" said Mollie for the instruc- 
 tion of both. " It's not Swazoozalum, or Swizziz- 
 zerland, but Switzerland." 
 
 "O I see rhymes with Hits-yer-land when 
 the Alp he hits your land, then you think of 
 Switzerland that it?" asked the Unwiseman. 
 
 "Well that's near enough," laughed Mollie. 
 "But how does that bottle keep you from being 
 homesick?" 
 
 "Why when I begin to pine for my native 
 
 38 
 
THE START 
 
 land, all I've got to do is to open the bottle and 
 take out a spoonful of it. 'This is my own, my 
 native land,' the Poet said, and when I look at 
 this bottle so say I. Right out of my own yard, 
 too," said the Unwiseman, hugging the bottle 
 tightly to his breast. "It's queer isn't it how I 
 should find out how to travel so comfortably 
 without having to ask anybody. " 
 
 "I guess you're a genius," suggested Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "Maybe I am," agreed the Unwiseman, "but 
 anyhow you know I just knew what to do as 
 soon as I made up my mind to come along. " 
 
 Mollie looked at him admiringly. 
 
 "Take these goloshes for instance. I'm the 
 only person on board this boat that's got gol- 
 oshes on," continued the old gentleman, "and 
 yet if the boat went down, how on earth could 
 they keep their feet dry? It's all so simple. 
 Same way with this life preserver it's nothing 
 but an old bicycle tire I found in your barn, 
 but just think what it would mean to me if I 
 should fall overboard some day." 
 
 "Smitey fine!" whistled Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "It is that. All I'll have to do is to sit inside 
 
 39 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 of it and float till they lower a boat after me," 
 said the Unwiseman. 
 
 "What have you done about getting sea- 
 sick?" asked Mollie. 
 
 "Ah that's the thing that bothered me as 
 much as anything," ejaculated the Unwiseman, 
 "but all of a sudden it came to me like a flash. 
 I was getting my fishing tackle ready for the 
 trip and when I came to the sinkers, there was 
 the idea as plain as the nose on your face. Six 
 days out, says I, means thirty-seven meals." 
 
 "Thirty-seven?" asked Mollie. 
 
 ; 'Yes three meals a day for six days is ," 
 began the Unwiseman. 
 
 "Only eighteen," said Mollie, who for a child 
 of her size was very quick at multiplication. 
 
 "So it is," said the Unwiseman, his face grow- 
 ing very red. "So it is. I must have forgotten 
 to set down five and carry three." 
 
 "Looks that way," said Whistlebinkie, with 
 a mirthful squeak through the top of his hat. 
 "What you did was to set down three and carry 
 
 seven. ' 
 
 "That's it," said the Unwiseman. "Three 
 and seven make thirty-seven don't it?" 
 
 40 
 
THE START 
 
 "Looked at sideways," said Mollie, with a 
 chuckle. 
 
 "I know I got it somehow," observed the 
 Unwiseman, his smile returning. "So I pre- 
 pared myself for thirty-seven meals. I brought 
 a lead sinker along for each one of them. I'm 
 going to tie one sinker to each meal to keep it 
 down, and of course I won't be sea-sick at all. 
 There was only one other way out of it that I 
 could think of; that was to eat pound-cake all 
 the time, but I was afraid maybe they wouldn't 
 have any on board, so I brought the sinkers 
 instead." 
 
 "It sounds like a pretty good plan," said 
 Whistlebinkie. "Where's your State-room?" 
 
 "I haven't got one," said the Unwiseman. 
 "I really don't need it, because I don't think 
 I'll go to bed all the way across. I want to sit 
 up and see the scenery. When you've only got 
 a short time on the water and aren't likely to 
 make a habit of crossing the ocean it's too bad 
 to miss any of it, so I didn't take a room." 
 
 "I don't think there's much scenery to be 
 seen on the ocean," suggested Mollie. "It's 
 just plain water all the way over." 
 
 41 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "O I don't think so," replied the Unwise- 
 man. "I imagine from that story about Billy 
 the Rover there's a lot of it. There's the Spanish 
 main for instance. I want to keep a sharp look 
 out for that and see how it differs from Bangor, 
 Maine. Then once in a while you run across 
 a latitude and a longitude. I've never seen 
 either of those and I'm sort of interested to see 
 what they look like. All I know about 'em is 
 that one of 'em goes up and down and the other 
 goes over and back I don't exactly know how, 
 but that's the way it is and I'm here to learn. 
 I should feel very badly if we happened to pass 
 either of 'em while I was asleep." 
 
 "Naturally," said Mollie. 
 
 "Then somewhere out here they've got a 
 thing they call a horrizon, or a horizon, or some- 
 thing like that," continued the Unwiseman. 
 "I've asked one of the sailors to point it out to 
 me when we come to it, and he said he would. 
 Funny thing about it though he said he'd 
 sailed the ocean for forty-seven years and had 
 never got close enough to it to touch it. 'Must 
 be quite a sight close to,' I said, and he said 
 that all the horrizons he ever saw was from ten 
 
 42 
 
THE START 
 
 to forty miles off. There's a place out here too 
 where the waves are ninety feet high; and then 
 there's the Fishin' Banks do you know I never 
 knew banks ever went fishin', did you? Must 
 be a funny sight to see a lot o' banks out fishin'. 
 What State-room are you in, Mollie?" 
 
 "We've got sixty-nine," said Mollie. 
 
 "Sixty-nine," demanded the Unwiseman. 
 "What's that mean?" 
 
 "Why it's the number of my room," explained 
 Mollie. 
 
 " O, " said the Unwiseman scratching his head 
 in a puzzled sort of way. "Then you haven't 
 got a State-room?" 
 
 "Yes," said Mollie. "It's a State-room." 
 
 "I don't quite see," said the Unwiseman, 
 gazing up into the air. "If it's a State-room 
 why don't they call it New Jersey, or Kansas, or 
 Mitchigan, or some other State ? Seems to me a 
 State-room ought to be a State-room." 
 
 "I guess maybe there's more rooms on board 
 than there are States," suggested Whistlebinkie. 
 "There ain't more than sixty States, are there, 
 Mollie?" 
 
 "There's only forty-six," said Mollie. 
 
 43 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "Ah then that accounts for number sixty- 
 nine," observed the Unwiseman. "They're 
 
 / 
 
 just keeping a lot of rooms numbered until 
 there's enough States to go around." 
 
 "I hope we get over all right, " put in Whistle- 
 binkie, who wasn't very brave. 
 
 "O I guess we will," said the Unwiseman, 
 cheerfully. "I was speaking to that sailor on 
 that very point this morning, and he said the 
 chances were that we'd go through all right 
 unless we lost one of the screws. " 
 
 "Screws?" inquired Whistlebinkie. 
 
 'Yes it don't sound possible, but this ship 
 is pushed through the water by a couple of 
 screws fastened in back there at the stern. It's 
 the screws sterning that makes the boat go," 
 the Unwiseman remarked with all the pride of 
 one who really knows what he is talking about. 
 "Of course if one of 'em came unfastened and 
 fell off we wouldn't go so fast and if both of 'em 
 fell off we wouldn't go at all, until we got the 
 sails up and the wind came along and blew us 
 into port." 
 
 "Well I never!" said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "O I knew that before I came aboard," said 
 
 44 
 
THE START 
 
 the Unwiseman, sagely. "So I brought a half 
 dozen screws along with me. There they are. " 
 
 And the old gentleman plunged his hand into 
 his pocket and produced six bright new shining 
 screws. 
 
 "You see I'm ready for anything," he 
 observed. "I think every passenger who takes 
 one of these screwpeller boats that's what they 
 call 'em, screwpellers ought to come prepared 
 to furnish any number of screws in case any- 
 thing happens. I'm not going to tell anybody 
 I've got 'em though. I'm just holding these 
 back until the Captain tells us the screws are 
 gone, and then I'll offer mine." 
 
 "And suppose yours are lost too, and there 
 ain't any wind for the sails ? " demanded Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "I've got a pair o' bellows down in my box," 
 said the Unwiseman gleefully. "We can sit 
 right behind the sails and blow the whole busi- 
 ness right in the teeth of a dead clam. " 
 
 "Dead what?" roared Mollie. 
 
 "A dead clam," said the Unwiseman. "I 
 haven't found out why they call it a dead clam 
 unless it's because it's so still but that's the way 
 
 45 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 we sailors refer to a time at sea when there 
 isn't a handful o' wind in sight and the ocean is 
 so smooth that even the billows are afraid to 
 roll in it for fear they'd roll off." 
 
 "We sailors! "ejaculated Whistlebinkie, scorn- 
 fully under his breath. "Hoh!" 
 
 "Well you certainly are pretty well prepared 
 for whatever happens, are'nt you, Mr. Unwise- 
 man," said Mollie admiringly. 
 
 "I like to think so," said the old gentleman. 
 "There's only one thing I've overlooked," he 
 added. 
 
 "Wass-that?" asked Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "I have most unaccountably forgotten to 
 bring my skates along, and I'm sure I don't 
 know what would happen to me without 'em 
 if by some mischance we ran into an iceberg 
 and I was left aboard of it when the steamer 
 backed away," the Unwiseman remarked. 
 
 Here the deck steward came along with a 
 trayful of steaming cups of chicken broth. 
 
 "Broth, ma'am," he said politely to Mollie. 
 
 " Thank you, " said Mollie. " I think I will. " 
 
 Whistlebinkie and the Unwiseman also helped 
 themselves, and a few minutes later the Unwise- 
 
 46 
 
THE START 
 
 man disappeared bearing his cup in his hand. 
 It was three hours after this that Mollie again 
 encountered him, sitting down near the stern 
 of the vessel, a doleful look upon his face, and 
 the cup of chicken broth untasted and cold in 
 his hands. 
 
 "What's the matter, dearie?" the little girl 
 asked. 
 
 "O nothing," he said, "only I I've been 
 trying for the past three hours to find out how 
 to tie a sinker to this soup and it regularly stumps 
 me. I can tie it to the cup, but whether it's the 
 motion of the ship or something else, I don't 
 know what, I can't think of swallowing that 
 without feeling queer here." 
 
 And the poor old gentleman rubbed his stom- 
 ach and looked forlornly out to sea. 
 
III. 
 
 AT SEA 
 
 IT was all of three days later before the little 
 party of travellers met again on deck. I never 
 inquired very closely into the matter but from 
 what I know of the first thousand miles of the 
 ocean between New York and Liverpool I 
 fancy Mollie and Whistlebinkie took very little 
 interest in anybody but themselves until they had 
 got over that somewhat uneven stretch of water. 
 The ocean is more than humpy from Nantucket 
 Light on and travelling over it is more or less like 
 having to slide over eight or nine hundred miles 
 of scenic railroads, or bumping the bumps, not 
 for three seconds, but for as many successive 
 days, a proceeding which interferes seriously 
 with one's appetite and gives one an inclination 
 to lie down in a comfortable berth rather than to 
 walk vigorously up and down on deck though 
 if you can do the latter it is the very best thing 
 in the world to do. As for the Unwiseman all 
 I know about him during that period is that he 
 
 48 
 
AT SEA 
 
 finally gave up his problem of how to tie a sinker 
 to a half -pint of chicken broth, and diving head 
 first into the ventilator through which he had 
 made his first appearance on deck, disappeared 
 from sight. On the morning of the fourth day 
 however he flashed excitedly along the deck past 
 where Mollie and Whistlebinkie having gained 
 courage to venture up into Mollie's steamer chair 
 were sitting, loudly calling for the Captain. 
 
 "Hi-hullo!" called Mollie, as the old gentle- 
 man rushed by. "Mr. Me!" Mr. Me it will 
 be remembered by his friends was the name the 
 Unwiseman had had printed on his visiting 
 cards. "Mister Me come here!" 
 
 The Unwiseman paused for a moment. 
 
 "I'm looking for the Captain" he called back. 
 "I find I forgot to tell the burgular who's rented 
 my house that he mustn't steal my kitchen stove 
 until I get back, and I want the Captain to turn 
 around and go back for a few minutes so that 
 I can send him word." 
 
 "He wouldn't do that, Mr. Me," said Mollie. 
 
 "Then let him set me on shore somewhere 
 where I can walk back," said the Unwiseman. 
 "It would be perfectly terrible if that burgular 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 stole my kitchen stove. I'd have to eat all my 
 bananas and eclairs raw, and besides I use that 
 stove to keep the house cool in summer. " 
 
 "There isn't any shore out here to put you 
 on," said Mollie. 
 
 16 Where's your bottle of native land?" jeered 
 Whistlebinkie. "You might walk home on 
 that." 
 
 "Hush, Whistlebinkie," said Mollie. "Don't 
 make him angry." 
 
 "Well," said the Unwiseman ruefully. "I'm 
 sure I don't know what to do about it. It is the 
 only kitchen stove I've got, and it's taken me 
 ten years to break it in. It would be very unfor- 
 tunate just as I've got the stove to do its work 
 exactly as I want it done to go and lose it." 
 
 "Why don't you send a wireless message?" 
 suggested Mollie. " They've got an office on 
 board, and you can telegraph to him." 
 
 "First rate," said the old man. "I'd for- 
 gotten that." And the Unwiseman sat down 
 and wrote the following dispatch : 
 
 DEAR MR. BURGULAR: 
 
 Please do not steal my kitchen stove. If you need a stove 
 steal something else like the telephone book or that empty 
 
 50 
 
AT SEA 
 
 bottle of Woostershire Sauce standing on the parlor mantel- 
 piece with the daisy in it, and sell them to buy a new stove 
 with the money. I've had that stove for ten years and it has 
 only' just learned how to cook and it would be very annoying 
 to me to have to get a new one and have to teach it how I like 
 my potatoes done. You know the one I mean. It's the only 
 stove in the house, so you can't get it mixed up with any other. 
 If you do I shall persecute you to the full extent of the law and 
 have you arrested for petty parsimony when I get back. If 
 you find yourself strongly tempted to steal it the best thing to 
 do is to keep it red hot with a rousing fire on its insides so that 
 it will be easier for you to keep you hands off. 
 
 Yours trooly, 
 
 THE UNWISEMAN. 
 
 P.S. Take the poker if you want to but leave the stove. It's 
 a wooden poker and not much good anyhow. 
 Yours trooly, 
 
 THE UNWISEMAN. 
 
 "There!" he said as he finished writing out 
 the message. "I guess that'll fix it all right." 
 
 "It-tortoo," whistled Whistlebinkie through 
 the top of his hat. 
 
 "What?" said Mollie, severely. 
 
 "It-ought-to-fix-it," repeated Whistlebinkie. 
 
 And the Unwiseman ran up the deck to the 
 wireless telegraph office. In a moment he re- 
 turned, his face full of joy. 
 
 "I guess I got the best of 'em that time!" he 
 chortled gleefully. "What do you suppose 
 
 51 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 Mollie ? They actually wanted me to pay twen- 
 ty-one dollars and sixty cents for that telegram. 
 The very idea!" 
 
 "Phe-ee-ew!" whistled Whistlebinkie. 
 
 " Very far from few," retorted the Unwiseman. 
 "It was many rather than few and I told the 
 man so. *I can buy five new kitchen stoves for 
 that amount of money/ said I. 'I can't help 
 that,' said the man. 'I guess you can't,' said 
 I. 'If you could the price o' kitchen stoves 
 would go up'." 
 
 " What did you do ? " asked Mollie. 
 
 "I told him I was just as wireless as he was, 
 and I tossed my message up in the air and last 
 time I saw it it was flying back to New York as 
 tight as it could go," said the Unwiseman. "I 
 guess I can send a message without wires as well 
 as anybody else. It's a great load off my mind 
 to have it fixed, I can tell you," he added. 
 
 "What have you been doing with yourself 
 since I saw you last, Mr. Me?" asked Mollie, as 
 her old friend seated himself on the foot-rest of 
 her steamer chair. 
 
 "O I've managed to keep busy," said the 
 Unwiseman, gazing off at the rolling waves. 
 
 52 
 
AT SEA 
 
 Whistlebinkie laughed. 
 
 "See-zick?" he whistled. 
 
 "What me?" asked the Unwiseman. "Of 
 course not we sailors don't get sea-sick like 
 land-lubbers. No, sirree. I've been a little 
 miserable due to my having eaten something 
 that didn't agree with me I very foolishly ate 
 a piece of mince pie about five years ago but 
 except for that I've been feeling first rate. For 
 the most part I've been watching the screw- 
 driver they've got a big steam screw driver 
 down-stairs in the cellar that keeps the screws to 
 their work, and I got so interested watching it I've 
 forgotten all about meals and things like that." 
 
 "Have you seen horrizon yet?" asked Whis- 
 tlebinkie. 
 
 'Yes," returned the Unwiseman gloomily. 
 "It's about the stupidest thing you ever saw. 
 See that long line over there where the sky comes 
 down and touches the water ? " 
 
 "Yep," said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "W T ell that's what they call the horrizon," 
 said the Unwiseman contemptuously. "It's 
 nothin' but a big circle runnin' round and round 
 the scenery, day and night, now and forever. 
 
 53 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 It won't go near anybody and it won't let any- 
 body go near it. I guess it's just about the most 
 unsociable fish that ever swam the sea. Speakin' 
 about fish, what do you say to trollin' for a whale 
 this afternoon ? " 
 
 "That would be fine!" cried Mollie. "Have 
 you any tackle ? " 
 
 "Oh my yes," replied the Unwiseman. "I've 
 got a half a mile o' trout line, a minnow hook 
 and a plate full o' vermicelli." 
 
 "Vermicelli?" demanded Mollie. 
 
 'Yes don't you know what Vermicelli is? 
 It's sort of baby macaroni," explained the Un- 
 wiseman. 
 
 " What good is it for fishing ? " asked Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "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. " 
 
 54 
 
AT SEA 
 
 " Does-swales-like- woyms ? " whistled Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "I don't know anything about swales," said 
 the Unwiseman. 
 
 "I meant-t wales," 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 every- 
 body 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 
 
 55 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 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 gen- 
 tle 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." 
 
 "Nuwer-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 
 
 56 
 
AT SEA 
 
 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 ves- 
 sel. "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, sub- 
 tracted from a Monkey with two tails leave ? " 
 
 57 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 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. 
 
 4 ' Askem-something-geezier," whistled Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "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 per- 
 haps 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 crea- 
 tures of the sea were apparently too busy jump- 
 ing over each other and otherwise indulging in 
 playful pranks in the water. 
 
 58 
 
AT SEA 
 
 "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 Pough- 
 keepsie? " 
 
 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 
 
 59 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 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, jog- 
 raphy 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 arid 
 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 
 
 60 
 
AT SEA 
 
 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 un- 
 questionably 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 pun- 
 ishment but to protect him from his own rash 
 adventuring. And so it was that the Unwise- 
 man was the first person on board to catch a 
 glimpse of the Irish Coast, the which he an- 
 nounced 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 dis- 
 covered a continent. Hurray for me. I've dis- 
 covered a continent." 
 
 "Watcher-goin'-t'do-with it?" whistled Whis- 
 tlebinkie. 
 
 "Depends on how big it is," said the Unwise- 
 man dancing gleefully. "If it's a great big one 
 I'll write my name on it and leave it where it is, 
 
 61 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 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 Ire- 
 land 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 sit- 
 ting 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- 
 
AT SEA 
 
 side up and was eagerly running through its 
 massive columns. 
 
 "Looking for more pollywogs? " the little girl 
 asked. 
 
 "No," said the Uriwiseman. "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 Unwise- 
 man. ' 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 Un- 
 wiseman, "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 evi- 
 dently 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 Un- 
 wiseman 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." 
 
 64 
 
ENGLAND 
 
 "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 Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 66 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." 
 
 5 65 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "O well, I guess it's all right," said Whistle- 
 binkie. "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 Unwise- 
 
 66 
 
ENGLAND 
 
 man. " 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 wan- 
 dered on down the stage leaving the Unwiseman 
 more perplexed than when he had asked the 
 question. 
 
 "It looks queerer than ever," said the Unwise- 
 man 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 police-man 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. 
 
 67 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 " O I read somewhere that the English police- 
 men 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 
 
 68 
 
ENGLAND 
 
 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, over- 
 joyed 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 side- 
 walks 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 unac- 
 companied by their owners will be promptly arrested by the 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 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 imme- 
 diately 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. 
 
 VII. Anybody tripping up on the aitch of another person 
 thus carelessly left lying about can sue for damages and get 
 two dollars for a broken leg, five dollars for a broken nose, 
 seven dollars and a half for a black eye, and so on up, from 
 the person leaving the aitch thus carelessly about, or a year's 
 imprisonment, or both. 
 
 VIII. A second offense will be punished by being sent to 
 South Africa for five years when if the habit is continued more 
 severe means will be taken like being made to live in Boston 
 or some other icebound spot. 
 
 IX. School teachers catching children using aitches in this 
 manner will keep them in after school and notify their parents 
 who will spank them and send them to bed without their supper. 
 
 X. Pleecemen will report all aitches found on public streets 
 to the public persecutor and will be paid at the rate of six cents 
 a million for all they pick up. 
 
 I think if your inadjesty will have these rules and regula- 
 tions printed on a blue pasteboard card in big red letters and 
 hung up all over everywhere you will be able, your h. r. h., to 
 unbait this terrible nuisance. 
 
 Yoors trooly, 
 
 THE UNWISEMAN. 
 70 
 
ENGLAND 
 
 P.S. It may happen, your h. r. h., that some of your subjex 
 can't help themselves in this aitch dropping habit, and it would 
 therefore be mercyful of you to provide letter boxes on all the 
 street cornders where they could drop their aitches into without 
 breaking the rules of your high and mighty highness. 
 Give my love to the roil family. 
 Yoors trooly, 
 
 THE UNWISEMAN. 
 
 'There," he said when he had scribbled the 
 letter off with his lead pencil. "If the King 
 can only read that it ought to make him much 
 obliged to me for helping him out of a very 
 bad box. This Island ain't so big, map or no 
 map, that they can afford to have it smoth- 
 ered in aitches as it surely will be if the habit 
 ain't put a stop to. I wonder what the King's 
 address is." 
 
 "I don't know," said Whistlebinkie with a 
 grin. "He and I ain't never called on each 
 other yet. " 
 
 "Is King his last name or his first, I wonder," 
 said the Unwiseman, scratching his head won- 
 deringly. 
 
 "His first name is Edward," said Mollie. 
 "It used to be Albert Edward, but he dropped 
 the Albert." 
 
 71 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "Edward what?" demanded the TJnwiseman. 
 "Don't they call him Edward Seventh?" 
 
 "Yes they do," said Mollie. 
 
 "Then I guess I'll address it to Edward S. 
 King, Esquire, Number Seven, London that's 
 where all the kings live when they're home," 
 said the TJnwiseman. 
 
 And so the letter went addressed to Edward S. 
 King, Esquire, Number Seven, London, Eng- 
 land, but whether His Majesty ever received it 
 or not I do not know. Certainly if he did he 
 never answered it, and that makes me feel that 
 he never received it, for the King of England is 
 known as the First Gentleman of Europe, and 
 I am quite sure that one who deserves so fine a 
 title as that would not leave a polite letter like 
 the Unwiseman's unanswered. Mollie's father 
 was very much impressed when he heard of the 
 Unwiseman's communication. 
 
 " I shouldn't be surprised if the King made him 
 a Duke, for that," he said. "It is an act of the 
 highest statesmanship to devise so simple a plan 
 to correct so widespread an evil. If the Unwise- 
 man were only an Englishman he might even 
 become Prime Minister." 
 
 72 
 
ENGLAND 
 
 "No," said the Unwiseman later, when 
 Mollie told him what her father had said. "He 
 couldn't make me Prime Minister because I 
 haven't ever studied zoology and couldn't preach 
 a sermon or even take up a collection properly, 
 but as for being a Duke well if he asked me as 
 a special favor I might accept that. The Duke 
 of Me how would that sound, Mollie?" 
 
 "Oh it would be perfectly beautiful!" cried 
 Mollie overwhelmed by the very thought of any- 
 thing so grand. 
 
 "Or Baron Brains eh?" continued the Un- 
 wiseman. 
 
 "That would just suit you," giggled Whistle- 
 binkie. "Barren Brains is you all over." 
 
 "Thank you, Fizzledinkie, " said the Unwise- 
 man. "For once I quite agree with you. I 
 guess I'll call on some tailor up in London and 
 see what it would cost me to buy a Duke's 
 uniform so's to be ready when the King sends 
 for me. It would be fine to walk into his office 
 with a linen duster on and have him say, 'From 
 this time on Mister Me you're a Duke. Go out 
 and get dressed for tea,' and then turn around 
 three times, bow to the Queen, whisk off the 
 
 73 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 duster and stand there in the roil presence with 
 the Duke's uniform already on. I guess he'd 
 say that was American enterprise all right." 
 
 "You'd make a hit for sure!" roared Whistle- 
 binkie dancing up and down with glee. 
 
 "I'll do it!" ejaculated the Unwiseman with 
 a look of determination in his eyes. "If I can 
 get a ready-made Duke's suit for $8.50 I'll do it. 
 Even if it never happened I could wear the suit 
 to do my gardening in when I get home. Did 
 your father say anything about this being 
 England or not?" 
 
 "Yes," said Mollie. "He said it was England 
 all right. He's been here before and he says 
 you can always tell it by the soldiers walking 
 around with little pint measures on their heads 
 instead of hats, and little boys in beaver hats 
 with no tails to their coats." 
 
 "All right," said the Unwiseman. "I'm 
 satisfied if he is only the man that got up that 
 map ought to be spoken to about making it 
 pink when it is only a dull yellow dusty gray, 
 and only four inches long instead of five miles. 
 Some stranger trying to find it in the dark some 
 night might stumble over it and never know 
 
 74 
 
ENGLAND 
 
 that he'd got what he was looking for. Where 
 are we going to from here?" 
 
 "We're going straight up to London," said 
 Mollie. "The train goes in an hour just after 
 lunch. Will you come and have lunch with us ?" 
 
 "No thank you," replied the Unwiseman. 
 "I've got a half dozen lunches saved up from 
 the ship there in my carpet bag, and I'll eat a 
 couple of those if I get hungry. " 
 
 "Saved up from the ship?" cried Mollie. 
 
 "Yep," said the Unwiseman. "I've got a 
 bottle full of that chicken broth they gave us 
 the first day out that I didn't even try to eat; 
 six or seven bottlefuls of beef tea, and about 
 two dozen ginger-snaps, eight pounds of hard- 
 tack, and a couple of apple pies. I kept order- 
 ing things all the way across whether I felt like 
 eating them or not and whatever I didn't eat I'd 
 bottle up, or wrap up in a piece of paper and 
 put away in the bag. I've got just three dinners, 
 two breakfasts and four lunches in there. When 
 I get to London I'm going to buy a bunch of 
 bananas and have an eclaire put up in a tin box 
 and those with what I've already got ought to 
 last me throughout the whole trip." 
 
 75 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "By the way, Mr. Me," said Mollie, a 
 thoughtful look coming into her eyes. "Do 
 you want me to ask my Papa to buy you a ticket 
 for London ? I think he'd do it if I asked him." 
 
 "I know he would," said Whistlebinkie. 
 "He's one of the greatest men in the world for 
 doing what Mollie asks him to. " 
 
 "No thank you," replied the Unwiseman. 
 "Of course if he had invited me to join the 
 party at the start I might have been willing to 
 have went at his expense, but seeing as how I sort 
 of came along on my own hook I think I'd better 
 look after myself. I'm an American, I am, and 
 I kind of like to be free and independent like." 
 
 "Have you any money with you?" asked 
 Mollie anxiously. 
 
