“THE STORY OF TUSH THE APOTHECARY, AND OF PARAVAINE HIS SISTER.”
I must tell you (said the fat young man), that I am an apothecary, and my name is Tush.
“We had a Lord Treasurer once,” interrupted the Queen, “whose name was Filch. It seemed so odd.”
My name is Tush; and this damsel, my sister, who was lately a Ragpicker, is known as Paravaine. So much for that. I now proceed to the catastrophe which begins my tale, and I hope you will pardon me if I pause at times to wipe away a tear.
We were left alone at an early age, my sister and myself, without kith or kin, and we dwelt together in the city of our birth, the city of Fadz—you have heard of Fadz? A seaport of the Kingdom of Wen, a city of ships and conversation; and in that city we dwelt quietly together, and there I kept my shop.
My sister, as you may see by looking at her, was beautiful in the highest degree; and I am bound to admit to you that she was not a little vain of her beauty, and prized admiration above all things in the world. Regarding myself, I may say that I was considered to be quite handsome, though a trifle fat.
In the art of inventing remedies I greatly excelled; and I would beyond a doubt have succeeded in my profession, but that I was much given to the making of songs and the tasting of rare dishes, and these two occupations consumed the greater part of my days. My sister, on her part, applied herself so diligently to the adornment of her lovely person before the mirror, that she had scarcely time for anything else. In consequence, my business and my house fell into neglect; and another apothecary, a tuneless fellow in a neighboring street, who knew not beef from mutton, took away all my trade. But such is the fate of your true artist, the world over.
I forgot, in the application necessary for the composition of songs, the foolish moneys which I chanced to owe here and there, and at length (so dead to the finer things of life is the coarse mind of trade), I could find no one who was willing to trust us any longer, even for the meanest knuckle of the least respectable portion of a pig. I burn with indignation when I think of it,—but I proceed.
The Misfortunes of Tush the Apothecary
I soon found out what monsters in the shape of men—However. Certain churls, men of no character, no elevation, no refinement,—forgive me; I am not quite myself; these men, if I may call them men, to whom I owed, I believe, some trifling sums of no account, came to my shop one morning in a body, fifteen or so; and if you can believe a thing so monstrous, they seized, they tore away, they loaded into oxcarts in the street, in the broad light of day, all the goods of my shop and all the furnishings of my house. I wept, I threatened, I raved; but all to no purpose. They answered never so much as a word; they departed, and left my sister and myself without so much as a chair to sit on, or one coin to jingle against another.
“Now that,” said the Queen, “was going entirely too far. However did they expect the poor man to sit down?”
One thing I entreated them to spare me, my Perfection Cream, a salve or ointment of my own invention, warranted to relieve in all cases of affliction of the skin; a remedy which I had compounded many years before, and had tried once or twice on myself with good results. Of this, having never sold any, I had on hand, in little jars, a quite considerable quantity. They left me this, with contempt; and my sister, observing it, begged them to spare to her of her own possessions one thing only, her mirror, a handglass backed with blue enamel, with a long handle of the same; and this also they granted, not without a jeer.
We sat for a long time upon the barren floor; and then we rose, and shaking the dust of the place from our feet, we departed, never to return. In a pouch at my side I carried my Perfection Cream, and in her hand my sister carried her blue mirror; and thus we went forth, to try our fortunes in the world.
We sought the wharves, designing to take ship for some distant clime; and we found, in fact, a vessel loading for a voyage. The ship’s master was sitting on a bale, directing the porters, and I addressed him politely, explaining our case. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head; but he happened to turn around and catch sight of my sister, and his manner changed. He jumped to his feet, bowed, and begged us to come aboard.
In effect, we sailed away. My heart was light again. The city faded behind us, the sunlight sparkled on the waves; and I was none the less happy because I had not the least idea where we were going. I composed a song regarding life on the ocean wave, and sang it with ecstasy, until my sister begged me to stop.
The master of the ship treated us with distinguished courtesy; I could not help contrasting his conduct with that of the cold-blooded men who had— But I resolved to think of them no more. I gave myself up to the pleasures of the voyage.
They Find Themselves on an Unknown Shore
On the third day, when we were sailing offshore in a light breeze, my sister came to me in tears. The master of the ship had demanded that she marry him, as the price of our passage. I went to him at once, and remonstrated with him patiently. It was no use. He was set upon marrying my sister. We left the matter to Paravaine herself, and she rejected the proposal with scorn. “You see!” said I, throwing up my hands in despair. “Yes, I see,” said the mariner. “You wish to go ashore. I will not detain you any longer.” The ship was brought in closer to the shore, a boat was lowered, and my sister and myself (I assure you the black-hearted scoundrel bowed to us politely to the last)—my sister and myself were landed on a sandy beach, and the ship sailed away.
“Now isn’t that a perfect shame,” said the Queen. “And such a nice young man, too.”
We stood for a time in silence, petrified with despair. A vast, treeless plain stretched away beyond the beach, far as the eye could see; there was no human habitation anywhere. Not an ounce of food nor a copper coin did we have between us,—nothing but my Perfection Cream and my sister’s blue mirror. We were at our wits’ end.
“Let us sit down and think what we had better do,” said I, and I led my sister to a brown rock embedded in the sand at no great distance. It was a large rock, round and smooth, and we sat down with our backs against it, gazing mournfully at the Great Sea, where it sparkled in the sunlight. It was a beautiful sight, and I began to think up a new song.
