The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice Part 7

THE TOKENS

'Now,' said the little old man, 'you must run home or you'll be late for dinner. But first let me find some little token of our conversation for each,' and so saying, he went to the drawer labelled 'Prizes for Hard Work,' and found something for Bertram; and to the drawer labelled 'Gifts for Forgetting Number One,' and found something for Beryl; and to the drawer labelled 'Presents for Antic.i.p.ating Wishes,' and found something for Bobus; and to the drawer labelled 'Rewards for Hard Play,'

and found something for Aline.

'Now, good-bye,' said he, holding open the door.

But Bertram, who was always the leader, did not move. He seemed still to have something on his mind.

'No, no,' said the Ameliorator, who was a wonderful thought-reader, 'no, no, there is nothing to pay. Why, I have had the pleasure of your company for a whole hour! That's payment enough for any one. Now run along.'

'But,' Bertram faltered, still not moving, 'I haven't earned the "Prize for Hard Work."'

'No,' said each of the others, 'I haven't earned mine either.'

'Ah!' said the Ameliorator, 'but you are going to.'

X

THE RETURN

Hand in hand, silently, the four children walked through the city. And when each one reached home, there, in the branches of the tree before the house, was its bird in full song.

The Schoolboy's Apprentice

_TO L. F. G._

Once upon a time there was a schoolboy called Chimp. Chimp was not his name: his name was Alexander Joseph Chemmle. Chimp was short for chimpanzee, an animal which his schoolfellows agreed that he was like.

Chimp usually spent his holidays in his uncle's family; but one summer he travelled on a visit to his father, who was British Consul in a foreign port, so far away that the boy had only a few days at home before it was time again to join the steamer for England.

Chimp, who was always adventurous, had been at sea for only a week on the return journey, when one evening at dusk he lost his hold as he was clambering out to the end of the main crosstrees, and fell overboard.

The other pa.s.sengers were listening to a concert in the saloon ('screeching' Chimp had called it, when he took refuge in the chief engineer's room), and, work being over, the crew were for'ard smoking, so that there was no one except the first officer and the man at the wheel to hear the shout that Chimp sent up from the water. As a matter of fact both men heard it, but it caused them to do no more than say to themselves at the same moment, 'There's that boy again! Up to some mischief, I'll be bound.' No help, therefore, came to Chimp. The great black s.h.i.+p glided by, the screw threshed the water into blinding foam, and when he could see and think again, Chimp was alone in the ocean.

Chimp was a good swimmer. He struck out at once vigorously in the direction of the island which they had pa.s.sed at sundown. The sea was as smooth as a pond and quite warm, and after several minutes had pa.s.sed, the boy turned over on his back and floated comfortably, moving his arms just enough to give him an impetus towards the sh.o.r.e. Although he was upset by the accident which had so suddenly subst.i.tuted the water for the s.h.i.+p (and it was nearing supper time, and there were always ices for supper!), Chimp was not a boy at all given to fear, and he could think of his new plight with composure. His first calm thought was regret for the mongoose which he was taking back to school, 'although,' as he said to himself, 'the chances are, Porker wouldn't let me keep it,' Porker being the way in which Chimp spoke of Dr. Cyril Bigley Plowden, Princ.i.p.al of Witherson College. His second feeling was keenness to play Robinson Crusoe in earnest. Chimp and other boys had often on half-holidays made believe that an island in the river was Juan Fernandez, but the game usually began with one fight to decide who should be Robinson, and ended with another to check the arrogance of Friday. Now, however, he was but an hour or so from an uninhabited island (of course it was uninhabited) and bothered by no rival for chief honours. He decided that to fall into the sea from a steamer at night was a lark. But a little while afterwards he thought of sharks and remembered, with something of a pang, good times in England; then he wondered what would happen on the s.h.i.+p when they missed him; then he glowed at the antic.i.p.ation of the other boys' envy when they learned where he had been; then he thought of sharks again; and then his feet touched the bottom.

When Chimp at last crawled out of the water, he was nigh dead beat. In the soft still light which the moon poured down he could see beyond the beach a dark strip which seemed to promise a bed. He staggered blindly over the stones to this refuge, found that it was gra.s.s, and, sinking upon it, was in a moment asleep.

The sun was high and hot when Chimp awoke. For a moment he looked around him bewildered, wondering why the dream would not finish: then he remembered everything. At the same moment he was conscious, as he afterwards expressed it, that he had had nothing to eat for a hundred years. Chimp stood up, yawned the stiffness out of his bones, and set forth to seek for food and claim his kingdom. He made at once for the highest ground and gathered the island in a bird's-eye view. It seemed to be about eight miles long and three broad, mainly rock, bare and red as a brick. There were a few trees and some wide patches of rank gra.s.s.

Not a sign of human life was to be seen, but swift green lizards shot across the ground at Chimp's feet, a million gra.s.shoppers shrilled into his ears, and white gulls with cruel eyes hovered and wheeled above him.

