AN EXTRA HAND.
HONOUR BRIGHT.
The herald having completed the reading of the proclamation, evidently expected that, the proper time having now arrived, his trumpeters would blow a vigorous flourish, as in duty bound; but instead of this there was dead silence, all the trumpeters standing stock-still, with their hands hanging at their sides, and mouths wide open. At this the herald got white with passion, the choler rose so at his throat that he could bear it no longer, but cut up rough, the cuffs flying from him in showers, till at last he burst the bladder with a terrific bang on the nose of No. 1, who took no more notice than if he had been made of gutta-percha. The herald calmed down as suddenly as he had flared up, and after looking at the motionless figures for a moment, quietly remarked, “Oh, I’m in no hurry, I can wait,” produced from the pocket of one of his many trouser-legs a copy of ‘Enquire within upon Everything’—a book much studied in Blunderland—and commenced reading, evidently in the hope that he might in course of time come upon a receipt that would enable him to settle the hash of his saucy attendants. The trumpeters could have borne any amount of violence, but the herald’s tactics were too much for them; so before he could get his spectacles adjusted to commence reading, they all placed their trumpets to their mouths, and blew a most elegant tootle-ootle, at which the herald, smiling sweetly, turned and said, “Thanks, thanks, my children!” and producing a box from another pocket, handed each of them a stick of barley-sugar. Now no one will think it surprising that the sight of a free distribution of barley-sugar should be rather exciting to three small boys like our heroes. And although they had been well taught that little men should not thrust themselves on people to ask for things, still, being in Blunderland, it is not strange that they should be a little infected by the character of the country, and do what would have been not at all good manners anywhere else. So Jaques, taking advantage of his long arms, unwound one of them, and passing it round to the back of the trumpeters, thrust it out between two of them. The herald, quite unsuspecting, placed in it a stick of barley-sugar, when it was instantly withdrawn, and Jaques handed the barley-sugar to his elder brother. Repeating the process, he succeeded in getting sticks for Ranulf and for himself, the herald being in great astonishment, as he found that though he had given out more than six sticks, and the trumpeters were all sucking away furiously, there was always an empty hand stretched out from some quarter or another for more. Looking behind the trumpeters, all he could see was what he took to be a garden watering-pipe lying on the ground, but which was in reality Jaques’ arm. Not to be beaten, he muttered to himself that he would go on till he found it out; so, to the boys’ great delight, kept putting sticks into Jaques’ hand, until his box was empty and their pockets full. They felt, however, when all was over, that while it might not be of great consequence, still, to be little gentlemen as they ought, they must not leave matters unexplained; so, after a short consultation how it was to be done, Jaques’ hand again appeared between the trumpeters holding all the sticks of barley-sugar, minus one little bit that Ranulf, with a haste excusable at six years, but no longer, had nibbled off, and a voice behind the herald said, “Please sir, may we have them?” Turning round, he saw the three boys, and gazing at them with their coils, exclaimed in amazement—
“Why, you must be three rolls of endless wax-taper out for a walk!”
WHAT’S YOUR LITTLE GAME?
“Oh no; we aren’t tapirs,” said Ranulf, who, having a recollection of a beast with a long snout in his animals-book, thought this was a reflection on his nose. He felt very much inclined to put his fingers to it; but a sense of propriety, and a difficulty in finding the point of it among the folds, combined to restrain him.
“Then if you’re not tapers,” said the herald, “you must be sons of a gun, built on the coil system—Armstrong’s patent, eh? or perhaps you are in the still line?”
“Nurse never thinks so,” said Jaques. “She says she would like to see a little more of the still about us—that we are too full of good spirits.”
A POSER.