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Peck's Bad Boy Abroad, a fiction by George W. Peck |
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Chapter 29. The Bad Boy Writes From Brussels... |
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_ CHAPTER XXIX. The Bad Boy Writes from Brussels--He and Dad see the Field of Waterloo and call on King Leopold and Dad and the King go in for a Swim--The Bad Boy, a Dog and some Goats do the rest
"You are going to Belgium all right," said dad, as he took hold of my thumb in a Jiu Jitsu fashion, and twisted it backwards until I fairly penuked, and held it, while he said he should never dare go home without visiting King Leopold's kingdom, and had a talk with an eighty-year-old male flirt, who had a thousand chorus girls on his staff, and could give the Sultan of Turkey cards and spades and little casino in the harem game. "You will go along, won't you, bub?" and he gave my thumb another twist, and I said, "You bet your life, but I won't do a thing to you and Leopold before we get out of the Belgian hare belt," and so here we are, looking for trouble. It is strange we never hear more about Belgium in America, but actually I never heard of a Belgian settling in the United States. There are Irish, and Germans, and Norwegians, and Italians, and men of all other countries, but I never saw a Belgian until to-day, and it does you good to see a people who don't do anything but work. There is not a loafer in Belgium, and every man has smut on his nose, and his hands are black with handling iron, or something. There is no law against people going away from Belgium, but they all like it here, and seem to think there is no other country, and they are happy, and work from choice. "Began to sell dad relics of the Battle of Waterloo." I always knew the Belgian guns that sell in America for twelve shillings, and kill at both ends, but I never knew they made things here that were worth anything, but dad says they are better fixed here for making everything used by civilized people than any country on earth, and I am glad to be here, cause you get notice when you are going to be robbed. They ring a bell here every minute to give you notice that some one is after the coin, so when you hear a bell ring, if you hang onto your pocketbook, you don't lose. This is the place where "There was a sound of revelry at night, and Belgium's capitol had gathered there." You remember, the night before the Battle of Waterloo, when Napoleon Bonaparte got his. You must remember about it, old man, just when they were right in the midst of the dance, and "soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again," and they were taking a champagne bath, inside and out, when suddenly the opening guns of Waterloo, twelve miles away, began to boom, and the poet, who was present, said, "But hush, hark, a deep sound like a rising knell," and everybody turned pale and began to stampede, when the floor manager said, "'Tis but the wind, or the car on the stony street, on with the dance, let joy be unconfined, no sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet, to chase the glowing hours with flying feet." Well, sir, this is the place where that ball took place, which is described in the piece I used to speak in school, but I never thought I would be here, right where the dancers got it in the neck. When dad found that the battlefield of Waterloo was only a few miles away, he hired a wagon and we went out there. Well, sir, of all the frauds we have run across on this trip the battlefield of Waterloo is the worst. When the farmers who are raising barley and baled hay on the battlefield, saw us coming, they dropped their work and made a rush for us, and one fellow yelled something in the Belgian language that sounded like, "I saw them first," and he got hold of dad and me, and the rest stood off like a lot of hack drivers that have seen a customer fall into the hands of another driver, and made up faces at us, and called the farmer who had caught us the vilest names. They said we would be skinned to a finish by the faker who got us, and they were right. He showed us from a high hill, where the different portions of the battle were fought, and where they caught Napoleon Bonaparte, and where Blucher came up and made things hum in the German language, and then he took us off to his farm where the most of the relics were found, and began to sell things to dad, until he had filled the hind end of the wagon with bullets and grape-shot, sabres and bayonets, old rusty rifles, and everything dad wanted, and we had enough to fill a museum, and when the farmer had got dad's money we went back to Brussels, and got our stuff unloaded at the hotel. Say, when we came to look it over we found two rusty Colt's revolvers, and guns of modern construction, which have been bought on battlefields in all countries, and properly rusted to sell to tourists. I showed dad that the revolver was unknown at the time of the battle of Waterloo, and that every article he had bought was a fraud, the sabers having been made in America, before the war of the rebellion, and dad was mad, and gave the stuff to the porter of the hotel, who charged dad seven dollars for taking it away. Dad kept one three-cornered hat that the farmer told him Bonaparte lost when his horse stampeded with him, and it drifted under a barbed wire fence, where it had lain until the day before we visited the battlefield. Say, that hat is as good as new, and dad says it is worth all the stuff cost, but I would not be found dead wearing it, cause it is all out of style. We have seen the King of Belgium, and actually got the worth of our money. He is an old dandy, and looks like