Part 4
At this point the train went crash through the end of the station—which was all filled in with glass down to the ground—sending the pieces flying in every direction. Nobody seemed to care the least for this; and as the boys looked surprised, the chairman said, “We don’t go in for class with gare here as they do on French lines. What’s the use of glass being so seasily mashed if you don’t break it?”
“It’s a gery vood arrangement, because it pets leople know there’s a train coming,” said one gentleman.
“Yes, and she’s an ice arrangement, for she bakes the station warm,” said the old gentleman; “fills him with shivers, you know.”
[Sidenote: TAKE NO NOTICE.]
The boys were getting completely puzzled, but there was no time for explanation, as the train stopped almost immediately, and everybody made a rush to get out. You never saw anything so funny as the station was. The big advertisements on the sides were either upside down or had their fronts to the wall. Only a few boards were hung right, and these were as follows:—
ANY OF THE COMPANY’S SERVANTS RECEIVING FEES OR GRATUITIES, WILL HAVE THE AMOUNT DOUBLED ON APPLYING AT THE IMPROPER DEPARTMENT.
BY ORDER OF THE MISMANAGER.
IT IS REQUESTED THAT ANY WANT OF ATTENTION BY THE COMPANY’S THUMBLERS AND CHAINDROPPERS BE REPORTED TO THIS BOARD.
_Be fair to Pickpockets._
PORTERS ARE CAUTIONED NOT TO SHOW CIVILITY TO PASSENGERS ON ANY PRETENCE WHATEVER. INFRINGEMENT OF THIS RULE WILL BE PRECEDED BY INSTANT DISMISSAL.
[Sidenote: POLITICAL PLATFORM.]
[Sidenote: MAN-TRAPS.]
[Sidenote: WAYWARD.]
[Illustration]
The great clock, instead of using his hands to show the hours, kept putting them to his nose at everybody that looked at him, and the big station-bell stuck out his tongue most impudently. The mess that took place on the platform was extraordinary—one point which Blunderland railroads have in common with common ones. The porters were tremendously busy picking their teeth and discussing the affairs of the nation, and smiled blandly to those who asked them to do anything. When at last they did move, their proceedings were of the strangest. One took hold of a lady and dragged her along the platform, singing out, “Whose baggage is this?” Another seized two fashionable young ladies, put them on his truck, and accosting an old dowager, asked, “Are these your traps, mum?” A third picked up two children by the legs, swung them over his shoulder, and asked their father, “Shall I put the small things inside the cab, sir?” The boys, seeing what a mess things were in, ran off to get out of the station as fast as they could, for they heard the station-master say that he thought they were lost luggage, and had better be locked up. They made first for a large placard marked “THE WAY OUT,” with a hand pointing on it, but found that it led into a stone wall.
[Sidenote: ALL A BOARD.]
[Illustration]
“Everything seems to go by contrary here,” said Norval; “let us take the direction that seems least likely.” So seeing a placard marked “No passage this way,” they went straight down the archway opposite it, and found themselves outside the station at once, and in a broad roadway. The foot-pavement was in the middle of the street, and the road on either side of it next the houses, which would have been very inconvenient had it not been that, as in Blundertown things are quite different from other towns, the roadway was beautifully clean. On the opposite side of the street from the station there was a building which, from its grand proportions and ornamental style, the boys thought must be a palace. As they stood looking at it, a black board, such as they had often seen used at school for writing sums on, made its appearance at the door and gravely walked down the steps. The board had two arms, one hand grasping a pointer, and the other a piece of chalk and a towel. It came forward, walking very clumsily with its wooden feet, and the whole appearance was so ridiculous that the boys could not help laughing. The board seemed to see this somehow, raised his piece of chalk and wrote on himself,
“_Do you know who I am?_”
[Sidenote: SELF-IMPORTANT FRAME.]
