Mollie and the Unwiseman Abroad

"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 anything 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 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 harangue, the Unwiseman, 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?"

"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 business."

"Junk indeed!" cried the Unwiseman, jumping 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 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 Germany, 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 tell him that the next time he wants to collect his salary from me, I'll take it as a personal favor if he'll come himself and not send Uncle Sam Maginnis after it. I can stand a good deal for my country's sake but when a Custom House inspector prys into my private affairs and then calls them junk just because the President needs a four and a quarter thousandth of a cent, it makes me very, very angry. It's been as much as I could do to keep from saying 'Thunder' ever since I landed, and that ain't the way an American citizen ought to feel when he comes back to his own beautiful land again after three months' absence. It's like celebrating a wanderer's return by hitting him in the face with a boot-jack, and I don't like it."

The window was opened and with much deliberation the Unwiseman despatched his message to the President, announcing his return and protesting against the tyrannous behavior of Mr. Maginnis, the Custom House Inspector, after which the little party continued on their way until they reached their native town. Here they separated, Mollie and Whistlebinkie going to their home and the Unwiseman to the queer little house that he had left in charge of the burglar at the beginning of the summer.

"If I ever go abroad again," said the Unwiseman at parting, "which I never ain't going to do, I'll bring a big Bengal tiger back in my bag that ain't been fed for seven weeks, and then we'll have some fun when Maginnis opens the bag!"

XV

HOME, SWEET HOME

"Hurry up and finish your breakfast, Whistlebinkie," said Mollie the next morning after their return from abroad. "I want to run around to the Unwiseman's House and see if everything is all right. I'm just crazy to know how the burglar left the house."

"I-mall-ready," whistled Whistlebinkie. "I-yain't-very-ungry."

"Lost your 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, Whistlebinkie?" said Mollie.

"Oh – I'm made o'rubber and my stummick is very 'lastic," explained Whistlebinkie.

So hand in hand the little couple made off down the road to the pleasant spot where the Unwiseman's house stood, and there in the front yard was the old gentleman himself talking to his beloved boulder, and patting it gently as he did so.

"I'm never going to leave you again, Boldy," he was saying to the rock as Mollie and Whistlebinkie came up. "It is true that the Rock of Gibraltar is bigger and broader and more terrible to look at than you are but when it comes right down to business it isn't any harder or to my eyes any prettier. You are still my favorite rock, Boldy dear, so you needn't be jealous." And the old gentleman bent over and kissed the boulder softly.

"Good morning," said Mollie, leaning over the fence. "Whistlebinkie and I have come down to see if everything is all right. I hope the kitchen-stove is well?"

"Well the house is here, and all the bric-a-brac, and the leak has grown a bit upon the ceiling, and the kitchen-stove is all right thank you, but I'm afraid that old burgular has run off with my umbrella," said the Unwiseman. "I can't find a trace of it anywhere."

"You don't really think he has stolen it do you?" asked Mollie.

"I don't know what to think," said the Unwiseman, shaking his head gravely. "He had first 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?"

"O I forgot," laughed the old gentleman gaily. "It's around on the other side of the house – come on around and see it."

The callers walked quickly around to the rear of the Unwiseman's house, and there, hanging over the kitchen door, was a long piece of board upon which the Unwiseman had painted in very crooked black letters the following words:

THE BRITISH MUSEUM JUNIOR

Admishun ten cents. Exit fifteen cents

Burgulars one umbrella

THE FINEST COLECTION OF ALPS AND SOFORTHS

ON EARTH

CHILDREN AND RUBER DOLLS FREE ON SATIDYS

"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 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 Squizzledinkie 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 Whistlebinkie.

"Come in and see the exhibit," said the Unwiseman proudly.

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 contents, 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 myself 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, inspecting it with a critical air after the manner of one who was an expert in soils.

"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 bake-shop, just for the purpose of bringing 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."