Mollie and the Unwiseman Page 10

  X. The Unwiseman's Luncheon.In which the Unwiseman makes some sensible remarks on eating.

  "Whistlebinkie,"]

  said Mollie, one morning in the early spring, "it's been an awful longtime since we saw the Unwiseman."

  "Thasso," whistled Whistlebinkie. "I wonder what's become of him."

  "I can't even guess," said Mollie. "I asked papa the other morning if hehad seen any of his poetry in print and he said he hadn't so far as heknew, although he had read several books of poetry lately that soundedas if he'd written them. I say we go out and try to find him."

  "Thasoots me," said Whistlebinkie.

  "What's that?" said Mollie. "You still talk through the top of your hatso much that I really can't make out what you say half the time."

  "I forgot," said Whistlebinkie, meekly. "What I meant to say was thatthat suits me. I'd like very much to see him again and hear some of hispoetry."

  "I don't much think he's stayed in that business," observed Mollie."He's had time enough to be in sixteen different kinds of businessessince we saw him, and I'm pretty certain that he's tried eight of themany how."

  "I guess may be so," said Whistlebinkie. "He's a great tryer, that oldUnwiseman."

  Mollie donned her new spring hat and Whistlebinkie treated his face andhands to a dash of cold water, after which they started out.

  "It's the same old question now," said Mollie, as she stood on thestreet corner, wondering which way to turn. "Where would we better go tofind him?"

  "Well, it seems to me," said Whistlebinkie, after a moment's thought,"it seems to me that we'd better look for him in just the same place hewas in the last time we saw him."

  "I don't see why," returned Mollie. "We never did that before."

  "That's why," explained Whistlebinkie. "He's such an unaccountable oldman that he's sure to turn up where you least expected him. Now, as Ilook at it, the place where we least expect to find him is where he wasbefore. Therefore I say let's go there."

  "You're pretty wise after all, Whistlebinkie," said Mollie, with anapproving nod. "We'll go there."

  And it turned out that Whistlebinkie was right.

  The house of the Unwiseman was found standing in precisely the sameplace in which they had last seen it, but pasted upon the front door wasa small placard which read, "Gawn to Lunch. Will be Back in EightWeeks."

  "He must be fearfully hungry to go to a lunch it willtake that long to eat."]

  "Dear me!" cried Whistlebinkie, as Mollie read the placard to him. "Hemust have been fearfully hungry to go to a lunch it will take that longto eat."

  Mollie laughed. "I guess maybe I know him well enough to know what thatmeans," she said. "It means that he's inside the house and doesn't wantto be bothered by anybody. Let's go round to the back door and see ifthat is open."

  This was no sooner said than done, but the back door, like the first,was closed. Like the front door, too, it bore a placard, but this oneread, "As I said before, I've gone to lunch. If you want to know whenI'll be back, don't bother about ringing the bell to ask me, for I shallnot answer. Go round to the front door and find out for yourself. Yourstooly, the Unwiseman. P. S. I've given up the potery business, so ifyou're a editor, I don't want to see you any how; but if your name'sMollie, knock on the kitchen window and I'll let you in."

  "I thought so," said Mollie. "He's inside."

  Then the little girl tiptoed softly up to the kitchen window and peepedin, and there the old gentleman sat nibbling on a chocolate eclaire andlooking as happy as could be.

  Mollie tapped gently on the window, and the Unwiseman, hurriedlyconcealing his half-eaten eclaire in the folds of his newspaper, lookedanxiously toward the window to see who it might be that had disturbedhim. When he saw who it was his face wreathed with smiles, and rushingto the window he threw it wide open.

  "Come right in," he cried. "I'm awfully glad to see you."

  "I can't climb in this way," said Mollie. "Can't you open the door?"

  "Can't possibly," said the Unwiseman. "Both doors are locked. I've lostthe keys. You can't open doors without keys, you know. That's why I lostthem. I'm safe from burglars now."

  "But why don't you get new keys?" said Mollie.

  "What's the use? I know where I lost the others, and when my eightweeks' absence is up I can find them again. New keys would only costmoney, and I'm not so rich that I can spend money just for the fun ofit," said the Unwiseman.

  "Then, I suppose, I can't come in at all," said Mollie.

  "Oh, yes, you can," said the Unwiseman. "Have you an Alpine stock?"

  "What's that?" said Mollie.

  "Ho!" jeered the Unwiseman. "What's an Alpine stock! Ha, ha! Not to knowthat; I thought little girls knew everything."

  "Well, they do generally," said Mollie, resolved to stand up for herkind. "But I'm not like all little girls. There are some things I don'tknow."

  "I guess there are," said the Unwiseman, with a superior air. "You don'tknow what rancour means, or fixity, or garrulousness."

  "No, I don't," Mollie admitted. "What do they mean?"

  "I'm not in the school-teacher business, and so I shan't tell you," saidthe Unwiseman, with a wave of his hand. "Besides, I really don't knowmyself--though I'm not a little girl. But I'll tell you one thing. AnAlpine stock is a thing to climb Alps with, and a thing you can climb anAlp with ought to help you climbing into a kitchen window, becausekitchen windows aren't so high as Alps, and they don't have snow on 'emin spring like Alps do."

