CHAPTER XXIX.
The Bad Boy Writes from Brussels—He and Dad see the Field
of Waterloo and call on King Leopold and Dad and the King go
in for a Swim—The Bad Boy, a Dog and some Goats do the
rest.
Brussels, Belgium.—Dear Old Skate: “What is the matter with our going to Belgium?” said dad to me, as we were escaping from Germany. “Well, what in thunder do we want to go to Belgium for?” said I to dad. “I do not want to go to a country that has no visible means of support, except raising Belgian hares, to sell to cranks in America. I couldn't eat rabbits without thinking I was chewing a piece of house cat, and rabbits is the chief food of the people. I have eaten horse and mule in Paris, and wormy figs in Turkey, and embalmed beef fried in candle grease in Russia, and sausage in Germany, imported from the Leutgart sausage factory in Chicago, where the man run his wife through a sausage machine; and stuff in Egypt, with ground mummy for curry powder, but I draw the line on Belgian hares, and I strike right here, and shall have the International Union of Amalgamated Tourists declare a boycott on Belgium, by gosh,” said I, just like that, bristling up to dad real spunky.
“You are going to Belgium all right,” said dad, as he took hold of my thumb in a Jiu Jitsu fashion, and twisted it backwards until I fairly penuked, and held it, while he said he should never dare go home without visiting King Leopold's kingdom, and had a talk with an eighty-year-old male flirt, who had a thousand chorus girls on his staff, and could give the Sultan of Turkey cards and spades and little casino in the harem game. “You will go along, won't you, bub?” and he gave my thumb another twist, and I said, “You bet your life, but I won't do a thing to you and Leopold before we get out of the Belgian hare belt,” and so here we are, looking for trouble.
It is strange we never hear more about Belgium in America, but actually I never heard of a Belgian settling in the United States. There are Irish, and Germans, and Norwegians, and Italians, and men of all other countries, but I never saw a Belgian until to-day, and it does you good to see a people who don't do anything but work. There is not a loafer in Belgium, and every man has smut on his nose, and his hands are black with handling iron, or something. There is no law against people going away from Belgium, but they all like it here, and seem to think there is no other country, and they are happy, and work from choice.
“Began to sell dad relics of the Battle of Waterloo.”
I always knew the Belgian guns that sell in America for twelve shillings, and kill at both ends, but I never knew they made things here that were worth anything, but dad says they are better fixed here for making everything used by civilized people than any country on earth, and I am glad to be here, cause you get notice when you are going to be robbed. They ring a bell here every minute to give you notice that some one is after the coin, so when you hear a bell ring, if you hang onto your pocketbook, you don't lose.
This is the place where “There was a sound of revelry at night, and Belgium's capitol had gathered there.” You remember, the night before the Battle of Waterloo, when Napoleon Bonaparte got his. You must remember about it, old man, just when they were right in the midst of the dance, and “soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,” and they were taking a champagne bath, inside and out, when suddenly the opening guns of Waterloo, twelve miles away, began to boom, and the poet, who was present, said, “But hush, hark, a deep sound like a rising knell,” and everybody turned pale and began to stampede, when the floor manager said, “'Tis but the wind, or the car on the stony street, on with the dance, let joy be unconfined, no sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet, to chase the glowing hours with flying feet.”
Well, sir, this is the place where that ball took place, which is described in the piece I used to speak in school, but I never thought I would be here, right where the dancers got it in the neck. When dad found that the battlefield of Waterloo was only a few miles away, he hired a wagon and we went out there. Well, sir, of all the frauds we have run across on this trip the battlefield of Waterloo is the worst. When the farmers who are raising barley and baled hay on the battlefield, saw us coming, they dropped their work and made a rush for us, and one fellow yelled something in the Belgian language that sounded like, “I saw them first,” and he got hold of dad and me, and the rest stood off like a lot of hack drivers that have seen a customer fall into the hands of another driver, and made up faces at us, and called the farmer who had caught us the vilest names. They said we would be skinned to a finish by the faker who got us, and they were right.