 "No," laughed the Unwiseman. "That is, 
 not more'n enough to buy that Duke's suit for 
 $8.50 with. What's the use of having money? 
 It's only a nuisance to carry around, and it 
 makes you buy a lot of things you don't want 
 just because you happen to have it along. 
 People without money get along a great deal 
 cheaper than people with it. Millionaires spend 
 twice as much as poor people. Money ain't very 
 
 76 
 
ENGLAND 
 
 sociable you know and it sort of hates to stay with 
 you no matter how kind you are to it. So I didn't 
 bring any along except the aforesaid eight-fifty." 
 
 "Tisn't much, is it," said Mollie. 
 
 "Not in dollars, but it's a lot in cents eight 
 hundred and fifty of 'em that's a good deal," 
 said the Unwiseman cheerfully. "Then each 
 cent is ten mills that's-O dear me such a lot 
 of mills!" 
 
 "Eight thousand five hundred," Mollie cal- 
 culated. 
 
 "Goodness!" cried the Unwiseman. "I hope 
 there don't anybody find out I've got all that 
 with me. I'd be afraid to go to sleep for fear 
 somebody'd rob me." 
 
 "But how how are you going to get to 
 London?" asked Mollie anxiously. "It's too 
 far to walk." 
 
 "O I'll get there," said the Unwiseman. 
 
 "He'll probably get a hitch on the cow- 
 catcher," suggested Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Don't you worry," laughed the Unwise- 
 man. "It'll be all right, only " here he paused 
 and looked about him to make sure that no one 
 was listening. "Only," he whispered, "I wish 
 
 77 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 somebody would carry my carpet-bag. It's a 
 pretty big one as you can see, and I might I 
 don't say I would but I might have trouble 
 getting to London if I had to carry it." 
 
 "I'll be very glad to take care of it," said 
 Mollie. "Should I have it checked or take it 
 with me in the train?" 
 
 "Better take it with you," said the Unwise- 
 man. "I haven't any key and some of these 
 railway people might open it and eat up all my 
 supplies." 
 
 "Very well," said Mollie. "I'll see that it's 
 put in the train and I won't take my eyes off it 
 all the way up to London." 
 
 So the little party went up to the hotel. The 
 Un wiseman's carpet-bag was placed with the 
 other luggage, and the family went in to lunch- 
 eon leaving the Unwiseman to his own devices. 
 When they came out the old fellow was nowhere 
 to be seen and Mollie, much worried about him 
 boarded the train. Her father helped her with 
 the carpet-bag, the train-door was closed, the 
 conductor came for the tickets and with a loud 
 clanging of bells the train started for London. 
 It was an interesting trip but poor little Mollie 
 
 78 
 
ENGLAND 
 
 did not enjoy it very much. She was so worried 
 to think of the Unwiseman all alone in England 
 trying some new patent way of his own for 
 getting over so many miles from Liverpool to 
 the capital of the British Empire. 
 
 "We didn't even tell him the name of our 
 hotel, Whistlebinkie," she whispered to her 
 companion. "How will he ever find us again 
 in this big place." 
 
 "O-he'11-turn-up orright," whistled Whistle- 
 binkie comfortingly. "He knows a thing or 
 two even if he is an Unwiseman." 
 
 And as it turned out Whistlebinkie was right, 
 for about three minutes after their arrival at the 
 London hotel, when the carpet-bag had been set 
 carefully aside in one corner of Mollie's room, 
 the cracked voice of the Unwiseman was heard 
 singing: 
 
 " O a carpet-bag is more comfortabler 
 
 Than a regular Pullman Car. 
 Just climb inside and with never a stir, 
 
 Let no one know where you are; 
 And then when the train goes choo-choo-choo 
 
 And the ticket man comes arown, 
 You'll go without cost and a whizz straight through 
 
 To jolly old London-town. 
 
 To jolly, to jolly, to jolly, to jolly, to jollj old London-town." 
 
 79 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "Hi there, Mollie press the latch on this 
 carpet-bag!" the voice continued. 
 
 "Where are you?" cried Mollie, gazing 
 excitedly about her. 
 
 "In here," came the voice from the cavern- 
 ous depths of the carpet-bag. 
 
 "In the bag," gasped Mollie, breathless with 
 surprise. 
 
 " The same let me out," replied the Unwise- 
 man. 
 
 And sure enough, when Mollie and Whistle- 
 binkie with a mad rush sped to the carpet-bag 
 and pressed on the sliding lock, the bag flew 
 open and Mr. Me himself hopped smilingly up 
 out of its wide- stretched jaws. 
 
V. 
 
 A CALL ON THE KING 
 
 "MERCY!" cried Mollie as the Unwiseman 
 stepped out of the carpet-bag, and began limber- 
 ing up his stiffened legs by pirouetting about the 
 room. " Aren't you nearly stufficated to death ?" 
 
 "No indeed," said the Unwiseman. "Why 
 should I be?" 
 
 "Well I should think the inside of a carpet- 
 bag would be pretty smothery," observed Mollie. 
 
 "Perhaps it would be," agreed the Unwise- 
 man, "if I hadn't taken mighty good care that 
 it shouldn't be. You see I brought that life- 
 preserver along, and every time I needed a bite 
 of fresh air, I'd unscrew the tin cap and get it. 
 I pumped it full of fine salt air the day we left 
 Ireland for just that purpose. " 
 
 "What a splendid idea!" ejaculated Mollie 
 full of admiration for the Unwiseman's ingenuity. 
 
 "Yes I think it's pretty good," said the Un- 
 wiseman, " and when I get back home I'm going 
 to invent it and make a large fortune out of it. 
 
 6 81 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 Of course there ain't many people nowadays, 
 especially among the rich, who travel in carpet- 
 bags the way I do, or get themselves checked 
 through from New York to Chicago in trunks, 
 but there are a lot of 'em who are always com- 
 plaining about the lack of fresh air in railroad 
 trains especially when they're going through 
 tunnels, so I'm going to patent a little pocket 
 fresh air case that they can carry about with 
 them and use when needed. It is to be made of 
 rubber like a hot-water bag, and all you've got 
 to do before starting off on a long journey is to 
 take your bicycle pump, pump the fresh-air 
 bag full of the best air you can find on the place 
 and set off on your trip. Then when the cars 
 get snuffy, just unscrew the cap and take a 
 sniff." 
 
 "My goodness!" cried Mollie. "You ought 
 to make a million dollars out of that. " 
 
 "Million?" retorted the Unwiseman. "Well 
 I should say so. Why there are 80,000,000 
 people in America and if I sold one of those 
 fresh-air bags a year to only 79,000,000 of 'em 
 at two dollars apiece for ten years you see where 
 I'd come out. They'd call me the Fresh Air 
 
 82 
 
A CALL ON THE KING 
 
 King and print my picture in the newspapers." 
 
 : 'You couldn't lend me two dollars now, 
 could you?" asked Whistlebinkie facetiously. 
 
 'Yes I could," said the Unwiseman with a 
 frown, "but I won't but you can go out on 
 the street and breathe two dollars worth of fresh 
 air any time you want to and have it charged 
 to my account." 
 
 Mollie laughed merrily at the Unwiseman's 
 retort, and Whistlebinkie for the time being had 
 nothing to say, or whistle either for that matter. 
 
 'You missed a lot of interesting scenery on 
 the way up, Mr. Me," said Mollie. 
 
 "No I didn't," said the Unwiseman. "I 
 heard it all as it went by, and that's good enough 
 for me. I'd just as lief hear a thing as see it any 
 day. I saw some music once and it wasn't half 
 as pretty to look at as it was when I heard it, 
 and it's the same way about scenery if you only 
 get your mind fixed up so that you can enjoy it 
 that way. Somehow or other it didn't sound 
 so very different from the scenery I've heard at 
 home, and that's one thing that made me like it. 
 I'm very fond of sitting quietly in my little room 
 at home and listening to the landscape when the 
 
 83 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 moon is up and the stars are out, and no end of 
 times as we rattled along from Liverpool to 
 London it sounded just like things do over in 
 America, especially when we came to the 
 switches at the railroad conjunctions. Don't 
 they rattle beautifully!" 
 
 "They certainly do!" said Whistlebinkie, 
 prompted largely by a desire to get back into 
 the good graces of the Unwiseman. "I love it 
 when we bump over them so hard they make- 
 smee-wissle." 
 
 * You're all right when you whistle, Fizzle- 
 dinkie," smiled the Unwiseman. "It's only 
 when you try to talk that you are not all that 
 you should be. Woyds and you get sort of 
 tangled up and I haven't got time to ravel you 
 out. But I say, Mollie, we're really in London 
 are we?" 
 
 "Yes," said Mollie. "This is it." 
 
 "Well I guess I'll go out and see what there 
 is about it that makes people want to come here," 
 said the Unwiseman. "I've got a list of things 
 I want to see, and the sooner I get to work the 
 sooner I'll see 'em. First thing I want to get a 
 sight of is a real London fog. Then of course I 
 
 84 
 
A CALL ON THE KING 
 
 want to go down to the Aquarium and see the 
 Prince of Whales, and call on the King and 
 Queen, and meet a few Dukes, and Earls and 
 things like that. Then there's the British 
 Museum. I'm told there is a lot of very interest- 
 ing things down there including some Egyptian 
 mummies that are passing their declining years 
 there. I've never talked to a mummy in my life 
 and I'd rather like to meet a few of 'em. I 
 wonder if Dick Whittington's cat is still living." 
 
 "O I don't believe so," said Mollie. "He 
 must have died long years ago. " 
 
 "The first time and maybe the second or 
 third or even the fourth time," said the Unwise- 
 man. "But cats have nine lives and if he lived 
 fifty years for each of them that would be let's 
 see, four times nine is eighteen, three times two 
 is ten, carry four and " 
 
 "It would be 450 years," laughed Mollie. 
 
 "Pretty old cat," said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Well there's no harm in asking anyhow, 
 and if he is alive I'm going to see him, and if he 
 isn't the chances are they've had him stuffed 
 and a stuffed cat is better to look at than no cat 
 at all," said the Unwiseman, brushing off his 
 
 85 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 hat preparatory to going out. "Come on, 
 Mollie are you ready?" 
 
 The little party trudged down the stairs and out 
 upon the avenue upon which their hotel fronted. 
 
 "Guess we'd better take a hansom," said the 
 Unwiseman as they emerged from the door. 
 "We'll save time going that way if the driver 
 knows his business. We'll just tell him to go 
 where we want to go, and in that way we won't 
 have to keep asking these Roberts the way 
 round. " 
 
 "Roberts?" asked Mollie, forgetting the little 
 incident at Liverpool. 
 
 "Oh well the Bobbies the pleecemen," 
 replied the Unwiseman. " I want to get used to 
 'em before I call them that." 
 
 So they all climbed into a hansom cab. 
 
 "Where to, sir?" asked the cabby, through 
 the little hole in the roof. 
 
 "Well I suppose we ought to call on the King 
 first," said the Unwiseman to Mollie. "Don't 
 you?" 
 
 "I guess so," said Mollie timidly. 
 
 "To the King's" said the Unwiseman, through 
 the little hole. 
 
 86 
 
A CALL ON THE KING 
 
 "Beg pardon!" replied the astonished cabby. 
 
 "Don't mention it," said the Unwiseman. 
 "Drive to the King's house first and apologize 
 afterwards." 
 
 "I only wanted to know where you wished to 
 go, sir," said the cabby. 
 
 "The King's, stupid," roared the Unwiseman 
 -" Mr. Edward S. King's didn't you ever hear 
 of him?" 
 
 "To the Palace, sir?" asked the driver. 
 
 "Of course unless his h. r. h. is living in a 
 tent somewhere and hurry up. We didn't 
 engage you for the pleasures of conversation, 
 but to drive us," said the Unwiseman severely. 
 
 The amazed cabman whipped up his horse 
 and a short while afterwards reached Bucking- 
 ham Palace, the home of the King and Queen 
 in London. At either side of the gate was a 
 tall sentry box, and a magnificent red-coated 
 soldier with a high bear-skin shako on his head 
 paced along the path. 
 
 "There he is now," said the Unwiseman, 
 excitedly, pointing at the guard. "Isn't he a 
 magnificent sight. Come along and I'll intro- 
 duce you." 
 
 87 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 The Unwiseman leapt jauntily out of the 
 hansom and Mollie and Whistlebinkie timidly 
 followed. 
 
 "Howdido, Mr. King," said the Unwiseman 
 stepping in front of the sentry and making a 
 profound salaam and almost sweeping the walk 
 with his hat. " We've just arrived in London 
 and have called to pay our respects to you and 
 Mrs. King. I hope the children are well. We're 
 Americans, Mr. King, but for the time being 
 we've decided to overlook all our little differences 
 growing out of the Declaration of Independence 
 and wish you a Merry Fourth of July." 
 
 The sentry was dumb with amazement at 
 this unexpected greeting, and the cabby's eyes 
 nearly dropped out of his head they bulged so. 
 
 "Mollie, dear," continued Mr. Me, "Come 
 here, my child and let me introduce you to Mr. 
 King. Mr. King, this is a little American girl 
 named Mollie. She's a bit bashful in your 
 h. r. h's presence because between you and me 
 you are the first real King she's ever saw. 
 We don't grow 'em in our country that is 
 not your kind. We have Cattle Kings and 
 Steel Kings, and I'm expecting to become a 
 
MOLLY MAKES HER COURTESY TO MR. KING 
 
A CALL ON THE KING 
 
 Fresh Air King myself but the kind that's 
 born to the er to the purple like yourself, 
 with a gilt crown on his head and the spectre 
 of power in his hand we don't get even at 
 the circus." 
 
 "Very glad to meet you," gasped Mollie, 
 feasting her eyes upon the gorgeous red coat of 
 the sentry. 
 
 The sentry not knowing what else to do and 
 utterly upset by the Unwiseman's eloquence 
 returned the gasp as politely as he could. 
 
 "She's a mighty nice little girl, Mr. King," 
 said the Unwiseman with a fond glance of 
 admiration at Mollie. "And if any of your 
 little kings and queens feel like calling at the 
 hotel some morning for a friendly Anglo- 
 American romp, Mollie will be very glad to see 
 them. This other youn^ person, your h. r. h., 
 is Whistlebinkie who belongs to one of the best 
 Rubber families of the United States. He looks 
 better than he talks. Whistlebinkie, Mr. King. 
 Mr. King, Whistlebinkie." 
 
 Whistlebinkie, too overcome to speak, merely 
 squeaked, a proceeding which seemed to please 
 the sentry very much for he returned a truty 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 royal smile and expressed himself as being very 
 glad to meet Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Been having pretty cold weather?" asked 
 the Unwiseman genially. 
 
 "Been rawther 'ot," said the sentry. 
 
 "I only asked," said the Unwiseman with a 
 glance at the guard's shako, "because I see you 
 have your fur crown on. Our American Kings 
 wear Panama crowns this weather," he added, 
 "but then we're free over there and can do 
 pretty much what we like. Did you get my 
 letter?" 
 
 "Beg your pardon?" asked the sentry. 
 
 "Mercy!" ejaculated the Unwiseman under 
 his breath. "What an apologetic people these 
 English are first the cabby and now the King." 
 Then he repeated aloud, "My letter I wrote 
 to you yesterday about this H dropping habit 
 of your people, and I was going to say that if 
 after reading it you decided to make me a Duke 
 I'd be very glad to accept if the clothes a Duke 
 has to wear don't cost more than $8.50. I might 
 even go as high as nine dollars if the suit was 
 a real good one that I could wear ten or eleven 
 years but otherwise I couldn't afford it. It 
 
 90 
 
A CALL ON THE KING 
 
 would be very kind of your h. r. h. to make me 
 one, but I've always made it a rule not to spend 
 more than a dollar a year on my clothes and 
 even a Duke has got to wear socks and neckties 
 in addition to his coats and trousers. Who is 
 your Majesty's Tailor? That red coat fits you 
 like wall-paper." 
 
 The sentry said something about buying his 
 uniforms at the Army and Navy stores and the 
 Unwiseman observed that he would most cer- 
 tainly have to go there and see what he could 
 get for himself. 
 
 "I'll tell 'em your h. r. h. sent me," he said 
 pleasantly, "and maybe they'll give you a com- 
 mission on what I buy. " 
 
 A long pause followed broken only by Whistle- 
 binkie's heavy breathing for he had by no means 
 recovered from his excitement over having met 
 a real king at last. Finally the Unwiseman 
 spoke again. 
 
 "We'd like very much to accept your kind 
 invitation to stay to supper, Mr. King," he 
 observed although the sentry had said nothing 
 at all about any such thing "but we really 
 can't to-night. You see we are paying pretty 
 
 91 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 good rates at the hotel and we feel it a sort of 
 duty to stay there and eat all we can so as to 
 get our money's worth. And we'd like to meet 
 the Queen too, but as you can see for yourself 
 we're hardly dressed for that. We only came 
 anyhow to let you know that we were here and 
 to tell you that if you ever came to America 
 we'd be mighty glad to have you call. I've got 
 a rather nice house of my own with a kitchen- 
 stove in it that I wouldn't sell for five dollars 
 that you would enjoy seeing. It's rented this 
 summer to one of the most successful burgulars 
 in America and I think you'd enjoy meeting 
 him, and don't hesitate to bring the children. 
 America's a great place for children, your h. r. h. 
 It's just chock full of back yards for 'em to play 
 in, and banisters to slide down, and roller skat- 
 ing rinks and all sorts of things that children 
 enjoy. I'll be very glad to let you use my um- 
 brella too if the weather happens to be bad. " 
 
 The sentry was very much impressed appar- 
 ently by the cordiality of the Unwiseman's 
 invitation for he bowed most graciously a half 
 dozen times, and touched his bear-skin hat very 
 respectfully, and smiled so royally that any- 
 
A CALL ON THE KING 
 
 body could see he was delighted with the idea 
 of some day visiting that far off land where the 
 Unwiseman lived, and seeing that wonderful 
 kitchen-stove of which, as we know, the old 
 gentleman was so proud. 
 
 "By the way," said the Unwiseman, con- 
 fidentially. "Before I go I'd like to say to you 
 that if you are writing at any time to the Emperor 
 of Germany you might send him my kind 
 regards. I had hoped to be able to stop over at 
 Kettledam, or wherever it is he lives no, it's 
 Pottsdam I always do get pots and kettles 
 mixed I had hoped to be able, I say, to stop 
 over there and pay my respects to him, but the 
 chances are I won't be able to do so this trip. 
 I'd hate to have him think that I'd been over 
 here and hadn't paid any attention to him, and if 
 you'll be so kind as to send him my regards he 
 won't feel so badly about it. I'd write and tell 
 him myself, but the fact is my German is a 
 little rusty. I only know German by sight 
 and even then I don't know what it means except 
 Gesundheit, which is German for 'did you 
 sneeze?' So you see a letter addressed to Mr. 
 Hoch " 
 
 93 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "Beg pardon, but Mr. Who sir?" asked the 
 Sentry. 
 
 "Mr. Hoch, der Kaiser," said the Unwiseman. 
 "That's his name, isn't it?" 
 
 The sentry said he believed it was something 
 like that. 
 
 "Well as I was saying even if I wrote he 
 wouldn't understand what I was trying to say, 
 so it would be a waste of time," said the Unwise- 
 man. 
 
 The sentry nodded pleasantly, and his eyes 
 twinkled under his great bear-skin hat like two 
 sparkling bits of coal. 
 
 "Good bye, your h. r. h.," the Unwiseman 
 continued, holding out his hand. "It has been 
 a real pleasure to meet you, and between you 
 and me if all kings were as good mannered and 
 decent about every thing as you are we wouldn't 
 mind 'em so much over in America. If the rest 
 of 'em are like you they're all right. " 
 
 And so the Unwiseman shook hands with the 
 sentry and Mollie did likewise while Whistle- 
 binkie repeated his squeak with a quaver that 
 showed how excited he still was. The three 
 travellers re-entered the hansom and inasmuch 
 
 94 
 
A CALL ON THE KING 
 
 as it was growing late they decided not to do any 
 more sight-seeing that day, and instructed the 
 cabby to drive them back to the hotel. 
 
 "Wonderfully fine man, that King," said the 
 Unwiseman as they drove along. "I had a sort 
 of an idea he'd have a band playing music all 
 the time, with ice cream and cake being served 
 every five minutes in truly royal style." 
 
 "He was just as pleasant as a plain everyday 
 policeman at home," said Mollie. 
 
 " Pleasanter, " observed the Unwiseman. "A 
 policeman at home would probably have told 
 us to move on the minute we spoke to him, but 
 the King was as polite as ginger-bread. I guess 
 we were lucky to find him outside there because 
 if he hadn't been I don't believe the head-butler 
 would have let us in." 
 
 "How-dy'u-know he was the King?" asked 
 Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Oh I just felt it in my bones," said the 
 Unwiseman. "He was so big and handsome, 
 and then that red coat with the gold buttons 
 why it just simply couldn't be anybody else." 
 
 "He didn't say much, diddee," whistled 
 Whistlebinkie. 
 
 95 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "No," said the Unwiseman. "I guess may- 
 be that's one of the reasons why he's a first class 
 King. The fellow that goes around talking all 
 the time might just as well be a well a rub- 
 ber-doll like you, Fizzledinkie. It takes a great 
 man to hold his tongue." 
 
 The hansom drew up at the hotel door and 
 the travellers alighted. 
 
 "Thank you very much, "said the Unwiseman 
 with a friendly nod at the cabby. 
 
 "Five shillin's, please, sir," said the driver. 
 
 "What's that?" demanded the Unwiseman. 
 
 "Five shillin's," repeated the cabby. 
 
 "What do you suppose he means?" asked 
 the Unwiseman turning to Mollie. 
 
 "Why he wants to be paid five shillings," 
 whispered Mollie. "Shillings is money." 
 
 "Oh hm well I never thought of that," 
 said the Unwiseman uneasily. "How much is 
 that in dollars?" 
 
 "It's a dollar and a quarter," said Mollie. 
 
 "I don't want to buy the horse," protested 
 the Unwiseman. 
 
 "Come now!" put in the driver rather im- 
 patiently. " Five shillin's, sir. " 
 
 96 
 
A CALL ON THE KING 
 
 "Charge it," said the Unwiseman, shrinking 
 back. " Just put it on the bill, driver, and I'll 
 send you a cheque for it. I've only got ten 
 dollars in real money with me, and I tell you 
 right now I'm not going to pay out a dollar and 
 a quarter right off the handle at one fell swoop." 
 
 "You'll pay now, or I'll ' the cabby began. 
 
 And just then, fortunately for all, Mollie's 
 father, who had been looking all over London 
 for his missing daughter, appeared, and in his 
 joy over finding his little one, paid the cabby 
 and saved the Unwiseman from what promised 
 to be a most unpleasant row. 
 
VI. 
 
 THEY GET SOME FOG AND GO SHOPPING 
 
 THE following day the Unwiseman was in 
 high-feather. At last he was able to contem- 
 plate in all its gorgeousness a real London fog of 
 which he had heard so much, for over the whole 
 city hung one of those deep, dark, impenetrable 
 mists which cause so much trouble at times to 
 those who dwell in the British capital. 
 
 "Hurry up, Mollie, and come out," he cried 
 enthusiastically rapping on the little girl's door. 
 "There's one of the finest fogs outside you ever 
 saw. I'm going to get a bottle full of it and take 
 it home with me." 
 
 "Hoh!" jeered Whistlebinkie. "What a 
 puffickly 'bsoyd thing to do as if we never 
 didn't have no fogs at home!" 
 
 "We don't have any London fogs in America, 
 Whistlebinkie," said Mollie. 
 
 "No but we have very much finer ones," 
 boasted the patriotic Whistlebinkie. "They're 
 whiter and cleaner to begin with, and twice as 
 deep." 
 
THEY GET SOME FOG AND GO SHOPPING 
 
 "Well never mind, Whistlebinkie," said Mol- 
 lie. "Don't go looking around for trouble with 
 the Unwiseman. It's very nice to be able to 
 enjoy everything as much as he does and you 
 shouldn't never find fault with people because 
 they enjoy themselves." 
 
 "Hi-there, Mollie," came the Unwiseman's 
 voice at the door. "Just open the door a little 
 and I'll give you a hatful of it." 
 
 'You can come in," said Mollie. "Whistle- 
 binkie and I are all dressed." 
 
 And the little girl opened the door and the 
 Unwiseman entered. He carried his beaver 
 hat in both hands, as though it were a pail with- 
 out a handle, and over the top of it he had spread 
 a copy of the morning's paper. 
 
 "It's just the finest fog ever," he cried as he 
 came in. "Real thick. I thought you'd like 
 to have some, so I went out on the sidewalk and 
 got a hat full of it for you." 
 
 Mollie and Whistlebinkie gathered about the 
 old gentleman as he removed the newspaper 
 from the top of his hat, and gazed into it. 
 
 "I do-see-anthing," whistled Wliistlebinkie. 
 You don't?" cried the Unwiseman. "Why 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 it's chock full of fog. You can see it can't you 
 Mollie ? " he added anxiously, for to tell the truth 
 the hat did seem to be pretty empty. 
 
 Mollie tried hard and was able to convince 
 herself that she could see just a tiny bit of it and 
 acted accordingly. 
 
 "Isn't it beautiful!" she ejaculated, as if filled 
 with admiration for the contents of the Unwise- 
 man's hat. "I don't think I ever saw any just 
 like it before did you, Mr. Me ? " 
 
 "No," said the Unwiseman much pleased, "I 
 don't think I ever did it's so delicate and er 
 steamy, eh? And there's miles of it outdoors 
 and the Robert down on the corner says we're 
 welcome to all we want of it. I didn't like to 
 take it without asking, you know." 
 
 "Of course not," said Mollie, glancing into 
 the hat again. 
 
 "So I just went up to the pleeceman and told 
 him I was going to start a museum at home and 
 that I wanted to have some real London fog on 
 exhibition and would he mind if I took some. 
 'Go ahead, sir,' he said very politely. 'Go 
 ahead and take all you want. We've got plenty 
 
 of it and to spare. You can take it all if you 
 
 100 
 
THEY GET SOME FOG AND GO SHOPPING 
 
 want it.' Mighty kind of him I think," said the 
 Unwiseman. " So I dipped out a hat full for you 
 first. AVhere'll I put it ? " 
 
 "O ," said Mollie, "I I don't know. I 
 
 guess maybe you'd better pour it out into that 
 vase up there on the mantel-piece it isn't too 
 thick to go in there, is it ? " 
 
 "It don't seem to be," said the Unwiseman 
 peering cautiously into the hat. "Somehow or 
 other it don't seem quite as thick inside here as 
 it did out there on the street. Tell you the 
 truth I don't believe it'll keep unless we get it in a 
 bottle and cork it up good and tight do you?" 
 
 "I'm afraid not," agreed Mollie. It's some- 
 thing like snow kind of vaporates." 
 
 "I'm going to put mine in a bottle," said the 
 Unwiseman, "and seal the cork with sealing 
 wax then I'll be sure of it. Then I thought 
 I'd get an envelope full and send it home to my 
 Burgular just to show him I haven't forgotten 
 him poor fellow, he must be awful lonesome 
 up there in my house without any friends in the 
 neighborhood and no other burgulars about to 
 keep him company." 
 
 And the strange little man ran off to get his 
 
 101 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 bottle filled with fog and to fill up an envelope 
 with it as well as a souvenir of London for the 
 lonesome Burglar at home. Later on Mollie 
 encountered him leaving the hotel door with a 
 small shovel and bucket in his hand such as chil- 
 dren use on the beach in the summer-time. 
 
 "The pleeceman says it's thicker down by the 
 river," he explained to Mollie, "and I'm going 
 down there to shovel up a few pailsful though 
 I've got a fine big bottleful of it already corked 
 up and labelled for my museum. And by the 
 way, Mollie, you want to be careful about Whis- 
 tlebinkie in this fog. When he whistles on a 
 bright clear day it is hard enough to understand 
 what he is saying, but if he gets his hat full of fog 
 and tries to whistle with that it will be something 
 awful. I don't think I could stand him if he 
 began to talk any foggier than he does ordinarily." 
 
