“Oh, dear! I didn’t mean that,” cried Chimborazo hastily; and again the inexorable bell rang, and he knew that another hole was punched in the fatal cardboard. He pressed his lips firmly together, and did not open them again except to say “Good-night,” until he was safe in his own room. Then he hastily drew the hated bell-punch from his pocket, and counted the holes in the strip of cardboard; there were forty-three! “Oh, dear!” cried the boy, forgetting himself again in his alarm, “only two more! Oh, dear! oh, DEAR! I’ve done it again! oh——” “Ting! ting!” went the bell-punch; and the cardboard was punched to the end. “Oh, dear!” cried Chimborazo, now beside himself with terror. “Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear!! what will become of me?”
A strange whirring noise was heard, then a loud clang; and the next moment the bell-punch, as if it were alive, flew out of his hand, out of the window, and was gone!
Chimborazo stood breathless with terror for a few minutes, momentarily expecting that the roof would fall in on his head, or the floor blow up under his feet, or some appalling catastrophe of some kind follow; but nothing followed. Everything was quiet, and there seemed to be nothing to do but go to bed; and so to bed he went, and slept, only to dream that he was shot through the head with a bell-punch, and died saying, “Oh, dear!”
The next morning, when Chimborazo came downstairs, his father said, “My boy, I am going to drive over to your grandfather’s farm this morning; would you like to go with me?”
A drive to the farm was one of the greatest pleasures Chimborazo had, so he answered promptly, “Oh, dear!”
“Oh, very well!” said his father, looking much surprised. “You need not go, my son, if you do not want to. I will take Robert instead.”
Poor Chimborazo! He had opened his lips to say, “Thank you, papa. I should like to go very much!” and, instead of these words, out had popped, in his most doleful tone, the now hated “Oh, dear!” He sat amazed; but was roused by his mother’s calling him to breakfast.
“Come, Chimbo,” she said. “Here are sausages and scrambled eggs: and you are very fond of both of them. Which will you have?”