Prince Vance Part 4

"It wouldn't take you any longer to tell than to say you can't tell,"

cried Vance, hotly.

"Perhaps not," was the cool retort; "but if I told it would be doing something, and I never do anything."

The Prince started on his way without another word. He did not even stop to put a peach into the lazy man's open mouth, as he at first had some thought of doing. He kept along beside the river for some time, and had nearly forgotten the words of the lazy man about his cousin, when suddenly he came upon what to his horror he at first supposed to be the body of some thief hanging from a tree. As he got closer, however, he found that the man was alive and suspended by a belt which went under his arms. The man did not seem in the least to mind being hung, but looked quite calm and peaceful. A second man stood upon an overturned bucket and blew into the mouth of the first with a pair of bellows.

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"What are you doing?" asked Vance curiously, as he stopped beside them.

"Why," replied the man with the bellows, "this fellow is too lazy to stand, so we have to hang him up; and he is too lazy to breathe for himself, so he pays me a groat a day to do it for him with the bellows."

"I saw a man up the river who was too lazy to eat," observed Vance. "I thought he was bad enough, but this is surely the laziest man alive."

"If you think that," the blower answered, "you should see his cousin Gobbo, who lives a mile farther down the river as the crow flies."

At this Vance was reminded that nightfall was not very far off, and once more he started on his way. The man with the bellows jumped down from his bucket and ran eagerly after him. He was a simple-looking man, with a large and frog-like mouth.

"It creeps in the family," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely to the Prince.

"What does?"

"Laziness. If it were anything else, you know, you'd say it _ran_ in the family. But wait till you see Gobbo!"

Just then he noticed that Loto was growing quite limp and purple in the face for want of breath; so he hastily scrambled back to his bucket, and once more began to blow for dear life and a groat a day.

"By the way," asked Vance, halting, "do you know where the Crushed Strawberry Wizard lives?"

"He knows," replied the blower, "but you can't get it out of him. He's too lazy to speak; so it's no manner of use fretting about it."

With a sigh of weariness and disgust the royal wayfarer turned away and went on his journey. Just at dusk he reached a small village, or rather a group of poor little houses; and as he was about to knock at the door of one to ask for shelter, he saw a procession coming over the fields.

There were a number of men with flaring torches, one or two with picks and spades, while in the midst was carried a bier upon which lay a man with his eyes wide open, staring straight ahead.

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"What's all this?" the Prince asked of one who seemed of some authority in the company.

"We are going to bury Gobbo," replied the man.

"But he isn't dead yet," exclaimed Vance, quite horrified.

"True," the man returned, in a matter-of-fact tone, "but he does not care about living. I know, for he's hired me to think for him these ten years. Now I'm tired of it, and so I think it's best to bury him; and of course it's all the same as if he thought so himself."

"Well," said Vance, who was beginning to grow badly confused by the odd people he encountered, "if he doesn't mind I'm sure I don't know why I should. But perhaps before he is buried he can tell me where to find the Crushed Strawberry Wizard."

"He won't take the trouble to remember," answered the man, "and I'm sure I'll do no more thinking for him."

"Well," was the thought with which the unlucky Vance consoled himself, "it is something to have seen the laziest man on earth."

VIII

He found an empty hut, in which was some mouldy straw; and there he pa.s.sed the night, sleeping as soundly as if he had been on his own royal bed of down in the palace at home. His breakfast was begged at the door of one of the houses in the village; and all day he followed the river, until near evening he came to the gray seash.o.r.e and the huts of the fisher folk.

"What is the name of the river I have been following?" he asked of a wrinkled old fisherman who was mending his net in the sunset.

"It is called Laf," the old man answered. "It is the eastern border of Jolliland, as the coast is the northern."

"Oh, bother boundaries!" Vance exclaimed, "I hate them. Can you give me something to eat?"

"We are poor folk," said the old man, "but I suppose we can give ye a bite if ye pays for it."

"Pay for it!" cried Vance, in astonishment. "Do you know who I am?"

"Not rightly," said the fisherman; "but from yer look and from yer box I take ye for a travelling showman. What have ye got in yer box?"

"My family," answered the Prince, before he thought. "Do you know where the Crushed Strawberry Wizard lives?"

"Not rightly," the other replied again; "but I think somewhere alongsh.o.r.e. What sort of a family have ye got? A happy family?"

"I'm sure I hope they're happy," was Vance's response. "I know that I am not. Perhaps they may like being carried better than I like carrying them."

"What can they do?" the fisherman persisted. "Can they dance and eat buns like a bear, or do they fight and knock each other about like Punch and Judy?"

"They do nothing of the sort," began the Prince, angrily. "It is not a show at all; it is--"

Then remembering that if he was rude to the fisherman he should certainly lose all chance of getting a supper, he became more polite, and ended by saying,--

"They are--I mean they act out a king and queen and their court."

"Truly," cried the fisherman; "that is a rare show indeed! I never saw the like. Come in and get your supper, and afterward we will have out the puppets."

Upon this he led the way into his hut, and bade the Prince follow him.

It was a very poor little hut indeed, with rude walls, in which the cracks were stuffed with seaweed to keep out the wind, and with a small fire burning on the heap of flat stones which served for a fireplace.

The fisherman's wife, who was old and quite crooked with rheumatism, was hobbling about getting the supper, which she said was all but ready.

When it was all ready, without the but, they sat down, though the poor Prince, hungry as he was, found it hard work to swallow the dry red herring, the rasping oaten cakes, and the brackish water of which the meal consisted. When he had finished the meal,--which, as you may suppose, did not take long,--he set his box upon the table and opened it.

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"First," he said, "let us give them some food, and you shall see how prettily they can play at eating and drinking."

But if the food was coa.r.s.e eating to Vance, you may well imagine that it was quite beyond the power of the tiny teeth of the little people, who were not able to eat a morsel. This made them wring their hands and weep upon their tiny pocket-handkerchiefs; and the King even boxed the Lord Chancellor's ears, so angry was he at being disappointed of his supper.

All this was vastly amusing to the fisherman and his wife, who thought the whole thing was done as a show, and would not hear of Vance's closing his box until the darkness quite hid the supposed puppets from sight.