a Philadelphia Quaker, only he is not as pious as a Quaker. Dad wrote to the King and said he was a distinguished American, traveling for his health, and had a niece who had frequently visited Belgium with an opera company, and she had spoken of the King, and dad wanted to talk over matters that might be of interest both to Belgium and to America. Well, the messenger came back and said dad couldn't get to the palace a minute too quick, and so we went over, and as we were going through the park we saw an old man, in citizen's clothes, sitting on a bench, patting the head of a boar hound, and when he saw us he said, "Come here, Uncle Sam, and let my dog chew your pants." Dad thought it must be some lunatic, and was going to make a sneak, and get out, when the man rose up and we saw it was the King, and we went up to him and sat down on the bench, and he asked dad if he had come as the relative of the opera singer, to commence suit against the King for breach of promise, or to settle for a money consideration, remarking that he had always rather pay cash than to have any fuss made about these little matters. Dad told him he had no claim against him for alienating anybody's affections, or for breach of promise, and that all he wanted was to have a little talk with the King, and find out how a King lived, and how he had any fun in running the king business, at his age, and they sat down and began to talk as friendly as two old chums, while the dog played tag with me. We found that the King was a regular boy, and that instead of his mind being occupied by affairs of state, or his African concessions in the Congo country, where he owns a few million slaves who steal ivory for him, and murder other tribes, he was enjoying life just as he did when he was a barefooted boy, fishing for perch at the old mill pond, and when he mentioned his career as a boy, and his enjoyments, dad told about his youth, and how he never got so much pleasure in after life as he did when he had a stone bruise on his heel, and went off into the woods and cut a tamarack pole and caught sunfish till the cows came home. The King brightened up and told dad he had a pond in the palace grounds, stocked with old-fashioned fish, and every day he took off his shoes and rolled up his pants, and with nothing on but a shirt and pants held up by one suspender of striped bed ticking, he went out in a boat and fished as he did when a boy, with a bent pin for a hook, and he was never so happy as when so engaged, and they could all have their grand functions, and balls, and dinners, and Turkish baths, if they wanted them, but give him the old swimming hole. "Me, too," said dad, and as dad looked down into the park he saw a little lake, and dad held up two fingers, just as boys do when they mean to say, "Come on, let's go in swimming," and the King said, "I'll go you," and they locked arms and started through the woods to the little lake, and the dog and I followed. Well, sir, you'd a dide to see dad and Leopold make a rush for that swimming place. The King put his hand in the water, and said it was fine, and began to peel his clothes off, and dad took off his clothes and the King made a jump and went in all over, and came up with his eyes full of water, strangling because he did not hold his nose, and then dad made a leap and splashed the water like an elephant had fallen in, and there those two old men were in the lake, just like kids. "I'll swim you a match to the other side," said the King. "It's a go," said dad, and they started porpoising across the little lake, and then I thought it was time there was something doing; so I got busy and tied their clothes in knots so tight you couldn't get them untied without an act of parliament. They went ashore on the opposite side of the lake, cause some women were driving through the grounds, and then I found a flock of goats grazing on the lawn, and the dog and I drove them to where the clothes were tied in knots, and when the goats began to chew the clothes I took the dog and went back to the entrance of the park, and dad and the King swam back to where the clothes and the goats were, and when they drove the goats away, and couldn't untie the knots, the King gave the grand hailing sign of distress, or something, and the guards of the palace and some cavalry came on the run, and the park seemed filled with an army, and I bid the dog good-bye, and went back to the hotel alone and waited for dad. Dad didn't get back till after dark, and when he came he had on a suit of the King's clothes, too tight around the stomach, and too long in the legs, cause dad is pusey, and the King is long-geared. "Did you have a good time, dad?" says I, and he said, "Haven't you got any respect for age, condemn you? The King has ordered that you be fed to the animals in the zoo." I told him I didn't care a darn what they did with me; I had been brought up to tie knots in clothes when I saw people in swimming, and I didn't care whether they were crowned heads or just plain dubs, and I asked dad how they got along when their clothes were chewed up. He said the soldiers covered them with pouches and got them to the palace, and they had supper, he and the King, and the servants brought out a lot of clothes and he got the best fit he could. I asked him if the King was actually mad, and he said no, that he always enjoyed such things, and wanted dad and I to come the next day and go fishing with him, barefooted. Say, dad can go, but I wouldn't be caught by that King on a bet. He would get even, sure, cause he has a look in his eye like they have in a sanitarium. Not any king business for your little Hennery. _ |
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