THE UNWISEMAN VISITS THE BRITISH MUSEUM
"What's the matter, Mr. Me?" asked Mollie one morning after they had been in London for a week. "You look very gloomy this morning. Aren't you feeling well?"
"O I'm feeling all right physically," said the Unwiseman. "But I'm just chock full of gloom just the same and I want to get away from here as soon as I can. Everything in the whole place is bogus."
"Oh Mr. Me! you mustn't say that!" protested Mollie.
"Well if it ain't there's something mighty queer about it anyhow, and I just don't like it," said the Unwiseman. "I know they've fooled me right and left, and I'm just glad George Washington licked 'em at Bunco Hill and pushed 'em off our continent on the double quick."
"What is the particular trouble?" asked Mollie.
"Well, in the first place," began the old gentleman, "that King we saw the other day wasn't a real king at all—just a sort of decoy king they keep outside the Palace to shoo people off and keep them from bothering the real one; and in the second place the Prince of Whales aint' a whale at all. He ain't even a shiner. He's just a man. I don't see what right they have to fool people the way they do. They wouldn't dare run a circus that way at home."
Mollie laughed, and Whistlebinkie squeaked with joy.
"You didn't really expect him to be a whale, did you?" Mollie asked.