Five Little Peppers Abroad, Margaret Sidney [best classic books to read TXT] 📗

probably."

"O dear me! and here we have been playing," cried Polly in remorse, every vestige of colour flying from her cheek.

"Well, we didn't know," said Jasper, quickly. "But what can we do now, Polly?" he turned to her appealingly.

"I don't know," she was just going to say helplessly, but Jasper's face made her see that something must be done. "Let's go and tell him we are sorry," she said; "that's what Mamsie always liked best if she felt badly."

So the two crept up behind old Mr. King's chair: "Father, I'm so sorry," and "Dear Grandpapa, I'm so sorry," and Polly put both arms around his neck suddenly.

"Eh - what?" cried Mr. King, sitting bolt upright in astonishment. "Oh, bless me, children, I thought you were playing on the piano."

"We were," said Polly, hurrying around to the side of the table, her face quite rosy now, "but we didn't know - " and she stopped short, unable to find another word.

" - that you felt badly," finished Jasper. "Oh, father, we didn't know that you'd got bad news." He laid his hand as he spoke on the pile of tumbled-up letters.

"Bad news!" ejaculated old Mr. King, in perplexity, and looking from one to the other.

"No, we didn't," repeated Polly, clasping her hands. "Dear Grandpapa, we truly didn't, or we wouldn't have kept on playing all this time."

Mr. King put back his head and laughed long and loud, as he hadn't done for many a day, his ill humour dropping off in the midst of it. "The letters are all right," he said, wiping his eyes, "never had better news. It was an impertinent fellow I met out there, that's all."

"Father, who has dared - " began Jasper, with flashing eyes.

"Don't you worry, my boy; it's all right, the fellow got his quietus; besides, he wasn't worth minding," said Mr. King, carelessly. "Why, here is your mother," turning to Polly. "Now then, Mrs. Fisher, what is it; for I see by your eye some plan is on the carpet."

"Yes, there is," said Mrs. Fisher, coming in with a smile, "the doctor is going to take a day off."

"Is that really so?" cried Mr. King, with a little laugh. "What! not even going to visit one of his beloved hospitals?" while Polly exclaimed, radiantly, "Oh, how perfectly elegant! Now we'll have Papa-Doctor for a whole long day!"

Phronsie, who had been close to her mother's gown during the delivery of this important news, clasped her hands in a quiet rapture, while Polly exclaimed, "Now, Grandpapa, can it be the Rigi?" Jasper echoing the cry heartily.

"I suppose it is to be the Rigi," assented old Mr. King, leaning back in his chair to survey them all, "that is, if Mrs. Fisher approves. We'll let you pick out the jaunting place," turning to her, "seeing that it is the doctor's holiday."

"I know that Dr. Fisher wants very much to go up the Rigi," said his wife, in great satisfaction at the turn the plans were taking.

"And we'll stay over night, father," cried Jasper, "won't we?"

"Stay over night?" repeated his father, "I should say so. Why, what would be the good of our going up at all, pray tell, if we didn't devote that much time to it and have a try for a sunrise?"

"We're to go up the Rigi!" exclaimed Polly, giving a little whirl, and beginning to dance around the room, repeating, "We're to go up the Rigi," exactly as if nobody knew it, and she was telling perfectly fresh news.

"Here - that dance looks awfully good - wait for me," cried Jasper. And seizing her hands, they spun round and round, Phronsie scuttling after them, crying, "Take me, too. I want to dance, Polly."

"So you shall," cried Polly and Jasper together; so they made a little ring of three, and away they went, Polly this time crying, "Just think, we're going to have the most beautiful sunrise in all this world."

And on the other side of the partition, in his accustomed nook in the big parlour, the big fat man with the black beard sat. He pulled this same black beard thoughtfully a bit, when Mr. King was telling about the impertinent fellow. Then he smiled and jabbered away to himself very hard in German; and it wasn't till the King party hurried off to get ready for the Rigi trip, that he got up and sauntered off.

