Meanwhile Alexander Jones sat quiet in a corner and said nothing.
They all agreed in one thing, which was that the question was of too deep importance to be left unsettled. So the mayor called a meeting of the whole populace in the town hall. The people assembled, and Alexander Jones was there among the rest, and the only persons not there were Peter the watchman and his sister Jessica. Then the mayor told all about the dispute, and everyone was naturally much interested. But one took one view, and another took another view, and they all wanted to run around a table to show how each thought the sun moved. Here, however, a difficulty arose, for, alas! there was no table in the town hall to run around, and what were they to do? They were not going to be balked by a trifle like that, not they. So they requested the mayor to stand in the middle, and let them all run around him, each in the direction he or she pleased.
But the mayor objected strongly. He said it would make him dizzy to see some folks going one way around him, and some the other. “I would certainly be sick,” he declared. “Therefore, I suggest that Alexander Jones be placed in the middle. Yes, why could we not run around him? Better make use of him, he is so stupid and says nothing. Besides, I want to run around with the rest of you myself, and why should I be cut out?”
“No, no, no!” cried the people, “Alexander Jones is too small, and we should tread on him. He would not do at all.”
They insisted that the mayor must do as he had been asked. Hadn’t they only the other day given him a gold badge to wear, and he must make them some return for it, or they would take it away. So the poor man had to give in, but he insisted on having his eyes bandaged, and also on having a chair to sit in. Otherwise, he knew he would be sick. Then they bandaged his eyes, seated him in a chair, and began to run around him, some this way, crying, “East!” and some the opposite way, crying, “West!” But they only got very giddy, and banged each other’s heads, a thing which hurt and did not improve their tempers or help solve the difficulty. Worst of all, just at the end, when they could run no longer and were quite out of breath, Eliza MacFadden, the fat widow who kept the candy shop, fell plump against the mayor, and sent him and his chair tumbling to the floor.
Meanwhile Alexander Jones sat quiet in a corner and said nothing.
The mayor pulled the bandage off his eyes in a towering passion and declared that something must be settled there and then. He threatened, if they did not agree, he would put a tax on buttons, which was rather clever of him, for everyone, old and young, male and female, wore buttons, and would feel the tax. But he himself would be affected by it less than anyone else because he wore a robe, that instead of being buttoned was fastened by a buckle at his neck, and by a jeweled girdle around the waist.
Now the town clerk addressed the people, and said: “We must avoid this button tax at all hazards. Let us devise some way to solve for all time the terrible riddle which gives us so much concern. I propose that we call in from the street Peter the watchman, for he is up and about at all hours, late and early, and would know more than most about the sun’s movements. Yet, if we ask him, we must also ask Peter’s sister Jessica. She does the mayor’s washing and is a person of importance in the town. Peter would certainly decline to come into the hall unless she came with him.”
This was, indeed, most provoking for me, because there was no room left in the town hall for another person, and two would have to go out, in order to admit Peter the watchman and his sister Jessica. I was the first to be put out, for I was a stranger and only present in the hall out of courtesy. Next they turned out Alexander Jones, because he was so stupid and said nothing. Thus it happened that I never knew what was the decision of the meeting. But perhaps you wonder why Alexander Jones was so dull as to sit still in a corner and say nothing. Yet how on earth could he do anything else? Alexander Jones was the town clerk’s
TOM-CAT.