“I always used to say,” said the Queen, “that the sea was a very pretty thing, but the King never could abide it. He used to get so sick! And he finally declared he would never put his foot on a boat as long as he— Dear me! I remember a sailor on one of our trips who had a parrot that used to talk—Oh, dear! Such things as he did say! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! When I think of them!”
“All right, grandmother,” said Bojohn. “Go on, Solario.”
As we sat there (said the fat young man) with our backs against the brown rock, I amused myself by plucking away idly certain blades of long brown grass which fringed the lower portion of the rock near my hand; and these blades I twined, scarce thinking what I did, into a ring of a size to fit a finger. Instead of putting it on my own finger, I took my sister’s hand and placed the ring, jestingly, on the first finger of her right hand.
The Startling Effect of Making a Ring of Grass
No sooner was this done than a kind of groan came from the rock. The sand on which we sat heaved and shuddered. It rose beneath us, and we were lifted slowly into the air; and when we were higher than a man’s height above the ground we were thrown off on to the beach, and we were looking up at a monstrous creature in the shape of a man, who had risen up under us from beneath the sand. He was chocolate brown in color, and he towered above us full seven yards or more. The rock against which we had been sitting was, as we now perceived, his head; he had been lying, no doubt asleep, on his stomach under the sand, completely covered except for his head. We had been sitting above his buried shoulders, and leaning against the back of his head; and from this head, all bald but for a fringe of hair at the bottom, I had plucked the hairs which I had thought were grass.
“A genie!” I cried, and pulled my sister to her feet in fright.
The genie opened his mouth in a great yawn, and stretched his mighty arms; and as he breathed out again, jets of flame shot from his nostrils. He was bare, except for a wide cloth twisted around his middle from waist to thigh, and in the waistband he wore a long, curved scimitar, which flashed in the sun. He spread his hands out before him and bowed low.
“Were you asleep in the sand?” said my sister, recovering her wits first.
He bowed again.
“What do you want with us?” said my sister, becoming bolder.
“I await your commands,” said the genie, in a voice like the roaring of a waterfall.
“Oh!” said my sister. “Is it the ring of hair on my finger? Is that it?”
He bowed again, extending his hands.
“Then please! please! take us away from here!” cried my sister.
“What is it you seek?” said the genie.
“We seek the best thing in the world!” cried my sister. “Take us where we may find it!”
“What do you mean by the best thing in the world?” said I to my sister.
“I don’t know,” said she; “but the genie ought to know, and he’ll take us where we may find it. Won’t you?” said she, looking up at him.
“Hearing is obedience!” said the genie, and little jets of fire spurted from his nostrils.
“Where will you take us?” said I.
“I will take you where you may find the best thing in the world,” said the genie. “And if you find it, it will be the best thing in the world for me too, because it will release me from the power of the One-Armed Sorcerer, who dwells in an island far out in the Great Sea. If you don’t find it, it will be your own fault, and in that case,—beware!”
“This sounds pretty doubtful,” said I.
“No matter!” cried my sister. “We will find it. Take us there at once!”
The genie flew away with Tush and his sister
They Start Upon a Journey Through the Air
The genie stooped down over us, and under his right arm he gathered me up, and under his left arm he gathered up my sister. He stamped upon the earth so that it shook, and leaped into the air; and in an instant we were soaring over the treeless plain, and I was sick with dizziness. Higher and higher we mounted, with the speed of an arrow; we seemed to be flying straight into the face of the sun; I could no longer tell which was sea and which was plain below. I closed my eyes.
It was a long time before I opened them again. We were lower, and I could see the plain, flat and grassy, without a tree. The sun declined, and still we kept our course; I thought we should soon be at the end of the world; and still there were no trees anywhere on the plain below us.
I ached in every limb; I cried out, but the genie did not hear me; and when I was ready to faint with exhaustion his speed suddenly relaxed, and I saw, at the edge of the horizon before me, what was, or seemed to be, a city. And still there were no trees.
Scarcely a moment passed before the city rose in plain view; and with a swoop the genie descended upon the earth, and we were standing, all three of us, before a gate in the city wall, and my sister was arranging her hair before her mirror.
A tall and muscular man stood beside the gate, as if on guard. He was chocolate brown in color, and he was bare except for a wide cloth twisted about his middle from waist to thigh, and in his right hand he carried a scimitar, which flashed in the sunlight. I looked around for the genie, but he was gone.
“What city is this?” said I to the Guardian of the Gate.
“It is the City of Dead Leaves,” said the man. “What do you seek in the city?”
“We are seeking,” said my sister, “the best thing in the world. We were told that we would find it here.”
“Ah!” said the Guardian, looking at my sister. “You are she who has come to save the King’s brother. Come with me.”
He led the way through the gate, and we found ourselves in an alley of high walls, along which we followed him for some distance, coming out upon an open plot of grass, surrounded by the same high walls in a circle. As we approached it, I smelled a familiar fragrance, the fragrance of orange blossoms; and I thought with some regret of the groves upon our slopes at home.
The Orange Tree and the Panther
In the center of this plot was an orange tree. It was green with foliage and white with blossoms; the odor was delicious. Under the tree, prowling stealthily around it, was a panther. I drew back in alarm. “Do not go too close,” said our guide. “It is death to touch the tree.”
I had no desire to approach that terrible beast, and we gave him a wide berth as we proceeded around the rim of the grassplot to an opening in the opposite wall. We passed through that opening into a city street; a street of glass, as it seemed, for the front wall of every house was made of glass; and within, in every case, was a kind of storeroom, piled up with something which looked like dead leaves. In the greater houses these rooms were piled quite full; in the meaner there were only little mounds; but much or little, they appeared to be on exhibition, as if in pride.