 Mollie promised to look out for this and kept 
 Whistlebinkie indoors all the morning, much to 
 the rubber-doll's disgust, for Whistlebinkie was 
 quite as anxious to see how the fog would affect 
 his squeak as the Unwiseman was to avoid hav- 
 ing him do so. In the afternoon the fog lifted 
 and the Unwiseman returned. 
 
 102 
 
THEY GET SOME FOG AND GO SHOPPING 
 
 "I think I'll go out and see if I can find the 
 King's tailor," he said. "I'm getting worried 
 about that Duke's suit. I asked the Robert 
 what he thought it would cost and he said he 
 didn't believe you could get one complete for less 
 than five pounds and the way I figure it out that's 
 a good deal more than eight-fifty." 
 
 "It's twenty-five dollars," Mollie calculated. 
 
 "Mercy!" cried the Unwiseman. "It costs 
 a lot to dress by the pound doesn't it I guess I'd 
 better write to Mr. King and tell him I've de- 
 cided not to accept." 
 
 "Better see what it costs first," said Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "All right," agreed the Unwiseman. "I will 
 want to go with me Mollie?" 
 
 "Certainly," said Mollie. 
 
 And they started out. After walking up to 
 Trafalgar Square and thence on to Piccadilly, 
 the Unwiseman carefully scanning all the signs 
 before the shops as they went, they came to a 
 bake-shop that displayed in its window the royal 
 coat of arms and announced that "Muffins by 
 Special Appointment to H. R. H. the King," 
 could be had there. 
 
 103 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "We're getting close," said the Unwiseman. 
 "Let's go in and have a royal cream-cake." 
 
 Mollie as usual was willing and entering the 
 shop the Unwiseman planted himself before the 
 counter and addressed the sales-girl. 
 
 "I'm a friend of Mr. King, Madame," he 
 observed with a polite bow, "just over from 
 America and we had a sort of an idea that we 
 should like to eat a really regal piece of cake. 
 What have you in stock made by Special Ap- 
 pointment for the King ? " 
 
 "We 'ave Hinglish Muffins," replied the 
 girl. 
 
 "Let me see a few," said the Unwiseman. 
 
 The girl produced a tray-ful. 
 
 "Humph!" ejaculated the Unwiseman look- 
 ing at them critically. "They ain't very differ- 
 ent from common people's muffins are they? 
 What I want is some of the stuff that goes to the 
 Palace. I may look green, young lady, but I 
 guess I've got sense enough to see that those 
 things are not royal." 
 
 "These are the kind his majesty prefers," 
 said the girl. 
 
 "Come along, Mollie," said the Unwiseman 
 
 104 
 
"THESE ARE THE KIND HIS MAJESTY PREFERS," SAID THE GIRL 
 
THEY GET SOME FOG AND GO SHOPPING 
 
 turning away. " I don't want to get into trouble 
 and I'm sure this young lady is trying to fool us. 
 I am very much obliged to you, Madame," he 
 added turning to the girl at the counter. "We'd 
 have been very glad to purchase some of your 
 wares if you hadn't tried to deceive us. Those 
 muffins are very pretty indeed but when you try 
 to make us believe that they are muffins by spe- 
 cial appointment to his h. r. h., Mr. Edward S. 
 King, plain and simple Americans though we be, 
 we know better. Even my rubber friend, Whis- 
 tlebinkie here recognizes a bean when he sees it. 
 I shall report this matter to the King and beg to 
 wish you a very good afternoon." 
 
 And drawing himself up to his full height, the 
 Unwiseman with a great show of dignity marched 
 out of the shop followed meekly by Mollie and 
 Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "I - didn - tsee - an - thing th - matter - withem," 
 whistled Whistlebinkie. "They looked to me 
 like firs-class-smuffins." 
 
 "No doubt," said the Unwiseman. "That's 
 because you don't know much. But they could- 
 n't fool me. If I'd wanted plain muffins I could 
 have asked for them, but when I ask for a muffin 
 
 105 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 by special appointment to his h. r. h. the King 
 I want them to give me what I ask for. Perhaps 
 you didn't observe that not one of those muffins 
 she brought out was set with diamonds and 
 rubies." 
 
 "Now that you mention it," said Mollie, "I 
 remember they weren't." 
 
 "Prezactly," said the Unwiseman. "They 
 weren't even gold mounted, or silver plated, or 
 anything to make 'em different from the plain 
 every day muffins that you can buy in a baker's 
 shop at home. I don't believe they were by spe- 
 cial appointment to anybody not even a nearl, 
 much less the King. I guess they think we 
 Americans don't know anything over here but 
 they're barking up the wrong tree if they think 
 they can fool me." 
 
 " We-mightuv-tastedum !" whistled Whistle- 
 binkie much disappointed, because he always 
 did love the things at the baker's. "You can't 
 tell just by lookin' at a muffin whether it's good 
 or not." 
 
 "Well go back and taste them," retorted the 
 Unwiseman. "It's your taste only if I had as 
 little taste as you have I wouldn't waste it on 
 
 106 
 
THEY GET SOME FOG AND GO SHOPPING 
 
 that stuff. Ah this is the place I've been look- 
 ing for." 
 
 The old man's eyes had fallen upon another 
 sign which read "Robe Maker By Special Ap- 
 pointment to T. R. H. The King and The 
 Queen." 
 
 "Here's the place, Mollie, where they make 
 the King's clothes," he said. "Now for it." 
 
 Hand in hand the three travellers entered the 
 tailor's shop. 
 
 "How do you do, Mr. Snip," said the Unwise- 
 man addressing the gentlemanly manager of the 
 shop whose name was on the sign without and 
 who approached him as affably as though he 
 were not himself the greatest tailor in the British 
 Isles for he couldn't have been the King's tailor 
 if he had not been head and shoulders above all 
 the rest. "I had a very pleasant little chat with 
 his h. r. h. about you yesterday. I could see by 
 the fit of his red jacket that you were the best 
 tailor in the world, and while he didn't say very 
 much on the subject the King gave me to under- 
 stand that you're pretty nearly all that you should 
 be." 
 
 "Verry gracious of his Majesty I am sure," 
 
 107 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 replied the tailor, washing his hands in invisible 
 soap, and bowing most courteously. 
 
 "Now the chances are," continued the Unwise- 
 man, "that as soon as the King receives a letter 
 I wrote to him from Liverpool about how to 
 stamp out this horrible habit his subjects have of 
 littering up the street with aitches, clogging traffic 
 and overworking the Roberts picking 'em up, he'll 
 ask me to settle down over here and be a Duke. 
 Naturally I don't want to disappoint him because 
 I consider the King to be a mighty nice man, but 
 unless I can get a first-class Duke's costume 
 
 "We make a specialty of Ducal robes, your 
 Grace," said the Tailor, manifesting a great deal 
 of interest in his queer little customer. 
 
 "Hold on a minute," cried the Unwiseman. 
 "Don't you call me that yet I shant be a grace 
 until I've decided to accept. What does an A-l 
 Duke's clothes cost?" 
 
 "You mean the full State " began the 
 
 Tailor. 
 
 "I come from New York State," said the Un- 
 wiseman. "Yes I guess that's it. New York's 
 the fullest State in the Union. How much for 
 a New York State Duke ? " 
 
 108 
 
THEY GET SOME FOG AND GO SHOPPING 
 
 "The State Robes will cost um let me see 
 I should think about fifteen hundred pounds, 
 your Lordship," calculated the Tailor. "Of 
 course it all depends on the quality of the mater- 
 ials. Velvets are rawther expensive these days/' 
 
 Whistlebinkie gave a long low squeak of 
 astonishment. Mollie gasped and the Unwise- 
 man turned very pale as he tremblingly repeated 
 the figure. 
 
 " Fif -teen-hundred-pounds ? Why," he added 
 turning to Mollie, "I'd have to live about seven 
 thousand years to get the wear out of it at a dol- 
 lar a year." 
 
 "Yes, your Lordship or more. It all de- 
 pends upon how much gold your Lordship re- 
 quires ' observed the Tailor. 
 
 "Seems to me I'd need about four barrels of 
 it," said the Unwiseman, " to pay a bill like that." 
 
 "We have made robes costing as high as 10,000 
 pounds," continued the Tailor. "But they of 
 course were of unusual magnificence and for 
 special jubilee celebrations you know." 
 
 " You haven't any ready made Duke's clothes 
 
 on hand for less ? " inquired the Unwiseman. 
 
 'You know I'm not so awfully particular about 
 
 109 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 the fit. My figure's a pretty good one, but after 
 all I don't want to thrust it on people." 
 
 "We do not deal in ready made garments," 
 said the Tailor coldly. 
 
 "Well I guess I'll have to give it up then," 
 said the Unwiseman, "unless you know where 
 I could hire a suit, or maybe buy one second- 
 hand from some one of your customers who's 
 going to get a new one." 
 
 "We do not do that kind of trade, sir," replied 
 the Tailor, haughtily. 
 
 "Well say, Mr. Snip ain't there anything 
 else a chap can be made beside a Duke that ain't 
 quite so dressy ? " persisted the old gentleman. 
 " I don't want to disappoint Mr. King you know." 
 
 "Oh as for that," observed the Tailor, "there 
 are ordinary peerages, baronetcies and the like. 
 His Majesty might make you a Knight," he 
 added sarcastically. 
 
 "That sounds good," said the Unwiseman. 
 "About what would a Knight gown cost me 
 made out of paper muslin or something that's 
 a wee bit cheaper than solid gold and velvet ? " 
 
 This perfectly innocent and sincerely asked 
 
 question was never answered, for Mr. Snip the 
 
 no 
 
THEY GET SOME FOG AND GO SHOPPING 
 
 Tailor made up his mind that the Unwiseman 
 was guying him and acted accordingly. 
 
 "Jorrocks!" he cried haughtily to the office 
 boy, a fresh looking lad who had broken out all 
 over in brass buttons. '' Jorrocks, show this 
 'ere party the door." 
 
 Whereupon Mr. Snip retired and Jorrocks with 
 a winjs at Whistlebinkie showed the travellers out. 
 
 "Well did you ever!" ejaculated the Unwise- 
 man. "You couldn't have expected any haugh- 
 tier haughtiness than that from the King him- 
 self." 
 
 "He was pretty proud," said Mollie, with a 
 smile, for to tell the truth she had had all she 
 could do all through the interview to keep from 
 giggling. 
 
 "He was proud all right, but I didn't notice 
 anything very pretty about him," said the Un- 
 wiseman. "I'm going to write to the King 
 about both those places, because I don't believe 
 he knows what kind of people they are with 
 their bogus muffins and hoity-toity manners." 
 
 They walked solemnly along the street in the 
 direction of the hotel. 
 
 "I won't even wait for the mail," said the 
 
 111 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 Un wiseman. " I'll walk over to the Palace now 
 and tell him. That tailor might turn some real 
 important American out of his shop in the same 
 way and then there'd be a war over it." 
 
 "O I wouldn't," said Mollie, who was always 
 inclined toward peace-making. "Wait and 
 write him a letter. " 
 
 "Send - im - a - wireless - smessage," whistled 
 Whistlebinkie. 
 
 " Good idea ! " said the Unwiseman. " That'll 
 save postage and it'll get to the King right away 
 instead of having to be read first by one of his 
 Secretaries. " 
 
 So it happened that that night the Unwiseman 
 climbed up to the roof of the hotel and sent the 
 following wireless telegram to the King: 
 
 MY DEAR MR. KING: 
 
 That tailor of yours seems to think he's a Grand Duke in 
 disguise. In the first place he wanted me to pay over seven 
 thousand dollars for a Duke's suit and when I asked him the 
 price of a Knight-gown he told Jorrocks to show me the door, 
 which I had already seen and hadn't asked to see again. He's 
 a very imputinent tailor and if I were you I'd bounce him as 
 we say in America. Furthermore they sell bogus muffins up 
 at that specially appointed bake-shop of yours. I think you 
 ought to know these things. Nations have gone to war for less. 
 Yours trooly, 
 
 THE UNWISEMAN. 
 112 
 
THEY GET SOME FOG AND GO SHOPPING 
 
 P. S. I've been thinking about that Duke proposition and 
 I don't think I care to go into that business. Folks at 
 home haven't as much use for 'em as they have for sour 
 apples which you can make pie out of. So don't do any- 
 thing further in the matter. 
 
 " There, " said the Unwiseman as he tossed 
 this message off into the air. "That saves me 
 $8.50 anyhow, and I guess it'll settle the busi- 
 ness of those bogus muffin people and that high 
 and mighty tailor. " 
 
VII. 
 
 THE UNWISEMAN VISITS THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 
 "WHAT'S the matter, Mr. Me?" asked Mollie 
 one morning after they had been in London for 
 a week. 'You look very gloomy this morning. 
 Aren't you feeling well?" 
 
 "O I'm feeling all right physically," said the 
 Unwiseman. "But I'm just chock full of gloom 
 just the same and I want to get away from here 
 as soon as I can. Everything in the whole place 
 is bogus." 
 
 "Oh Mr. Me! you mustn't say that!" pro- 
 tested Mollie. 
 
 "Well if it ain't there's something mighty 
 queer about it anyhow, and I just don't like it," 
 said the Unwiseman. " I know they've fooled 
 me right and left, and I'm just glad George 
 Washington licked 'em at Bunco Hill and 
 pushed 'em off our continent on the double 
 quick. " 
 
 "What is the particular trouble?" asked 
 Mollie. 
 
 114 
 
A VISIT TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 
 "Well, in the first place," began the old 
 gentleman, "that King we saw the other day 
 wasn't a real king at all just a sort of decoy 
 king they keep outside the Palace to shoo people 
 off and keep them from bothering the real one; 
 and in the second place the Prince of Whales 
 aint' a whale at all. He ain't even a shiner. 
 He's just a man. I don't see what right they 
 have to fool people the way they do. They 
 wouldn't dare run a circus that way at home." 
 
 Mollie laughed, and Whistlebinkie squeaked 
 with joy. 
 
 "You didn't really expect him to be a whale, 
 did you?" Mollie asked. 
 
 "Why of course I did," said the Unwiseman. 
 "Why not? They claim over here that Britan- 
 nia rules the waves, don't they?" 
 
 "They certainly do," said Mollie gravely. 
 
 "Then it's natural to suppose they have a 
 big fish somewhere to represent 'em," said the 
 Unwiseman. "The King can't go sloshing 
 around under the ocean saying howdido to 
 porpoises and shad and fellers like that. It's 
 too wet and he'd catch his death of cold, so I 
 naturally thought the Prince of Whales looked 
 
 115 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 after that end of the business, and now I find 
 he's not even a sardine. It's perfectly disgust- 
 ing." 
 
 "I knew-he-wasn't-a-fish," said Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "Well you always were smarter than anybody 
 else," growled the Unwiseman. "You know a 
 Roc's egg isn't a pebble without anybody tell- 
 ing you I guess. You were born with the 
 multiplication table in your hat, but as for me 
 I'm glad I've got something to learn. I guess 
 carrying so much real live information around 
 in your hat is what makes you squeak so." 
 
 The old gentleman paused a moment and 
 then he went on again. 
 
 "What I'm worrying most about is that mock 
 king," he said. "Here I've gone and invited 
 him over to America, and offered to present 
 him with the freedom of my kitchen stove and 
 introduce him to my burgular. Suppose he 
 comes ? What on earth am I going to do ? 
 I can't introduce him as the real king, and if I 
 pass him off for a bogus king everybody'll 
 laugh at me, and accuse me of bringing my 
 burgular into bad company." 
 
 116 
 
A VISIT TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 
 "How did you find it out?" asked Mollie 
 sadly, for she had already written home to her 
 friends giving them a full account of their 
 reception by his majesty. 
 
 "Why I went up to the Palace this morning 
 to see why he hadn't answered my letter and 
 this time there was another man there, wearing 
 the same suit of clothes, bear-skin hat, red 
 jacket and all," explained the Unwiseman. "I 
 was just flabbergasted and then it flashed over 
 me all of a sudden that there might be a big 
 conspiracy on hand to kidnap the real king and 
 put his enemies on the throne. It was all so 
 plain. Certainly no king would let anybody else 
 wear his clothes, so this chap must have stolen 
 them and was trying to pass himself off for 
 Edward S. King himself." 
 
 "Mercy!" cried Mollie. "What did you do? 
 Call for help?" 
 
 "No sirree I mean no ma'am!" returned the 
 Unwiseman. "That wouldn't help matters any. 
 I ran down the street to a telephone office and 
 rang up the palace. I told 'em the king had been 
 kidnapped and that a bogus king was paradin' 
 up and down in front of the Palace with the 
 
 117 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 royal robes on. I liked that first king so much 
 I couldn't bear to think of his lyin' off somewhere 
 in a dungeon-cell waiting to have his head 
 chopped off. And what do you suppose hap- 
 pened? Instead of arresting the mock king 
 they wanted to arrest me, and I think they would 
 have if a nice old gentleman in a high hat and a 
 frock coat like mine, only newer, hadn't driven 
 up at that minute, bowing to everybody, and 
 entered the Palace yard with the whole crowd 
 giving him three cheers. Then what do you 
 suppose ? They tried to pass him off on me as 
 the real king why he was plainer than those 
 muffins and looked for all the world like a good 
 natured life insurance agent over home." 
 
 "And they didn't arrest you?" asked Mollie, 
 anxiously. 
 
 "No indeed," laughed the Unwiseman. "I 
 had my carpet-bag along and when the pleece- 
 man wasn't looking I jumped into it and waited 
 till they'd all gone. Of course they couldn't 
 find me. I don't believe they've got any king 
 over here at all." 
 
 " Then you'll never be a Duke ? " said Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 118 
 
A VISIT TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 
 "No sirree!" ejaculated the Unwiseman. 
 " Not while I know how to say no. If they offer it 
 to me I'll buy a megaphone to say no through so's 
 they'll be sure to hear it. Then there's that 
 other wicked story about London Bridge fall- 
 ing down. I heard some youngsters down 
 there by the River announcing the fact and I 
 nearly ran my legs off trying to get there in 
 time to see it fall and when I arrived it not only 
 wasn't falling down but was just ram- jam full of 
 omnibuses and cabs and trucks. Really I never 
 knew anybody anywhere who could tell as many 
 fibs in a minute as these people over here can." 
 
 "Well never mind, Mr. Me," said Mollie, 
 soothingly. "Perhaps things have gone a little 
 wrong with you, and I don't blame you for feel- 
 ing badly about the King, but there are other 
 things here that are very interesting. Come 
 with Whistlebinkie and me to the British 
 Museum and see the Mummies." 
 
 "Pooh!" retorted the Unwiseman. "I'd 
 rather see a basket of figs. " 
 
 "You never can tell," persisted Mollie. 
 "They may turn out to be the most interesting 
 things in all the world. " 
 
 119 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "I can tell," said the Unwiseman. "I've 
 already seen 'em and they haven't as much 
 conversation as a fried oyster. I went down 
 there yesterday and spent two hours with 'em, 
 and a more unapproachable lot you never saw 
 in your life. I was just as polite to 'em as I 
 knew how to be. Asked 'em how they liked the 
 British climate. Told 'em long stories of my 
 house at home. Invited a lot of 'em to come 
 over and meet my burgular just as I did the King 
 and not a one of 'em even so much as thanked 
 me. They just stood off there in their glass 
 cases and acted as if they never saw me, and if 
 they did, hadn't the slightest desire to see me 
 again. You don't catch me calling on them a 
 second time." 
 
 "But there are other things in the Museum, 
 aren't there?" asked Mollie. 
 
 The Unwiseman's gloom disappeared for a 
 moment in a loud burst of laughter. 
 
 "Such a collection of odds and ends," he 
 cried, with a sarcastic shake of his head. "I 
 never saw so much broken crockery in all my life. 
 It looks to me as if they'd bought up all the old 
 broken china in the world. There are tea-pots 
 
 120 
 
A VISIT TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 
 without nozzles by the thousand. Old tin cans, 
 all rusted up and with dents in 'em from every- 
 where. Cracked plates by the million, and no 
 end of water-pitchers with the handles broken 
 off, and chipped vases and goodness knows 
 what all. And they call that a museum! Just 
 you give me a half a dozen bricks and a crockery 
 shop over in America and in five minutes I'll 
 make that British Museum stuff look like a 
 sixpence. When I saw it first, I was pretty mad 
 to think I'd taken the trouble to go and look at 
 it, and then as I went on and couldn't find a 
 whole tea-cup in the entire outfit, and saw people 
 with catalogues in their hands saying how 
 wonderful everything was, I just had to sit 
 down on the floor and roar with laughter." 
 
 "But the statuary, Mr. Me," said Mollie. 
 "That was pretty fine I guess, wasn't it? I've 
 heard it's a splendid collection." 
 
 "Worse than the crockery," laughed the Un- 
 wiseman. "There's hardly a statue in the whole 
 place that isn't broken. Seems to me they're 
 the most careless lot of people over here with 
 their museums. Half the statues didn't have 
 
 any heads on 'em. A good quarter of them had 
 
 121 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 busted arms and legs, and on one of 'em there 
 wasn't anything left but a pair of shoulder 
 blades and half a wing sticking out at the back. 
 It looked more like a quarry than a museum to 
 me, and in a mighty bad state of repair even 
 for a quarry. That was where they put me 
 out," the old gentleman added. 
 
 "Put you out?" cried Mollie. "Oh Mr. Me 
 you don't mean to say they actually put you 
 out of The British Museum?" 
 
 "I do indeed," said the Unwiseman with a 
 broad grin on his face. "They just grabbed me 
 by my collar and hustled me along the floor to 
 the great door and dejected me just as if I 
 didn't have any more feeling than their old 
 statues. It's a wonder the way I landed I 
 wasn't as badly busted up as they are." 
 
 "But what for? You were not misbehaving 
 yourself, were you?" asked Mollie, very much 
 disturbed over this latest news. 
 
 "Of course not," returned the Unwiseman. 
 "Quite the contrary opposite. I was trying to 
 help them. I came across the great big statue 
 of some Greek chap I've forgotten his name- 
 something like Hippopotomes, or something of 
 
 122 
 
A VISIT TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 
 the sort standing up on a high pedestal, with 
 
 a sign, 
 
 HANDS OFF 
 
 hanging down underneath it. When I looked 
 at it I saw at once that it not only had its hands 
 off, but was minus a nose, two ears, one under- 
 lip and a right leg, so I took out my pencil and 
 wrote underneath the words Hands Off: 
 
 LIKEWISE ONE NOZE 
 
 ONE PARE OF EARS 
 
 A LEG AND ONE LIPP 
 
 It seemed to me the sign should ought to be 
 made complete, but I guess they thought dif- 
 ferent, because I'd hardly finished the second 
 P on lip when whizz bang, a lot of attendants 
 came rushing up to me and the first thing I 
 knew I was out on the street rubbing the back 
 of my head and wondering what hit me. " 
 
 "Poor old chap!" said Mollie sympathetically. 
 
 " Guess - you - wisht - you - was - mader - ubber- 
 like-me!" whistled Whistlebinkie trying hard to 
 repress his glee. 
 
 " What's that ? " demanded the Unwiseman. 
 
 "I - guess - you - wished - you - were - made - of - 
 rubber - like - me!" explained Whistlebinkie. 
 
 123 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "Never in this world," retorted the Unwise- 
 man scornfully. "If I'd been made of rubber 
 like you I'd have bounced up and down two or 
 three times instead of once, and I'm not so fond 
 of hitting the side- walk with myself as all that. 
 But I didn't mind. I was glad to get out. I was 
 so afraid all the time somebody 'd come along 
 and accuse me of breaking their old things that 
 it was a real relief to find myself out of doors 
 and nothing broken that didn't belong to me." 
 
 "They didn't break any of your poor old 
 bones, did they?" asked Mollie, taking the 
 Unwiseman's hand affectionately in her own. 
 
 "No worse luck they did worse than that," 
 said the old gentleman growing very solemn 
 again. "They broke that bottle of my native 
 land that I always carry in my coat-tail pocket 
 and loosened the cork in my fog bottle in the 
 other, so that now I haven't more than a pinch 
 of my native land with me to keep me from 
 being home-sick, and all of the fog I was saving 
 up for my collection has escaped. But I don't 
 care. I don't believe it was real fog, but just 
 a. mixture of soot and steam they're trying to 
 pass off for the real thing. Bogus like every- 
 
 124 
 
A VISIT TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 
 thing else, and as for my native land, I've got 
 enough to last me until I get home if I'm care- 
 ful of it. The only thing I'm afraid of is that 
 in scooping what I could of it up off the side- 
 walk I may have mixed a little British soil in 
 with it. I'd hate to have that happen because 
 just at present British soil isn't very popular 
 with me." 
 
 "Maybe it's bogus too," snickered Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "So much the better," said the Unwiseman. 
 "If it ain't real I can manage to stand it. " 
 
 "Then you don't think much of the British 
 Museum?" said Mollie. 
 
 "Well it ain't my style," said the Unwiseman, 
 shaking his head vigorously. "But there was 
 one thing that pleased me very much about it," 
 the old man went on, his eye lighting with real 
 pleasure and his voice trembling with patriotic 
 pride, "and that's some of the things they didn't 
 have in it. It was full of things the British have 
 captured in Greece and Italy and Africa and 
 pretty nearly everywhere else mummies from 
 Egypt, pieces of public libraries from Athens, 
 second-story windows from Rome, and little 
 
 125 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 dabs of architecture from all over the map 
 except the United States. That made me laugh. 
 They may have had Cleopatra's mummy there, 
 but I didn't notice any dried up specimens of the 
 Decalculation of Independence lying around in 
 any of their old glass cases. They had a whole 
 side wall out of some Roman capitol building 
 perched up on a big wooden platform, but I 
 didn't notice any domes from the Capitol at 
 Washington or back piazzas from the White 
 House on exhibition. There was a lot of busted 
 old statuary from Greece all over the place, but 
 nary a statue of Liberty from New York harbor, 
 or figger of Andrew Jackson from Philadelphia, 
 or bust of Ralph Waldo Longfellow from Boston 
 Common, sitting up there among their trophies 
 only things hooked from the little fellers, and 
 dug up from places like Pompey-two-eyes where 
 people have been dead so long they really 
 couldn't watch out for their property. It don't 
 take a very glorious conqueror to run off with 
 things belonging to people they can lick with 
 one hand, and it pleased me so when I couldn't 
 find even a finger-post, or a drug-store placard, 
 or a three dollar shoe store sign from America 
 
 126 
 
A VISIT TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 
 in the whole collection that my chest stuck out 
 like a pouter pigeon's and bursted my shirt- 
 studs right in two. They'd have had a lump 
 chipped off Independence Hall at Philadelphia, 
 or a couple of chunks of Bunco Hill, or a sliver 
 off the Washington Monument there all right if 
 they could have got away with it, but they 
 couldn't, and I tell you I wanted to climb right 
 up top of the roof and sing Yankee Doodle and 
 crow like a rooster the minute I noticed it, I 
 felt so good." 
 
 "Three cheers for us," roared Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "That's the way to talk, Fizzledinkie, " cried 
 the old gentleman gleefully, and grasping 
 Whistlebinkie by the hand he marched up and 
 down Mollie's room singing the Star Spangled 
 Banner the Unwiseman in his excitement called 
 it the Star Spangled Banana and Columbia the 
 Gem of the Ocean at the top of his lungs, and 
 Mollie was soon so thrilled that she too joined in. 
 
 "Well," said Mollie, when the patriotic ardor 
 of her two companions had died down a little. 
 "What are you going to do, Mr. Me? We've 
 got to stay here two days more. We don't start 
 for Paris until Saturday." 
 
