“Indeed! what a pity!” said Mrs. Schwarmer in the same even tone that left one in doubt as to where her pity came in, as she went into an adjoining room to have another consultation with the Librarian, after which she rustled out to her carriage and drove swiftly away.
“I am going to take you home in my phaeton when you are ready to go,” said Adelaide; “but you must see the rare books first.”
“Certainly,” replied Ruth, “and I would like to do something to help you, and perhaps I can.”
“It would help me to have you here, to see you and talk with you,” replied Adelaide; “but you must not climb or reach or handle the heavy books. It isn’t necessary. I can climb like a cat, and I know some nice boys who would handle them as carefully as you or I or mamma. It’s all moonshine, what the Librarian says about them. They will have to be handled by anybody who chooses, if they are going to be of any use to the town.”
“Ralph would be delighted to help—help climb,” laughed Ruth, “I know he would. Then how about the catalogues? I can write fairly well—so my husband says?”
“Oh I’m so glad, Mrs. Ruth. Pardon, let me call you Ruth. It’s such a pretty name. I write a horrid hand. Besides, I want your company. Mamma is going to be awfully busy up to the house, and Mr. Bombs is coming back in a few days. May I drive around for you every morning at ten o’clock?”
“Yes indeed you may,” replied Ruth. “I shall be delighted to come and be with you and help you and talk with you, I’m sure I shall. We think alike about so many things—about monstrous celebrations and dangerous fireworks and the burning up of money, when so much is needed to make the poor comfortable, and improve the world. As though there were not sad accidents enough in the world without going to work and making accidents. Only think of the poor people of Martinique! Only just recovered from the catastrophe of Mont Pelee when a hurricane comes and sweeps away their homes again! I wonder the horrible Fire-kings don’t go over there and try to amuse the people with a Mont Pelee eruption! This making sport out of such terrible happenings seems to be the rage just now.”
“King Pang has invented a Mont Pelee firecracker,” said Adelaide; “and a huge noise-maker it is—fifteen feet long and explodes fifty times! Do you know we visited him when we were in London and I didn’t like him at all, though he is awful rich and entertained us splendidly. He invents fiery shows and goes all over the world to pile up money out of them, although he is worth millions already.”
“Please tell me about him,” exclaimed Ruth eagerly. “I wonder if he is the one that I heard so much boasting about in Canada. The one that wooled the Americans into buying their ‘Independence Day annihilators’ of him they said. Those horrible cannon crackers, and things of that sort which kill and maim so many every year—dangerous things that never ought to be manufactured or sold in any country under the heavens. He seems like an arch-fiend to me.”
“He is as proud as Lucifer anyway,” replied Adelaide. “The whole family are as proud as they can be. They have a coat of arms and everything as magnificent as the royal family.”