The City Curious Part 12

He drew near to the plant behind which Smaly and Redy were hiding, and just as it seemed as though he must discover them, they managed to hide themselves beneath the folds of his cloak. They were only just in time.

The Chief Contractor, the Crow, and the Despoiler, followed by several Wigs, now came in.

"Where are they?" cried the Healer, turning towards them.

"Here is the first of them," answered the Chief Contractor, pointing to the Confectioner, who was being supported by Mistigris and Papylick; and Smaly and Redy, peeping out from beneath the cloak, began to understand that the Healer was not searching for them, but for sick people.

"Dear me. It's his paw that's hurt," said the Healer, and indeed this was not difficult to see, for the Stork had already laid down upon the table the broken paw of the Confectioner.

The Healer lit a candle, took his sealing-wax, and set to work.

Outside an agitated crowd had a.s.sembled.

Every one seemed to be crying and wailing.

Already in the crowd there were newsboys selling accounts of the latest disaster to the Wigs.

In the great square hundreds of frenzied people, at the risk of losing their shoes or their heads, danced frantically round and round.

"What misery, what misery," murmured every one in the kitchen, gazing at the mask called "Supreme Sorrow," which the Chief Contractor had placed over his face.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THERE WERE NEWSBOYS SELLING ACCOUNTS OF THE LATEST DISASTER TO THE WIGS]

"Who on earth will rebuild the market square?" muttered the Young Stork, gently closing up with his nail some little holes which he had discovered in the back of the Despoiler.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HEALER HAD FINISHED HIS MENDING]

"Well, in the first place, who is going to draw the plans?" asked the Despoiler.

"We don't need any plans," answered Papylick.

"They will draw the plans after they have put up the building," remarked the Crow in a low voice to Smaly, whom he had discovered under the Healer's cloak.

"If they have any plans they can quite well build up all the tarts and puddings in the square again."

"The plans have all been burnt," announced the Chief Contractor.

"But in the first place no one knows whether the plans or the buildings were made first," objected the Crow.

No one had anything to say to this, so every one remained silent, sunk in the deepest perplexity. Papylick at last suggested that they should ask the advice of the Mother of the Crow.

By this time the Healer had finished his mending.

The Confectioner, placing his hand against his mother-of-pearl forehead, murmured, "I have a pain there."

"That must be the fever," said the Despoiler.

"Fever?" demanded the Healer sharply. "How can there be fever when I have glued his paw on again? He hasn't got fever at all. It's worrying that's given him a headache. What Wig worthy of the name is not worrying at this moment when such a grave and terrible problem lies before us."

CHAPTER X

The Wigs all imagine they suffer from headache: The Rats come to the Healer to be cured of the ravages of hot Soy: The Chief Contractor has to make himself ill eating the musical instruments.

Directly he heard the word "problem" the Chief Contractor put on the mask of the "Mathematician."

"It is indeed atrocious, this problem that confronts us," continued the Healer, "and who can there be amongst us who is not full of distress when he considers that in the whole of our country there is no one who can tell us whether we should begin by making the plans or the buildings. I trust for the sake of your honour that you all have a headache," and so saying the Healer walked towards the pair of donkeys.

"I, too, hope so," said the Chief Contractor, hastily slipping on the mask called "Migraine."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MATHEMATICIAN]

"I, too, hope so," said his wife, who had just come in.

You, gentle reader, will find on another page a portrait of this lady, who was extremely vain and dressed very extravagantly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MIGRAINE]

She bore a great resemblance to a b.u.t.terfly.

"We all hope so," said every one in the kitchen, and the crowd in the square took up the remark, so that all over the town the Wigs were sighing and placing their right hands upon their foreheads.

Soon they felt so bad that they all wetted their handkerchiefs in the fountain of rose-water and wrapped them round their heads.

There was a great silence....

"I hope so, too," piped the Crow, a little late because he had only just succeeded in putting on his spectacles.

The Stork re-entered, pushing the Mother of the Crow in her oyster-sh.e.l.l, and followed by the Healer. At once the Stork began to pull out all the fish-bones which during his absence ill-natured persons had stuck in the back of the Despoiler.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WRAPPED THEIR HANDKERCHIEFS ROUND THEIR HEADS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I, TOO, HOPE SO," SAID HIS WIFE, WHO HAD JUST COME IN]

But all thought of the grave problem to be discussed was forgotten, for at this moment there entered many more victims of the travelling prison.

(Smaly, who up to now had not been so _very, very_ astonished at anything he had seen or heard since he had pa.s.sed through the chocolate door, really was a little surprised when he saw these victims.)

The chief sufferers seemed to have been the Rats, whose business it was to keep the sugar-cane forest well watered. Nearly all had one leg which was much longer than the other, or a very long arm, or an elongated nose, or a tail that went on for ever.