 127 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "O don't bother about me," said the old man 
 pleasantly. "I've got plenty to do. I've bought 
 a book called 'French in Five Lessons' and I'm 
 going to retire to my carpet-bag until you people 
 are ready to start for France. I've figured it 
 out that I can read that book through in two 
 days if I don't waste too much of my time 
 eating and sleeping and calling on kings and 
 queens and trying to buy duke's clothes for $8.50, 
 and snooping around British Museums and pric- 
 ing specially appointed royal muffins, so that by 
 the time you are ready to start for Paris I'll be 
 in shape to go along. I don't think it's wise to 
 go into a country where they speak another 
 language without knowing just a little about it, 
 and if 'French in Five Lessons' is what it ought 
 to be you'll think I'm another Joan of Ark when 
 I come out of that carpet-bag. " 
 
 And so the queer old gentleman climbed into 
 his carpet-bag, which Mollie placed for him 
 over near the window where the light was better 
 and settled down comfortably to read his new 
 book, "French in Five Lessons." 
 
 "I'm glad he's going to stay in there," said 
 Whistlebinkie, as he and Mollie started out for 
 
 128 
 
A VISIT TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 
 a walk in Hyde Park. "Because I wouldn't be 
 a bit surprised after all he's told us if the pleese 
 were looking for him." 
 
 "Neither should I," said Mollie. "If what 
 he says about the British Museum is true and 
 they really haven't any things from the United 
 States in there, there's nothing they'd like better 
 than to capture an American and put him up in 
 a glass case along with those mummies. " 
 
 All of which seemed to prove that for once 
 the Unwiseman was a very wise old person. 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE UNWISEMAN'S FRENCH 
 
 THE following two days passed very slowly 
 for poor Mollie. It wasn't that she was not 
 interested in the wonders of the historic Tower 
 which she visited and where she saw all the 
 crown jewels, a lot of dungeons and a splendid 
 collection of armor and rare objects connected 
 with English history; nor in the large number 
 of other things to be seen in and about London 
 from Westminster Abbey to Hampton Court 
 and the Thames, but that she was lonesome 
 without the Unwiseman. Both she and Whistle- 
 binkie had approached the carpet-bag wherein 
 the old gentleman lay hidden several times, and 
 had begged him to come out and join them in 
 their wanderings, but he not only wouldn't come 
 out, but would not answer them. Possibly he 
 did not hear when they called him, possibly he 
 was too deeply taken up by his study of French 
 to bother about anything else whatever it was 
 
 130 
 
THE UNWISEMAN'S FRENCH 
 
 that caused it, he was as silent as though he were 
 deaf and dumb. 
 
 "Less - sopen - thbag," suggested Whistle- 
 binkie. " I-don'-bleeve-hes-sinthera-tall. " 
 
 "Oh yes he's in there," said Mollie. "I've 
 heard him squeak two or three times." 
 
 "Waddeesay ?" said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "What?" demanded Mollie, with a slight 
 frown. 
 
 "What - did - he - say ?" asked Whistlebinkie, 
 more carefully. 
 
 "I couldn't quite make out," said Mollie. 
 "Sounded like a little pig squeaking." 
 
 "I guess it was-sfrench, " observed Whistle- 
 binkie with a broad grin. "Maybe he was 
 saying Wee-wee-wee. That's what little pigs 
 say, and Frenchmen too I've heard 'em." 
 
 "Very likely," said Mollie. "I don't know 
 what wee-wee-wee means in little pig-talk, but 
 over in Paris it means, *O yes indeed, you're 
 perfectly right about that." 
 
 "He'll never be able to learn French," laughed 
 Whistlebinkie. "That is not so that he can 
 speak it. Do you think he will ?" 
 
 "That's what I'm anxious to see him for," 
 
 131 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 said Mollie. "I'm just crazy to find out how 
 he is getting along." 
 
 But all their efforts to get at the old gentle- 
 man were, as I have already said, unavailing. 
 They knocked on the bag, and whispered and 
 hinted and tried every way to draw him out but 
 it was not until the little party was half way 
 across the British Channel, on their way to 
 France, that the Unwiseman spoke. Then he 
 cried from the depths of the carpet bag: 
 
 "Hi there you people outside, what's going 
 on out there, an earthquake?" 
 
 "Whatid-i-tellu' " whistled Whistlebinkie. 
 " That ain't French. Thass-singlish. " 
 
 "Hallo-outside ahoy!" came the Unwiseman' s 
 voice again. Slidyvoo la slide sur le top de cette 
 carpet-bag ici and let me out!" 
 
 "That's French!" cried Mollie clapping her 
 hands ecstatically together. 
 
 "Then I understand French too!" said 
 Whistlebinkie proudly, "because I know what 
 he wants. He wants to get out." 
 
 " Do you want to come out, Mr. Unwiseman ? " 
 said Mollie bending over the carpet-bag, and 
 whispering through the lock. 
 
 132 
 
THE UNWISEMAN'S FRENCH 
 
 " Wee- wee- wee, " said the Unwiseman. 
 
 "More - pig - talk," laughed Whistlebinkie. 
 "He's the little pig that went to market." 
 
 "No it was the little pig that stayed at home 
 that said wee, wee, wee all day long," said 
 Mollie. 
 
 "Je desire to be lettyd out pretty quick if 
 there's un grand big earthquake going on," 
 cried the Unwiseman. 
 
 Mollie slid the nickeled latch on the top of the 
 carpet-bag along and in a moment it flew open. 
 
 " Kesserkersayker what's going on out ici?" 
 demanded the Unwiseman, as he popped out of 
 the bag. "Je ne jammy knew such a lot of 
 motiong. London Bridge ain't falling down 
 again, is it?" 
 
 "No," said Mollie. "We're on the boat 
 crossing the British Channel." 
 
 "Oh that's it eh?" said the Unwiseman 
 gazing about him anxiously, and looking rather 
 pale, Mollie thought. "Well I thought it was 
 queer. When I went to sleep last night every- 
 thing was as still as Christmas, and when I 
 waked up it was movier than a small boy in a 
 candy store. So we're on the ocean again eh?" 
 
 133 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "Not exactly," said Mollie. "We're on what 
 they call the Channel." 
 
 "Seems to me the waves are just as big as 
 they are on the ocean, and the water just as wet, " 
 said the Unwiseman, as the ship rose and fell 
 with the tremendous swell of the sea, thereby 
 adding much to his uneasiness. 
 
 'Yes but it isn't so wide," explained Mollie. 
 "It isn't more than thirty miles across." 
 
 "Then I don't see why they don't build a 
 bridge over it," said the Unwiseman. "This 
 business of a little bit of a piece of water putting 
 on airs like an ocean ought to be put a stop to. 
 This motion has really very much unsettled my 
 French. I feel so queer that I can't remember 
 even what la means, and as for kesserkersay, 
 I've forgotten if it's a horse hair sofa or a pair 
 of brass andirons, and I had it all in my head 
 not an hour ago. O d-dud-dear!" 
 
 The Unwiseman plunged headlong into his 
 carpet-bag again and pulled the top of it to 
 with a snap. 
 
 "Oh my, O me!" he groaned from its depths. 
 " O what a wicked channel to behave this way. 
 Mollie Moll-lie O Mollie I say." 
 
 134 
 
THE UNWISEMAN'S FRENCH 
 
 "Well?" said Mollie. 
 
 "Far from it very unwell," groaned the 
 Unwiseman. "Will you be good enough to ask 
 the cook for a little salad oil ?" 
 
 "Mercy," cried Mollie. "You don't want to 
 mix a salad now do you?" 
 
 "Goodness, no!" moaned the Unwiseman. 
 "I want you to pour it on those waves and sort 
 of clam them down and then, if you don't mind, 
 take the carpet-bag " 
 
 "Yes," said Mollie. 
 
 "And chuck it overboard," groaned the 
 Unwiseman. "I I don't feel as if I cared ever 
 to hear the dinner-bell again." 
 
 Poor Unwiseman ! He was suffering the usual 
 fate of those who cross the British Channel, which 
 behaves itself at times as if it really did have an 
 idea that it was a great big ocean and had an 
 ocean's work to do. But fortunately this uneasy 
 body of water is not very wide, and it was not 
 long before the travellers landed safe and sound 
 on the solid shores of France, none the worse 
 for their uncomfortable trip. 
 
 "I guess you were wise not to throw me over- 
 board after all," said the Unwiseman, as he came 
 
 135 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 out of the carpet-bag at Calais. "I feel as fine 
 as ever now and my lost French has returned." 
 
 "I'd like to hear some," said Mollie. 
 
 "Very well," replied the Unwiseman carelessly. 
 "Go ahead and ask me a question and I'll an- 
 swer it in French." 
 
 "Hm! Let me see," said Mollie wondering 
 how to begin. "Have you had breakfast? " 
 
 "Wee Munsieur, j'ay le pain," replied the 
 Unwiseman gravely. 
 
 "What does that mean?" asked Mollie, puz- 
 zled. 
 
 "He says he has a pain," said Whistlebinkie 
 with a smile. 
 
 " Pooh ! Bosh nothing of the sort," retorted 
 the Unwiseman. "Pain is French for bread. 
 When I say 'j'ay le pain' I mean that I've got the 
 bread." 
 
 "Are you the jay ? " asked Whistlebinkie with 
 mischief in his tone. 
 
 " Jay in French is I have not a bird, stupid," 
 retorted the Unwiseman indignantly. 
 
 "Funny way to talk," sniffed Whistlebinkie. 
 "I should think pain would be a better word for 
 pie, or something else that gives you one." 
 
 136 
 
THE UNWISEMAN'S FRENCH 
 
 "That's because you don't know," said the 
 Unwiseman. "In addition to the pain I've had 
 oofs." 
 
 "Oooffs?" cried Whistlebinkie. "What on 
 earth are oooffs?" 
 
 "I didn't say oooffs," retorted the Unwiseman, 
 mocking Whistlebinkie's accent. "I said oofs. 
 Oofs is French for eggs. Chickens lay oofs in 
 France. I had two hard boiled oofs, and my 
 pain had burr and sooker on it." 
 
 "Burr and sooker?" asked Mollie, wonder- 
 
 "I know what burr means it's French for 
 chestnuts," guessed Whistlebinkie. "He had 
 chestnuts on his bread." 
 
 "Nothing of the sort," said the Unwiseman. 
 " Burr is French for butter and has nothing to do 
 with chestnuts. Over here in France a lady 
 goes into a butter store and also says avvy-voo- 
 doo burr, and the man behind the counter says 
 wee, wee, wee, jay-doo-burr. Jay le bonn-burr. 
 That means, yes indeed I've got some of the best 
 butter in the market, ma'am." 
 
 "And then what does the lady say?" asked 
 Whistlebinkie. 
 
 137 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 The Unwiseman's face flushed, and he looked 
 very much embarrassed. It always embar- 
 rassed the poor old fellow to have to confess 
 that there was something he didn't know. Un- 
 wi semen as a rule are very sensitive. 
 
 "That's as far as the conversation went in my 
 French in Five Lessons," he replied. "And I 
 think it was far enough. For my part I haven't 
 the slightest desire to know what the lady said 
 next. Conversation on the subject of butter 
 doesn't interest me. She probably asked him how 
 much it was a pound, however, if not knowing 
 what she said is going to keep you awake nights. 
 
 "What's sooker?" asked Mollie. 
 
 "Sooker? O that's what the French people 
 call sugar," explained the Unwiseman. 
 
 "Pooh!" ejaculated Whistlebinkie, scornfully. 
 "What's the use of calling it sooker? Sooker 
 isn't any easier to say than sugar." 
 
 "It's very much like it, isn't it?" said Mollie. 
 
 "Yes," said the Unwiseman. "They just 
 drop the H out of sugar, and put in the K in 
 place of the two Gees. I think myself when two 
 words are so much alike as sooker and shoogger 
 it's foolish to make two languages of 'em." 
 
 138 
 
THE UNWISEMAN'S FRENCH 
 
 "Tell me something more to eat in French," 
 said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Fromidge," said the Unwiseman bluntly. 
 
 "Fromidge? What's that!" asked Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "Cheese," said the Unwiseman. "If you 
 want a cheese sandwich all you've got to do is to 
 walk into a calf calf is French for restaurant 
 call the waiter and say 'Un sandwich de fromidge, 
 silver plate,' and you'll get it if you wait long 
 enough. Silver plate means if you please. The 
 French are very polite people." 
 
 "But how do you call the waiter?" asked 
 Whistlebinkie. 
 
 'You just lean back in a chair and call 
 garkon," said the Unwiseman. "That's what 
 the book says, but I've heard Frenchmen in 
 London call it gas on. I'm going to stick to 
 the book, because it might turn out to be an 
 English waiter and it would be very unpleasant 
 to have him turn the gas on every time you 
 called him." 
 
 " I should say so," cried Whistlebinkie. " You 
 might get gas fixturated." 
 
 "You never would," said the Unwiseman. 
 
 139 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "Anybody who isn't choked by your conversation 
 could stand all the gas fixtures in the world." 
 
 "I don't care much for cheese, anyhow," said 
 Whistlebinkie. " Is there any French for Beef ?" 
 
 "O wee, wee, wee!" replied the Unwiseman. 
 "Beef is buff in French. Donny-moi-de-buff " 
 
 "Donny-moi-de-buff!" jeered Whistlebinkie, 
 after a roar of laughter. "Sounds like baby- 
 talk." 
 
 "Well it ain't," returned the Unwiseman se- 
 verely. "Even Napoleon Bonaparte had to talk 
 that way when he wanted beef and I guess the 
 kind of talk that was good enough for a great 
 Umpire like him is good enough for a rubber 
 squeak like you." 
 
 "Then you like French do you, Mr. Me?" 
 asked Mollie. 
 
 "Oh yes well enough," said the Unwiseman. 
 "Of course I like American better, but I don't 
 see any sense in making fun of French the way 
 Fizzledinkie does. It's got some queer things 
 about it like calling a cat a chat, and a man a 
 homm, and a lady a f emm, and a dog a chi-enn, 
 but in the main it's a pretty good language as far 
 as I have got in it. There are one or two things 
 
 140 
 
THE UNWISEMAN'S FRENCH 
 
 in French that I haven't learned to say yet, like 
 'who left my umbrella out in the rain/ and 'has 
 James currycombed the saddle-horse with the 
 black spot on his eye and a bob-tail this morn- 
 ing,' and 'was that the plumber or the piano 
 tuner I saw coming out of the house of your 
 uncle's brother-in-law yesterday afternoon/ but 
 now that I'm pretty familiar with it I'm glad I 
 learned it. It is disappointing in some ways, 
 I admit. I've been through French in Five Les- 
 sons four times now, and I haven't found any 
 conversation in it about Kitchen-Stoves, which 
 is going to be very difficult for me when I get to 
 Paris and try to explain to people there how fine 
 my kitchen-stove is. I'm fond of that old stove, 
 and when these furriners begin to talk to me 
 about the grandness of their country, I like to 
 hit back with a few remarks about my stove, 
 and I don't just see how I'm going to do it." 
 
 "What's sky-scraper in French?" demanded 
 Whistlebinkie suddenly. 
 
 "They don't have sky-scrapers in French," 
 retorted the old gentleman. " So your question, 
 like most of the others you ask, is very very 
 foolish." 
 
 141 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "You think you can get along all right then, 
 Mr. Me ?" asked Mollie, gazing proudly at the 
 old man and marvelling as to the amount of 
 study he must have done in two days. 
 
 "I can if I can only get people talking the way 
 I want 'em to," replied the Unwiseman. "I've 
 really learned a lot of very polite conversation. 
 For instance something like this : 
 
 Do you wish to go anywhere ? 
 No I do not wish to go anywhere. 
 Why don't you wish to go somewhere ? 
 Because I've been everywhere. 
 You must have seen much. 
 No I have seen nothing. 
 Is not that rather strange ? 
 No it is rather natural. 
 Why? 
 
 Because to go everywhere one must travel too rapidly to 
 see anything." 
 
 "That you see," the Unwiseman went on, 
 "goes very well at a five o'clock tea. The only 
 trouble would be to get it started, but if I once 
 got it going right, why I could rattle it off in 
 French as easy as falling off a log." 
 
 "Smity interesting conversation," said Whis- 
 tlebinkie really delighted. 
 
 "I'm glad you find it so," replied the Unwise- 
 
 142 
 
THE UNWISEMAN'S FRENCH 
 
 man. "It's far more interesting in French than 
 it is in English." 
 
 " Givus-smore," whistled Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Give us what?" demanded the Unwiseman. 
 
 "Some-more," said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Well here is a very nice bit that I can do if 
 somebody gives me the chance," said the Un- 
 wiseman. "It begins: 
 
 Lend me your silver backed hand-glass. 
 
 Certainly. Who is that singing in the drawing room ? 
 
 It is my daughter. 
 
 It is long since I heard anyone sing so well. 
 
 She has been taking lessons only two weeks. 
 
 Does she practice on the phonograph or on her Aunt's 
 upright piano ? 
 
 On neither. She accompanies herself upon the banjo. 
 
 I think she sings almost as well as Miss S. 
 
 Miss S. has studied for three weeks but Marietta has a 
 better ear. 
 
 What is your wife's grandmother knitting ? 
 
 A pair of ear- tabs for my nephew Jacques. 
 
 Ah then your nephew Jacques too has an ear? 
 
 My nephew Jacques has two ears. 
 
 What a musical family!" 
 
 " Spul-lendid !" cried Whistlebinkie raptur- 
 ously. "When do you think you can use 
 that?" 
 
 " O I may be invited off to a country house to 
 
 143 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 spend a week, somewhere outside of Paris," said 
 the Unwiseman, "and if I am, and the chance 
 comes up for me to hold that nice little chat with 
 my host, why it will make me very popular with 
 everybody. People like to have you take an 
 interest in their children, especially when they 
 are musical. Then I have learned this to get 
 off at the breakfast-table to my hostess : 
 
 I have slept well. I have two mattresses and a spring 
 mattress. 
 
 Will you have another pillow ? 
 
 No thank you I have a comfortable bolster. 
 
 Is one blanket sufficient for you ? 
 
 Yes, but I would like some wax candles and a box of 
 matches." 
 
 "That will show her that I appreciate all the 
 comforts of her beautiful household, and at the 
 same time feel so much at home that I am not 
 afraid to ask for something else that I happen 
 to want. The thing that worries me a little 
 about the last is that there might be an electric 
 light in the room, so that asking for a wax candle 
 and a box of matches would sound foolish. 
 I gather from the lesson, however, that it is cus- 
 tomary in France to ask for wax candles and a 
 box of matches, so I'm going to do it anyhow. 
 
 144 
 
THE UNWISEMAN'S FRENCH 
 
 There's nothing like following the customs of 
 the natives when you can. 
 
 "I'd like to hear you say some of that in 
 French," said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Oh you wouldn't understand it, Whistle- 
 binkie," said the Unwiseman. "Still I don't 
 mind." 
 
 And the old man rattled off the following: 
 
 "Awy-voo kelker chose ah me dire? Avvy- 
 voo bien dormy la nooit dernyere? Sawy-voo 
 kieskersayker cetum la avec le nez rouge? 
 Kervooly-voo - too - der - sweet - silver - plate - o - 
 see-le-mem. Donny-moi des boogies et des 
 alloomettes avec burr et sooker en tasse. La 
 Voila. Kerpensy-voo de cette comedie mon 
 cher mounseer de Whistlebinkie?" 
 
 "Mercy!" cried Whistlebinkie. "What a 
 language! I don't believe I ever could learn to 
 speak it." 
 
 "You learn to speak it, Whistlebinkie?" 
 laughed the old gentleman. "You? Well I 
 guess not. I don't believe you could even learn 
 to squeak it." 
 
 With which observation the Unwiseman hop- 
 ped back into his carpet-bag, for the conductor 
 
 10 H5 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 of the train was seen coming up the platform of 
 the railway station, and the old gentleman as 
 usual was travelling without a ticket. 
 
 "I'd rather be caught by an English conductor 
 if I'm going to be caught at all," he remarked 
 after the train had started and he was safe. 
 "For I find in looking it over that all my talk 
 in French is polite conversation, and I don't 
 think there'd be much chance for that in a row 
 with a conductor over a missing railway ticket. " 
 
IX. 
 
 IN PARIS 
 
 THE Unwiseman was up bright and early the 
 next morning. Mollie and Whistlebinkie had 
 barely got their eyes open when he came knock- 
 ing at the door. 
 
 "Better get up, Mollie," he called in. "It's 
 fine weather and I'm going to call on the Um- 
 pire. The chances are that on a beautiful day 
 like this he'll have a parade and I wouldn't miss 
 it for a farm." 
 
 "What Umpire are you talking about?" 
 Mollie replied, opening the door on a crack. 
 
 "Why Napoleon Bonaparte," said the Un- 
 wiseman. "Didn't you ever hear of him? 
 He's the man that came up here from Corsica 
 and picked the crown up on the street where 
 the king had dropped it by mistake, and put it 
 on his own head and made people think he was 
 the whole roil family. He was smart enough 
 for an American and I want to tell him so." 
 
 "Why he's dead," said Mollie. 
 
 147 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "What?" cried the Unwiseman. "Umpire 
 Napoleon dead ? Why when did that happen ? 
 I didn't see anything about it in the newspapers." 
 
 "He died a long time ago," answered Mollie. 
 "Before I was born, I guess." 
 
 "Well I never!" ejaculated the Unwiseman, 
 his face clouding over. "That book I read on 
 the History of France didn't say anything about 
 his being dead that is, not as far as I got in it. 
 Last time I heard of him he was starting out for 
 Russia to give the Czar a licking. I supposed 
 he thought it was a good time to do it after the 
 Japs had started the ball a-rolling. Are you 
 sure about that?" 
 
 "Pretty sure," said Mollie. "I don't know 
 very much about French history, but I'm almost 
 certain he's dead." 
 
 "I'm going down stairs to ask at the office," 
 said the Unwiseman. "They'll probably know 
 all about it." 
 
 So the little old gentleman pattered down the 
 hall to the elevator and went to the office to 
 inquire as to the fate of the Emperor Napoleon. 
 In five minutes he was back again. 
 
 "Say, Mollie," he whispered through the 
 
 148 
 
IN PARIS 
 
 key-hole. "I wish you'd ask your father about 
 the Umpire. I can't seem to find out anything 
 about him." 
 
 "Don't they know at the office?" asked 
 Mollie. 
 
 "Oh I guess they know all right," said the 
 Unwiseman, "but there's a hitch somewhere in 
 my getting the information. Far as I can find 
 out these people over here don't understand 
 their own language. I asked 'em in French, 
 like this: 'Mounseer le Umpire, est il mort?' 
 And they told me he was no more. Now whether 
 no more means that he is not mort, or is mort, 
 depends on what language the man who told 
 me was speaking. If he was speaking French 
 he's not dead. If he was speaking English he 
 is dead, and there you are. It's awfully mixed 
 up." 
 
 "I - guess - seez - ded - orright," whistled 
 Whistlebinkie. "He was dead last time I heard 
 of him, and I guess when they're dead once 
 there dead for good." 
 
 "Well you never can tell," said the Unwise- 
 man. "He was a very great man, the Umpire 
 Napoleon was, and they might have only thought 
 
 149 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 he was dead while he was playing foxy to see 
 what the newspapers would say about him." 
 
 So Mollie asked her father and to the intense 
 regret of everybody it turned out that the great 
 Emperor had been dead for a long time. 
 
 "It's a very great disappointment to me," 
 sighed the Unwiseman, when Mollie conveyed 
 the sad news to him. "The minute I knew we 
 were coming to France I began to read up about 
 the country, and Napoleon Bonaparte was one 
 of the things I came all the way over to see. 
 Are the Boys de Bologna dead too?" 
 
 "I never heard of them," said Mollie. 
 
 "I feel particularly upset about the Umpire," 
 continued the Unwiseman, "because I sat up 
 almost all last night getting up some polite con- 
 versation to be held with him this morning. 
 I found just the thing for it in my book. " 
 
 "Howdit-go?" whistled Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Like this," said the Unwiseman. "I was 
 going to begin with: 
 
 *Shall you buy a horse ?' 
 
 And the Umpire was to say: 
 
 *I should like to buy a horse from you.' " 
 150 
 
IN PARIS 
 "And then we were to continue with: 
 
 'I have no horse but I will sell you my dog.' 
 'You are wrong; dogs are such faithful creatures/ 
 'But my wife prefers cats '" 
 
 "Pooh!" cried Whistlebinkie. "You haven't 
 got any wife." 
 
 "Well, what of it?" retorted the Unwiseman. 
 "The Umpire wouldn't know that, and besides 
 she would prefer cats if I had one. You should 
 not interrupt conversation when other people 
 are talking, Whistlebinkie, especially when it's 
 polite conversation." 
 
 " Orright - I - pol - gize, " whistled Whistle- 
 binkie. "Go on with the rest of it." 
 
 "I was then going to say:" continued the 
 Unwiseman, 
 
 " ' Will you go out this afternoon ? ' 
 
 'I should like to go out this afternoon.' 
 
 ' Should you remain here if your mother were here ? ' 
 
 'Yes I should remain here even if my aunt were here.' 
 
 'Had you remained here I should not have gone out.' 
 
 'I shall have finished when you come.' 
 
 ' As soon as you have received your money come to see me.' 
 
 *I do not know yet whether we shall leave to-morrow.' 
 
 'I should have been afraid had you not been with me.' 
 
 ' So long.' 
 
 'To the river.' " 
 
 151 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 " To the river ? " asked Whistlebinkie. " What 
 does that mean?" 
 
 "It is French for, 'I hope we shall meet again.' 
 Au river is the polite way of saying, 'good-bye for 
 a little while.' And to think that after having 
 sat up until five o'clock this morning learning 
 all that by heart I should find that the man I was 
 going to say it to has been dead for how many 
 years, Mollie?" 
 
 "Oh nearly a hundred years," said the little 
 girl. 
 
 "No wonder it wasn't in the papers before I 
 left home," said the Unwiseman. "Oh well, 
 never mind ." 
 
 "Perhaps you can swing that talk around so 
 as to fit some French Robert," suggested 
 Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "The Police are not Roberts over here," 
 said the Unwiseman. "In France they are 
 Johns John Darms is what they call the 
 pleece in this country, and I never should think 
 of addressing a conversation designed for an 
 Umpire to the plebean ear of a mere John. " 
 
 "Well I think it was pretty poor conversa- 
 tion," said Whistlebinkie. "And I guess it's 
 
 152 
 
IN PARIS 
 
 lucky for you the Umpire is dead. All that stuff 
 didn't mean anything." 
 
 "It doesn't seem to mean much in English," 
 said the TJnwiseman, "but it must mean some- 
 thing in French, because if it didn't the man 
 who wrote French in Five Lessons wouldn't 
 have considered it important enough to print. 
 Just because you don't like a thing, or don't 
 happen to understand it, isn't any reason for 
 believing that the Umpire would not find it 
 extremely interesting. I shan't waste it on a 
 John anyhow." 
 
 An hour or two later when Mollie had break- 
 fasted the Unwiseman presented himself again. 
 
 "I'm very much afraid I'm not going to like 
 this place any better than I did London," he 
 said. "The English people, even if they do drop 
 their aitches all over everywhere, understand 
 their own language, which is more than these 
 Frenchmen do. I have tried my French on half 
 a dozen of them and there wasn't one of 'em 
 that looked as if he knew what I was talking 
 about." 
 
 "What did you say to them?" asked Mollie. 
 