“The treasures of our people,” said the Guardian of the Gate. “Dead orange leaves. Our most precious possession. The wealth and station of each citizen are gauged by his store of dead leaves. It is of course only proper to put them where they may be seen. But come; the King’s brother awaits us.”
I nudged my sister. “The King’s brother!” I whispered. “Here is a chance for you!” She smiled, and glanced into her mirror.
We wound through many streets of glass, and I observed that besides glass the houses contained no material but stone and metal; the absence of wood was very noticeable. We turned down a mean street toward the city wall, and came out upon a common, strewn with refuse of all kinds, and bounded on the further side by the wall. A shelter of canvas leaned against the wall, and beneath this shelter, on a pallet of straw, lay a man in rags. He raised himself on his elbow and looked up at us.
“The King’s brother,” said our guide, and I started back in surprise.
They Come Upon the King’s Brother in Rags
He was a young man, and very ugly, but not unpleasant to look at; indeed, his ugliness had something honest and winning in it; and if he had not been so ragged, he might have made a passable appearance. As it was, I laughed to myself at the thought of such a fellow in connection with my beautiful sister.
The ugly young man stood up and bowed politely.
“Is it the first stranger?” said he to the Guardian of the Gate.
“It is,” said the Guardian.
“I am content,” said the young man, casting on my sister a look of admiration.
“Fair lady,” he went on, dropping on one knee and taking her hand, “if you are not pledged elsewhere, I beseech you to accept me as a suitor for your hand. Stay; do not repulse me at my first word, but hear me further, and take time to consider. I am the King’s younger brother; and because I would not marry a lady of his choosing, he has cast me out, swearing that I shall remain in this misery unless I shall marry the first stranger who shall come to our gates. Oh, fortunate hour that brought you here the first of all! I am poor; I do not possess a single leaf; but I will devote myself to you loyally, and I do not think you will regret it. I know, having seen you, that I cannot live without you. Do not refuse me now, but at the end of a week give me your answer.”
He kissed her hand fervently, and arose. I confess that I liked this young man, but of course I could not think of marrying my sister to one so utterly forlorn. I answered for her.
“In a week I will let you know,” said I, and drew my sister away.
“Before you go,” said he, “let me give you a warning. Look at my hands.”
He held out his palms, and I saw that they were covered with a rash, red and angry-looking. He rubbed his palms together, as if to soothe an irritation.
“The itching palms!” said he. “I have handled the dead leaves all my life; and because I have handled them my palms itch, itch, all day and night, without ever a moment’s peace. I warn you not to touch the dead leaves. The dead leaves of the orange tree; do not touch them.”
“Very well,” said I, and with these words we left him.
The Guardian of the Gate, leading us back into the city streets, turned and said:
“You have just had your first chance to gain the best thing in the world. I will now give you your second. Be careful how you choose.”
We entered a street of shops; and I now noticed that the people were, each of them, rubbing their palms together, as if to soothe an intolerable itching.
I paused to look into one of the shops as we passed. The customers within were handing over to the dealer, in return for his goods, leaves, dead leaves, of the sort we had seen in the glass showrooms; and whenever these dead leaves passed from hand to hand, I remarked that the itching of the palm they touched became more exasperating, so that the people were quite beside themselves, and could not keep quiet on their feet; but the dealer nevertheless received the dead leaves eagerly, and the others gave them up with reluctance.
“These people are mad,” said I.
We joined a great rout of people, all rubbing their hands, who were pouring down a street in the direction of an open square; and when we reached it, we saw in the center, on a platform above the heads of the crowd, a man in a robe, who was evidently about to read from a paper held in his hand.
“Your second chance,” said the Guardian of the Gate. “I will leave you to your choice. Be careful how you choose.”
He turned away, and disappeared in the crowd.
“Hear ye! Hear ye!” cried the man on the platform. “A message from the King! Whereas the affliction of the itching palm has now become so grievous that it can no longer be endured, the King now offers, to such person as shall cure him, one-half of all the dead leaves in his treasury! And to him also he promises one-half of all the dead leaves belonging to each person whom he shall cure! The offer is open to all! Be diligent! Thus saith the King!”
The messenger got down, and immediately there arose near the platform a commotion, with much laughter, and those in that neighborhood began to cry out:
“Way for the Lord Buffo! Make way for the wise Lord Buffo!”
A Dwarf Clad in Motley Stands up to Speak
A singular figure now mounted the platform, facing in our direction. He was a dwarf, hunchbacked and thickset, with a very large head set deep in his shoulders, and arms which hung to his knees. His clothing was of squares of yellow and blue and green and orange, and on his head he wore a paper crown, rimmed around at the top with little bells. With his right hand he pulled up by a cord a small monkey, dressed in all respects like himself; and in his other hand he held the long tail feather of a cock.
“The King’s Fool,” said one of the bystanders in my ear.
The Fool waved the feather, and the crowd settled itself to listen.
“Hear ye! Hear ye!” he cried, in a loud, harsh voice.
At this the people shouted, “Go on, go on!”
The monkey leaped up on to the dwarf’s shoulder, and the dwarf proceeded, with the greatest gravity.
“I, Buffo, chief counselor to his most gracious majesty, King Fatchaps, do call upon you to hearken to the voice of Wisdom!”
“Wisdom! That’s good!” laughed the crowd,—never ceasing to rub their palms and dance up and down the while.
“First I must tell you, my loyal subjects, that you are all mad. Do you believe it?”
“Yes! yes! Of course!” shouted the crowd, still laughing.