The boys confessed they did not. The board raised the hand with the towel and wiped himself, and then wrote,
[Illustration]
“_I am the School Board_,”
pointing to the words with a grand sweep of the stick, as much as to say, “What do you think of that?” They were not at all overawed by this great announcement, and the ridiculous flourish of the pointer made them look at one another and laugh again. At this the board looked blacker than ever, and angrily wiping himself wrote,
“_You must make a bow to the board_.”
[Sidenote: SPLITTING WITH LAUGHTER.]
“Oh, all right!” said Jaques; and they all made a low mock bow, shaking with laughter. When they raised their heads after bowing, they saw that the board was wiped again, and that it wrote,
“_If you do that you will break me_.”
“How can laughing break you?” said Norval.
“_Solvuntur risu tabulæ._ _Boards are broken with laughter._—
_Free translation._”
wrote the board.
“Well, then, we won’t any more,” said Norval; and they all kept down their laughter as well as they could.
[Sidenote: THE MEAN QUANTITY.]
“That is kind,” wrote the board. “We too often have splits in our School Boards; but as you have stopped, I feel sound again.”
“Feel sound! surely you can’t do that; hear it, you mean,” said Jaques.
_Board._—“You mean what? Finish your sentence. Boards are generally thought extravagant, and not mean.”
_Jaques._—“I don’t mean you’re mean. I mean you mean——”
_Board._—“If you are doing a verb, it is—
I mean. Thou meanest. _not_ I mean. You mean.”
_Jaques._—“But I did not intend to say that you were mean or meanest; indeed I didn’t.”
_Board._—“You said mean, didn’t you?”
_Jaques._—“Yes.”
_Board._—“And you did mean to say mean.”
_Jaques._—“Yes; but——”
_Board._—“Stop. You did mean mean when you said mean.”
_Jaques._—“Yes, but I didn’t mean——”
[Sidenote: WHINE FROM THE WOOD.]
_Board._—“Stop. If you did mean mean, how can you say that you didn’t mean?”
_Jaques._—“But when I say mean, I don’t mean the mean that you mean. You mean mean something; it’s unfair.”
_Board._—“Not by any manner of means. You need not put on an indignant mien in addition to all the other means.”
_Jaques._—“But I mean to say that I did not mean to say the mean that you mean, when you say mean, but did mean the mean that isn’t mean.”
_Board._—“Take care, young man; you will become a hopeless prodigal if you don’t look better after your means.”
How long this kind of thing might have gone on it is impossible to tell; but it was put an end to by a little boy coming out of the school, and taking the School Board by the ear, saying—
“What are you idling your time here for, sir? be off into school at once.”
“Oh dear, sir! please, sir,” whined the board, as he piped, or rather pipeclayed, his eye, “I won’t do it any more, sir. Let me off this time, sir; ah, you might, sir!”
[Sidenote: PRATING AND RATING.]
The boy let the board go, and it immediately walked its chalks into school, wiping its eyes with the towel. He then turned to our heroes, and said politely—
“These School Boards are a perfect nuisance, what with the power of rating they have got, and the power of prating they assume, things are coming to a pretty pass.”
In this our heroes thoroughly agreed with him.
“Perhaps you would like to step in and see our mode of tuition.”
They were quite proud at the idea of being treated as visitors, like the grown-up ladies and gentlemen who came to their own school, and said they would like it very much, so the boy led the way to the building.
Norval, thinking that a visitor should ask questions, said—
“What branches do you teach?”
[Sidenote: THE MODERN SCHOOL.]
“Oh, all kinds,” answered the boy. “Growing branches, green branches, lopped branches, rotten branches, branches of the service, railway branches, railway switches, courteous boughs, sprigs of nobility, and many others. Do you twig?”
“But what things do you teach?”
“We don’t teach them at all. Putting pupils up to a thing or two is not approved of.”
“But I mean what is your division of subjects?”
“We don’t cut up subjects here; we have no anatomical class.”
“But,” said Norval, who had seen an education report in a newspaper, “do you follow any standard in your teaching?”
“No, there’s no flagging with us. We try to keep in advance in our training; we go in for the truck system, so as to keep in the van.”