 "Well I went up to a cabman and remarked, 
 
 153 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 just as the book put it, 'how is the sister of your 
 mother's uncle,' and he acted as if I'd hit him 
 with a brick," said the Unwiseman. "Then I 
 stopped a bright looking boy out on the rue and 
 said to him, ' have you seen the ormolu clock of 
 your sister's music teacher,' to which he should 
 have replied, 'no I have not seen the ormolu 
 clock of my sister's music teacher, but the 
 candle-stick of the wife of the butcher of my 
 cousin's niece is on the mantel-piece,' but all 
 he did was to stick out his tongue at me and 
 laugh." 
 
 'You ought to have spoken to one of the 
 John Darms," laughed Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "I did," said the Unwiseman. "I stopped 
 one out-side the door and asked him, 'is your 
 grandfather still alive?' The book says the 
 answer to that is 'yes, and my grandmother 
 also,' whereupon I should ask, 'how many 
 grandchildren has your grandfather?' But I 
 didn't get beyond the first question. Instead 
 of telling me that his grandfather was living, 
 and his grandmother also, he said something 
 about Ally Voozon, a person of whom I never 
 heard and who is not mentioned in the book at 
 
 154 
 
"HAVE YOU SEEN THE ORMOLU CLOCK OP YOUR SISTER'S MUSIC TEACHER?" 
 
IN PARIS 
 
 all. I wish I was back somewhere where they 
 speak a language somebody can understand." 
 
 "Have you had your breakfast?" asked 
 Mollie. 
 
 A deep frown came upon the face of the 
 Unwiseman. 
 
 "No " he answered shortly. " I er I went 
 to get some but they tried to cheat me, " he added. 
 "There was a sign in a window announcing 
 French Tabble d'hotes. I thought it was some 
 new kind of a breakfast food like cracked 
 wheat, or oat-meal flakes, so I stopped in and 
 asked for a small box of it, and they tried to 
 make me believe it was a meal of four or five 
 courses, with soup and fish and a lot of other 
 things thrown in, that had to be eaten on the 
 premises. I wished for once that I knew some 
 French conversation that wasn't polite to tell 
 'em what I thought of 'em. I can imagine a lot 
 of queer things, but when everybody tells me 
 that oats are soup and fish and olives and ice- 
 cream and several other things to boot, even in 
 French, why I just don't believe it, that's all. 
 What's more I can prove that oats are oats over 
 here because I saw a cab-horse eating some. I 
 
 155 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 may not know beans but I know oats, and I told 
 'em so. Then the garkon I know why some 
 people call these French waiters gasori now, they 
 talk so much the garkon said I could order 
 a la carte, and I told him I guessed I could if I 
 wanted to, but until I was reduced to a point 
 where I had to eat out of a wagon I wouldn't 
 ask his permission." 
 
 " Good-f or-you ! "whistled Whistlebinkie, clap- 
 ping the Unwiseman on the back. 
 
 "When a man wants five cents worth of oats 
 it's a regular swindle to try to ram forty cents 
 worth of dinner down his throat, especially at 
 breakfast time, and I for one just won't have it, " 
 said the Unwiseman. "By the way, I wouldn't 
 eat any fish over here if I were you, Mollie," 
 he went on. 
 
 "Why not?" asked the little girl. "Isn't it 
 fresh?" 
 
 "It isn't that," said the Unwiseman. "It's 
 because over here it's poison." 
 
 "No!" cried Mollie. 
 
 "Yep," said the Unwiseman. "They admit 
 it themselves. Just look here. " 
 
 The old gentleman opened his book on French 
 
 156 
 
IN PARIS 
 
 in Five Lessons, and turned to the back pages 
 where English words found their French equiv- 
 alents. 
 
 "See that ?" he observed, pointing to the words. 
 "Fish poison. P-O-I-double S-O-N. 'Tain't 
 spelled right, but that's what it says." 
 
 "It certainly does," said Mollie, very much 
 surprised. 
 
 "Smity good thing you had that book or you 
 might have been poisoned," said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "I don't believe your father knows about 
 that, does he, Mollie?" asked the old man 
 anxiously. 
 
 "I'm afraid not," said Mollie. "Least- 
 ways, he hasn't said anything to me about it, 
 and I'm pretty sure if he'd known it he would 
 have told me not to eat any. " 
 
 "Well you tell him with my compliments," 
 said the Unwiseman. "I like your father and 
 I'd hate to have anything happen to him that 
 I could prevent. I'm going up the rue now to 
 the Loover to see the pictures." 
 
 "Up the what?" asked Whistlebinkie. 
 
 " Up the rue, " said the Unwiseman. " That's 
 what these foolish people over here call a street. 
 
 157 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 I'm going up the street. There's a guide down 
 stairs who says he'll take me all over Paris in 
 one day for three dollars, and we're going to 
 start in ten minutes, after I've had a spoonful 
 of my bottled chicken broth and a ginger-snap. 
 Humph! Tabble d'hotes when I've got a bag 
 full of first class food from New York! I tell 
 you, Mollie, this travelling around in furry 
 countries makes a man depreciate American 
 things more than ever." 
 
 "I guess you mean appreciate," suggested 
 Mollie. 
 
 "May be I do," returned the Unwiseman. 
 "I mean I like 'em better. American oats are 
 better than tabble d'hotes. American beef is 
 better than French buff. American butter is 
 better than foreign burr, and while their oofs 
 are pretty good, when I eat eggs I want eggs, and 
 not something else with a hard-boiled accent on 
 it that twists my tongue out of shape. And 
 when people speak a language I like 'em to 
 have one they can understand when it's spoken 
 to them like good old Yankamerican. " 
 
 "Hoorray f or-Ramerrica ! " cried Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 158 
 
IN PARIS 
 
 "Ditto hie, as Julius Csesar used to say," 
 roared the Unwiseman. 
 
 And the Unwiseman took what was left of 
 his bottleful of their native land out of his 
 pocket and the three little travellers cheered it 
 until the room fairly echoed with the noise. 
 That night when they had gathered together 
 again, the Unwiseman looked very tired. 
 
 "Well, Mollie," he said, "I've seen it all. 
 That guide down stairs showed me everything 
 in the place and I'm going to retire to my car- 
 pet-bag again until you're ready to start for 
 Kayzoozalum ' ' 
 
 " Swizz-izzer-land, " whistled Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Switzerland," said Mollie. 
 
 "Well wherever it is we're going Alp hunting," 
 said the Unwiseman. "I'm too tired to say a 
 word like that to-night. My tongue is all out of 
 shape anyhow trying to talk French and I'm 
 not going to speak it any more. It's not the 
 sort of language I admire just full o' nonsense. 
 When people call pudding 'poo-dang' and a 
 bird a 'wazzoh' I'm through with it. I've seen 
 8374 miles of pictures; some more busted 
 statuary; one cathedral I thought a cathedral 
 
 159 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 was some kind of an animal with a hairy head 
 and a hump on its back, but it's nothing but a 
 big overgrown church ; Napoleon's tomb 
 he is dead after all and France is a Republic, 
 as if we didn't have a big enough Republic 
 home without coming over here to see another ; 
 one River Seine, which ain't much bigger than 
 the Erie Canal, and not a trout or a snapping 
 turtle in it from beginning to end; the Boys de 
 Bologna, which is only a Park, with no boys or 
 sausages anywhere about it; the Champs Eliza; 
 an obelisk; and about sixteen palaces without a 
 King or an Umpire in the whole lot; and I've 
 paid three dollars for it, and I'm satisfied. I'd 
 be better satisfied if I'd paid a dollar and a half, 
 but you can't travel for nothing, and I regard 
 the extra dollar and fifty cents as well spent 
 since I've learned what to do next time." 
 
 "Wass-that?" whistled Whistlebinkie. 
 
 " Stay home, " said the Unwiseman. " Home's 
 good enough for me and when I get there I'm 
 going to stay there. Good night. " 
 
 And with that the Unwiseman jumped into 
 his carpet-bag and for a week nothing more 
 was heard of him. 
 
 160 
 
IN PARIS 
 
 "I hope he isn't sick," said Whistlebinkie, at 
 the end of that period. "I think we ought to 
 go and find out, don't you, Mollie. " 
 
 "I certainly do," said Mollie. "I know I 
 should be just stufficated to death if I'd spent 
 a week in a carpet-bag. " 
 
 So they tip-toed up to the side of the carpet- 
 bag and listened. At first there was no sound 
 to be heard, and then all of a sudden their fears 
 were set completely at rest by the cracked voice 
 of their strange old friend singing the following 
 patriotic ballad of his own composition: 
 
 "Next time I start out for to travel abroad 
 
 I'll go where pure English is spoken. 
 I'll put on my shoes and go sailing toward 
 The beautiful land of Hoboken. 
 
 No more on that movey old channel I'll sail, 
 
 The sickening waves to be tossed on, 
 But do all my travelling later by rail 
 
 And visit that frigid old Boston. 
 
 Nay never again will I step on a ship 
 
 And go as a part of the cargo, 
 But when I would travel I'll make my next trip 
 
 Out west to the town of Chicago. 
 
 My sweet carpet-bag, you will never again 
 
 Be called on to cross the Atlantic. 
 We'll just buy a ticket and take the first train 
 
 To marvellous old Williamantic. 
 11 161 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 No French in the future will I ever speak 
 With strange and impossible, answers. 
 
 I'd rather go in for that curious Greek 
 The natives all speak in Arkansas. 
 
 To London and Paris let other folks go 
 
 I'm utterly cured of the mania. 
 Hereafter it's me for the glad Ohi-o, 
 
 Or down in dear sweet Pennsylvania. 
 
 If any one asks me to cross o'er the sea 
 I'll answer them promptly, "No thanky 
 
 There's beauty enough all around here for me 
 In this glorious laud of the Yankee." 
 
 Mollie laughed as the Unwiseman's voice died 
 away. 
 
 "I guess he's all right, Whistlebinkie, " she 
 said. "Anybody who can sing like that can't 
 be very sick." 
 
 "No I guess not," said Whistlebinkie. "He 
 seems to have got his tongue out of tangle again. 
 I was awfully worried about that." 
 
 "Why, dear?" asked Mollie. 
 
 "Because," said Whistlebinkie, "I was afraid 
 if he didn't he'd begin to talk like me and that 
 would be perf'ly awful." 
 
X. 
 
 THE ALPS AT LAST 
 
 WHEN the Unwiseman came out of the car- 
 pet-bag again the travellers had reached Switzer- 
 land. Every effort that Mollie and Whistle- 
 binkie made to induce him to come forth and 
 go about Paris with them had wholly failed. 
 
 "It's more comfortable in here," he had 
 answered them, "and I've got my hands full 
 forgetting all that useless French I learned last 
 week. It's very curious how much harder it is 
 to forget French than it is to learn it. I've been 
 four days forgetting that wazzoh means bird and 
 that oofs is eggs." 
 
 "And you haven't forgotten it yet, have you," 
 said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "O yes," said the Unwiseman. "I've for- 
 gotten it entirely. It occasionally occurs to me 
 that it is so when people mention the fact, but 
 in the main I am now able to overlook it. I'll 
 be glad when we are on our way again, Mollie, 
 because between you and me I think they're a 
 lot of frauds here too, just like over in England. 
 
 163 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 They've got a statue here of a lady named Miss 
 Jones of Ark and I know there wasn't any such 
 person on it. Shem and Ham and Japhet and 
 their wives, and Noah, and Mrs. Noah were 
 there but no Miss Jones." 
 
 "Maybe Mrs. Noah or Mrs. Shem or one of 
 the others was Miss Jones before she married 
 Mr. Noah or Shem, Ham or Japhet," suggested 
 Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Then they should ought to have said so," 
 said the Unwiseman, "and put up the statue to 
 Mrs. Noah or Mrs. Shem or Mrs. Ham or Mrs. 
 Japhet but they weren't the same person be- 
 cause this Miss Jones got burnt cooking a steak 
 and Mrs. Noah and Mrs. Ham and Mrs. Shem 
 and Mrs. Japhet didn't. Miss Jones was a great 
 general according to these people and there 
 wasn't any military at all in the time of Noah for 
 a lady to be general of, so the thing just can't 
 help being a put up job just to deceive us Amer- 
 icans into coming over here to see their curiosi- 
 ties and paying guides three dollars for leading 
 us to them." 
 
 "Then vou won't come with us out to Ver- 
 
 * 
 
 sailles ?" asked Mollie very much disappointed. 
 
 164 
 
THE ALPS AT LAST 
 
 " Versailles ?" asked the TJnwiseman. " What 
 kind of sails are Versailles? Some kind of a 
 French cat-boat? If so, none of that for me. 
 I'm not fond of sailing." 
 
 "It's a town with a beautiful palace in it," 
 explained Mollie. 
 
 "That settles it," said the Unwiseman. "I'll 
 stay here. I've seen all the palaces without any 
 kings in 'em that I need in my business, so you 
 can just count me out. I may go out shopping 
 this afternoon and buy an air-gun to shoot alps 
 with when we get to ha hum " 
 
 "Switzerland," prompted Mollie hurriedly, 
 largely with the desire to keep Whistlebinkie 
 from speaking of Swiz-izzer-land. 
 
 "Precisely," said the Unwiseman. "If you'd 
 given me time I'd have said it myself. I've been 
 practising on that name ever since yesterday 
 and I've got so I can say it right five times out of 
 'leven. And I'm learning to yodel too. I have 
 discovered that down in ha hum Swztooza- 
 lum, when people don't feel like speaking French, 
 they yodel, and I think I can get along better in 
 yodeling than I can in French. I'm going to try 
 it anyhow. So run along and have a good time 
 
 165 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 and don't worry about me. I'm having a fine 
 time. Yodeling is really lots of fun. Trala- 
 la-lio!" 
 
 So Mollie and Whistlebinkie went to Ver- 
 sailles, which by the way is not pronounced Ver- 
 sails, but Ver-sai-ee, and left the Unwiseman to 
 his own devices. A week later the party arrived 
 at Chamounix, a beautiful little Swiss village 
 lying in the valley at the base of Mont Blanc, 
 the most famous of all the Alps. 
 
 " Looks-slike-a-gray-big-snow-ball," whistled 
 Whistlebinkie, gazing admiringly at the wonder- 
 ful mountain glistening like a huge mass of silver 
 in the sunlight. 
 
 "It is beautiful," said Mollie. "We must get 
 the Unwiseman out to see it." 
 
 "I'll call him," said Whistlebinkie eagerly; 
 and the little rubber-doll bounded off to the car- 
 pet-bag as fast as his legs would carry him. 
 
 "Hi there, Mister Me," he called breathlessly 
 through the key-hole. " Come out. There's a 
 nalp out in front of the hotel." 
 
 "Tra-la-lulio-tra-la-lali-ee," yodeled the 
 cracked little voice from within. " Tra-la-la-la- 
 lalio." 
 
 166 
 
THE ALPS AT LAST 
 
 "Hullo there," cried Whistlebinkie again. 
 " Stop that tra-la-lody-ing and hurry out, there's 
 a-nalp in front of the hotel." 
 
 "A nalp?" said the Unwiseman popping his 
 head up from the middle of the bag for all the 
 world like a Jack-in-the-box. " What's a nalp ?" 
 
 "A-alp," explained Whistlebinkie, as clearly 
 as he could he was so out of breath he could 
 hardly squeak, much less speak. 
 
 " Really ?" cried the Unwiseman, all excitement. 
 "Dear me glad you called me. Is he loose?" 
 
 "Well," hesitated Whistlebinkie, hardly know- 
 ing how to answer, " it-ain't-exactly-tied up, I 
 guess." 
 
 "Ain't any danger of its coming into the house 
 and biting people, is there ?" asked the Unwise- 
 man, rummaging through the carpet-bag for his 
 air-gun, which he had purchased in Paris while 
 the others were visiting Versailles. 
 
 "No," laughed Whistlebinkie. "Tstoo-big." 
 
 "Mercy it must be a fearful big one," said 
 the Unwiseman. "I hope it's muzzled." 
 
 Armed with his air-gun, and carrying a long 
 rope with a noose in one end over his arm, the 
 Unwiseman started out. 
 
 167 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 " Watcher-gone-'tdo-with-the-lassoo ?" panted 
 Whistlebinkie, struggling manfully to keep up 
 with his companion. 
 
 "That's to tie him up with in case I catch him 
 alive," said the TJnwiseman, as they emerged 
 from the door of the hotel and stood upon the 
 little hotel piazza from which all the new arrivals 
 were gazing at the wonderful peak before 
 them, rising over sixteen thousand feet into 
 the heavens, and capped forever with a crown 
 of snow and ice. 
 
 "Out the way there!" cried the TJnwiseman, 
 rushing valiantly through the group. " Out the 
 way, and don't talk or even yodel. I must have 
 a steady aim, and conversation disturbs my 
 
 nerves." 
 
 The hotel guests all stepped hastily to one side 
 and made room for the hero, who on reaching 
 the edge of the piazza stopped short and gazed 
 about him with a puzzled look on his face. 
 
 "Well," he cried impatiently, "where is 
 he?" 
 
 "Where is what?" asked Mollie, stepping up 
 to the Unwiseman's side and putting her hand 
 affectionately on his shoulder. 
 
 168 
 
"OUT THE WAY THERE!" CRIED THE UNWISEMAN 
 
THE ALPS AT LAST 
 
 "That Alp?" said the Unwiseman. "Whis- 
 tlebinkie said there was an alp running around 
 the yard and I've come down either to catch him 
 alive or shoot him. He hasn't hid under this 
 piazza, has he?" 
 
 "No, Mr. Me," she said. "They couldn't 
 get an Alp under this piazza. That's it over 
 there," she added, pointing out Mont Blanc. 
 
 "What's it? I don't see anything but a big 
 snow drift," said the Unwiseman. "Queer sort 
 of people here must be awful lazy not to have 
 their snow shoveled off as late as July." 
 
 "That's the Alp," explained Mollie. 
 
 " Tra-la-lolly-O !" yodeled the Unwiseman. 
 "Which is yodelese for nonsense. That an 
 Alp ? Why I thought an Alp was a sort of ani- 
 mal with a shaggy fur coat like a bear or a chauf- 
 feur, and about the size of a rhinoceros." 
 
 "No," said Mollie. "An Alp is a mountain. 
 All that big range of mountains with snow and 
 ice on top of them are the Alps. Didn't you 
 know that?" 
 
 The Unwiseman didn't answer, but with a 
 yodel of disgust turned on his heel and went back 
 to his carpet-bag. 
 
 169 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 'You aren't mad at me, are you, Mr. Me?" 
 asked Mollie, following meekly after. 
 
 "No indeed," said the Unwisman, sadly. " Of 
 course not. It isn't your fault if an Alp is a 
 toboggan slide or a skating rink instead of a 
 wild animal. It's all my own fault. I was very 
 careless to come over here and waste my time to 
 see a lot of snow that ain't any colder or wetter 
 than the stuff we have delivered at our front 
 doors at home in winter. I should ought to have 
 found out what it was before I came." 
 
 "It's very beautiful though as it is," suggested 
 Mollie. 
 
 "I suppose so," said the Unwiseman. "But 
 I don't have to travel four thousand miles to see 
 beautiful things while I have my kitchen-stove 
 right there in my own kitchen. Besides I've 
 spent a dollar and twenty cents on an air-gun, 
 and sixty cents for a lassoo to hunt Alps with, 
 when I might better have bought a snow shovel. 
 That's really what I'm mad at. If I'd bought a 
 snow shovel and a pair of ear-tabs I could have 
 made some money here offering to shovel the 
 snow off that hill there so's somebody could get 
 some pleasure out of it. It would be a lovely 
 
 170 
 
THE ALPS AT LAST 
 
 place to go and sit on a warm summer evening 
 if it wasn't for that snow and very likely they'd 
 have paid me two or three dollars for fixing it up 
 for them." 
 
 "I guess it would take you several hours to do 
 it," said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "What if it took a week?" retorted the TJn- 
 wiseman. "As long as they were willing to pay 
 for it. But what's the use of talking about it ? 
 I haven't got a shovel, and I can't shovel the 
 snow off an Alp with an air-gun, so that's the 
 end of it." 
 
 And for the time being that was the end of it. 
 The Unwiseman very properly confined himself 
 to the quiet of the carpet-bag until his wrath 
 had entirely disappeared, and after luncheon 
 he turned up cheerily in the office of the hotel. 
 
 "Let's hire a couple of sleds and go coasting," 
 he suggested to Mollie. "That Mount Blank 
 looks like a pretty good hill. Whistlebinkie 
 and I can pull you up to the top and it will be a 
 fine slide coming back." 
 
 But inquiry at the office brought out the extra- 
 ordinary fact that there were no sleds in the place 
 and never had been. 
 
 171 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "My goodness!" ejaculated the Unwiseman. 
 "I never knew such people. I don't wonder 
 these Switzers ain't a great nation like us Ameri- 
 cans. I don't believe any American hotel- 
 keeper would have as much snow as that in his 
 back-yard all summer long and not have a regu- 
 lar sled company to accommodate guests who 
 wanted to go coasting on it. If they had an Alp 
 like that over at Atlantic City they'd build a 
 fence around it, and charge ten cents to get in- 
 side, where you could hire a colored gentleman 
 to haul you up to the top of the hill and guide you 
 down again on the return slide." 
 
 "I guess they would," said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Then they'd turn part of it into an ice quar- 
 ry," the Unwiseman went on, "and sell great 
 huge chunks of ice to people all the year round 
 and put the regular ice men out of business. I've 
 half a mind to write home to my burgular and 
 tell him here's a chance to earn an honest living 
 as an iceman. He could get up a company to 
 come here and buy up that hill and just regu- 
 larly go in for ice-mining. There never was 
 such a chance. If people can make money out 
 of coal mines and gold mines and copper mines, 
 
 172 
 
THE ALPS AT LAST 
 
 I don't see why they can't do the same thing with 
 ice mines. Why don't you speak to your Papa 
 about it, Mollie? He'd make his everlasting 
 fortune." 
 
 "I will," said Mollie, very much interested in 
 the idea. 
 
 "And all that snow up there going to waste 
 too," continued the Unwiseman growing enthu- 
 siastic over the prospect. " Just think of the mil- 
 lions of people who can't get cool in summer over 
 home. Your father could sell snow to people 
 in mid-summer for six-fifty a ton, and they could 
 shovel it into their furnaces and cool off their 
 homes ten or twenty degrees all summer long. 
 My goodness talk about your billionaires 
 here's a chance for squillions." 
 
 The Unwiseman paced the floor excitedly. 
 The vision of wealth that loomed up before his 
 mind's eye was so vast that he could hardly con- 
 tain himself in the face of it. 
 
 "Wouldn't it all melt before he could get it 
 over to America?" asked Mollie. 
 
 ; 'Why should it ?" demanded the Unwiseman. 
 " If it'don't melt here in summer time why should 
 it melt anywhere else? I don't believe snow 
 
 173 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 was ever disagreeable just for the pleasure of 
 being so." 
 
 "Wouldn't it cost a lot to take it over?" 
 asked Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Not if the Company owned its own 
 ships," said the Unwiseman. "If the Com- 
 pany owned its own ships it could carry it over 
 for nothing." 
 
 The Unwiseman was so carried away with the 
 possibilities of his plan that for several days he 
 could talk of nothing else, and several times 
 Mollie and Whistlebinkie found him working 
 in the writing room of the hotel on what he 
 called his Perspectus. 
 
 "I'm going to work out that idea of mine, 
 Mollie," he explained, "so that you can show 
 it to your father and maybe he'll take it up, and 
 if he does well, I'll have a man to exercise my 
 umbrella, a pair of wings built on my house 
 where I can put a music room and a library, 
 and have my kitchen-stove nickel plated as it 
 deserves to be for having served me so faith- 
 fully for so many years." 
 
 An hour or two later, his face beaming with 
 pleasure, the Unwiseman brought Mollie his 
 
 174 
 
THE ALPS AT LAST 
 
 completed "Perspectus" with the request that 
 she show it to her father. It read as follows: 
 
 THE SWITZER SNOW AND ICE CO. 
 
 THE UNWISEMAN, President. 
 
 MR. MOLLIE J. WHISTLEBINKIE, V ice-President. 
 
 A. BURGULAR, Seketary and Treasurer. 
 
 I. To purchase all right, title, and interest in one first 
 class Alp known as Mount Blank, a snow-clad peak located 
 at Switzerville, Europe. For further perticulars, see Map if 
 you have one handy that is any good and has been prepared 
 by somebody what has studied jography before. 
 
 II. To orginize the Mount Blank Toboggan Slide and 
 Sled Company and build a fence around it for the benefit of 
 the young at ten cents ahead, using the surplus snow and ice 
 on Mount Blank for this purpose. Midsummer coasting a 
 speciality. 
 
 III. To mine ice and to sell the same by the pound, ton, 
 yard, or shipload, to Americans at one cent less a pound, ton, 
 yard, or shipload, than they are now paying to unscrupulous 
 ice-men at home, thereby putting them out of business and 
 bringing ice in midsummer within the reach of persons of 
 modest means to keep their provisions on, who without it 
 suffer greatly from the heat and are sometimes sun-struck. 
 
 IV. To gather and sell snow to the American people in 
 summer time for the purpose of cooling oft 7 their houses by 
 throwing the same into the furnace like coal in winter, thereby 
 taking down the thermometer two or three inches and making 
 fans unnecessary, and killing mosquitoes, flies and other 
 animals that ain't of any use and can only live in warm weather. 
 
 V. Also to sell a finer quality of snow for use at children's 
 parties in the United States of America in July and August 
 
 175 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 where snow-ball fights are not now possible owing to the extreme 
 tenderness of the snow at present provided by the American 
 climate which causes it to melt along about the end of March 
 and disappear entirely before the beginning of May. 
 
 VI. Also to sell snow at redoosed rates to people at Christ- 
 mas Time when they don't always have it as they should ought 
 to have if Christmas is to look anything like the real thing and 
 give boys and girls a chance to try their new sleds and see if 
 they are as good as they are cracked up to be instead of having 
 to be put away as they sometimes are until February and even 
 then it don't always last. 
 
 This Company has already been formed by Mr. Thomas 
 S. Me, better known as the Unwiseman, who is hereby elected 
 President thereof, with a capital of ten million dollars of which 
 three dollars has already been paid in to Mr. Me as temporary 
 treasurer by himself in real money which may be seen upon 
 application as a guarantee of good faith. The remaining nine 
 million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred 
 and ninty-seven dollars worth is offered to the public at one 
 dollar a share payable in any kind of money that will circulate 
 freely, one half of which will be used as profits for the next 
 five years while the Company is getting used to its new busi- 
 ness, and the rest will be spent under the direction of the 
 President as he sees fit, it being understood that none of 
 it shall be used to buy eclairs or other personal property with. 
 
 "There," said the Unwiseman, as he finished 
 the prospectus. "Just you hand that over to 
 your father, Mollie, and see what he says. If 
 he don't start the ball a-rolling and buy that old 
 Mountain before we leave this place I shall be 
 very much surprised." 
 
 176 
 
THE ALPS AT LAST 
 
 But the Unwiseman's grand scheme never 
 went through for Mollie's father upon inquiry 
 found that noboby about Chamounix cared to 
 sell his interest in the mountain, or even to sug- 
 gest a price for it. 
 
 "They're afraid to sell it I imagine," said 
 Mollie's father, "for fear the new purchasers 
 would dig it up altogether and take it over to 
 the United States. You see if that were to hap- 
 pen it would leave an awfully big hole in the place 
 where Mount Blank used to be and there'd be 
 a lot of trouble getting it filled in. " 
 
 For all of which I am sincerely sorry because 
 there are times in midsummer in America 
 when I would give a great deal if some such 
 enterprise as a " Switzer Snow & Ice Co. " would 
 dump a few tons of snow into my cellar for use 
 in the furnace. 
 
XI. 
 
