The Talking Horse, and Other Tales, F. Anstey [best ebook reader android TXT] 📗

did shock the boy a little, for he knew it was not[Pg 259] polite to pocket things at meals, and wondered how he could be so nasty.

Breakfast was over at last, and the clown took Tommy's arm and walked upstairs to the first floor with him.

'Who's in there?' he asked, as they passed the spare bedroom.

'Granny,' said the boy; 'she's staying with us; only she always has breakfast in her room, you know.'

'Why, you don't mean to say you've got a granny!' cried the clown, with joy; 'you are a nice little boy; now we'll have some fun with her.' Tommy felt doubtful whether she could be induced to join them so early in the morning, and said so. 'You knock, and say you've got a present for her if she'll come out,' suggested the clown.

'But I haven't,' objected Tommy; 'wouldn't that be a story?' He had unaccountably forgotten his old fondness for 'sells.'

'Of course it would,' said the clown; 'I'm always a tellin' of 'em, I am.'

Tommy was shocked once more, as he realised that his friend was not a truthful clown. But he knocked at the door, nevertheless, and asked his grandmother to come out and see a friend of his.

'Wait one minute, my boy,' she answered, 'and I'll come out.'

Tommy was surprised to see his companion[Pg 260] preparing to lie, face downwards, on the mat just outside the door.

'Get up,' he said; 'you'll trip grandma up if you stay there.'

'That's what I'm doing it for, stoopid,' said the clown.

'But it will hurt her,' he cried.

'Nothing hurts old women,' said the clown; 'I've tripped up 'undreds of 'em, and I ought to know.'

'Well, you shan't trip up my granny, anyhow,' said Tommy, stoutly; for he was not a bad-hearted boy, and his grandmother had given him a splendid box of soldiers on Christmas Day. 'Don't come out, granny; it's a mistake,' he shouted.

The clown rose with a look of disgust.

'Do you call this actin' like a friend to me?' he demanded.

'Well,' said Tommy, apologetically, 'she's my granny, you see.'

'She ain't my granny, and, if she was, I'd let you trip her up, I would; I ain't selfish. I shan't stop with you any longer.'

'Oh, do,' said Tommy; 'we'll go and play somewhere else.'

'Well,' said the clown, relenting, 'if you're a good boy you shall see me make a butter-slide in the hall.'

Then Tommy saw how he had wronged him in thinking he had pocketed the butter out of mere greediness, and he felt ashamed and penitent; the[Pg 261] clown made a beautiful slide, though Tommy wished he would not insist upon putting all the butter that was left down his back.

'There's a ring at the bell,' said the clown; 'I'll open the door, and you hide and see the fun.'

So Tommy hid himself round a corner as the door opened.

'Walk in, sir,' said the clown, politely.

'Master Tommy in?' said a jolly, hearty voice. It was dear old Uncle John, who had taken him to the pantomime the night before. 'I thought I'd look in and see if he would care to come with me to the Crystal——oh!' And there was a scuffling noise and a heavy bump.

Tommy ran out, full of remorse. Uncle John was sitting on the tiles rubbing his head, and, oddly enough, did not look at all funny.

'Oh, uncle,' cried the boy, 'you're not hurt? I didn't know it was you!'

'I'm a bit shaken, my boy, that's all,' said his uncle; 'one doesn't come down like a feather at my age.' And he picked himself slowly up. 'Well, I must get home again,' he said; 'no Crystal Palace to-day, Tommy, after this. Good-bye.'

And he went slowly out, leaving Tommy with the feeling that he had had enough of slides. He even wiped the flooring clean again with a waterproof and the clothes-brush, though the clown (who had been hiding) tried to prevent him.

[Pg 262]

'We ain't 'ad 'arf the fun out of it yet!' he complained (he always spoke in rather a common way, as Tommy began to notice with pain).

'I've had enough,' said Tommy. 'It was my Uncle John who slipped down that time, and he's hurt, and he'd come to take me to the Crystal Palace!'

'Well, he hadn't come to take me,' said the clown; 'you are stingy about your relations, you are; you ain't 'arf a boy for a bit o' fun.'

Tommy felt this rebuke very much, he had hoped so to gain the clown's esteem; but he would not give in, he only suggested humbly that they should go up into the play-room.

The play-room was at the top of the house, and Barbara and two little sisters of Tommy's were playing there when they came in, the clown turning in his toes and making awful faces.

The two little girls ran into a corner, and seemed considerably frightened by the stranger's appearance, but Barbara reassured them.

'Don't take any notice,' she said, 'it's only a horrid friend of Tommy's. He won't interfere with us.'

'Oh, Barbara,' the boy protested, 'he's awfully nice if you only knew him. He can make you laugh. Do let us play with you. He wants to, and he won't be rough.'

'Do,' pleaded the clown, 'I'll behave so pretty!'

[Pg 263]

'Well,' said Barbara, 'mind you do, then, or you shan't stop.'

And for a little while he did behave himself. Tommy showed him his new soldiers, and he seemed quite interested; and then he had a ride on the rocking horse, and was sorry when it broke down under him; and after that he came suddenly upon a beautiful doll which belonged to the youngest sister.

'Do let me nurse it,' he said, and the little girl gave it up timidly. Of course he nursed it the wrong way up, and at last he forgot, and sat down on it, the head, which was wax, being crushed to pieces!