They were now entering one of the class-rooms, so that Norval’s questioning was brought to a close, leaving him quite as wise as he was before, for which it is to be hoped he was sufficiently grateful.
[Sidenote: FRICASSEE.]
The grammar lesson was going on, and in the course of a few minutes they had illustrations of various moods—dull moods, sulky moods, cheerful moods, rude moods, and good moods. They also learned a new point in grammar—that there are an indefinite number of cases. Norval objected when this was stated; but the teacher, who had a dominiering look, though an M A ciated Fellow, met his objection at once.
“Beg pardon, sir; we do not in our modern school submit to the teaching of old-fashioned grammars. We stick to facts, sir—to facts. Thomas, prove to the gentleman that there are more cases than are stated in the old grammars.”
Thomas, who went by the nickname of Soft Tommy—being bred though not born a duffer—tried to look crusty, and did not rise.
“Case No. 1, a case of obstinacy,” said the teacher, with a grand air. “Then there are sad cases, strong cases, long cases, card-cases, cases of conscience, cases of instruments, cases of divorce, dressing-cases, hard cases, puzzling cases, pencil-cases, cases of brandy, cases of collision, packing-cases, caucases, ukases, ca-sas——”
[Sidenote: VIRUMQUE CANO.]
How long he might have gone on nobody can tell; but the small boy that acted as conductor, seizing a cane, began belabouring the teacher with it most vigorously. The master seemed to take this quite as a matter of course (as indeed the class did also), and calmly brought his speech to a close, saying, in a voice broken by sobs, “and lastly, for the present, a case of discipline.”
[Illustration]
The smallest boy in the class now walked boldly forward, and said—
“We’ve had plenty of your cases, and, in our present mood, decline going on with this intense sort of nonsense. Give us some history; come on, old boy!” Saying this, he gave him a poke in the ribs.
[Sidenote: KNOTTY ARGUMENTS.]
Our heroes could hardly help feeling a considerably uncomfortable sensation at the thought of what would have happened behind them had they behaved to their teacher at home as the class were doing; but instead of this one acting as they would have expected, he turned and said—
“I beg your pardon, young gentlemen, if I have detained you too long at grammar.”
“Well, well, take care it does not happen again,” ran in a murmur through the class, as the boys produced their history books.
“Now then, old stick in the mud!” said the top boy to the teacher, “read us that jolly bit about the battle, and don’t make any mistakes, or you’ll catch it.” As he said this, he and all the other boys pulled out their handkerchiefs, and made them up with knots.
[Sidenote: ARMA CANO.]
The reading began; and the teacher, probably from fear, made every now and then some trifling blunder. Whenever this occurred, the whole class rushed on him and belaboured him with the knotted handkerchiefs. Our heroes were at first afraid he would be seriously hurt; but as, being a Board teacher, he paid no more attention to the blows than if he had been made of wood, they soon began rather to enjoy the scene. The history lesson was as follows:—
[Sidenote: FOOLISH FEEDING.]
[Sidenote: COMMON-COUNCIL SCREWS.]