  "Oh," said Mollie. "That's it--is it? Well, I haven't got one, and Idon't know where to get one, so I can't get in that way."

  "Then there's only two things we can do," observed the Unwiseman."Either I must send for a carpenter and have him build a new door orelse I'll have to lend you a step-ladder. I guess, on the whole, thestep-ladder is cheaper. It's certainly not so noisy as a carpenter.However, I'll let you choose. Which shall it be?"

  "The step-ladder, I guess," said Mollie. "Have you got one?"

  "No," returned the Unwiseman; "but I have a high-chair which is just asgood. I always keep a high-chair in case some one should bring a babyhere to dinner. I'd never ask any one to do that, but unexpected thingsare always happening, and I like to be prepared. Here it is."

  Saying which the Unwiseman produced a high-chair and lowered it to theground. Upon this Mollie and Whistlebinkie climbed up to thewindow-ledge, and were shortly comfortably seated inside this strangeold man's residence.

  "I see you've given up the poetry business," said Mollie, after a pause.

  "Yes," said the Unwiseman. "I couldn't make it pay. Not that I couldn'tsell all I could write, but that I couldn't write all that I couldsell. You see, people don't like to be disappointed, and I had todisappoint people all the time. I couldn't turn out all they wanted. Twomagazine editors sent in orders for their winter poetry. Ten tons apiecethey ordered, and I couldn't deliver more than two tons apiece to 'em.That made them mad, and they took their trade elsewhere--and so it went.I disappointed everybody, and finally I found myself writing poetry formy own amusement, and as it wasn't as amusing as some other things, Igave it up."

  "But what ever induced you to put out that sign, saying that youwouldn't be back for eight weeks?" asked Mollie.

  "I didn't say that," said the Unwiseman. "I said I _would_ be back _in_eight weeks. I shall be. What I wanted was to be able to eat my lunchundisturbed. I've been eating it for five weeks now, and at the end ofthree weeks I shall be through."

  "It musterbin a big lunch," said Whistlebinkie.

  "I don't know any such word as musterbin," said the Unwiseman, severely;"but as for the big lunch, it was big. One whole eclaire."

  "I could eat an eclaire in five seconds," said Mollie.

  "No doubt of it," retorted the Unwiseman. "So could I; but I know toomuch for that. I believe in getting all the enjoyment out of a thingthat I can; and what's the sense of gobbling all the pleasure out of aneclaire in five seconds when you can spread it over eight weeks? That'
sa queer thing about you wise people that I can't understand. When youhave something pleasant on hand you go scurrying through it as thoughyou were afraid somebody was going to take it away from you. You don'tmake things last as you should ought to."

  "Excuse me," interrupted Whistlebinkie, who had been criticized sooften about the way he spoke, that he was resolved to get even. "Is'should ought to' a nice way to speak?"

  "If you want to speak some other language, you can gooutside and speak it."]

  "It's nice enough for me," retorted the Unwiseman. "And as this is myhouse I have a right to choose the language I speak here. If you want tospeak some other language, you can go outside and speak it."

  Poor Whistlebinkie squeaked out an apology and subsided.

  "Pleasure ought to be spread."]

  "Take bananas, for instance," said the Unwiseman, not deigning to noticeWhistlebinkie's apology. "I dare say if your mother gives you a banana,you go off into a corner and gobble it right up. Now I find that anibble tastes just as good as a bite, and by nibbling you can get somany more tastes out of that banana, as nibbles are smaller than bites,and instead of a banana lasting a week, or two weeks or eight weeks,it's all gone in ten seconds. You might do the same thing at thecircus and be as sensible as you are when you gobble your banana. If theclown cracked his jokes and the trapezuarius trapozed, and the elephantsdanced, and the bare-back riders rode their horses all at once, you'dhave just as much circus as you get the way you do it now, only itwouldn't be so pleasant. Pleasure, after all, is like butter, and itought to be spread. You wouldn't think of eating a whole pat of butterat one gulp, so why should you be greedy about your pleasure?"

  "Thassounds very sensible," put in Whistlebinkie.

  "It is sensible," said the Unwiseman, with a kindly smile; "and that iswhy, having but one eclaire, I make it last me eight weeks. There isn'tany use of living like a prince for five minutes and then starving todeath for seven weeks, six days, twenty-three hours, and fifty-fiveminutes."

  Here the Unwiseman opened the drawer of his table and took out theeclaire to show it to Mollie.

  "It doesn't look very good," said Mollie.

  "That's true," said the Unwiseman; "but that helps. It's awfully hardwork the first day to keep from nibbling it up too fast, but the secondday it's easier, and so it goes all along until you get to the fourthweek, and then you don't mind only taking a nibble. If it stayed goodall the while, I don't believe I could make it last as long as I wantto. So you see everything works for good under my system of luncheoning.In the first place the pleasure of a thing lasts a long time; in thesecond, you learn to resist temptation; in the third place, you avoidgreediness; and last of all, after a while you don't mind not beinggreedy."

  "The old gentleman put the eclaire away."]

  With this the old gentleman put the eclaire away, locked the drawer, andbegan to tell Mollie and Whistlebinkie all about the new business he wasgoing into.