“Give ear, and I will prove it to you! Thus! Answer me! Isn’t there enough in our city for all, to feed you and clothe you and shelter you and amuse you? Answer!”
“True!” cried many persons in the throng.
“Then why are there some among you who starve, and others who cast out of their abundance to the dogs? Tell me that!”
No one replied.
“Because you are mad! With the itching palm! Look at you! You can’t stand still on your feet! Rub, rub! Want in the midst of plenty! Scratch, scratch! Some with too little and some with too much! Rub, rub! And enough for everybody in reason! Scratch, scratch! All mad, all mad! Rub, rub! Look at me—have I itching palms?” He held up his hands, palms outward.
“No!” exclaimed several in the crowd.
“Tell me why! Tell me why! Because I touch not the dead leaves! Isn’t it so?”
No one answered.
“Give ear, madmen, and I will reveal to you how to cure the itching palm! Bring the dead orange leaves here to the square! Pile them up! Burn them, burn them, burn them, every one! That’s it! Will you give up the dead leaves?”
“No!” roared the people as if with one voice.
“Then farewell, madmen!” cried the Fool, and he jerked the monkey from his shoulder and descended from the platform.
The people, still rubbing their hands together and dancing, but laughing withal, rapidly left the square, and my sister and myself started to go; and as we started, the dwarf appeared before us with his monkey, and cocked his eye up at us waggishly.
“What, ho!” said the Fool. “Strangers, by the ears of a donkey! Greeting, strangers, what do you among my mad subjects?”
“To tell you the truth, my lord,” said I, making up my mind on the spur of the moment, “I have come here with my sister from a distant land, to cure the people and their King of the itching palm.”
“How so?” said the hunchback, sharply.
“With a little remedy of my own,” said I, tapping my pouch.
“Bah!” said the Fool, jerking the monkey’s cord. “Go home, madman, you are wasting your time.”
“One moment!” I said. “Conduct me to the King, I beg you. You shall see me prove my boast.”
He looked up at me sidewise. “Pouf!” said he, snapping his fingers. “Old Fatchaps is as big a fool as you are. Here; I’ll give you a chance; there’s nobody here to help me. I ask you, will you help me? I have a plan to gather the leaves together and burn them. With your help I can do it, and we will save the people together. Will you help?”
“Not I,” said I, laughing again. “The people would tear us both to pieces.”
“What does that matter?” said the Fool.
“It matters to me,” said I.
“Is that your choice?” said the Fool. “You have made your choice? Done, then. Come with me. I will take you to the King; and you will wish that I hadn’t. Oh, these fools! The time is coming when I must take the case in hand myself, all alone; for I will tell you a secret; lend me your ear.” He pulled my head down, and whispered fiercely in my ear. “I love this people, and I will save them; whether they will or no. D’ye hear? They are my people, and they must be saved! Whether they will or no! And then what a bonfire! What a bonfire!”
He jerked the monkey’s cord again, and made off swiftly. We followed him, and my sister said to me, in a low voice, “Do you think he is mad?”
“That,” said I, “is precisely what I do not know.”
Buffo the Fool Leads Them to the Palace
In a few moments we entered and crossed the grounds of an immense palace, and Buffo the Fool opened the palace door without ceremony and preceded us into a great hall, where he stopped and said:
“I must have a good look at you first. Buffino, my mirror!”
The monkey darted off down the hall and up the staircase. While he was gone the Fool said to me:
“You have seen the orange tree and the panther?”
“Yes,” said I.
“Do they worship the orange tree in your country?”
“No, no,” said I. “Orange trees are the commonest of our possessions. We have them by thousands. Their leaves are of no account.”
“So?” said he, with a look which said that he did not believe it. “We have no tree in all this city, nor anywhere in all this land, but a single orange tree. No one knows how the seed came here. We worship that tree; nothing else.”
“A very pretty sentiment,” said I. “Nothing could be prettier.”
“Hideous!” said he. “The leaves that drop from that tree and die are the cause of all our evil. We fight over them, we steal them, we waste our lives in getting them, and we suffer the agony of the itching palm when they are ours. Will you help me destroy the panther that guards the tree?”
“Certainly not,” said I with a shiver.
“You have made your choice,” said the Fool. “Buffino, give me the mirror.”
The monkey, who had now returned, handed to the dwarf a large mirror, and the Fool held it up before my sister.
Instead of the beautiful person of my sister appeared in the glass the face and figure of an old woman, bent, ugly, and wrinkled. My sister started back in dismay, and the dwarf held up the mirror before myself. It showed me a gross, puffy face with three chins and pig’s eyes, horribly repulsive. I shuddered.
“Just as I thought,” said the Fool. “Tell me now, have you seen the King’s brother?”
“Yes,” said I.
“Will you marry him?” said he to my sister.
“Oh!” said she. “How could I? I can’t say. I’m—”
“Just as I thought,” said the dwarf. “And you won’t help me cure my people. What is it you came here to seek?”
“We are seeking the best thing in the world,” said I.
“And what is that?”
“I don’t know; but we’ll certainly recognize it when we find it.”
“Not you,” said the dwarf; “not until my mirror shows you fair and comely; then you’ll know it.”
“How are we to get it to show us fair and comely?” said I.
“One of you by saving a miserable outcast, and the other by saving a whole people; then you’ll be fair and comely, inside and out, but not until then.”
“You talk in riddles, master Buffo,” said I. “Let us go to the King.”
“Madman!” said the dwarf, and gave the mirror back to the monkey, who scampered off with it and disappeared.
