The Unwiseman

“ 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, Fizzledinkie," 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?" ”

“ With which admonition the Unwiseman turned his attention to other things.
"Is that really Eye-talian?" asked Whistlebinkie.
"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?" ”

“ 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." ”

“ The Duke of Me—how would that sound, Mollie?"
"Oh it would be perfectly beautiful!" cried Mollie overwhelmed by the very thought of anything so grand.
"Or Baron Brains—eh?" continued the Unwiseman.
"That would just suit you," giggled Whistlebinkie. "Barren Brains is you all over."
"Thank you, Fizzledinkie," said the Unwiseman. "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. ”

“ 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 severely. "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. ”

“ Before long I had written thirty yards of poetry, and just as I had finished what I thought was a fair day's work, up comes that horrid Gyp and prances the whole thing into nothing."
"Dear me!" said Whistlebinkie. "That was too bad."
"Wasn't it!" sighed the Unwiseman. "It was such a beautifully long poem—and what's more, it isn't easy work. It's almost as hard as shoveling snow, only, of course, you get better pay for it."
"You can rewrite it, can't you?" asked Mollie, gazing sadly at the havoc Gyp had wrought in the Unwiseman's work. ”

“ The Unwiseman.
Whistlebinkie was rolling on the floor convulsed with laughter by the time Mollie finished reading these rules. He knew enough about house-keeping to know how delightful they were, and if the Unwiseman could have seen him he would doubtless have been very much pleased at his appreciation.
"The funny part of it all is, though," said Mollie, "that the poor old man doesn't keep a cook at all, but does all his own housework." ”

“ The first place we must go to is the home of the Unwiseman."
"The what?" demanded Mollie.
"The Unwiseman. He's an unwiseman who doesn't know anything," explained Bopeep. "The rules require that we go to him [Pg 19] first and ask him if he knows where the sheep are. He'll say he doesn't know, and then we'll go on to the little old woman who lives under the hill. She'll know where they are, but she'll tell us wrong. Hi! Whistlebinkie and Flaxilocks! Turn off to the left, and stop at that little red house under the oak tree."
"There isn't any little red house under the oak tree," said Mollie. ”

“ 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. "Whistlebinkie and I are all dressed." ”

“ 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 Unwiseman'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 isn't any use of living like a prince for five minutes and then starving to death for seven weeks, six days, twenty-three hours, and fifty-five minutes."
Here the Unwiseman opened the drawer of his table and took out the eclaire 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 hard work the first day to keep from nibbling it up too fast, but the second day it's easier, and so it goes all along until you get to the fourth week, and then you don't mind only taking a nibble. ”

“ Unwiseman," said Mollie. "He isn't paid for opening the front door. He just does it for fun."
"Oh! well, that's different," said the proud visitor. "If he does it just for fun I can afford to recognize him—though I must say I can't see what fun there is in opening front doors. How do you do, Whistlebinkie?"
"Pretwell," said Whistlebinkie. "How are you?"
"I hardly know what to say," replied the Unwiseman, scratching his head thoughtfully. "You see, Miss Mollie, when I got up my conversation for this call I didn't calculate on Whistlebinkie here. ”

“ What could I do?"
"But you haven't been throwing stones at anybody's pet tiger, have you?" asked Mollie.
"Not while I was awake, but I may have done it in my sleep, you know."
"Not while I was awake," said the Unwiseman. "But I may have done it in my sleep, you know. People do lots of things in their sleep that they never do while awake. They snore, for instance; and one man I know, who always rides when he is awake, walks in his sleep."
[Pg 38]
"Let's try it, anyway," said Whistlebinkie. "It may be that there won't be any trouble, after all."
"Very well," assented the Unwiseman. ”

“ 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 Britannia 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. ”

“ You don't make things last as you should ought to."
"Excuse me," interrupted Whistlebinkie, [Pg 184] who had been criticized so often 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 go outside and speak it."
"It's nice enough for me," retorted the Unwiseman. "And as this is my house I have a right to choose the language I speak here. If you want to speak some other language, you can go outside and speak it." ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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?"
[Pg 187]
"I'm doing it all the time," said the Unwiseman. "Whenever anything happens that I don't like I sit down and write a terrible letter to the people that do it. ”

“ It was an interesting trip but poor little Mollie [Pg 79] 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'll-turn-up orright," whistled Whistlebinkie comfortingly. "He knows a thing or two even if he is an Unwiseman." ”

“ 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 having him do so. In the afternoon the fog lifted and the Unwiseman returned. ”

“ Other people know things, and it always makes them proud, and I don't like proud people."
"I hope you like me," said Mollie, softly.
"Yes, indeed, I do," cried the Unwiseman. "I like you and Whistlebinkie very much, because you don't either of you know anything either, and so, of course, you aren't stuck up like some people I meet who think just because they know the difference between a polar bear and a fog horn while I don't that they're so much better than I am. ”

“ 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 Unwiseman were only an Englishman he might even become Prime Minister." ”

“ Whistlebinkie said he thought that was a very good idea, because there could not be any doubt that it would be extremely awkward for any man, wise or unwise, to have an oak tree sprouting up inside of him.
"What are you so anxious to know about my house for?" asked the Unwiseman, suddenly stopping short in his work with the teaspoon. "You don't want to rent it for the summer, do you?"
"Whistlebinkie and I have come down to call upon you, that's all," explained Mollie.
"Well now, really?" said the Unwiseman, rising, and dropping the teaspoon. "That's [Pg 35] too bad, isn't it? ”

“ When the Unwiseman came out of the carpet-bag again the travellers had reached Switzerland. Every effort that Mollie and Whistlebinkie 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." ”

“ It's rather a wonderful age, don't you think so?"
"It certainly is," said the new doll.
"But then you are a wonderful man," said Mollie.
The Unwiseman drops words out of his vocabulary.
"True," said the Unwiseman, reflectively. "I am wonderful. Sometimes I spend the whole night full of wonder that I should be so wonderful. I know so much. Why, I can read French. ”

“ Poor Whistlebinkie squeaked out an apology and subsided.
"Pleasure ought to be spread."
"Take bananas, for instance," said the Unwiseman, not deigning to notice Whistlebinkie'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 a nibble tastes just as good as a bite, and by nibbling you can get so many 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 244] 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!" ”

“ 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. ”