Half-Past Seven Stories Part 30

Of course, he was disappointed, but his disappointment didn't last long, for Ping Pong just clapped his hands, and all three crouched down as boys do when they are playing leapfrog, or like the acrobats in the circus. Sing Song climbed on the back of Ping Pong, and Ah See on top of Sing Song. But at that Ah See's head reached only half way up the great wall.

He leaned down towards Marmaduke.

"Come up, little Mellican boy," said he.

And Marmaduke climbed up on the three backs and stood on the shoulders of Ah See, who exclaimed in delight to his friends,--

"Why, he not flaidlily at all."

Then he told Marmaduke to catch hold of his pigtail. Which the little boy did, and Ah See swung his head round and round, and his pigtail with it, like David's slingshot in the Bible story.

When the little boy was spinning around through the air, fast as fast as could be, Ping Pong cried,--

"Velly fine--now--one-two-thlee! let him go!"

Marmaduke obeyed instantly, letting go of the pigtail and flying through the air like a shot. The three little Chinamen all tumbled in a heap at the foot of the wall, but Marmaduke flew over on the other side and landed safely on his feet, inside the great country of China.

He was pleased to see little Wienerwurst, whom the soldiers had let in through the gate, wagging his tail right beside him; and soon the three little Chinamen came running up, too, and one and all started to explore this great country of China.

As far as their eyes could see, stretched green valleys and blue hills under a pale silver sky, and thousands of men and women, as little and as yellow as Ping Pong, Sing Song and Ah See, worked among the tea-fields on every side.

"See that bush," said Ping Pong, "some day Mellican boy's mother drink cup tea from that. Taste velly fine too."

"And this bush," he went on, pointing to another, "make cup for Missee F-f-f-"--he found it hard to say that name--"for Missee Fizzletlee."

And Marmaduke thought it quite wonderful to see the very tea plants which his mother and Mrs. Fizzletree would drink up some day, on the other side of the world, twelve thousand miles away. But there was something else to think about. Trouble seemed to be in the wind. For a little way ahead of them, up the zigzaging white road, they saw an odd-looking group of men. They had swords curved like sickles, hats like great saucers turned upside down, and fierce eyes, and drooping mustaches. Their finger nails were six inches long and stuck out, when they talked, like the claws of wild beasts.

All the people working in the tea-fields hid under the bushes when they saw those men. Only the tea-bushes didn't help them much, for they were so frightened that their little pigtails rose straight up in the air like new shoots growing out of the bushes. There were thousands of those pigtails sticking up straight in the air all over the fields. As for the three little friends, Ping Pong, Sing Song, and Ah See, they trembled like leaves in the wind, then threw themselves flat on their bellies in the dusty road.

"Who are those fellows?" asked Marmaduke, beginning to be frightened.

"It's Choo Choo Choo and his gang, allee velly bad men," explained Ping Pong, though he found it very hard to say anything, his teeth chattered so.

The wild men with hats like saucers turned upside down and the long mustaches and fingernails, came near. Four of them had big poles laid over their shoulders. From the poles hung a funny carriage like a hammock-swing with beautiful green curtains. It was called a "palanquin." When they reached the place where Marmaduke stood, they let the palanquin down on the ground, and he heard a terrible swearing going on behind the green curtains.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The curtains opened, and out stepped a man, also with a hat like a saucer turned upside down, only it was made all of gold and had precious stones in its rim. And his eyes were fiercer, his mustaches longer than those of the other men. In fact, his mustaches reached almost to his knees, and he kept pulling and tugging at them with fingernails that were fully a foot long. My! if those fingernails ever reached Marmaduke's eyes there wouldn't be much of them left. That's what Marmaduke was thinking. And they were very much frightened--all except Wienerwurst, who was smelling the funny slippers of the wild strangers.

Choo Choo Choo (for that was their leader's name) stretched himself.

With his drooping sleeves and foot-long fingernails, he looked like the bats that sail under the trees in the twilight and nest, so they say, in people's hair. He gazed out over the tea-fields and saw not a soul, for every mother's son and mother's daughter, too, was hiding tight under the bushes, but a million little pigtails trembled in the air.

"Whee!" shouted the great Choo Choo Choo;

And again,--

"Whee!"

And once more,--

"Whee!"

The million pigtails shook more wildly each time until, at the last, the million little Chinamen rose up from their hiding-places under the bushes, and came running from all over the fields like the inhabitants of a great city running to a fire.

When they reached the road and the green palanquin, they fell on their knees, jabbering and praying the chief Choo Choo Choo not to hurt them with his long curved sword or the curved fingernails, which were worse than the sword.

"Pss-ss-iss-ssst!" exclaimed Choo Choo Choo, who for all his faults liked to see people brave and not cowardly like that.

"Psss-sss-iss-sst!" he said again, then a third time, for in China, especially if you are a robber, you must say things three times if you really mean it, or else people won't believe you at all.

So, again "Pss-ss-iss-sst!" said this bold Choo Choo Choo.

At this third dread cry, each of the million Chinamen took out of his pocket a penny, a Chinese penny. And a Chinese penny is rather big, with a hole in the centre, and funny chicken-track letters stamped on it.

Before Marmaduke could have said "Jack Robinson," there were a million of them lying in the road.

Choo Choo Choo scratched his head with his long fingernail. He didn't know what in the world to do with so many pennies.

After some time he seemed to land on an idea, for he beckoned to one of his soldiers with that nail. And when that nail beckoned, it looked like the long claw of a lobster, waving awkwardly back and forth. It would have been funny indeed, if it hadn't been quite so dangerous.

Nearby a kite flew high in the air, its string tied to a tea-bush.

Choo Choo Choo's servant hauled in the kite and the twine, and one by one the soldiers strung all those pennies, those pennies with holes in them, on the twine, like beads on a string.

When they had finished, the string of pennies looked like a great shiny bronze snake coiling back in the road for almost a mile.

By this time the great robber chief Choo Choo Choo had begun to notice Marmaduke.

"Come here!" he commanded, crooking a fingernail. It was funny how Ping Pong, Sing Song, and Ah See, who were quite honest, spoke broken or Pigeon English, while Choo Choo Choo talked correctly and very politely. Robbers, and burglars too, frequently do that. So you can't always tell a man by his fine language.

Marmaduke obeyed. He drew near the palanquin and waited, his heart banging against his ribs.

"What are you doing here?" asked Choo Choo Choo.

"I want to see China."

"Oh you do, do you!" said the robber chief, "and why, pray, do you want to see China?"

"I wanted to see if the people stood upside down on the other side of the world," explained Marmaduke, hoping that this explanation would please Choo Choo Choo.

"So," said he very sarcastically, "that's silly--immeasurably silly, I call it. Look out or you'll go back without a head yourself. But first tell me,--have you any ancestors, _honorable_ ancestors?"

"What _are_ ancestors, honorable ancestors, sir?" Marmaduke inquired. He thought that if he said "sir"--very politely--it might help matters a bit.

"Oh, people in your family who lived long before you, and who have long beards and are very honest," returned the robber chief.

Marmaduke thought it was odd, his mentioning that honorable ancestors must be honest, when he was a robber himself, but anyway he was relieved as he thought of "Greatgrandpa Boggs."

"Yes," he told Choo Choo Choo, "if that's what it is, I have an honorable ancestor--Greatgrandpa Boggs. He was very old before he died. He was so old his voice sounded like a tiny baby's, and he had a beard--a long and white one--that nearly reached to the bottom b.u.t.ton of his vest, and he must have been honest, 'cause Mother said he might have been rich if he hadn't been so honest."