We followed the Fool up the great staircase and into a distant wing of the palace, and stopped at a door, on which the hunchback knocked. Receiving no answer, he opened the door and led us in. “Your majesty!” he cried.
They Find the King in a Terrible State
The King was pacing the floor, grinding and scratching his palms together, and muttering angrily to himself. He was an enormous man with a puffy, red face, a snub nose, and three chins, and he wheezed as he walked. His hair stood up on end all over his head as if it was trying to fly off. His fat legs went back and forth in a kind of tripping run, and his fat hands rubbed and scratched and slapped each other in a perfect frenzy.
“What, what!” he cried, never halting for an instant. “What’s the matter, what’s the matter?”
“Stop a minute, King Fatchaps!” said the Fool. “Here’s a madman come to cure your itching palms! Ha, ha!”
“What do you say? What do you say?” said the King, dancing along, back and forth.
“It is true, your majesty,” said I.
“You can cure me? What do you say? You’re an impostor! They’re all impostors! Can you cure me? Why don’t you do it then?”
“I understand,” said I, “that a reward is offered—”
“Well, well? What of it?” said the King, wheezing and puffing. “Half of my dead leaves! What of it?”
“The fact is,” said I, “we should prefer gold or silver.”
“Impudence!” cried the King. “Gold? Silver? What do you mean? I never heard of them.”
“He’ll take the leaves, never fear,” said the dwarf. “Oh, yes.”
“Take ’em!” cried the King. “Who is the beautiful lady? Take ’em? Dead leaves or nothing! Take ’em or leave ’em!”
It was plain that a fortune of dead leaves was as good as any other, if you only thought it so, and if these people thought it so, as they evidently did, I might as well take it.
“I am satisfied, your majesty,” said I, “and if you will hold out your palm, I will work the cure.”
The Perfection Cream Is Rubbed into the Itching Palm
The King held out his left hand as he passed, and I trotted along beside him, and drawing from my pouch one of my little jars, I applied to the King’s palm, with my fingers, a small portion of my salve, rubbing it in as well as I could; and then I ran around to his other side, and did the same for his other hand. It was rather difficult, considering that I had to trot along beside him as he tripped back and forth across the carpet.
“What, what, what! Bless my soul!” cried the King, stopping suddenly. “It feels better!”
I bowed and smiled, and Buffo the Fool said, “Mad, old Fatchaps! Both of you mad!”
“Speak when you’re spoken to!” said the King. “Who asked your opinion? Pfoo! pfoo! I haven’t any breath left! Not another word out of you, sir! I know when I’m cured! I’m no fool, I’m no fool!”
“Oh, no, not at all!” said the Fool.
“Here, you!” said the King. “Take this young man and his wife and feed ’em, and let ’em sleep in the palace. I’ll settle with ’em in the morning, if the itching’s gone. I’m no fool.”
“Not my wife,—my sister,” said I, bowing.
“What do you say?” cried the King. “Oh, that’s different!”
He bowed before my sister, and kissed her hand very respectfully.
“Bless my soul! Beautiful as a moonbeam! What do you say? Where do you come from, eh? The itching’s gone. But I’ll wait till morning. I’m no fool. Be off with you, clown, and let ’em eat and sleep in the palace. What do you say? He shall cure the whole city, and I’ll make ’em give up half of all their dead leaves to him! In the morning, in the morning! What do you say? Be off with you!”
We hastily left him, and as we passed down the hall we saw him poke his head out of the door and heard him call:
“Ho! I’m cured! Where’s that confounded chamberlain? Send me the chamberlain! What do you say? I’m cured!” And he banged the door shut again.
That night we dined sumptuously and slept in gorgeous apartments in the palace. In the morning, being once more conducted by Buffo to the King, we found him in a transport of happiness. The cure was perfect. He kissed my sister’s hand, and threw his arms about me, and cried:
“It’s yours! Half of my dead leaves, and I’ll make a Prince out of you! Not a word! What do you say? Never woke up once last night! Get to work and cure all my people. Where’s that confounded chamberlain? Get to work, get to work!”
Tush the Apothecary Takes the People in Hand
The arrangements were soon made. I took my stand on the palace steps, and all day long the people filed before me, and into each palm I rubbed a little of my salve. It was a work of days, and all business stopped until my task was done. At the end, the city was cured; never were there in this world a people so beside themselves with joy.
In the square where I had first met the King’s Fool the King caused to be thrown up, with five hundred pairs of willing hands, a vat of hardened mud in blocks, and into this vat his servants poured for me a good full half of all the dead orange leaves in his treasury, and on top of these, from each of those whom I had cured, one-half of his store of leaves; so that when all was done the vat was just half full. I was rich; richer than the King himself; and my Perfection Cream was all gone.
I hinted to the King that some kind of covering should be provided for the vat, to protect my riches from the weather.
“What, what?” said he, his face growing a trifle purple. “There’s no rain at this time of year! What do you say? All in good time! I can’t do everything in a minute!”
Now it came to pass, as you may guess, that the King grew daily more smitten with my sister’s beauty. Scarcely a day passed on which he did not visit us in the splendid apartments in his palace which he had given us for our own. His favors became more lavish as time went on; they could have only one meaning. “You shall be Queen!” said I to my sister, and she smiled knowingly.
We were expecting, one evening, a visit from the King, when the Fool entered our apartment, and behind him came, instead of the King, the King’s ugly brother. I was startled, for I had forgotten him completely.
He knelt beside my sister, and took her hand tenderly in his.