 THE TJNWISEMAN PLANS A CHAMOIS COMPANY 
 
 THE Unwiseman's disappointment over the 
 failure of his Switzer Snow & Ice Company 
 was very keen at first and the strange old 
 gentleman was inclined to be as thoroughly 
 disgusted with Switzerland as he had been with 
 London and Paris. He was especially put out 
 when, after travelling seven or eight miles to see 
 a "glazier," as he called it, he discovered that a 
 glacier was not a frozen "window-pane mender" 
 but a stream of ice flowing perennially down 
 from the Alpine summits into the valleys. 
 
 "They bank too much on their snow-drifts 
 over here," he remarked, after he had visited 
 the Mer-de-Glace. " I wouldn't give seven cents 
 to see a thing like that when I've been brought 
 up close to New York where we have blizzards 
 every once in a while that tie up the whole city 
 till it looks like one glorious big snow-ball fight." 
 
 And then when he wanted to go fishing in one 
 of the big fissures of the glacier, and was told 
 
 178 
 
PLANS A CHAMOIS COMPANY 
 
 he could drop a million lines down there with- 
 out getting a bite of any kind he announced his 
 intention of getting out of the country as soon 
 as he possibly could. But after all the Unwise- 
 man had a naturally sun-shiny disposition and 
 this added to the wonderful air of Switzerland, 
 which in itself is one of the most beautiful things 
 in a beautiful world, soon brought him out of his 
 sulky fit and set him to yodeling once more as 
 gaily as a Swiss Mountain boy. He began to 
 see some of the beauties of the country and his 
 active little mind was not slow at discovering 
 advantages not always clear to people with less 
 inquisitiveness. 
 
 "I should think," he observed to Mollie one 
 morning as he gazed up at Mount Blanc's pure 
 white summit, "that this would be a great ice- 
 cream country. I'd like to try the experiment 
 of pasturing a lot of fine Jersey cows up on those 
 ice-fields. Just let 'em browze around one of 
 those glaciers every day for a week and give 
 'em a cupful of vanilla, or chocolate extract or 
 a strawberry once in a while and see if they 
 wouldn't give ice-cream instead o' milk. It 
 would be worth trying, anyhow. " 
 
 179 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 Mollie thought it would and Whistlebinkie 
 gave voice to a long low whistle of delight at 
 the idea. 
 
 "It - ud - be - bettern - soder - watter - rany- 
 way!" he whistled. 
 
 "Anything would be better than soda water," 
 said the Unwiseman, who had only tried it once 
 and got nothing but the bubbles. " Soda water's 
 too foamy for me. It's like drinking whipped 
 
 But the thing that pleased the Unwiseman 
 more than anything else was a pet chamois that 
 he encountered at a little Swiss Chalet on one of 
 his tours of investigation. It was a cunning 
 little animal, very timid of course, like a fawn, 
 but tame, and for some reason or other it took 
 quite a fancy to the Unwiseman possibly 
 because he looked so like a Swiss Mountain 
 Boy with a peaked cap he had purchased, and 
 ribbons wound criss-cross around his calves and 
 his magnificent Alpen-stock upon which had 
 been burned the names of all the Alps he had 
 not climbed. And then the Unwiseman's yodel 
 had become something unusually fine and 
 original in the line of yodeling, which may have 
 
 180 
 
PLANS A CHAMOIS COMPANY 
 
 attracted the chamois and made him feel that 
 the Unwiseman was a person to be trusted. 
 At any rate the little animal instead of running 
 away and jumping from crag to crag at the 
 Unwiseman's approach, as most chamois would 
 do, came inquiringly up to him and stuck out 
 its soft velvety nose to be scratched, and per- 
 mitted the Unwiseman to inspect its horns and 
 silky chestnut-brown coat as if it recognized in 
 the little old man a true and tried friend of long 
 standing. 
 
 "Why you little beauty you!" cried the Un- 
 wiseman, as he sat on the fence and stroked the 
 beautiful creature's neck. "So you're what they 
 call a shammy, eh?" 
 
 The chamois turned its lovely eyes upon his 
 new found friend, and then lowered his head 
 to have it scratched again. 
 
 "Mary had a little sham 
 
 Whose hide was soft as cotton, 
 And everywhere that Mary went 
 The shammy too went trottin'. " 
 
 sang the Unwiseman, dropping into poetry as 
 was one of his habits when he was deeply 
 moved. 
 
 181 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 The chamois evidently liked this verse for 
 its eyes twinkled and it laid its head gently on 
 the Unwiseman's knee and looked at him 
 appealingly as if to say, "More of that poetry 
 please. You are a bard after my own heart." 
 So the Unwiseman went on, keeping time to his 
 verse by slight taps on the chamois' nose. 
 
 "It followed her to town one day 
 
 Unto the Country Fair, 
 And earned five hundred dollars just 
 In shining silver-ware. " 
 
 Whistlebinkie indulged in a loud whistle of 
 mirth at this, which so startled the little creature 
 that it leapt backward fifteen feet in the air 
 and landed on top of a small pump at the rear 
 of the yard, and stood there poised on its four 
 feet just like the chamois we see in pictures 
 standing on a sharp peak miles up in the air, 
 trembling just a little for fear that Whistle- 
 binkie' s squeak would be repeated. A moment 
 of silence seemed to cure this, however, for in 
 less than two minutes it was back again at the 
 Unwiseman's side gazing soulfully at him as if 
 demanding yet another verse. Of course the 
 Unwiseman could not resist he never could 
 
 182 
 
THE CHAMOIS EVIDENTLY LIKED THIS VERSE FOR ITS EYES TWINKLED 
 
PLANS A CHAMOIS COMPANY 
 
 when people demanded poetry from him, it 
 came so very easy and so he continued: 
 
 "The children at the Country Fair 
 
 Indulged in merry squawks 
 To see the shammy polishing 
 The family knives and forks. 
 
 The tablespoons, and coffee pots, 
 
 The platters and tureens, 
 The top of the mahogany, 
 
 And crystal fire-screens." 
 
 "More!" pleaded the chamois with his soft 
 eyes, snuggling its head close into the Unwise- 
 man's lap, and the old gentleman went on: 
 
 " * O isn't he a wondrous kid!' 
 
 The wondering children cried. 
 We didn't know a shammy could 
 Do such things if he tried. 
 
 And Mary answered with a smile 
 
 That dimpled up her chin, 
 * There's much that shammy's cannot do, 
 But much that shammy-skin.'" 
 
 Whistlebinkie's behavior at this point became 
 so utterly and inexcusably boisterous with mirth 
 that the confiding little chamois was again 
 frightened away and this time it gave three 
 rapid leaps into the air which landed it ulti- 
 mately upon the ridge-pole of the chalet, from 
 
 183 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 which it wholly refused to descend, in spite of 
 all the persuasion in the world, for the rest of 
 the afternoon. 
 
 "Very intelligent little animal that," said the 
 Unwiseman, as he trudged his way home. "A 
 very high appreciation of true poetry, inclined 
 to make friendship with the worthy, and properly 
 mistrustful of people full of strange noises and 
 squeaks." 
 
 "He was awfully pretty, wasn't he," said 
 Mollie. 
 
 "Yes, but he was better than pretty, " observed 
 the Unwiseman. "He could be made useful. 
 Things that are only pretty are all very well in 
 their way, but give me the useful things like 
 my kitchen-stove for instance. If that kitchen- 
 stove was only pretty do you suppose I'd love it 
 the way I do ? Not at all. I'd just put it on the 
 mantel-piece, or on the piano in my parlor and 
 never think of it a second time, but because it 
 is useful I pay attention to it every day, polish 
 it with stove polish, feed it with coal and see 
 that the ashes are removed from it when its 
 day's work is done. Nobody ever thinks of 
 doing such things with a plain piece of bric-a- 
 
 184 
 
PLANS A CHAMOIS COMPANY 
 
 brae that can't be used for anything at all. 
 You don't put any coal or stove polish on that 
 big Chinese vase you have in your parlor, do 
 you?" 
 
 "No," said Mollie, "of course not." 
 
 "And I'll warrant that in all the time you've 
 had that opal glass jug on the mantel-piece of 
 your library you never shook the ashes down in 
 it once," said the Unwiseman. 
 
 " Mity - goo - dreeson - wy !" whistled Whistle- 
 binkie. "They-ain't never no ashes in it." 
 
 " Correct though ungrammatically expressed, " 
 observed the Unwiseman. "There never are 
 any ashes in it to be shaken down, which is a 
 pretty good reason to believe that it is never 
 used to fry potatoes on or to cook a chop with, 
 or to roast a turkey in which proves exactly 
 what I say that it is only pretty and isn't half as 
 useful as my kitchen-stove. " 
 
 "It would be pretty hard to find anything 
 useful for the bric-a-brac to do though," sug- 
 gested Mollie, who loved pretty things whether 
 they had any other use or not. 
 
 "It all depends on your bric-a-brac," said the 
 Unwiseman. "I can find plenty of useful 
 
 185 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 things for mine to do. There's my coal scuttle 
 for instance it works all the time." 
 
 " Coal-scuttles ain't bric-a-brac, " said Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "My coal scuttle is," said the Unwiseman. 
 "It's got a picture of a daisy painted on one side 
 of it, and I gilded the handle myself. Then 
 there's my watering pot. That's just as bric-a- 
 bracky as any Chinese china pot that ever lived, 
 but it's useful. I use it to water the flowers in 
 summer, and to sift my lump sugar through in 
 winter. Every pound of lump sugar you buy 
 has some fine sugar with it and if you shake the 
 lump sugar up in a watering pot and let the fine 
 sugar sift through the nozzle you get two kinds of 
 sugar for the price of one. So it goes all through 
 my house from my piano to my old beaver hat 
 every bit of my bric-a-brac is useful. " 
 
 "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?" 
 
 188 
 
PLANS A CHAMOIS COMPANY 
 
 "I'm doing it all the time," said the Unwise- 
 man. "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 feel- 
 ings, 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 conies 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 nobody comes for them and nobody 
 gets them, and so there's no trouble for any- 
 body 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. 
 
 187 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "It's a first class 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 shingles 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 
 
 189 
 
PLANS A CHAMOIS COMPANY 
 
 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 hap- 
 pily, and to tell passersby 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 - sham- 
 my-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. " 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "What else coodie-do?" retorted the Unwise- 
 man, 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 shine like a lookin' glass for another. He could 
 rub up against my kitchen stove and keep it 
 bright and shining for a third that's some of 
 the things he couldie-doo, but I wouldn't con- 
 fine 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 Unwise- 
 
 190 
 
PLANS A CHAMOIS COMPANY 
 
 man. "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 Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "He thorpes just as much as you bink," 
 retorted the Unwiseman. "But as I was say- 
 ing, Wigglethorpe, being alive, will be better 
 than any ten dead ones because he wont 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. 
 
 "And if I imported a hundred of them after I 
 found that Wigglethorpe was successful, " the Un- 
 wiseman continued, very wisely ignoring Whistle- 
 binkie's sarcasm," that would be hum ha " 
 
 "Three hundred dollars a week," prompted 
 Mollie. 
 
 "Exactly," said the Unwiseman, "which in a 
 year would amount to ahem three times three 
 hundred and sixty-five is nine, twice nine is " 
 
 191 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "It comes to $15,600 a year," said Mollie. 
 
 "Right to a penny," said the Unwiseman. 
 "I was figuring it out by the day. Fifteen 
 thousand six hundred dollars a year is a big sum 
 of money and reckoned in eclairs at fifty eclairs 
 for a dollar is er is well you couldn't eat 'em 
 if you tried, there'd be so many. " 
 
 "Seven hundred and eighty thousand eclairs," 
 said Mollie. 
 
 "That's what I said," said the Unwiseman. 
 ;< You just couldn't eat 'em, but you could sell 
 'em, so really you'd have two businesses right 
 away, shammys and eclaires." 
 
 " Mitey-big-biziness, " hissed Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Yes," said the Unwiseman, "I think I'll 
 suggest it to my burgular when I get home. It 
 seems to me to be more honorable then burgul- 
 ing and it's just possible that after a summer 
 spent in the uplifting company of my kitchen 
 stove and having got used to the pleasant con- 
 versation of my leak, and seen how peaceful it 
 is to just spend your days exercising a sweet 
 gentle umbrella like mine, he'll want to reform 
 and go into something else that he can do in the 
 day-time. " 
 
 192 
 
PLANS A CHAMOIS COMPANY 
 
 By this time the little party had reached the 
 hotel, and Mollie's father was delighted to hear 
 of the Unwiseman's proposition. It was an 
 entirely new idea, he said, although he was 
 doubtful if it was a good business for a burgular. 
 
 "People might not be willing to trust him with 
 their silver," he said. 
 
 "Very well then," said the Unwiseman. 
 "Let him begin on front door knobs and parlor 
 floors. He's not likely to run away with those. " 
 
 The next day the travellers left Switzerland 
 and when I next caught sight of them they had 
 arrived at Venice. 
 
 13 
 
XII. 
 
 VENICE 
 
 IT was late at night when Mollie and her 
 friends arrived at Venice and the Unwiseman, 
 sleeping peacefully as he was in the cavernous 
 depths of his carpet-bag, did not get his first 
 glimpse of the lovely city of the waters until he 
 waked up the next morning. Unfortunately 
 or possibly it was a fortunate circumstance 
 the old gentleman had heard of Venice only in 
 a very vague way before, and had no more idea 
 of its peculiarities than he had of those of Way- 
 cross Junction, Georgia, or any other place he 
 had never seen. Consequently his first sight of 
 Venice filled him with a tremendous deal of 
 excitement. Emerging from his carpet-bag in 
 the cloak-room of the hotel he walked out upon 
 the front steps of the building which descended 
 into the Grand Canal, the broad waterway that 
 runs its serpentine length through this historic 
 city of the Adriatic. 
 
 "'Gee Whittaker!'" he cried, as the great 
 avenue of water met his gaze. "There's been 
 
 194 
 
VENICE 
 
 a flood! Hi there inside the water main has 
 busted, and the whole town's afloat. Wake up 
 everybody and save yourselves!" 
 
 He turned and rushed madly up the hotel 
 stairs to the floor upon which his friends' rooms 
 were located, calling lustily all the way : 
 
 "Get up everybody the reservoy's busted; 
 the dam's loose. To the boats! Mollie 
 Whistlebinkie Mister and Mrs. Mollie get up 
 or you'll be washed away the whole place is 
 flooded. You haven't a minute to spare." 
 
 "What's the matter, Mr. Me?" asked Mollie, 
 opening her door as she recognized the Unwise- 
 man's voice out in the hallway. "What are 
 you scaring everybody to death for?" 
 
 "Get out your life preservers quick before 
 it is too late, " gasped the Unwiseman. " There's 
 a tidal wave galloping up and down the street, 
 and we'll be drowned. To the roof! All hands 
 to starboard and man the boats. " 
 
 "What are you talking about?" said Mollie. 
 
 "Look out your front window if you don't 
 believe me," panted the Unwiseman. "The 
 whole place is chuck full of water couldn't 
 bail it out in a week " 
 
 195 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "Oh," laughed Mollie, as she realized what it 
 was that had so excited her friend. " Is that all ? ' ' 
 
 "All!" ejaculated the Unwiseman, his eye- 
 brows lifting higher with astonishment. "Isn't 
 it enough? What do you want, the whole 
 Atlantic Ocean sitting on your front stoop?" 
 
 "Why" began Mollie, "this is Venice " 
 
 "Looks like Watertown," interrupted the 
 Unwiseman. 
 
 "Thass-swattit-izz," whistled Whistlebinkie. 
 "Venice is a water town. It's built on it." 
 
 "Built on it?" queried the Unwiseman look- 
 ing scornfully at Whistlebinkie as much as to 
 say you can't fool me quite so easily as that. 
 "Built on water?" he repeated. 
 
 "Exactly," said Mollie. "Didn't you know 
 that, Mr. Me ? Venice is built right out on the 
 sea." 
 
 "Well of all queer things!" ejaculated the 
 Unwiseman, so surprised that he plumped down 
 on the floor and sat there gazing wonderingly 
 up at Mollie. "A whole city built on the sea! 
 What's the matter, wasn't there land enough?" 
 
 "Oh yes, I guess there was plenty of land," 
 said Mollie, "but maybe somebody else owned 
 
 196 
 
VENICE 
 
 it. Anyhow the Venetians came out here where 
 there were a lot of little islands to begin with and 
 drove piles into the water and built their city 
 on them. " . 
 
 "Well that beats me," said the TJnwiseman, 
 shaking his head in bewilderment. "I've heard 
 of fellows building up big copperations on water, 
 but never a city. How do they keep the water 
 out of their cellars?" 
 
 "They don't," said Mollie. 
 
 "Maybe they build their cellars on the roof," 
 suggested Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Well," said the TJnwiseman, rising from the 
 floor and walking to the front window and 
 gazing out at the Grand Canal, "I hope this 
 hotel is anchored good and fast. I don't mind 
 going to sea on a big boat that's built for it, 
 but I draw the line at sailin' all around creation 
 in a hotel." 
 
 The droll little old gentleman poised himself 
 on one toe and stretched out his arms. "There 
 don't seem to be much motion, does there," 
 he remarked. 
 
 "There isn't any at all," said Mollie. "It's 
 perfectly still." 
 
 197 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "I guess it's because it's a clam day, " observed 
 the Unwiseman uneasily. "I hope it'll stay 
 clam while we're here. I'd hate to be caught 
 out in movey weather like they had on that 
 sassy little British Channel. This hotel would 
 flop abo,ut fearfully and I believe it would sink 
 if somebody carelessly left a window open, to 
 say nothing of its falling over backward and 
 letting the water in the back door. " 
 
 "Papa says it's perfectly safe," said Mollie. 
 'The place has been here more'n a thousand 
 years and it hasn't sunk yet." 
 
 "All right," said the Unwiseman. "If your 
 father says that I'm satisfied because he most 
 generally knows what he's talking about, but 
 all the same I think we should ought to have 
 brought a couple o' row boats and a lot of life 
 preservers along. I don't believe in taking any 
 chances. What do the cab-horses do here, 
 swim?" 
 
 "No," said Mollie. "There aren't any horses 
 in Venice. 'They have gondolas." 
 
 " Gondolas ?" repeated the Unwiseman." What 
 are gondolas, trained ducks ? Don't think much 
 o' ducks as a substitute for horses." 
 
 198 
 
THEY ALL BOARDED A GONDOLA 
 
VENICE 
 
 "Perfly-bsoyd!" whistled Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "I should think they'd drive whales," said the 
 Unwiseman, "or porpoises. By Jiminy, that 
 would be fun, wouldn't it ? Let's see if we can't 
 hire a four whale coach, Mollie, and go driving 
 about the city, or better yet, if they've got them 
 well broken, get a school of porpoises. We 
 might put on our bathing suits and go horse- 
 back riding on 'em. I don't take much to the 
 trained duck idea, ducks are so flighty and if 
 they shied at anything they might go flying up 
 in the air and dump us backwards out of our cab 
 into the water." 
 
 "We're going to take a gondola ride this morn- 
 ing," said Mollie. " Just you wait and see, Mr. 
 Me." 
 
 So the Unwiseman waited and an hour later 
 he and Mollie and Whistlebinkie boarded a gon- 
 dola in charge of a very handsome and smiling 
 gondolier who said his name was Giuseppe 
 Zocco. 
 
 " Soako is a good name for a cab-driver in this 
 town," said the Unwiseman, after he had in- 
 spected the gondola and ascertained that it was 
 seaworthy. "I guess I'll talk to him." 
 
 199 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 'You-do-know-Eye-talian," laughed Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "It's one of the languages I do know," re- 
 turned the Unwiseman. "I buy all my bananas 
 and my peanuts from an Eye-talian at home and 
 for two or three years I have been able to talk to 
 him very easily." 
 
 He turned to the gondolier. 
 
 "Gooda da morn, Soako," he observed very 
 politely. "You havea da prett-da-boat." 
 
 "Si, Signor," returned the smiling gondolier, 
 who was not wholly unfamiliar with English. 
 
 "See what?" asked the Unwiseman puzzled, 
 but looking about carefully to see what there was 
 to be seen. 
 
 "He says we're at sea," laughed Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "Oh well that's it, eh?" said the Unwise- 
 man. "I thought he only spoke Eye-talian." 
 And then he addressed the gondolier again. 
 "Da weather's mighta da fine, huh? Not a 
 da rain or da heava da wind, eh? Hopa da 
 babe is vera da well da morn." 
 
 "Si, Signor," said Giuseppe. 
 
 "Da Venn greata da place. Too mucha da 
 
 200 
 
VENICE 
 
 watt for me. Lika da dry land moocha da bett, 
 Giuseppe. Ever sella da banann?" continued 
 the Unwiseman. 
 
 "Non, Signor," replied Giuseppe. "No sella 
 da banann." 
 
 "Bully da bizz," said the Unwiseman. "Maka 
 da munn hand over da fist. You grinda da 
 org?" 
 
 "Huh?" grinned Giuseppe. 
 
 "He doesn't understand," said Mollie giggling. 
 
 "I asked him if he ever ground a hand-or- 
 gan," said the Unwiseman. "Perfectly simple 
 question. I aska da questch, Giuseppe, if you 
 ever grinda da org. You know what I mean. 
 Da musica-box, wid da monk for climba da 
 house for catcha da nick." 
 
 " What's 'catena da nick' ?" whispered Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "To catch the nickels, stoopid," said the Un- 
 wiseman; "don't interrupt. No hava da monk, 
 Giuseppe?" he asked. 
 
 "Non, Signor," said the gondolier. "No 
 hava da monk." 
 
 "Too bad," observed the Unwiseman. "Hand- 
 org not moocha da good without da monk. Da 
 
 201 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 monk maka da laugh and catcha da mun by da 
 cupful. If you ever come to America, Giuseppe, 
 no forgetta da monk with a redda da cap." 
 
 With which admonition the Unwiseman turned 
 his attention to other things. 
 
 "Is that really Eye-talian?" asked Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "Of course it is," said the Unwiseman. "It's 
 the easiest language in the world to pick up and 
 only requires a little practice to make you speak 
 it as if it were your own tongue. I was never 
 conscious that I was learning it in my morning 
 talks with old Gorgorini, the banana man at home. 
 This would be a great place for automobiles, 
 wouldn't it, Mollie?" he laughed in conclusion. 
 
 "I don't guesso," said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 The gondolier now guided the graceful craft 
 to a flight of marble steps up which Mollie and 
 her friends mounted to the Piazza San Marco. 
 
 "This is great," said the Unwiseman as he 
 gazed about him and took in its splendors. " It's 
 a wonder to me that they don't have a lot of 
 places like this on the way over from New York 
 to Liverpool. Crossing the ocean would be 
 some fun if you could step off every hour or two 
 
 202 
 
VENICE 
 
 and stretch your legs on something solid, and 
 buy a few tons of tumblers, and feed pigeons. 
 Fact is I think that's the best cure in the world 
 for sea-sickness. If you could run up to a little 
 piazza like this three times a day where there's 
 a nice restaurant waiting for you and no motion 
 to spoil your appetite I wouldn't mind being a 
 sailor for the rest of my life." 
 
 The travellers passed through the glorious 
 church of San Marco, inspected the Doge's 
 Palace and then returned to the gondola, upon 
 which they sailed back to their hotel. 
 
 "Moocha da thanks, Giuseppe," said the 
 Unwiseman, as he alighted. "Here's a Yankee 
 da quart for you. Save it up and when you come 
 to America as all the Eye-talians seem to be doing 
 these days, it will help start you in business." 
 
 And handing the gondolier a quarter the Un- 
 wiseman disappeared into the hotel. The next 
 day he entered Mollie's room and asked permis- 
 sion to sit out on her balcony. 
 
 " I think I'll try a little fishing this afternoon," 
 he said. " It isn't a bad idea having a hotel right 
 on the water front this way after all. You can sit 
 out on your balcony and drop your line out into 
 
 203 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 the water and just haul them in by the dozen." 
 But alas for the old gentleman's expectations, 
 he caught never a fish. Whether it was the 
 fault of the bait or not I don't know, but the only 
 things he succeeded in catching were an old 
 barrel-hoop that went floating along the canal 
 from the Fruit Market up the way, and, sad to 
 relate, the straw hat of an American artist on his 
 way home in his gondola from a day's painting 
 out near the Lido. The latter incident caused 
 a great deal of trouble and it took all the per- 
 suasion that Mollie's father was capable of to 
 keep the artist from having the Unwiseman 
 arrested. It seems that the artist was very much 
 put out anyhow because, mix his colors as he 
 would, he could not get that peculiarly beautiful 
 blue of the Venetian skies, and the lovely irides- 
 cent hues of the Venetian air were too delicate 
 for such a brush as his, and to have his straw hat 
 unceremoniously snatched off his head by an old 
 gentleman two flights up with an ordinary fish 
 hook baited with macaroni in addition to his 
 other troubles was too much for his temper, not 
 a good one at best. 
 
 " I am perfectly willing to say that I am sorry," 
 
 204 
 
VENICE 
 
 protested the Unwiseman when he was hauled 
 before the angry artist. "I naturally would 
 be sorry. When a man goes fishing for shad and 
 lands nothing but a last year's straw hat, why 
 wouldn't he be sorry? " 
 
 "That's a mighty poor apology!" retorted the 
 artist, putting the straw hat on his head. 
 
 "Well I'm a poor man," said the Unwiseman. 
 "My expenses have been very heavy of late. 
 What with buying an air-gun to shoot Alps 
 with, and giving a quarter to the Ganderman to 
 help him buy a monkey, I'm reduced from nine- 
 fifty to a trifle under seven dollars." 
 
 "You had no business fishing from that bal- 
 cony!" said the artist angrily. 
 
 "I haven't any business anywhere, I've re- 
 tired," said the Unwiseman. "And I can tell 
 you one thing certain," he added, "if I was 
 going back into business I wouldn't take up fish- 
 ing for straw hats and barrel-hoops in Venice. 
 There's nothing but to trouble in it." 
 
 "I shall lodge a complaint against you in the 
 Lion's Mouth," said the artist, with a slight 
 twinkle in his eye, his good humor returning in 
 the presence of the Unwiseman. 
 
 205 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "And I shall fall back on my rights as an 
 American citizen to fish whenever I please from 
 my own balcony with my own bait without inter- 
 ruption from foreign straw hats," said the Un- 
 wiseman with dignity. 
 
 "What?" cried the artist. "You an Amer- 
 
 ican?" 
 
 "Certainly," said the Unwiseman. 'You 
 didn't take me for an Eye-talian, did you ?" 
 
 "So am I," returned the artist holding out his 
 hand. "If you'd only told me that in the be- 
 ginning I never should have complained." 
 
 "Don't mention it," said the Unwiseman 
 graciously. "I was afraid you were an English- 
 man, and then there'd been a war sure, because 
 I'll never give in to an Englishman. If your hat 
 is seriously damaged I'll give you my tarpaulin, 
 seeing that you are an American like myself." 
 
 "Not at all," said the artist. "The hat isn't 
 hurt at all and I'm very glad to have met you. 
 If your hook had only caught my eye on my way 
 up the canal I should have turned aside so as not 
 to interfere." 
 
 "Well I'm mighty glad it didn't catch your 
 eye," said the Unwiseman. "I could afford to 
 
 206 
 
VENICE 
 
 buy you a new straw hat, but I'm afraid a new 
 eye would have busted me." 
 
 And there the trouble ended. The artist and 
 the Unwiseman shook hands and parted friends. 
 
 "What was that he said about the Lion's 
 Mouth?" asked the Unwiseman after the artist 
 had gone. 
 
 "He said he'd lodge a complaint there," said 
 Mollie. "That's the way they used to do here. 
 Those big statues of lions out in front of the 
 Doggies' Palace with their mouths wide open 
 are big boxes where people can mail their com- 
 plaints to the Government. " 
 
 "Oh, I see," said the Unwiseman. "And 
 when the Doggies get the complaints they attend 
 to 'em, eh?" 
 