The prospect did not cheer Robinson Crusoe II., but he set out for the interior of the island, searching every miniature valley for a spring, every tree and shrub for fruit. But he sought in vain. Then recollecting stories of the toothsomeness of turtles' eggs baked in the sand, Chimp turned to the sh.o.r.e again and explored the coast. At the end of three hours he said disgustedly, 'What a liar Ballantyne was!' and was just sinking down exhausted, when his heart gave a big _plump!_ and stood still, for there before him was a well-trodden path.

At first, hungry as he was, Chimp's feeling was grief at the discovery that after all the island was not uninhabited, but his regret soon faded before the antic.i.p.ation of the meal he would devour in the abode to which the pathway led, and he struck into it with new vigour, taking the inland direction. The path rose with every step. At last, a mile or so from the sea, it turned abruptly round a boulder, and Chimp suddenly found himself in the presence of an elderly man with a long grey beard, who was sitting at a table in the entrance of a cave, writing.

The meeting seemed to be the most unexpected thing that had ever happened to either of them, for the elderly man rose with a start that upset both ink and table, and Chimp caught himself looking round for something to cling to for support. Not finding anything, he sat down on the ground and stared at the elderly man. He would have liked to have gone forward to pick up the ink-bottle, but dared not, on account of a peculiar feeling in his knees. Meanwhile the elderly man stared at the boy, and Chimp wondered if he ever would speak, and if it would be in English when he did. After a long pause the elderly man picked up the ink. Then looking at Chimp still more curiously through his spectacles, he spoke.

'What are you?' he asked, in good English.

'My name,' said Chimp, 'is Alexander Joseph Chemmle.'

'No, no,' the elderly man replied, 'I mean, what are you--what? Not a boy, are you? Not really and truly a boy! Oh say, say you are a boy!'

'Yes,' said Chimp, although for the moment, so intense and unreasonable was the other's excitement about the matter, he almost doubted it. 'Yes, I'm a boy.'

'A boy! a boy!' the elderly man exclaimed joyfully. 'Eureka!' Then he grew calmer, and continued: 'Dear me, this is very interesting. A most fortunate chance! A boy, you say. How extremely happy an accident. Now what kind of boy might you be?'

Chimp was puzzled. 'I suppose,' he thought, 'I ought to call myself a good boy, and yet that isn't exactly how Porker would describe me. And what is more, good boys are such saps.' Then he spoke aloud: 'Well, sir, I'm a fairish specimen of a boy, I think.'

'Good!' said the elderly man. 'Good! An average boy. So much the better.

And what does it feel like to be a boy?'

'Whew!' said Chimp to himself, 'I came for breakfast, and all I seem to be getting is an exam.' However, he did his best to answer the question.

'Why, sir,' he said aloud, 'as long as you don't get too many lines and swis.h.i.+ngs, it feels good to be a boy. But swis.h.i.+ng makes it feel bad sometimes.'

'Lines?' inquired the other. 'Swis.h.i.+ngs? What are they?'

'Why,' said Chimp, 'when Porker canes you, that's swis.h.i.+ng, and lines are pa.s.sages from Virgil which you have to copy out if you make howlers--I mean, if you make mistakes.'

'Yes, yes,' said the elderly man, a little vaguely. 'And so it's good to be a boy?' he added.

A happy thought struck Chimp. 'It is good,' he replied; 'but there are other times when it's bad, besides those I mentioned. When--when you're hungry, for instance.'

'Ah!' exclaimed the elderly man, rising from the table. 'I was forgetting. You must pardon me, Alexander Joseph Chemmle. I have, I fear, nothing to offer you but biscuits and tinned meats. Do you care for tinned meats? I keep most kinds.'

'I like bloater paste,' Chimp said. 'I always take a pot or two back to school.'

'Ah!' cried his host eagerly, 'you like bloater paste best? That's famous! So do I. A community of taste!'

He disappeared into the cave, and in a minute or so came forth again, bearing the bloater paste and a plate in one hand, and the biscuits and a knife in the other. 'Now,' he said, 'fall to, and while you are eating these I must try to find something else. Tinned pears--do you like them?'

Chimp mumbled that he did. He was eating with more enjoyment than he ever had eaten in his life. Ambrosia was nothing to bloater paste.

'It is wonderful--our tastes coincide in everything,' said the elderly man as he entered the cave again. He returned with a tin of pears and some marmalade, a jug of water and a gla.s.s. Then he sat on a camp stool and observed his guest.

It was not until Chimp was well forward with the pears that his host spoke again. 'I am sorry, Alexander Joseph Chemmle,' he said, 'to have kept you waiting so long, for I take it that this is not your customary appet.i.te--that you were, in fact, unusually, if not painfully, hungry.

But I was so interested by the sight of a real boy that I could think of nothing else. You see, I have never met with a boy before.'

Chimp opened his eyes as wide almost as his mouth. 'But,' he began in his astonishment, 'they are as common as dirt, boys are. There's heaps of them--loads.'

'True,' the other made answer, 'true. But when one abandons the world, and, embracing the profession of the eremite, devotes one's life to solitude and reflection, one is deprived of the pleasure of intercourse with so attractive a personality as that of the average boy.'