“Dear lady,” he said, “I do not blame you that you have neglected your promise. I have stolen here at great risk to lay myself again at your feet. Surely a loyal heart must weigh with you more than rank or riches. Ah, dear lady, say that you will be mine!”
I confess that there was something about this young man which made me like him better than before; but of course a match such as he proposed was out of the question.
My sister shook her head and drew away her hand. “I cannot, I cannot,” she said.
“Tell me,” he said, “do you think well of me—do you care for me a little—do you think you can say you love me, ever so little?”
“I do! I do!” cried my sister, to my amazement, hiding her face in her hands. “I loved you on the first day I saw you! I can’t help it! I do!”
“Ah, then,” said the young man, rising, while I on my part remained speechless with astonishment, “what’s to hinder? You are mine!”
“No, no,” said my sister, weeping, “it can never be.”
“Is it because I am poor and friendless?”
My sister said never a word.
“Is it because you prize rank and wealth more than love?”
Still my sister said nothing.
The young man hesitated, and stooping to kiss her hand, he said, “I have received my answer;” and with these words he strode mournfully to the door. But she did not look up at him, and with a sigh of deep grief he left us.
Paravaine Has Made Her Choice
“The wrong choice once more,” said the Fool, and he, too, went his way.
My sister had hardly dried her eyes when there came a knock upon the door behind her, and the King entered. She did not turn round, and the King tripped in silently on his toes, putting a finger roguishly to his lips and shaking all over with mirth; and coming up behind her he placed his two fat hands over her eyes, wagging his eyebrows up and down at me.
“Guess who it is!” he cried, wheezing. “What do you say? It’s somebody come a-wooing! Never mind who! Ha, ha, ha! Guess who it is, and to-morrow you’ll be Queen! What do you say? Pouf! Pah! I’m all out of breath. It’s somebody that wants you to be his Queen. Guess! The most beautiful Queen in the whole—”
He stopped suddenly. The King’s Fool and his monkey had slipped into the room behind him and were standing before my sister, and the dwarf was holding up his mirror before my sister’s face.
“What, what, what!” cried the King in a rage, taking away his hands from my sister’s eyes. “What do you mean? Out of my sight, Fool! Away! Begone!”
The dwarf held the mirror higher, shaking with laughter the while, and my sister gazed into it. I saw her shudder and turn pale, and then she screamed and buried her face in her hands.
The King, staring likewise into the mirror, turned purple and remained as if frozen with horror. He shook himself, and gave a choking gasp.
“What’s this?” he cried. “It’s the—what a— Take it away. She’s an old woman! She’s a witch! What a— I’m no fool, it’s a trick, I knew it all the time! Take her away! She’s an old woman. You can’t play tricks on me, I won’t have it, I won’t stand it. She’s a witch! I’m going. I won’t stay. It’s a trick. I’m no fool!”
With these words, puffing and wheezing, he trotted on his fat legs out of the room.
“No marriage yet,” said the Fool, looking at me queerly, and he ran after the King, pulling his monkey along with him.
He Finds Himself Rubbing His Palms Together
That night, as I stood before my mirror, undressing, and comforting myself with the thought of all the magnificence I had acquired and would acquire with my dead orange leaves, I found myself rubbing the palm of my right hand with the fingers of my left. I was aware of a slight itching in the palm.
At breakfast in the morning, I noticed that my sister, who was very sober, would now and then scratch the palm of her right hand; but I said nothing, and in the afternoon, without questioning her on the subject of her love for the King’s brother, I prepared to visit the King, to try if I could not bring him back to reason. I was ready to leave, when my sister broke into my room, crying out frantically:
“I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it! The itching in my palms! It won’t stop for a moment! I can’t sit still! It’s growing worse and worse! Oh, brother, cure it, cure it, or I shall go mad!”
She walked up and down the room in a frenzy, rubbing her palms together. I tried in vain to pacify her, and at length I left her and betook myself to the King.
On my way the itching of the night before returned, and this time I felt it in both my hands. I knew that my sister and myself, in common with the King and all his subjects, had been handling the dead leaves freely since I had worked the cure, and I began to be uneasy.
When I knocked at the King’s door the voice of the Fool said “Come in,” and I found the King running with his tripping step up and down the room, rubbing his hands, and beside him trotted the Fool and the monkey.
“Imbecile!” cried the King, without stopping for an instant. “You shall die the death! A trick, a trick! And half of my dead leaves gone for nothing! A death in boiling oil! What do you say? Don’t answer me! My hands, my hands! Worse than before! You shall suffer, you shall suffer! A slow death! Why don’t you speak? What are you going to do?”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the Fool. “He’s been handling the dead leaves again, and so have you all. It’ll be my turn soon! My turn soon!”
“Patience, your majesty,” said I, rubbing my hands. “I will go to work at once and prepare more of my salve. Have no fear. I will cure you instantly. I am off to my work.”
He Cannot Find the Ingredients for Making the Salve
“Pouf! Pah!” said the King, angrily, and I ran from the room, to find the ingredients necessary for my salve. But alas, they were not to be found. I sent everywhere; the city was scoured; but it was no use; I was in despair. Such simples as could be found I gathered together, and of these I made a new remedy,—far different from my old, but it was the best I could do. I tried it on myself, and felt an almost instant relief. I shouted with joy.
I returned to the King, and as I passed an open window in the great hall I heard the muttering of many voices outside, and I saw a great concourse of people in the palace grounds, all talking angrily, and all rubbing their hands and dancing on their toes in anguish. They began to shout my name, and I knew that if I should fall among them in their present temper I should be lost.
The King was trotting up and down as before, and the dwarf and the monkey were running along beside him.