 "Yes," said Mollie. 
 
 "And who are the Doggies?" asked the 
 Unwiseman. "They don't have dogs instead 
 of pleece over here, do they ? I get so mixed up 
 with these Johns, and Bobbies, and Doggies I 
 hardly know where I'm at." 
 
 "I don't exactly understand why," said 
 Mollie, "but the people in Venice are ruled by 
 Doggies." 
 
 207 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "They're a queer lot from Buckingham 
 Palace, London, down to this old tow-path," 
 said the Unwiseman, "and if I ever get home 
 alive there's no more abroad for your Uncle Me. " 
 
 On the following day, Mollie's parents hav- 
 ing seen all of Venice that their limited time per- 
 mitted, prepared to start for Genoa, whence 
 the steamer back to New York was to sail. 
 Everything was ready, but the Unwiseman was 
 nowhere to be found. The hotel was searched 
 from top to bottom and not a sign of him. 
 Giuseppe Zocco denied all knowledge of him, 
 and the carpet-bag gave no evidence that he had 
 been in it the night, before as was his custom. 
 Train-time was approaching and Mollie was 
 distracted. Even Whistlebinkie whistled under 
 his breath for fear that something had happened 
 to the old gentleman. 
 
 "I hope he hasn't fallen overboard!" moaned 
 Mollie, gazing anxiously into the watery depths 
 of the canal. 
 
 "Here he comes!" cried Whistlebinkie, jubi- 
 lantly, and sure enough down the canal seated 
 on a small raft and paddling his way cautiously 
 along with his hands came the Unwiseman, sing- 
 
VENICE 
 
 ing the popular Italian ballad "Margherita" 
 at the top of his lungs. 
 
 "Gander ahoy!" he cried, as he neared the 
 hotel steps. "Sheer off there, Captain, and let 
 me into Port." 
 
 The gondolier made room for him and the 
 Unwiseman alighted. 
 
 "Where have you been ?" asked Mollie, throw- 
 ing her arms about his neck. 
 
 "Up the canal a little way," he answered 
 unconcernedly. "I wanted to mail a letter to 
 the Doggie in the Lion's Mouth." 
 
 "What about?" asked Mollie. 
 
 " Watertown, otherwise Venice," said the Un- 
 wiseman. "I had some suggestions for its im- 
 provement and I didn't want to go way without 
 making them. There's a copy of my letter if you 
 want to see it, " he added, handing Mollie a piece 
 of paper upon which he had written as follows: 
 
 29 Grand Canal St., Venice, It. 
 ANCIENT & HONORABLE Bow-wows: 
 
 I have enjoyed my visit to your beautiful but wet old town 
 very much and would respectfully advise you that there are 
 several things you can do to keep it unspiled. These are as 
 follows to wit viz: 
 
 I. Bale it out once in a while and see that the barrel hoops 
 in your Grand Canal are sifted out of it. They're a mighty 
 poor stubstishoot for shad. 
 
 14 209 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 II. Get a few trained whales in commission so that when 
 a feller wants to go driving he won't have to go paddling. 
 
 III. Stock your streets with trout, or flounders, or perch or 
 even sardines in order that us Americans who feel like fishing 
 won't have to be satisfied with a poor quality of straw hat. 
 
 IV. During the fishing season compel artists returning from 
 their work to wear beaver hats or something else that a fish- 
 hook baited with macaroni won't catch into thus making a 
 lot of trouble. 
 
 V. Get together on your language. I speak the very best 
 variety of banana-stand Italian and twenty -three out of twenty- 
 four people to which I have made remarks in it have not been 
 able to grasp my meaning. 
 
 VI. Pigeons are very nice to have but they grow monoto- 
 nous. Would suggest a half dozen first class American hens as 
 an ornament to your piazza. 
 
 VII. Stop calling yourself Doggies. It makes people laugh. 
 With kind regards to the various Mrs. Ds, believe me to 
 
 be with mucho da respecto, 
 
 Yoursa da trool, 
 
 Da Unadawisamann. 
 
 P. S. If you ever go sailing abroad in your old town point 
 her nose towards my country. We'll all be glad to see you 
 over there and can supply you with all the water you need. 
 
 YdaT, 
 
 MISTER ME. 
 
 It was with these recommendations to the 
 Doges that the Unwiseman left Venice. Whether 
 they were ever received or not I have never 
 heard, but if they were I am quite sure they 
 
 made the "Doggies" yelp with delight. 
 
 210 
 
XIII. 
 
 GENOA, GIBRALTAR, AND COLUMBUS 
 
 "WHATTA da namea dissa cit?" asked the 
 Unwiseman in his best Italian as the party 
 arrived at Genoa, whence they were to set sail 
 for home the next day. 
 
 "This is Genoa," said Mollie. 
 
 "What's it good for?" demanded the old 
 gentleman, gazing around him in a highly critical 
 fashion. 
 
 "It's where Christopher Columbus was born," 
 said Mollie. "Didn't you know that?" 
 
 "You don't mean the gentleman who dis- 
 covered the United States, do you?" asked the 
 Unwiseman, his face brightening with interest. 
 
 "The very same," said Mollie. "He was 
 born right here in this town." 
 
 "Humph!" ejaculated the Unwiseman. 
 "Queer place for a fellow like that to be born 
 in. You'd think a man who was going to dis- 
 cover America would have been born a little 
 nearer the United States than this. Up in 
 
 211 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 Canada for instance, or down around Cuba, so's 
 he wouldn't have so far to travel." 
 
 "Canada and Cuba weren't discovered either 
 at that time," explained Mollie, smiling broadly 
 at the Unwiseman's ignorance. 
 
 "Really?" said the Unwiseman. "Well that 
 accounts for it. I always wondered why the 
 United States wasn't discovered by somebody 
 nearer home, like a Canadian or a Cuban, or 
 some fellow down around where the Panama 
 hats come from, but of course if there wasn't 
 any Canadians or Cubans or Panama hatters 
 around to do it, it's as clear as pie." The old 
 gentleman paused a moment, and then he went 
 on: "So this is the place that would have been 
 our native land if Columbus hadn't gone to sea, 
 is it ? I think I'll take home a bottle of it to 
 keep on the mantel-piece alongside of my bottle 
 of United States and label 'em * My Native Land, 
 Before and After.' " 
 
 "That's a very good idea," said Mollie. 
 "Then you'll have a complete set." 
 
 "I wonder," said the Unwiseman, rubbing 
 his forehead reflectively, "I wonder if he's 
 alive yet." 
 
GENOA, GIBRALTAR, AND COLUMBUS 
 
 "What, Christopher Columbus?" laughed 
 Mollie. 
 
 "Yes," said the Unwiseman. "I haven't 
 seen much in the papers about him lately, but 
 that don't prove he's dead." 
 
 "Why he discovered America in 1492," said 
 Mollie. 
 
 "Well let's see how long ago was that? 
 More'n forty years, wasn't it ?" said the Unwise- 
 
 man. 
 < 
 
 I guess it was more than forty years ago," 
 giggled Mollie. 
 
 "Well say fifty then," said the Unwiseman. 
 "I'm pretty nearly that old myself. I was born 
 in 1839, or 1843, or some such year, and as I 
 remember it we'd been discovered then but 
 that wouldn't make him so awfully old you know. 
 A man can be eighty and still live. Look at old 
 Methoosalum he was nine hundred. " 
 
 "Oh well," said Mollie, "there isn't any use 
 of talking about it. Columbus has been dead 
 a long time " 
 
 "All I can say is that I'm very sorry," inter- 
 rupted the Unwiseman, with a sad little shake 
 of his head. "I should very much like to have 
 
 213 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 gone over and called on him just to thank him 
 for dishcovering the United States. Just think, 
 Mollie, of what would have happened if he 
 hadn't! You and I and old Fizzledinkie here 
 would have had to be Eye-talians, or Switzers, 
 and live over here all the time if it hadn't been 
 for him, and our own beautiful native land would 
 have been left way across the sea all alone by 
 itself and we'd never have known anything 
 about it." 
 
 "We certainly ought to be very much obliged 
 to Mr. Columbus for all he did for us," said 
 Mollie. 
 
 "I - guess - somebuddyelse - wudda - donit," 
 whistled Whistlebinkie. "They cuddn'-ta-helptit- 
 with-all-these-socean steamers-going-over-there- 
 every-day. " 
 
 "That's true enough," said the Unwiseman, 
 "but we ought to be thankful to Columbus just 
 the same. Other people might have done it, but 
 the fact remains that he did do it, so I'm much 
 obliged to him. I'd sort of like to do something 
 to show my gratitude. " 
 
 "Better write to his family," grinned Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 214 
 
GENOA, GIBRALTAR, AND COLUMBUS 
 
 "For a rubber doll with a squeak instead 
 of brain in his head that's a first rate idea, 
 Fizzledinkie, " said the old gentleman. "I'll 
 do it." 
 
 And so he did. The evening mail from the 
 Unwiseman's hotel carried with it a souvenir 
 postal card addressed to Christopher Columbus, 
 Jr., upon which the sender had written as 
 follows : 
 
 GENOA, Aug. 23, 19 . 
 DEAR CHRISTOPHER: 
 
 As an American citizen I want to thank you for your Papa's 
 very great kindness in dishcovering the United States. When 
 I think that if he hadn't I might have been born a Switzer or 
 a French John Darm it gives me a chill. I would have called 
 on you to say this in person if I'd had time, but we are going 
 to sail tomorrow for home and we're pretty busy packing up 
 our carpet-bags and eating our last meals on shore. If you 
 ever feel like dishcovering us on your own account and cross 
 over the briny deep yourself, don't fail to call on me at my 
 home where I have a fine kitching stove and an umbrella 
 which will always be at your disposal. 
 Yours trooly, 
 
 THE UNWISEMAN, U. S. A. 
 
 Later in the evening to the same address was 
 despatched another postal reading: 
 
 P.S. If you happen to have an extra photograph of your Papa 
 lying around the house that you don't want with his orty graph 
 on it I shall be glad to have you send it to me. I will have it 
 
 215 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 framed and hung up in the parlor alongside of General Wash- 
 ington and President Roosevelt who have also been fathers of 
 their country from time to time. 
 
 Yours trooly, 
 
 THE UNWISEMAN, U. S. A. 
 
 "I'm glad I did that," said the Unwiseman 
 when he told Mollie of his two messages to 
 Christopher, Jr. "I don't think people as a rule 
 are careful enough these days to show their thanks 
 to other people who do things for them. It don't 
 do any harm to be polite in matters of that kind 
 and some time it may do a lot of good. Good man- 
 ners ain't never out of place anywhere anyhow. " 
 
 In which praiseworthy sentiment I am happy 
 to say both Mollie and Whistlebinkie agreed. 
 
 The following day the travellers embarked on 
 the steamer bound for New York. This time, 
 weary of his experience as a stowaway on the 
 trip over, the Unwiseman contented himself with 
 travelling in his carpet-bag and not until after 
 the ship had passed along the Mediterranean and 
 out through the straits of Gibraltar, did he appear 
 before his companions. His first appearance 
 upon deck was just as the coast of Africa was fad- 
 ing away upon the horizon. He peered at this 
 long and earnestly through a small blue bottle he 
 
 216 
 
GENOA, GIBRALTAR, AND COLUMBUS 
 
 held in his hand, and then when the last vestige of 
 the scene sank slowly behind the horizon line into 
 the sea, he corked the bottle up tightly, put it into 
 his pocket and turned to Mollie and Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Well," he said, "that's done and I'm glad 
 of it. I've enjoyed this trip very much, but 
 after all I'm glad I'm going home. Be it ever 
 so bumble there's no place like home, as the 
 Bee said, and I'll be glad to be back again where 
 I can sleep comfortably on my kitchen-stove, 
 with my beloved umbrella standing guard along- 
 side of me, and my trusty leak looking down 
 upon me from the ceiling while I rest. " 
 
 'You missed a wonderful sight," said Mollie. 
 "That Rock of Gibraltar was perfectly magnifi- 
 cent." 
 
 "I didn't miss it," said the Unwiseman. "I 
 peeked at it through the port-hole and I quite 
 agree with you. It is the cutest piece of rock 
 I've seen in a long time. It seemed almost as 
 big to me as the boulder in my back yard must 
 seem to an ant, but I prefer my boulder just the 
 same. Gibrallyper's too big to do anything with 
 and it spoils the view, whereas my boulder can 
 be rolled around the place without any trouble 
 
 217 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 and doesn't spoil anything. I suppose they keep 
 it there to keep Spain from sliding down into the 
 sea, so it's useful in a way, but after all I'm just 
 as glad it's here instead of out on my lawn 
 somewhere." 
 
 "What have you been doing all these days?" 
 asked Mollie. 
 
 "O just keeping quiet," said the Unwiseman. 
 "I've been reading up on Christopher Columbus 
 and er writing a few poems about him. He 
 was a wonderful man, Columbus was. He proved 
 the earth was round when everybody else thought 
 it was flat and how do you suppose he did it ?" 
 
 "By sailin' around it," said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 " That was after he proved it," observed the 
 Unwiseman, with the superior air of one who 
 knows more than somebody else. " He proved it 
 by making an egg stand up on its hind legs." 
 
 "What?" cried Mollie. 
 
 "I didn't know eggs had hind legs," said 
 Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Ever see a chicken?" asked the Unwiseman. 
 
 "Yes," said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Well, a chicken's only an advanced egg," 
 said the Unwiseman. 
 
 218 
 
GENOA, GIBRALTAR, AND COLUMBUS 
 
 "That's true," said Mollie. 
 
 "And chickens haven't got anything but hind 
 legs, have they ? " demanded the old gentleman. 
 
 "Thass-a-fact," whistled Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "And Columbus proved it by making the egg 
 stand up?" asked Mollie. 
 
 "That's what history tells us," said the Un- 
 wiseman. " All the Harvard and Yale professors 
 of the day said the earth was flat, but Columbus 
 knew better, so he just took an egg and proved 
 it. That's one of the things I've put in a poem. 
 Want to hear it?" 
 
 "Indeed I do," said Mollie. "It must be 
 interesting." 
 
 "It is it's the longest poem I ever wrote," 
 said the Unwiseman, and seeking out a retired 
 nook on the steamer's deck the droll old fellow 
 seated himself on a coil of rope and read the 
 following poem to Mollie and Whistlebinkie. 
 
 COLUMBUS AND THE EGG. 
 
 " Columbus was a gentleman 
 Who sailed the briny sea. 
 He was a bright young Genoan 
 
 In sunny Italy 
 
 Who once discovered just the plan 
 To find Amerikee." 
 219 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "Splendid!" cried Mollie, clapping her hands 
 with glee. 
 
 "Perfly-bully!" chortled Whistlebinkie, with 
 a joyous squeak. 
 
 "I'm glad you like it," said the Unwiseman, 
 with a smile of pleasure. "But just you wait. 
 The best part of it's to come yet." 
 
 And the old gentleman resumed his poem: 
 
 "He sought the wise- men of his time, 
 
 And when the same were found, 
 He went and whispered to them, 'I'm 
 
 Convinced the Earth is round, 
 Just like an orange or a lime 
 
 I'll bet you half a pound!' 
 
 Each wise-man then just shook his head 
 
 Each one within his hat. 
 *Go to, Columbus, child,' they said. 
 
 "We know the Earth is flat. 
 Go home, my son, and go to bed 
 And don't talk stuff like that. ' 
 
 But Christopher could not be hushed 
 
 By fellows such as they. 
 His spirit never could be crushed 
 
 In such an easy way, 
 And with his heart and soul unsquughed 
 
 He plunged into the fray." 
 
 "What's a fray?" asked Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "A fight, row, dispute, argyment," said the 
 
GENOA, GIBRALTAR, AND COLUMBUS 
 
 Unwiseman. "Don't interrupt. We're coming 
 to the exciting part." 
 And he went on: 
 
 "Til prove the world is round,' said he 
 
 'For you next Tuesday night, 
 If you will gather formally 
 
 And listen to the right.' 
 And all the wise-men did agree 
 
 Because they loved a fight. 
 And so the wise- men gathered there 
 
 To hear Columbus talk, 
 And some were white as to the hair 
 
 And some could hardly walk, 
 And one looked like a Polar Bear 
 
 And one looked like an Auk." 
 
 "How-dju-know-that?" asked Whistlebinkie. 
 "Does the history say all that?" 
 
 "No," said the Unwiseman. "The history 
 doesn't say anything about their looks, but 
 there's a picture of the whole party in the book, 
 and it was just as I say especially the Polar Bear 
 and the Auk. Anyhow, they were all there and 
 the poem goes on to tell about it. 
 
 "Now when about the room they sat 
 
 Columbus he came in; 
 Took off his rubbers and his hat, 
 
 Likewise his tarpaulin. 
 He cleared his throat and stroked the cat 
 
 And thus wise did begin." 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "There wasn't any cat in the picture," ex- 
 plained the Unwiseman, " but I introduced him to 
 get a rhyme for hat and sat. ^Sometimes you have 
 to do things like that in poetry and according to 
 the rules if you have a license you can do it." 
 
 "Have you got a license?" asked Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "Not to write poetry, but I've got a dog- 
 license," said the Unwiseman, "and I guess if a 
 man pays three dollars to keep a dog and 
 doesn't keep the dog he's got a right to use the 
 license for something else. I'll risk it anyhow. 
 So just keep still and listen. 
 
 '"You see this egg?' Columbus led. 
 
 'Now watch me, sirs, I begs. 
 I'll make it stand upon its head 
 
 Or else upon its legs.' 
 And instantly 'twas as he said 
 As sure as eggs is eggs. 
 
 For whether 'twas an Egg from school 
 
 Or in a circus taught, 
 Or whether it was just a cool 
 
 Egg of unusual sort, 
 That egg stood up just like a spool 
 
 According to report." 
 
 "I bet he smashed in the end of it," said 
 Whistlebinkie. 
 
 222 
 
GENOA, GIBRALTAR, AND COLUMBUS 
 
 "Maybe it was a scrambled egg, maybe he 
 stuck a pin in an end of it. Maybe he didn't. 
 Anyhow, he made it stand up," said the Unwise- 
 man, "and I wish you'd stop squeakyrupting 
 when I'm reading." 
 
 "Go ahead," said Whistlebinkie meekly. 
 "It's a perfly spulendid piece o' potery and I 
 can't help showing my yadmiration for it." 
 
 "Well keep your yadmiration for the yend of 
 it," retorted the Unwiseman. "We'll be in 
 New York before I get it finished at this rate." 
 
 Whistlebinkie promised not to squeak again 
 and the Unwiseman resumed. 
 
 " 'O wonderful!' the wise-men cried. 
 
 *O marvellous,' said they. 
 And then Columbus up and tried 
 
 The egg the other way, 
 And still it stood up full of pride 
 Or so the histories say. 
 
 Again the wise-men cried aloud, 
 
 *O wizard, marvellous! 
 Of all the scientific crowd 
 
 This is the man for us 
 O Christopher we're mighty proud 
 
 Of you, you little cuss ! ' ' 
 
 "That wasn't very polite," began Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 223 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "Now Squeaky," said the Unwiseman. 
 " 'Scuse!" gasped Whistlebinkie. 
 And the Unwiseman went on: 
 
 '"For men who make an omlette 
 
 We really do not care; 
 To poach an egg already yet 
 
 Is easy everywhere; 
 But he who'll teach it etiquette 
 
 He is a genius rare. 
 
 *So if you say the Earth is round 
 
 We think it must be so. 
 Your reasoning's so very sound, 
 
 Columbus don't you know. 
 Come wizard, take your half-a-pound 
 
 Before you homeward go.'" 
 
 Whistlebinkie began to fidget again and his 
 breath came in little short squeaks. 
 
 "But I don't see," he began. "It didn't 
 prove 
 
 "Wait!" said the Unwiseman. "Don't you 
 try to get in ahead of the finish. Here's the last 
 verse, and it covers your ground. 
 
 "And thus it was, O children dear, 
 
 Who gather at my knee, 
 Columbus showed the Earth the sphere 
 
 It since has proved to be; 
 Though how the Egg trick made it clear, 
 
 I'm blest if I can see." 
 
GENOA, GIBRALTAR, AND COLUMBUS 
 
 "Well I'm glad you put that last voyse in," 
 said Whistlebinkie, "because I don't see either." 
 
 "Oh I guess they thought a man who could 
 train an egg to stand up was a pretty smart 
 man," said Mollie, "and they didn't want to 
 dispute with him." 
 
 "I shouldn't be surprised if that was it," said 
 the Unwiscrnan. "I noticed too in the picture 
 that Columbus was about twice as big as any 
 of the wise-men, and maybe that had something 
 to do with it too. Anyhow, he was pretty smart." 
 
 "Is that all you wrote ?" asked Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "No," said the Unwiseman. "I did another 
 little one called 'I Wonder.' There are a lot of 
 things the histories don't tell you anything about, 
 so I've put 'em all in a rhyme as a sort of hint to 
 people who are going to write about him in the 
 future. It goes like this: 
 
 " When Christopher Columbus came ashore, 
 The day he landed in Americor 
 I wonder what he said when first he tried 
 Down in the subway trains to take a ride ? 
 
 When Christopher Columbus went up town 
 And looked the country over, up and down, 
 I wonder what he thought when first his eye 
 Was caught by the sky-scrapers in the sky? 
 15 225 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 When Christopher put up at his hotel 
 And first pushed in the button of his bell 
 And upward came the boy who orders takes, 
 I wonder if he ordered buckwheat cakes ? 
 
 When Christopher went down to Washington 
 To pay his call the President upon 
 I wonder if the President felt queer 
 To know that his discoverer was here ? 
 
 I wonder when his slow-poke caravels 
 Were tossed about by heavy winds and swells, 
 If he was not put out and mad to spy 
 The ocean steamers prancing swiftly by ? " 
 
 "I don't know about other people," said the 
 Unwiseman, "but little things like that always 
 interest me about as much as anything else, but 
 there's nary a word about it in the papers, and 
 as far as my memory is concerned when he first 
 came I was too young to know much about 
 what was going on. I do remember a big parade 
 in his honor, but I think that was some years 
 after the discovery." 
 
 "I guess it was," said Mollie, with a laugh. 
 "There wasn't anything but Indians there when 
 he arrived. 
 
 "Really? How unfortunate how very un- 
 fortunate," said the Unwiseman. "To think 
 that on the few occasions that he came here he 
 
GENOA, GIBRALTAR, AND COLUMBUS 
 
 should meet only Indians. Mercy! What a 
 queer idea of the citizens of the United States 
 he must have got. Really, Mollie, I don't won- 
 der that instead of settling down in New York, 
 or Boston, or Chicago, he went back home again 
 to live. Nothing but Indians ! Well, well, well ! " 
 
 And the Unwiseman wandered moodily back 
 to his carpet-bag. 
 
 :< With so many nice people living in Amer- 
 ica," he sighed, "it does seem too bad that he 
 should meet only Indians who, while they may 
 be very good Indians indeed, are not noted for 
 the quality of their manners." 
 
 And so the little party passed over the sea, and 
 I did not meet with them again until I reached 
 the pier at New York and discovered the Un- 
 wiseman struggling with the Custom House 
 Inspectors. 
 
XIV. 
 
 AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE 
 
 "Hi there where are you going with that 
 carpet-bag?" cried a gruff voice, as the Unwise- 
 man scurried along the pier, eager to get back 
 home as speedily as possible after the arrival of 
 the steamer at New York. 
 
 "Where do you suppose I'm going?" retorted 
 the Unwiseman, pausing in his quick-step march 
 back to the waiting arms of his kitchen-stove. 
 "Doesn't look as if I was walkin' off to sea 
 again, does it?" 
 
 "Come back here with that bag," said the 
 man of the gruff voice, a tall man with a shiny 
 black moustache and a blue cap with gold trim- 
 mings on his head. 
 
 "What, me?" demanded the Unwiseman. 
 
 "Yes, you," said the man roughly. "What 
 business have you skipping out like that with 
 a carpet-bag as big as a house under your 
 arm?" 
 
 "It's my bag who's got a better right?" 
 
THE UNWISEMAN LOOKED THE OFFICIAL COLDLY IN THE EYE 
 
AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE 
 
 retorted the Unwiseman. "I bought and paid 
 for it with my own money, so why shouldn't I 
 walk off with it?" 
 
 "Has it been inspected?" demanded the 
 official. 
 
 "It don't need to be there ain't any germans 
 in it," said the Unwiseman. 
 
 "Germans?" laughed the official. 
 
 "Yes Mike robes you know " continued 
 
 the Unwiseman. 
 
 "O, you mean germs," said the official. 
 " Well, I didn't say disinfected. I said inspected. 
 You can't lug a bag like that in through here 
 without having it examined, you know. What 
 you got in it?" 
 
 The Unwiseman placed his bag on the floor 
 of the pier and sat on it and looked the other 
 coldly in the eye. 
 
 "Who are you anyhow?" he asked. "What 
 right have you to ask me such impident ques- 
 tions as, What have I got in this bag?" 
 
 "Well in private life my name's Maginnis," 
 said the official, "but down here on this dock I'm 
 Uncle Sam, otherwise the United States of Amer- 
 ica, that's who." 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 The Unwiseman threw his head back and 
 roared with laughter. 
 
 "I do not mean to be rude, my dear Mr. 
 Maginnis," he said, "but I really must say Tutt, 
 Tush, Pshaw and Pooh. I may even go so far 
 as to say Pooh-pooh which is twice as scornful 
 as just plain pooh. You Uncle Sam? You 
 must think I'm as green as apples if you think 
 I'll believe that." 
 
 "It is true nevertheless," said the official 
 sternly, "and unless you hand over that bag at 
 once " 
 
 "Well I know better," said the Unwiseman 
 angrily. "Uncle Sam has a red goatee and 
 you've got nothing but a shiny black moustache 
 that looks like a pair of comic eyebrows that 
 have slipped and slid down over your nose. 
 Uncle Sam wears a blue swallow-tail coat with 
 brass buttons on it, and a pair of red and white 
 striped trousers like a peppermint stick, and 
 you've got nothin' but an old pea-jacket and 
 blue flannel pants on, and as for the hat, Uncle 
 Sam wears a yellow beaver with fur on it like a 
 coon-cat, while that thing of yours looks like a 
 last summer's yachtin' cap spruced up with 
 
 230 
 
AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE 
 
 brass. You're a very smart man, Mr. Maginnis, 
 but you can't fool an old traveller like me. I've 
 been to Europe, I have, and I guess I know the 
 difference between a fire-engine and a clothes 
 horse. Uncle Sam indeed!" 
 
 "I must inspect the contents of that bag," 
 said the official firmly. "If you resist it will be 
 confiscated." 
 
 "I don't know what confiscated means," re- 
 turned the Unwiseman valiantly, "but any man 
 who goes through this bag of mine goes through 
 me first. I'm sittin' on the lock, Mr. Maginnis, 
 and I don't intend to move no, not if you try 
 to blast me away. A man's carpet-bag is his 
 castle and don't you forget it." 
 
 "What's the matter here?" demanded a 
 policeman, who had overheard the last part of 
 this little quarrel. 
 
 "Nothing much," said the Unwiseman. "This 
 gentleman here in the messenger boy's clothes 
 says he's the President o' the United States, 
 Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Army and 
 Navy, all rolled into one, thinking that by so 
 doing he can get hold of my carpet-bag. That's 
 all. Anybody can see by lookin' at him that he 
 
 231 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 ain't even the Department of Agriculture. The 
 United States Government! Really it makes 
 me laugh." 
 
 Here the Unwiseman grinned broadly, and 
 the Policeman and the official joined in. 
 
