The Surprising Adventures of Sir Toady Lion with Those of General Napoleon Smith

"Is which? Oh, stone-broke," laughed Cissy Carter, sitting down beside Toady Lion; "who taught you to say that word?"

"Hugh John," said the small boy wistfully; "him and me tony-bloke all-ee-time, all-ee-ways, all-ee-while!"

"Does Prissy have any of – the missionary money?" said Cissy; "I should!"

"No," said Toady Lion sadly; "don't you know? Our Prissy's awful good, juss howwid! She likes goin' to church, an' washing, an' having to wear gloves. Girls is awful funny."

"They are," said Cissy Carter promptly. The funniness of her sex had often troubled her. "But tell me, Toady Lion," she went on, "does Hugh John like going to church, and being washed, and things?"

"Who? Hugh John – him?" said Toady Lion, with slow contempt. "'Course he don't. Why, he's a boy. And once he told Mr. Burnham so – he did."

Mr. Burnham was the clergyman of both families. He had recently come to the place, was a well-set up bachelor, and represented a communion which was not by any means the dominant one in Bordershire.

"Yes, indeedy. It was under the elm. Us was having tea. An' Mist'r Burnham, he was having tea. And father and Prissy. And, oh! such a lot of peoples. And he sez, Mist'r Burnham sez to Hugh John, 'You are good little boy. I saw you in church on Sunday. Do you like to go to church?' He spoke like this-a-way, juss like I'm tellin' oo, down here under his silk waistcoat – kind of growly, but nice."

"Hugh John say that he liked to go to church – 'cos father was there listenin', you see. Then Mist'r Burnham ask Hugh John why he like to go to church, and of course, he say wight out that it was to look at Sergeant Steel's wed coat. An' nen everybody laugh – I don't know why. But Mist'r Burnham he laughed most."

Cissy also failed to understand why everybody should have laughed. Toady Lion took up the burden of his tale.

"Yes, indeedy, and one Sunday I didn't have to go to church – 'cos I'd yet up such a yot of gween gooseb – "

"All right, Toady Lion, I know!" interrupted Cissy quickly.

"Of gween gooseberries," persisted Toady Lion calmly; "so I had got my tummy on in front. It hurted like – well, like when you get sand down 'oo trowsies. Did 'oo ever get sand in 'oo trowsies, Cissy?"

"Hush – of course not!" said Cissy Carter; "girls don't have trowsers – they have – "

But any injudicious revelations on Cissy's part were stopped by Toady Lion, who said, "No, should juss fink not. Girls is too great softs to have trowsies.

"Onst though on the sands at a seaside, when I was 'kye-kying' out loud an' kickin' fings, 'cos I was not naughty but only fractious, dere was a lady wat said 'Be dood, little boy, why can't you be dood?'

"An' nen I says, 'How can I be dood? Could 'oo be dood wif all that sand in 'oo trowsies?'

"An' nen – the lady she wented away quick, so quick – I can't tell why. P'raps she had sand in her trowsies! Does 'oo fink so, Cissy?"

"That'll do – I quite understand," said Cissy Carter, somewhat hastily, in dread of Toady Lion's well-known license of speech.

"An' nen 'nother day after we comed home I went into the park and clum up a nice tree. An' it was ever so gween and scratchy. 'An it was nice. Nen father he came walking his horse slow up the road, n' I hid. But father he seen me. And he say, 'What you doing there, little boy? You break you neck. Nen I whip you. Come down, you waskal!' He said it big – down here, (Toady Lion illustrated with his hand the place from which he supposed his father's voice to proceed). An' it made me feel all queer an' trimbly, like our guinea pig's nose when father speak like that. An' I says to him, 'Course, father, you never clumb up no trees on Sundays when you was little boy!' An' nen he didn't speak no more down here that trimbly way, but laughed, and pulled me down, and roded me home in front of him, and gived me big hunk of pie – yes, indeedy!"

Toady Lion felt that now he had talked quite enough, and began to arrange his brass cannons on the dust, in a plan of attack which beleaguered Cissy Carter's foot and turned her flank to the left.