“What, what?” he cried. “What now? No tricks! I’m no fool. What’s the matter?”
“If I cure you,” said I, holding up my box of ointment, “I must have the rest of your leaves; and from every one I cure I must have the rest of his; it is only just.”
“Anything!” cried the King. “You can’t do it! It’s another trick! I’ll give all the dead leaves in the city to anyone who can save me and my people! It’s a trick! You can’t do it. What are you waiting for? Try it! Oh, these hands! It’s no use! Hurry up!”
I seized his hand, and running beside him I rubbed into his palm a little of my new ointment; and running around to his other side I did the same for his other hand.
“See the madmen!” cried the Fool, clapping his hands in glee.
“By the beard of my uncle!” cried the King. “I feel better! It’s going! It’s gone! It’s all over! I’m cured! Oh, wonderful young man, come to my arms! What do you say? I knew you could do it all the time. I’m cured!”
He grasped my arm and pulled me from the room, and down the stairway to the front door. A great throng filled the grounds, from the door to the gate; and commanding silence, the King announced in a loud voice that I was ready with my cure, and that whoever wished to be cured should give up the remainder of his dead leaves.
There was a moment’s hesitation, but the anguish of their affliction was too great; the people whispered together, doubtless remarking that they would soon get back their leaves in trade; and at any rate they began to file before me, and my healing work commenced; but not before I had applied my salve, in sight of all, to my sister’s palms, and given her immediate relief.
All that day and the next and for several days the work continued, and in each case the itching vanished at once; the city was cured again, and my vat in the public square was filled to the brim, with all the dead orange leaves that the people owned. The glory of my future was beyond calculation; my sister, I resolved, should yet be Queen; and I planned for myself such offices in the state as should give me power even greater than the King’s.
When I awoke in my bed on the following morning, I found that I was rubbing my hands.
I dressed hurriedly, and my sister came to me in tears. She was rubbing her hands.
We hurried to the King. He was running up and down, rubbing his hands.
We fled from him and ran out upon the palace steps, not knowing where next to go; and as we stood there, hesitating, the King’s brother appeared before us, and spoke with excitement.
“Beloved!” he cried. “We love each other—what more is needed? Quick, it is not yet too late! Say that you love me—let me hear it again!”
“Ah, yes, I do,” said my sister, and he threw his arm about her and clasped her to his breast.
“Come! I will save you!” he cried. “There is time, if we hurry. Will you come with me now?”
My sister drew back a little, still struggling within herself; and while she hesitated, a commotion arose at the gate, and the young man cried out, in a voice full of despair:
“It is too late, too late!”
Tush and His Sister are Seized by the Angry Crowd
At the gate a throng of people were pressing in with angry shouts. They made toward us, dancing and rubbing their hands. They surrounded us; they crowded upon us to suffocation; the young man and myself tried in vain to shield my sister; angry hands were laid upon her and upon myself, and we were hustled away toward the gate.
“Give us back our leaves! Kill them both! To the square!” shouted the mob; and thrusting the King’s brother aside they pulled and pushed us to the public square, and halted us beneath the vat which contained all my wealth.
A sudden outcry, followed by silence, drew my attention upward. There above us, on the rim of the vat, stood the King’s Fool. He held a lighted torch aloft in his hand.
“Madmen!” he cried. “I am ready to cure you! All alone! Speak! Shall I destroy the leaves?”
“No, no!” shouted the crowd. “Stop him! Stop him!”
“If you fire the leaves, we will kill these two!” shouted one of our captors.
“Oh!” said my sister at my side, pale with terror. “What shall we do? Stop him! If the genie would only come and help us! I wish the genie were here to help us!”
“The time has come!” cried the Fool. “I must save you! Why will you all be mad? I must save you from your madness! In with the torch!”
He faced about toward the center of the vat, and swung his torch as if about to toss it in; but at that instant a great wind swept across the square with a roar, such a blast as I had never in my life known before, and the King’s Fool tottered in it for a moment, and his torch went out; and then, clutching at the air, he was blown headlong to the ground in a heap.
“The whirlwind! The whirlwind!” shouted the crowd in terror. “Fly! Fly for your lives!”
Far off across the housetops appeared a yellow cloud, and a saffron gloom overspread the city. From the cloud to the ground revolved a yellow funnel, as of dust-laden wind; and it was coming toward us with the speed of lightning.
The crowd dispersed madly, trampling one another, shrieking and cursing, and in a twinkling they were gone. I seized my sister and dragged her to the street corner, where I opened one half of a cellar door and plunged down with her, closing the door over us, but peeping out through a crack. We were just in time.
The Genie in the Whirlwind
The whirling funnel of wind and dust swept over the square; and in the forefront of it, at a great height, flew the genie, his great mouth open, and darts of fire flickering around his face.
The square was empty, save for the crumpled body of the King’s Fool, lying motionless beside the vat of dead leaves; and as I gazed at him where he lay, I saw, moving toward him across the bare pavement, the humped figure of his little monkey.
The genie, far above, kept just ahead of the whirlwind; the yellow funnel whirled after him directly across the vat and covered it and passed; and as it passed, all the dead leaves surged up into it in a furious gale, so that it was darkened with them; and the next moment the whirlwind was gone, and the square lay quiet in the sunshine.
“Come, Paravaine!” said I, and pulled my sister forth across the square.
We came to the base of the vat, and on the ground beside it, left there untouched by the storm, lay the King’s Fool on his side, graver than he had ever been in his life; and huddled against his breast sat his monkey, shivering, and looking up at us with eyes that seemed to reproach us.