 "He's a new kind of a smuggler, officer," said 
 Mr. Maginnis, "or at least he acts like one. I 
 caught him trotting off with that bag under his 
 arm, and he refuses to let me inspect it." 
 
 "I ain't a smuggler!" retorted the Unwiseman 
 indignantly. 
 
 'You'll have to let him look through the bag, 
 Mister," said the Policeman. "He's a Custom 
 House Inspector and nobody's allowed to take 
 in baggage of any sort that hasn't been inspected. 
 
 "Is that the law?" asked the Unwiseman. 
 
 'Yep," said the Policeman. 
 
 "What's the idea of it?" demanded the Un- 
 wiseman. 
 
 "Well the United States Government makes 
 people pay a tax on things that are made on the 
 other side," explained the Inspector. "That's 
 the way they make the money to pay the Presi- 
 dent's salary and the other running expenses of 
 the Government." 
 
AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE 
 
 "Oh that's it, eh?" said the Unwiseman. 
 "Well you'd ought to have told me that in the 
 beginning. I didn't know the Government 
 needed money to pay the President. I thought 
 all it had to do was to print all it needed. Of 
 course if the President's got to go without his 
 money unless I help pay, I'll be only too glad to 
 do all I can to make up the amount you're short. 
 He earns every penny of it, and it isn't fair to 
 make him wait for it. About how much do you 
 need to even it up ? I've only got four dollars 
 left and I'm afraid I'll have to use a little of it 
 myself, but what's left over you're welcome to, 
 only I'd like the President to know I chipped in. 
 How much does he get anyhow?" 
 
 " Seventy- five thousand dollars," said the In- 
 spector. 
 
 "And there are 80,000,000 people in the coun- 
 try, ain't there?" asked the Unwiseman. 
 
 "About that?" said the Inspector. 
 
 "So that really my share comes to say four 
 and a quarter thousandths of a cent that it ? "de- 
 manded the Unwiseman. 
 
 "Something like that," laughed the Inspector. 
 
 "Well then," said the Unwiseman, taking a 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 copper coin from his pocket, "here's a cent. 
 Can you change it?" 
 
 "We don't do business that way," said the 
 Inspector impatiently. :< We examine your bag- 
 gage and tax that that's all. If you refuse to 
 let us, we confiscate the bag, and fine you any- 
 where from $100 to $5000. Now what are you 
 going to do?" 
 
 "What he says is true," said the Policeman, 
 "and I'd advise you to save trouble by opening 
 up the bag." 
 
 "O well of course if you say so I'll do it, but 
 I think it's mighty funny just the same," said the 
 Unwiseman, rising from the carpet-bag and 
 handing it over to the Inspector. "In the first 
 place it's not polite for an entire stranger to go 
 snooping through a gentleman's carpet-bag. 
 In the second place if the Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury hasn't got enough money on hand when 
 pay-day comes around he ought to state the fact 
 in the newspapers so we citizens can hustle 
 around and raise it for him instead of being held 
 up for it like a highwayman, and in the third 
 place it's very extravagant to employ a man like 
 Mr. Maginnis here for three dollars a week or 
 
 234 
 
AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE 
 
 whatever he gets, just to collect four and a quar- 
 ter thousandths of a cent. I don't wonder there 
 ain't any money in the treasury if that's the way 
 the Government does business." 
 
 So the inspection of the Unwiseman's carpet 
 bag began. The first thing the Inspector found 
 upon opening that wonderful receptacle was 
 "French in Five Lessons." 
 
 "What's that?" he asked. 
 
 " That's a book," replied the Unwiseman. " It 
 teaches you how to talk French in five easy les- 
 
 sons." 
 
 "What did you pay for it?" asked the In- 
 spector. 
 
 "I didn't pay anything for it," said the Un- 
 wiseman. "I found it." 
 
 "What do you think it's worth?" queried the 
 Inspector. 
 
 "Nothing," said the Unwiseman. "That is, 
 all the French I got out of it came to about that. 
 It may have been first class looking French, but 
 when I came to use it on French people they 
 didn't seem to recognize it, and it had a habit of 
 fading away and getting lost altogether, so as 
 far as I'm concerned it ain't worth paying duty 
 
 235 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 on. If you're going to tax me for that you can 
 confisticate it and throw it at the first cat you 
 want to scare off your back-yard fence." 
 
 "What's this?" asked the Inspector, taking 
 a small tin box out of the bag. 
 
 "Ginger-snaps, two bananas and an eclair," 
 said the Unwiseman. "I shan't pay any duty 
 on them because I took 'em away with me 
 when I left home." 
 
 "I don't know whether I can let them in 
 duty-free or not," said the Inspector, with a wink 
 at the Policeman. 
 
 "Well I'll settle that in a minute," said the 
 Unwiseman, and reaching out for the tin-box 
 in less than two minutes he had eaten its con- 
 tents. "You can't tax what ain't, can you?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Of course not," said the Inspector. 
 
 "Well then those ginger-snaps ain't, and the 
 bananas ain't and the eclair ain't, so there you 
 are," said the Unwiseman triumphantly. "Go 
 on with your search, Uncle Sammy. You 
 haven't got much towards the President's salary 
 yet, have you!" 
 
 The Inspector scorned to reply, and after 
 
 236 
 
AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE 
 
 rummaging about in the bag for a few moments, 
 he produced a small box of macaroni. 
 
 "I guess we'll tax you on this," he said. 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "Bait," said the Unwiseman. 
 
 "I call it macaroni," said the Inspector. 
 
 "You can call it what you please," said the 
 Unwiseman. "I call it bait and it's no good. 
 I can dig better bait than all the macaroni in 
 the world in my back yard. I fish for fish and 
 not for Eye-talians, so I don't need that kind. 
 If I can't keep it without paying taxes for it, 
 confisticate it and eat it yourself. I only brought 
 it home as a souvenir of Genoa anyhow." 
 
 " I don't want it," said the Inspector. 
 'Then give it to the policeman," said the 
 Unwiseman. "I tell you right now I wouldn't 
 pay five cents to keep a piece of macaroni nine 
 miles long. Be careful the way you handle that 
 sailor suit of mine. I had it pressed in London 
 and I want to keep the creases in the trousers 
 just right the way the King wears his." 
 
 "Where did you buy them?" asked the 
 Inspector, holding the duck trousers up in the 
 air. 
 
 237 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "Right here in this town before I stole on 
 board the Digestic" said the Unwiseman. 
 
 "American made, are they?" asked the 
 Inspector. 
 
 'Yes," said the Unwiseman. 'You can tell 
 that by lookin' at 'em. They're regular canvas- 
 back ducks with the maker's name stamped on 
 the buttons." 
 
 Closer inspection of the garment proved the 
 truth of the Unwiseman' s assertion and the 
 Inspector proceeded. 
 
 "Didn't you make any purchases abroad?" 
 he asked. "Clothes or jewels or something?" 
 
 "I didn't buy any clothes at all," said the 
 Unwiseman. "I did ask the price of a Duke's 
 suit and a Knight gown, but I didn't buy either 
 of them. You don't have to pay duty on a 
 request for information, do you?" 
 
 " You are sure you didn't buy any ?" repeated 
 the Inspector. 
 
 "Quite sure," said the Unwiseman. "A 
 slight misunderstanding with the King com- 
 bined with a difference of opinion with his 
 tailor made it unnecessary for me to lay in a 
 stock of royal raiment. And the same thing 
 
 238 
 
AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE 
 
 prevented my buying any jewels. If I'd decided 
 to go into the Duke business I probably should 
 have bought a few diamond rings and a half a 
 dozen tararas to wear when I took breakfast 
 with the roil family, but I gave that all up when 
 I made up my mind to remain a farmer. Tar- 
 aras and diamond rings kind of get in your way 
 when you're pulling weeds and planting beets, 
 so why should I buy them?" 
 
 "How about other things ?" asked the Inspec- 
 tor. 'You say you've been abroad all summer 
 and haven't bought anything?" 
 
 "I didn't say anything of the sort," said the 
 Unwiseman. "I bought a lot of things. In 
 London I bought a ride in a hansom cab, in 
 Paris I bought a ride in a one horse fakir, and 
 in Venice I bought a ride in a Gandyola. I 
 bought a large number of tarts and plates of ice 
 cream in various places. I bought a couple of 
 souvenir postal cards to send to Columbus's 
 little boy. In Switzerland I didn't buy any- 
 thing because the things I wanted weren't for 
 sale such as pet shammys and Alps and Glaziers 
 and things like that. There's only two things 
 that I can remember that maybe ought to be 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 taxed. One of 'em's an air gun to shoot alps 
 with and the others a big alpen-stock engraved 
 with a red hot iron showing what mountains I 
 didn't climb. The Alpen-stock I used as a fish 
 pole in Venice and lost it because my hook got 
 stuck in an artist's straw hat, but the air gun 
 I brought home with me. You can tax it if 
 you want to, but I warn you if you do I'll give 
 it to you and then you'll have to pay the tax 
 yourself." 
 
 Having delivered himself of this long har- 
 angue, the Unwiscman, quite out of breath, sat 
 down on Mollie's trunk and waited for new 
 developments. The Inspector apparently did 
 not hear him, or if he did paid no attention. 
 The chances are that the Unwiseman's words 
 never reached his ears, for to tell the truth his 
 head was hidden way down deep in the carpet- 
 bag. It was all of three minutes before he spoke, 
 and then with his face all red with the work he 
 drew his head from the bag and, gasping for air 
 observed, wonderingly: 
 
 "I can't find anything else but a lot of old 
 bottles in there. What business are you in 
 anyhow?" he asked. "Bottles and rags?" 
 
 240 
 
AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE 
 
 "I am a collector," said the Unwiseman, with 
 a great deal of dignity. 
 
 "Well after all I guess we'll have to let you 
 in free," said the Inspector, closing the bag with 
 a snap and scribbling a little mark on it with 
 a piece of chalk to show that it had been 
 examined. "The Government hasn't put any 
 tax on old bottles and junk generally so you're 
 all right. If all importers were like you the 
 United States would have to go out of busi- 
 
 ness." 
 
 "Junk indeed!" cried the Unwiseman, jump- 
 ing up wrathfully. "If you call my bottles junk 
 I'd like to know what you'd say to the British 
 Museum. That's a scrap heap, alongside of 
 this collection of mine, and I don't want you to 
 forget it!" 
 
 And gathering his belongings together the 
 Unwiseman in high dudgeon walked off the 
 pier while the Inspector and the Policeman 
 watched him go with smiles on their faces so 
 broad that if they'd been half an inch broader 
 they would have met behind their necks and 
 cut their heads off. 
 
 "I never was so insulted in my life," said the 
 
 16 241 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 Unwiseman, as he told Mollie about it in the 
 carriage going up to the train that was to take 
 them back home. "He called that magnificent 
 collection of mine junk." 
 
 "What was there in it?" asked Mollie. 
 
 "Wait until we get home and I'll show you," 
 said the Unwiseman. " It's the finest collection 
 of well just wait and see. I'm going to start 
 a Museum up in my house that will make that 
 British Museum look like cinder in a giant's eye. 
 How did you get through the Custom House?" 
 
 "Very nicely," said Mollie. "The man 
 wanted me to pay duty on Whistlebinkie at 
 first, because he thought he was made in Ger- 
 many, but when he heard him squeak he let 
 him in free." 
 
 "I should think so," said the Unwiseman. 
 "There's no German in his squeak. He couldn't 
 get a medium sized German word through his 
 hat. If he could I think he'd drive me crazy. 
 Just open the window will you while I send this 
 wireless message to the President." 
 
 "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 
 
AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE 
 
 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 wan- 
 derer'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 
 
 243 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 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 Unwise- 
 inan 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-y ain't- very-ungry." 
 
 "Lost your appetite?" 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 appetite 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, Whistle- 
 binkie?" 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 
 
 245 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 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. 
 
 "I'm never going to leave you again, Boldy," 
 he was saying to the rock as Mollie and Whistle- 
 binkie came up. "It is true that the Rock of 
 Gibraltar is bigger and broader and more terri- 
 ble 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." 
 
 246 
 
IM NEVER GOING TO LEAVE YOU AGAIN, BOLDY, HE WAS SAYING 
 
HOME, SWEET HOME 
 
 "You don't really think he has stolen it do 
 you?" asked Mollie. 
 
 "I don't know what to think," said the Un- 
 wiseman, shaking his head gravely. "He had 
 first class 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?" 
 
 247 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "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 TJnwiseman'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. 
 
 "Dear me how interesting," said Mollie, as 
 she read this remarkable legend, "but what 
 does it mean?" 
 
 "It means that I've started a British Museum 
 over here," said the Unwiseman, "only mine is 
 going to be useful, instead of merely ornamental 
 like that one over in London. For twenty-five 
 cents a man can get a whole European trip in 
 my Museum without getting on board of a 
 steamer. I only charge ten cents to come in so 
 
 248 
 
HOME, SWEET HOME 
 
 as to get people to come, and I charge fifteen 
 cents to get out so as to make 'em stay until 
 they have seen all there is to be seen. People 
 get awfully tired travelling abroad, I find, and 
 if you make it too easy for them to run back home 
 they'll go without finishing their trip. I charge 
 burgulars one umbrella to get in so that if my 
 burgular comes back he'll have to make good 
 my loss, or stay out. " 
 
 "Why do you let children and rubber dolls in 
 free?" asked Mollie, reading the sign over a 
 second time. 
 
 " I wrote that rule to cover you and old Squiz- 
 zledinkie here," said the old gentleman, with a 
 kindly smile at his little guests. "Although it 
 really wasn't necessary because I don't charge 
 any admission to people who come in the front 
 door and you could always come in that way. 
 That's the entrance to my home. The back- 
 door I charge for because it's the entrance to 
 my museum, don't you see?" 
 
 "Clear as a blue china alley," said Whistle- 
 binkie. 
 
 "Come in and see the exhibit," said the 
 Unwiseman proudly. 
 
 249 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 And then as Mollie and Whistlebinkie entered 
 the house their eyes fell upon what was indeed 
 the most marvellous collection of interesting 
 objects they had ever seen. All about the parlor 
 were ranged row upon row of bottles, large and 
 small, each bearing a label describing its con- 
 tents, with here and there mysterious boxes, and 
 broken tumblers and all sorts of other odd things 
 that the Unwiseman had brought home in his 
 carpet-bag. 
 
 "Bottle number one," said he, pointing to 
 the object with a cane, " is filled with Atlantic 
 Ocean real genuine briny deep bottled it my- 
 self and so I know there's nothing bogus about 
 it. Number two which looks empty, but really 
 ain't, is full of air from the coast of Ireland, 
 caught three miles out from Queenstown by 
 yours trooly, Mr. Me. Number three, full of 
 dust and small pebbles, is genuine British soil 
 gathered in London the day they put me out of 
 the Museum. 'Tain't much to look at, is it?" 
 he added. 
 
 "Nothin* extra," said Whistlebinkie, inspect- 
 ing it with a critical air after the manner of one 
 who was an expert in soils. 
 
 250 
 
HOME, SWEET HOME 
 
 "Not compared to American soil anyhow," 
 said the Unwiseman. "This hard cake in the 
 tin box is a 'Muffin by Special Appointment to 
 the King* ' he went on with a broad grin. "I 
 went in and bought one after we had our rumpus 
 in the bakeshop, just for the purpose of bring- 
 ing it over here and showing the American people 
 how vain and empty roilty has become. It is 
 not a noble looking object to my eyes." 
 
 "Mine neither," whistled Whistlebinkie. "It 
 looks rather stale." 
 
 "Yes," said the Unwiseman. "And that's 
 the only roil thing about it. Passing along 
 rapidly we come soon to a bottleful of the 
 British Channel," he resumed. "In order to 
 get the full effect of that very conceited body 
 of water you want to shake it violently. That 
 gives you some idea of how the water works. 
 It's tame enough now that I've got it bottled 
 but in its native lair it is fierce. You will see 
 the instructions on the bottle." 
 
 Sure enough the bottle was labeled as the 
 Unwiseman said with full instructions as to 
 how it must be used. 
 
 "Shake for fifteen minutes until it is all roiled 
 
 251 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 up and swells around inside the bottle like a 
 tidal wave," the instructions read. "You will 
 then get a small idea of how this disagreeable 
 body of water behaves itself in the presence of 
 trusting strangers." 
 
 "Here is my bottle of French soil," said the 
 Unwiseman, passing on to the next object. 
 "It doesn't look very different from English 
 soil but it's French all right, as you would see 
 for yourself if it tried to talk. I scooped it up 
 myself in Paris. There's the book French in 
 Five Lessons too. That I call 'The French 
 Language,' which shows people who visit this 
 museum what a funny tongue it is. That pill 
 box full of sand is a part of the Swiss frontier 
 and the small piece of gravel next to it is a 
 piece of an Alp chipped off Mount Blanc by 
 myself, so that I know it is genuine. It will 
 give the man who has never visited Swaz well 
 that country, a small idea of what an Alp 
 looks like and will correct the notion in some 
 people's minds that an Alp is a wild animal 
 with a long hairy tail and the manners of a lion. 
 The next two bottles contain all that is left of 
 a snow-ball I gathered in at Chamouny, and a 
 
 252 
 
HOME, SWEET HOME 
 
 chip of the Mer de Glace glazier. They've 
 both melted since I bottled them, but I'll have 
 them frozen up again all right when winter 
 comes, so there's no harm done." 
 
 "What's this piece of broken china on the 
 table?" asked Mollie. 
 
 "That is a fragment of a Parisian butter 
 saucer," said the Unwiseman. "One of the 
 waiters fell down stairs with somebody's break- 
 fast at our hotel in Paris one morning while we 
 were there," he explained, "and I rescued that 
 from the debris. It is a perfect specimen of a 
 broken French butter dish." 
 
 "I don't think it's very interesting," said 
 Mollie. 
 
 "Well to tell you the truth, I don't either, 
 but you've got to remember, my dear, that this 
 is a British Museum and the one over in London 
 is chuck full of broken china, old butter plates 
 and coffee cups from all over everywhere, and 
 I don't want people who care for that sort of 
 thing to be disappointed with my museum when 
 they come here. Take that plaster statue of 
 Cupid that I bought in Venice I only got that 
 to please people who care for statuary." 
 
 253 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 "Where is it?" asked Mollie, searching the 
 room with her eye for the Cupid. 
 
 "I've spread it out through the Museum so 
 as to make it look more like a collection," said 
 the Unwiseman. "I got a tack-hammer as soon 
 as I got home last night and fixed it up. There's 
 an arm over on the mantel-piece. His chest 
 and left leg are there on top of the piano, while 
 his other arm with his left ear and right leg 
 are in the kitchen. I haven't found places 
 for his stummick and what's left of his head 
 yet, but I will before the crowd begins to 
 
 arrive." 
 
 "Why Mr. Me!" protested Mollie, as she 
 gazed mournfully upon the scraps of the broken 
 Cupid. "You didn't really smash up that pretty 
 little statue?" 
 
 "I'm afraid I did, Mollie," said the Unwise- 
 man sadly. "I hated to do it, but this is a 
 Museum my dear, and when you go into the 
 museum business you've to do it according to 
 the rules. One of the rules seems to be 'No 
 admission to Unbusted Statuary, ' and I've acted 
 accordingly. I don't want to deceive anybody 
 and if I gave even to my kitchen-stove the idea 
 
 254 
 
HOME, SWEET HOME 
 
 that these first class museums over in Europe 
 have anything but fractures in them " 
 
 "Fragments, isn't it?" suggested Mollie. 
 
 "It's all the same," said the Unwiseman. 
 "Fractures or fragments, there isn't a complete 
 statue anywhere in any museum that I ever saw, 
 and in educating rny kitchen-stove in Art I'm 
 going to follow the lead of the experts." 
 
 "Well I don't see the use of it," sighed Mollie, 
 for she had admired the pretty little plaster 
 Cupid very much indeed. 
 
 "No more do I, Mollie dear," said the Un- 
 wiseman, "but rules are rules and we've got to 
 obey them. This is the Grand Canal at Venice," 
 he added holding up a bottle full of dark green 
 water in order to change the subject. "And 
 here is what I call a Hoople-fish from the Adri- 
 
 , 99 
 
 atic. 
 
 "What on earth is a Hoople-fish?" cried 
 Mollie with a roar of laughter as she gazed upon 
 the object to which the Unwiseman referred, an 
 old water soaked strip of shingley wood. 
 
 "It is the barrel hoop I caught that day I 
 went fishing from the hotel balcony," explained 
 the Unwiseman. "I wish I'd kept the artist's 
 
 255 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 straw hat I landed at the same time for a Hat- 
 fish to complete my collection of Strange Shad 
 From Venice, but of course that was impossible. 
 The artist seemed to want it himself and as he 
 had first claim to it I didn't press the matter. 
 The barrel-hoop will serve however to warn 
 Americans who want to go salmon fishing on the 
 Grand Canal just what kind of queer things 
 they'll catch if they have any luck at all." 
 
 "What's this?" asked Whistlebinkie, peering 
 into a little tin pepper pot that appeared to con- 
 tain nothing but sand. 
 
 "You must handle that very carefully," said 
 the TJnwiseman, taking it in one hand, and shak- 
 ing some of the sand out of it into the palm of the 
 other. "That is the birth-place of Christopher 
 Columbus, otherwise the soil of Genoa. I 
 brought home about a pail-ful of it, and I'm 
 going to have it put up in forty-seven little bottles 
 to send around to people that would appreciate 
 having it. One of 'em is to go to the President 
 to be kept on the White House mantel-piece in 
 memory of Columbus, and the rest of them I 
 shall distribute to the biggest Museums in each 
 one of the United States. I don't think any State 
 
 256 
 
HOME, SWEET HOME 
 
 in the Union should be without a bottle of Colum- 
 bus birth-place, in view of all that he did for this 
 country by discovering it. There wouldn't have 
 been any States at all of it hadn't been for him, 
 and it strikes me that is a very simple and touch- 
 ing way of showing our gratitude." 
 
 "Perfectly fine!" cried Mollie enthusiastically. 
 "I don't believe there's another collection like 
 this anywhere in all the world, do you?" 
 she added, sweeping the room with an eye 
 full of wondering admiration for the genius 
 that had gathered all these marvellous things 
 together. 
 
 "No I really don't," said the Unwiseman. 
 "And just think what a fine thing it will be for 
 people who can't afford to travel," he went on. 
 "For twenty-five cents they can come here and 
 see everything we saw except a few bogus kings 
 and things like that that ain't really worth seeing 
 from the French language down to the Vene- 
 tian Hoople-fish, from an Alp and a Glazier to a 
 Specially Appointed Muffin to the King and Col- 
 umbus's birth-place. I really think I shall have 
 to advertise it in the newspapers. A Trip Abroad 
 Without Leaving Home, All for a Quarter, at 
 
 17 257 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 the Unwiseman's Museum. Alps a Specialty." 
 
 "Here's a couple of empty bottles," said Whis- 
 tlebinkie, who had been snooping curiously about 
 the room. 
 
 "Yes," said the Unwiseman. "I've more 
 than that. I'm sorry to say that some of my 
 exhibits have faded away. The first one was 
 filled with London fog, and as you remember I 
 lost that when the cork flew out the day they 
 dejected me from the British Museum. That 
 other bottle when I put the cork in it contained 
 a view of Gibraltar and the African Coast 
 through the port-hole of the steamer, but it's all 
 faded out, just as the bird's-eye view of the hori- 
 zon out in the middle of the ocean that I had in 
 a little pill bottle did. There are certain things 
 you can't keep even in bottles but I shall show 
 the Gibraltar bottle just the same. A bottle of 
 that size that once contained that big piece of 
 rock and the African Coast to boot, is a wonder- 
 ful thing in itself." 
 
 In which belief Mollie and Whistlebinkie 
 unanimously agreed. 
 
 " Was the kitchen-stove glad to see you back ? " 
 asked Whistlebinkie. 
 
 258 
 
HOME, SWEET HOME 
 
 "Well it didn't say very much," said the 
 Unwiseman, with an affectionate glance out into 
 the kitchen, "but when I filled it up with coal, 
 and started the fire going, it was more than cor- 
 dial. Indeed before the evening was over it got 
 so very warm that I had to open the parlor win- 
 dows to cool it off." 
 
 "It's pretty nice to be home again, isn't it," 
 said Mollie. 
 
 "Nice?" echoed the old gentleman. "I can 
 just tell you, Miss Mollie Whistlebinkie, that 
 the finest thing I've seen since I left home, finer 
 than all the oceans in the world, more beautiful 
 than all the Englands in creation, sweeter than 
 all the Frances on the map, lovelier than any 
 Alp that ever poked its nose against the sky, 
 dearer than all the Venices afloat the greatest, 
 most welcome sight that ever greeted my eyes 
 was my own brass front door knob holding itself 
 out there in the twilight of yesterday to welcome 
 me home and twinkling in the fading light of day 
 like a house afire as if to show it was glad to see 
 me back. That's why the minute I came into 
 the yard I took off my hat and knelt down before 
 that old brass knob and kissed it." 
 
 259 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 The old man's voice shook just a little as he 
 spoke, and a small teardrop gathered and glis- 
 tened in a corner of his eye but it was a tear of 
 joy and content, not of sorrow. 
 
 "And then when I turned the knob and opened 
 the door," he went on, "well talk about your 
 Palaces with all their magnificent shiny floors 
 and gorgeous gold framed mirrors and hall-bed- 
 rooms as big as the Madison Square Garden 
 they couldn't compare to this old parlor of mine 
 with the piano over on one side of the room, the 
 refrigerator in the other, the leak beaming down 
 from the ceiling, and my kitchen-stove peeking in 
 through the door and sort of keeping an eye on 
 things generally. And not a picture in all that 
 9643 miles of paint at the Loover can hold a 
 candle to my beloved old Washington Crossing 
 the Delaware over my mantel-piece, with the 
 British bombarding him with snow-balls and the 
 river filled to the brim with ice-bergs no sirree ! 
 And best of all, nobody around to leave their 
 aitches all over the place for somebody else to 
 pick up, or any French language to take a pretty 
 little bird and turn it into a wazzoh, or to turn a 
 good honest hard boiled egg into an oof, but 
 
 260 
 
HOME, SWEET HOME 
 
 everybody from Me myself down to the kitchen- 
 stove using the good old American language 
 whenever we have something to say and holding 
 our tongues in the same when we haven't." 
 
 "Hooray for us!" cried Whistlebinkie, dancing 
 with glee. 
 
 "That's what I say," said the Unwiseman. 
 "America's good enough for me and I'm glad 
 I'm back." 
 
 "Well I feel the same way," said Mollie. "I 
 liked Europe very much indeed but somehow 
 or other I like America best." 
 
 "And for a very good reason," said the Un- 
 wiseman. 
 
 "What?" asked Mollie. 
 
 "Because it's Home," said the Unwiseman. 
 
 "I guess-thassit," said Whistlebinkie. 
 
 "Well don't guess again, Fizzledinkie," said 
 the Unwiseman, "because that's the answer, 
 and if you guessed again you might get it wrong." 
 
 And so it was that Mollie and the Unwiseman 
 and Whistlebinkie finished their trip abroad, 
 and returned better pleased with Home than 
 they had ever been before, which indeed is one 
 of the greatest benefits any of us get out of a trip 
 
 261 
 
MOLLIE AND THE UNWISEMAN ABROAD 
 
 to Europe, for after all that fine old poet was 
 right when he said : 
 
 "East or West 
 Home is best.'* 
 
 In closing I think I ought to say that the Un- 
 wiseman's umbrella turned up in good order the 
 next morning, and where do you suppose ? 
 
 Why up on the roof where the kind-hearted 
 burglar had placed it to protect the Unwise- 
 man's leak from the rain ! 
 
 So he seems to have been a pretty honest old 
 burglar after all. 
 
 THE END.