“Hannibal, at the head of the invincible Roman legions, which had just got their rout,[5] marched on Poke Stogis. His infantry was augmented by an Amazon corps from the new British Woman’s Rights League, the special feature of which was, that it allowed talking in the ranks, and, indeed, used gossip and scandal as potent means of defeating its foes. The cavalry, who were greatly improved in musketry since one General Shoot had got the command, were mounted on highly-mettled steeds, cast by the Board of Ordnance, and splendidly broken, especially about the knees. On nearing Poke Stogis, Hannibal was met by General Wattyler, who commanded the king’s troops. Hannibal, true to the traditions of the house of Hapsburg, rode in a Magna Carta—a war-chariot invented by King John when his subjects were taking liberties—while the General bestrode a 50-inch bicycle that had been presented to him by Ptolemy on the occasion of the opening of the Fiji water-works, at which the General, who was a freemason, had, in Scotch parlance, proved himself a very wat tyler indeed. The inhabitants of Poke Stogis, as is usual in tropical countries, regaled the troops on both sides with gooseberry-fool, after which the battle commenced in a field, and in earnest. After two hours’ hard fighting, during which splendid reinforcements arrived in Hansom cabs from Connecticut and Pondicherry, and after tossing up a halfpenny to decide which army they should join, went half to one side and half to the other, an adjournment took place for luncheon, and another repast of sponge-cakes and ginger-beer was provided by the energy of the Major and Common Council of Poke Stogis, who, with that true nobility which is the best evidence of genuine rank, drew the corks with their own hands. These additional draughts added greatly to the strength of both sides, and comforted the combatants much, as they knew that those of them who might fall in the battle had their bier already provided for them. Before resuming hostilities, each commander addressed his troops in a few soul-stirring words. But small fragments of these celebrated speeches have been handed down to the present day; yet these are so valuable, that it is thought well here to reproduce them. Their noble sentiment and stirring patriotism may well cause them to be engraven upon the hearts of the rising generation. Lest any words unworthy of the rest should be inserted, it is thought preferable to leave blanks where the actual expressions are not known. Hannibal said—
[Sidenote: PRAVE ’ORDS.]
... on this occasion, it is with ... indeed, I may say ... ten thousand ... indeed, less and less ... may I not say ... words would fail me ... brave soldiers of the ... enemy ... victory is ... nay was ... perhaps may be ... disgrace ... shall add no more....
[Illustration]
“If these disjointed fragments convey so much, well might it be asked, What may not the rest have been? The reader must answer this for himself. Of General Wattyler’s speech still less has been preserved. In fact, but for forty-nine h’s, which the pious affection of the citizens of Poke Stogis collected, and preserved in carbolic acid, history would be a blank regarding it. All honour to the men who spared no labour to preserve to a grateful posterity these valuable records of a warrior and a hero. When the memory of thousands of greater places is lost in futurity, the glory Poke Stogis has haitchieved in handing down to us the droppings of a great warrior’s lips will be blazoned on the scroll of fame.
[Sidenote: WARM WORK.]
[Illustration]
“The battle having recommenced, was so hotly contested that the thermometer rose to 549 degrees of Fahrenheit, and 272 men on one side perished, drowned in the surging tide of battle; while 74 of the opposing troops were roasted (although it was Friday) before the slow fire of the enemy. Both sides won a decisive victory, and captured the whole of the enemy’s artillery. A noble pillar, 1 foot 7½ inches high, still marks the spot on which Hannibal and Wattyler adjusted the terms of the general order to the troops, thanking them in the name of King Cole (not the old one, but Parrot Cole, surnamed the Chatterer) for the glorious stampede by which they had turned the fortunes of the day. The event was celebrated in Poke Stogis by a grand illumination, in which seven bunches of dips, four boxes of Bryant & May’s matches, and two rows of fusees were expended—an extravagance not often perpetrated by a corporation so careful of the public money as that of Poke Stogis. The people shouted till they were hoarse,—they belonging to the class that cheers though not inebriates.”
[Sidenote: LIGHT CONDUCT.]
This concluded the history lesson, and the school was then exercised in prose composition. Want of space forbids the production of more than a single specimen of the papers written; but the following is a fair one:—
THEME.—_Cloe’s parents desire to wed her to Strephon, the eldest son of a noble house, and bid her accept his suit. She, being in love with Alexis, the younger son, secretly meets him. They are discovered. Cloe is rebuked for her heartlessness, and Alexis languishes in a prison.—Moral._
[Sidenote: AWFULLY NICE.]
[Sidenote: STOLEN SPOONS.]