We hurried toward the city gate. Many houses were in ruins, and the streets were strewn with rubbish. People were running busily about, gazing intently at the ground, and now and then one would stoop and pick up something. I saw what it was they were doing; they were searching for dead leaves, scattered by the whirlwind.
“I can’t go!” said my sister, weeping. “I must see him first! Oh, my love, my love!”
“Too late now!” I cried. “Too late, too late!”
I pulled her onward, knowing that death awaited us in that city; and we came to the plot of grass where we had seen the sacred tree. It was gone, and in the place where it had been was only a gaping hole. The whirlwind had passed that way. On the ground beside the hole lay the panther, its head on its paws. It watched us with sleepy eyes as we fled by.
In a moment we had reached the city gate and passed out. The Guardian was standing there, his face clouded with a frown, and his scimitar raised.
“Why do you flee?” said he.
“From the wrath of the people!” I cried. “Let us pass!”
“You cannot pass,” said he. His scimitar glittered in the sun.
“But we repent! We repent!” cried my sister.
“Too late, too late!” said the Guardian. “See!”
He pointed upward, and afar off in the sky appeared a black speck, speeding toward us.
“The genie!” I cried; and I had no sooner said it, than the earth trembled, and before us on the ground towered the genie, breathing fire.
“Save us from him!” I cried, turning to the Guardian, but he was gone. We were alone with the genie.
The genie swung him back and forth and tossed him out to sea
The Pulling Off of the Genie’s Ring
“Off with the ring! That will send him away!” I cried to my sister, and she tugged at the ring on her forefinger, to pull it off; but it came unwillingly; and as she pulled, her finger lengthened; she tugged harder, and as the ring came her finger stretched out longer and longer; and when the ring was off and dropped on the ground, the first finger of her right hand was more than a foot long,—a black, stiff rod, hooked at the end like a poker.
The genie stooped, and gathered me under his right arm and my sister under his left; and giving a stamp upon the ground which shook the earth he mounted into the air....
Far out over the Great Sea, as the sun was setting, the genie drew downward toward an island; and on a bluff of this island, overlooking a cove in which fishing boats lay moored, he alighted and set us on our feet. Over my sister’s head and back he passed his hand, speaking strange words in his throat. She shriveled before my eyes; her face became old and wrinkled and her body bent; and before I could speak she was the hideous creature I had seen in the Fool’s glass, with a forefinger like the poker of a ragpicker.
“Paravaine!” I cried; but the genie turned her away toward a village which showed itself at the back of the cove, and sent her off in that direction; and when she had gone, he picked me up in his mighty hands, and carrying me to the further edge of the bluff where it looked down on the rolling surf, he swung me back and forth three or four times and tossed me out to sea.
I sank into the depths; I rose to the surface; and as my head came up I looked for the genie. Far up in the evening sky flew what seemed a tiny, black arrow. I cried aloud; and instead of a shriek there came from my throat a bark. It was the bark of a seal.
THE SIXTH NIGHT
THE ENCHANTED HIGHWAYMAN
MORTIMER the Executioner, very grand and uncomfortable in his new suit, placed a chair for the Queen before Solario’s worktable, and the old tailor having seated himself cross-legged on the table, the entire company sat down in a row, facing him.
There were first the Executioner, with the tiny Encourager on his shoulder; then Bodkin; then Bojohn; then his mother, the Princess Dorobel, and his father, Prince Bilbo; and last, his grandmother, the Queen.
“Now then,” said Bojohn, “I hope we’re going to hear the story of Montesango’s Cave at last.”
“If it please your majesty,” began Solario, addressing the Queen,—but at this moment there came a loud knock at the door.
Mortimer the Executioner hastened to open it, and there in the doorway stood the King himself. Solario sprang down from his table, and all the others rose.
“Ah! your majesty!” cried Solario, bowing profoundly. “This is indeed an honor!”
“I was told I would find you here,” said the King. “It seems that my entire family deserts me in the evening, and I am obliged to climb the worst stairs in the castle to— But of course if you find my society too—”
“My dear!” said the Queen. “We have been listening to Solario’s stories, and you were so taken up with your chess that we thought you wouldn’t care to—”
“Why not?” said the King. “But of course if you don’t want me to hear the stories, I’ll—”
“Sit down, grandfather!” cried Bojohn. “He’s just going to begin.”
“Do sit down, my dear,” said the Queen. “Don’t you remember the story he told us the first night?”
“Hum! Ha! I’m all out of breath with those plaguey stairs. Something about a button, wasn’t it?”
“Perhaps,” said Prince Bilbo, “he’ll tell us to-night how the magic doublet came to be—”
“Well,” said the King, “if it isn’t a long story— Is it a long story?”
“No, no, your majesty,” said Solario, bowing again, “it is quite short.”
“Hum!” said the King. “If you’re sure it’s not a long story—Why don’t you begin?” and he sat down in the Executioner’s chair.
Solario took his place cross-legged on the table again, and the others resumed their seats before him,—all except the Executioner, who stood, with the Encourager on his shoulder, behind the King.
“My dear,” said the Queen, “did you give the orders for locking the castle for the night?”
“I believe I usually attend to that,” said the King. “Solario, proceed.”
“If it is your pleasure,” said Solario, fingering his shears, “I will now relate to you the story concerning the magic doublet, as it was told to the Black Prince by his father the King of Wen, and by the Black Prince to me. The King of Wen, having directed his son regarding his mission to the City of Oogh, placed the doublet in his son’s left hand, and thus commenced what I may call