Tommy was in fits of laughter at the droll face he made as he held out the crushed doll at arm's length, and looked at it with one eye shut, exclaiming, 'Poor thing! what a pity! I do 'ope I 'aven't made its 'ead ache!'

But the two little girls were crying bitterly in one another's arms, and Barbara turned on the clown with tremendous indignation.

'You did it on purpose, you know you did!' she said.

'Go away, little girl; don't talk to me!' said the clown, putting Tommy in front of him.

'Tommy,' she said, 'what did you bring your friend up here for? He only spoils everything he's allowed to touch. Take him away!'

'Barbara,' pleaded Tommy, 'he's a visitor, you know!'

[Pg 264]

'I don't care,' she replied. 'Mr. Clown, you shan't stay here; this is our room, and we don't want you. Go away!' She walked towards him looking so fierce that he backed hastily. 'Go downstairs,' she said, pointing to the door. 'You, too, Tommy, for you encouraged him!'

'Nyah, nyah, nyah!' said the clown, a sound by which he intended to imitate her anger. 'Oh, please, I'm going; remember me to your mother.' And he left the room, followed rather sadly by Tommy, who felt that Barbara was angry with him. 'That's a very disagribble little girl,' remarked the clown, confidentially, when they were safe outside, and Tommy thought it wiser to agree.

'What have you got in your pockets?' he asked, presently, seeing a hard bulge in his friend's white trunks.

'Only some o' your nice soldiers,' said the clown, and walked into the schoolroom, where there was a fire burning. 'Are they brave?' he asked.

'Very,' said Tommy, who had quite persuaded himself that this was so. 'Look here, we'll have a battle.' He thought a battle would keep the clown quiet. 'Here's two cannon and peas, and you shall be the French and I'll be English.'

'All right,' said the clown, and took his share of the soldiers and calmly put them all in the middle of the red-hot coals. 'I want to be quite sure they can stand fire first,' he explained; and then, as[Pg 265] they melted, he said, 'There, you see, they're all running away. I never see such cowards.'

Tommy was in a great rage, and could almost have cried, if it had not been babyish, for they were his best regiments which he could see dropping down in great glittering stars on the ashes below. 'That's a caddish thing to do,' he said, with difficulty; 'I didn't give them to you to put in the fire!'

'Oh, I thought you did,' said the clown, 'I beg your pardon;' and he threw the rest after them as he spoke.

'You're a beast!' cried Tommy, indignantly; 'I've done with you, after this.'

'Oh, no, yer ain't,' he returned.

'I have, though,' said Tommy; 'we're not friends any longer.'

'All right,' said the clown; 'when I'm not friends with any one, I take and use the red-'ot poker to 'em,' and he put it in the fire to heat as he spoke.

This terrified the boy. It was no use trying to argue with the clown, and he had seen how he used a red-hot poker. 'Well, I'll forgive you this time,' he said hastily; 'let's come away from here.'

'I tell you what,' said the clown, 'you and me'll go down in the kitchen and make a pie.'

Tommy forgot his injuries at this delightful idea; he knew what the clown's notion of pie-making would be. 'Yes,' he said eagerly, 'that will be jolly; only[Pg 266] I don't know,' he added doubtfully, 'if cook will let us.'

However, the clown soon managed to secure the kitchen to himself; he had merely to attempt to kiss the cook once or twice and throw the best dinner service at the other servants, and they were left quite alone to do as they pleased.

What fun it was, to begin with! The clown brought out a large deep dish, and began by putting a whole turkey and an unskinned hare in it out of the larder; after that he put in sausages, jam, pickled walnuts, and lemons, and, in short, the first thing that came to hand.

'It ain't 'arf full yet,' he said at last, as he looked gravely into the pie.

'No,' said Tommy, sympathetically, 'can't we get anything else to put in?'

'The very thing,' cried the clown, 'you're just about the right size to fill up—my! what a pie it's going to be, eh?' And he caught up his young friend, just as he was, rammed him into the pie, and poured sauce on him.

But he kicked and howled until the clown grew seriously displeased. 'Why carn't you lay quiet,' he said angrily, 'like the turkey does? you don't deserve to be put into such a nice pie!'

'If you make a pie of me,' said Tommy, artfully, 'there'll be nobody to look on and laugh at you, you know!'

[Pg 267]

'No more there won't,' said the clown, and allowed him to crawl out, all over sauce. 'It was a pity,' he declared, 'because he fitted so nicely, and now they would have to look about for something else;' but he contrived to make a shift with the contents of the cook's work-basket, which he poured in—reels, pin-cushions, wax, and all. He had tried to put the kitchen cat in too, but she scratched his hands and could not be induced to form the finishing touch to the pie.

How the clown got the paste and rolled it, and made Tommy in a mess with it, and how the pie was finished at last, would take too long to tell here; but somehow it was not quite such capital fun as he had expected—it seemed to want the pantomime music or something; and then Tommy was always dreading lest the clown should change his mind at the last minute, and put him in the pie after all.

Even when it was safely in the oven he had another fear lest he should be made to stay and eat it, for it had such very peculiar things in it that it could not be at all nice. Fortunately, as soon as it was put away the clown seemed to weary of it himself.

'Let me and you go and take a walk,' he suggested.

Tommy caught at the proposal, for he was fast becoming afraid of the clown, and felt really glad to get him out of the house; so he got his[Pg 268] cap, and the clown put on a brown overcoat and a tall hat, under which his white and red face looked stranger than ever, and they sallied forth together.

Once Tommy would have thought it a high privilege to be allowed