"Where did you get all those nice new cannons? You haven't told me yet," she said.

"Boughted them!" answered Toady Lion promptly, "least I boughted some, and Hugh John boughted some, an' Prissy she boughted some."

"And how do you come to have them all?" asked Cissy, watching the imposing array. As usual it was the Battle of Bannockburn and the English were getting it hot.

"Well," said Toady Lion thoughtfully, "'twas this way. 'Oo sees Prissy had half-a-crown, an' she boughted a silly book all about a 'Lamplighter' for herself – an' two brass cannons – one for Hugh John an' one for me. And Hugh John he had half-a-crown, an' he boughted three brass cannon, two for himself and one for me."

"And what did you buy with your half-crown?" said Cissy, bending her brows sweetly upon the small gunner.

"Wif my half-a-crown? Oh, I just boughted three brass cannons —dey was all for mine-self!"

"Toady Lion," cried Cissy indignantly, "you are a selfish little pig! I shan't stop with you any more."

"Little pigs is nice," said Toady Lion, unmoved, arranging his cannon all over again on a new plan after the removal of Cissy's foot; "their noses – "

"Don't speak to me about their noses, you selfish little boy! Blow your own nose."

"No use," said Toady Lion philosophically; "won't stay blowed. 'Tis too duicy!"

Cissy set off in disgust towards the house of Windy Standard, leaving Toady Lion calmly playing with his six cannon all alone in the white dust of the king's highway.

CHAPTER XXV

LOVE'S (VERY) YOUNG DREAM

CISSY found our hero in a sad state of depression. Prissy had gone off to evening service, and had promised to introduce a special petition that he might beat the Smoutchy boys; but Gen'l Smith shook his head.

"With Prissy you can't never tell. Like as not she may go and pray that Nipper Donnan may get converted, or die and go to heaven, or something like that. She'd do it like winking, without a thought for how I should feel! That's the sort of girl our Priss is!"

"Oh, surely not so bad as that," said Cissy, very properly scandalised.

"She would, indeed," said Hugh John, nodding his head vehemently; "she's good no end, our Prissy is. And never shirks prayers, nor forgets altogether, nor even says them in bed. I believe she'd get up on a frosty night and say them without a fire – she would, I'm telling you. And she doats on these nasty Smoutchies. She'd just love to have been tortured. She'd have regularly spread herself on forgiving them too, our Priss would."

"I wouldn't have forgived them," cried the piping voice of Toady Lion, suddenly appearing through the shrubbery (his own more excellent form was "scrubbery"), with his arms full of the new brass cannons; "I wouldn't have forgived them a bit. I'd have cutted off all their heads."

"Go 'way, little pig!" cried Cissy indignantly.

"Toady Lion isn't a little pig," said Hugh John, with dignity; "he is my brother."

"But he kept all the cannons to himself," remonstrated Cissy.

"'Course he did; why shouldn't he? He's only a little boy, and can't grow good all at once," said Hugh John, with more Christian charity than might have been expected of him.

"You've been growing good yourself," said Cissy, thrusting out her upper lip with an expression of bitter reproach and disappointment; "I'd better go home."

"I'll hit you if you say that, Cissy," cried Hugh John, "but anyway you shan't call Toady Lion a little pig."

"I like being little pig," said Toady Lion impassively; "little piggie goes 'Grunt-grunt!'"

And he illustrated the peculiarities of piglings by pulling the air up through his nostrils in various keys. "Little pigs is nice," he repeated at the end of this performance.

Cissy was very angry. Things appeared to be particularly horrid that afternoon. She had started out to help everybody, and had only managed to quarrel with them. Even her own familiar Hugh John had lifted up his heel against her. It was the last straw. But she was resolved to not give in now.

"Good little boy" – she said tauntingly – "it is such a mother's pet! It will be good then, and go and ask Nipper's pardon, and send back Donald to make nice mutton pies; it shall then – !"

Hugh John made a rush at this point. There was a wild scurry of flight, and the gravel flew every way. Cissy was captured behind the stable, and Hugh John was about to administer punishment. His hand was doubled. It was drawn back.