[Illustration]
“In such a state from heat so great, Alexis groaned and Cloe moaned, as through the wood, in loving mood, they made their way, till close of day; when homeward turning with cheeks just burning, to ’scape a shower they sought a bower, in which they rested and playful jested, and did discuss, promiscuous, their hopes and fears for future years, till moon uprose and did disclose, ’neath graceful skirt, drawn up from dirt, her ankle neat near two great feet, to anxious Pa, who cried, ‘Ha, ha! I’ve found you out;’ then with a shout, flew on her swain and called his train, who held the stripling in their grip, and made him sleep in dungeon deep; while pretty Cloe wept in woe, as angry mater did soundly rate her, rustling with fuss, calling her, ‘hussey, brazen jade, wer’t not afraid? how couldst thou do’t? Lean to the suit of younger son, devoid of money! Secret wooings! Hein! pretty doings!’”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
“MORAL.—This may suffice as good advice, to lovers to keep skirts from view, and draw their toes well in _sub rosa_, when in bower at evening hour, and making spoons by light of moons.”
[Sidenote: A BORED TEACHER.]
When the prose composition was over, the teacher was about to commence another lesson, but the small boy who had been so active with the cane before, coolly walked up to the desk, took the teacher’s watch out of his pocket, and holding it up called out—
“Mischief-class hour!”
In a moment the air was full of shouts and yells, slates and books, satchells and ink-bottles. Norval and his brothers were quite picklish enough to feel tempted to enjoy the fun; but seeing that the mischief was going far beyond what ought to be joined in, he seized Jaques and Ranulf, and made for the door. Fortunately for the boys, the teacher was between them and the class on their way out; and two ink-bottles, five pieces of india-rubber, a blotting-blad, and a handful of slate pencil, that came flying in their direction, were stopped by the body of the master, who, being a Board teacher, was not, as the boys expected, floored by the missiles, but beamed pleasantly as if all was oakay, and the sensation so dealicious, that he wood like some more treemendously. Just as the boys were getting out at the door, the whole class rushed upon the teacher, and made him fast to the wall with his own nails, where he stuck with a plank look on his plane face, as if he was now bored through and through. Somehow the whole thing seemed to everybody engaged to be so ordinary an occurrence that the three boys felt no alarm, as they would have done under other circumstances; and as they got out and shut the door, had a hearty laugh at the ludicrous scene they had witnessed.
[Sidenote: MIXED STORES.]
[Sidenote: NO SHOP.]
On reaching the street they began to stroll through the town, amusing themselves by looking in at the shop-windows. There was plenty of food for merriment, as things were mixed up in a very curious way. The contents of one window were, a leg of mutton, the Children’s Friend, a bottle of senna, six farthing dips, two bunches of radishes, an oyster, a wooden leg, and a stuffed goose. In another, over which was painted upside down “Rafé and Cestaurant,” there were a millstone, a wooden shoe, three india-rubber goloshes, a can of train-oil, two white hats, a brass knocker, and a dead cat. A shop marked “Pluggist, licensed by the Packulty,” exhibited a drum, two sucking pigs, a magic-lantern, five cocked-hats, a green cotton umbrella, two packs of cards, a tin soldier, and a frying-pan. The notices in the windows were also very queer. One said, “No credit given, except without security. Any person paying ready money will be handed over to the police.” Close beside this was another: “Price down from 5s. to 7s. 9d. each.” The boys thought either sum would have been rather dear, as the ticket was upon a common peg-top, such as they had often bought for twopence. Another label bore, “Try our Totalfailure Mixture, strongly remmocended by the Boil College of Imposicians.” It would take too long to speak of all the funny things they saw; besides, it is always bad taste to talk too much “shop.” If any one would like to hear more on that subject, he has only to address a polite note to
MESSRS NORVAL, JAQUES, RANULF, & COMPANY, The Nurseryfun Works, Skrumpshustown,
enclosing five thousand stamps, when he will receive by return of post a copy of the most amusing shop-label they saw in Blundertown. If he considers the price too high, let him remember the poet’s query—
[Sidenote: AUGHT OR NAUGHT.]
“What is aught but as ’tis valued?”
and if he thinks the answer is Naught, he can judge himself what is the difference, if N y.
[Sidenote: LADY PAS LAIDE.]