And almost the first person that old Mr. King saw on getting his party into a car on the funicular railway, was the "impertinent fellow," also bound for the top of the Rigi.

"Oh, Grandpapa!" Polly got out of her seat and hurried to him with cheeks aflame, when midway up.

"I know - isn't it wonderful!" cried Grandpapa, happy in her pleasure, and finding it all just as marvellous as if he hadn't made the ascent several times.

"Yes, yes!" cried Polly. "It is all perfectly splendid, Grandpapa; but oh, I mean, did you hear what that lady said?" and she dropped her voice, and put her mouth close to Grandpapa's ear.

"I'm sure I didn't," said old Mr. King, carelessly, "and I'm free to confess I'm honestly glad of it. For if there is one thing I detest more than another, Polly, my girl, it is to hear people, especially women, rave and gush over the scenery."

"Oh, she didn't rave and gush," cried Polly, in a whisper, afraid that the lady heard. "She said, Grandpapa, that Herr Bauricke is at Lucerne; just think, Grandpapa, the great Herr Bauricke!"

She took her mouth away from the old gentleman's ear in order to look in his face.

"Polly, Polly," called Jasper from his seat on the farther end, "you are losing all this," as the train rounded a curve. "Do come back."

"Now, I'm glad of that," exclaimed Grandpapa, in a tone of the greatest satisfaction, "for I can ask him about the music masters in Dresden and get his advice, and be all prepared before we go there for the winter to secure the very best."

"And I can see him, and perhaps hear him play," breathed Polly, in an awestruck tone, quite lost to scenery and everything else. Jasper leaned forward and stared at her in amazement. Then he slipped out of his seat, and made his way up to them to find out what it was all about.

"How did she know?" he asked, as Polly told all she knew; "I'm just going to ask her." But the lady, who had caught snatches of the conversation, though she hadn't heard Mr. King's part of it, very obligingly leaned forward in her seat and told all she knew.

And by the time this was done, they all knew that the information was in the American paper printed in Paris, and circulated all over the Continent, and that the lady had read it that very morning just before setting out.

"The only time I missed reading that paper," observed old Mr. King, regretfully.

"And he is staying at our very hotel," finished the lady, "for I have seen you, sir, with your party there."

"Another stroke of good luck," thought old Mr. King, "and quite easy to obtain the information I want as to a master for Polly and Jasper."

"Now then, children," he said to the two hanging on the conversation, "run back to your seats and enjoy the view. This news of ours will keep."

So Polly and Jasper ran back obediently, but every step of the toilsome ascent by which the car pushed its way to the wonderful heights above, Polly saw everything with the words, "Herr Bauricke is at our hotel," ringing through her ears; and she sat as in a maze. Jasper was nearly as bad.

And then everybody was pouring out of the cars and rushing for the hotel on the summit; all but Mr. King's party and a few others, who had their rooms engaged by telegraphing up. When they reached the big central hall there was a knot of Germans all talking together, and on the outside fringe of this knot, people were standing around and staring at the central figure. Suddenly some one darted away from this outer circle and dashed up to them. It was the lady from their hotel.

"I knew you'd want to know," she exclaimed breathlessly; "that's Herr Bauricke himself - he came up on our train - just think of it! - the big man in the middle with the black beard." She pointed an excited finger at the knot of Germans.

Old Mr. King followed the course of the finger, and saw his "impertinent fellow who wasn't worth minding."


XX

"I SHOULD MAKE HIM HAPPY," SAID PHRONSIE


Polly got Jasper away into a side corridor by a beseeching little pull on his sleeve. "Oh, just to think," she mourned, "I called that great man such unpleasant things - that he was big and fat, and - oh, oh!"

"Well, he is big and fat," declared Jasper. "We can't say he isn't, Polly."

"But I meant it all against him," said Polly, shaking her head. "You know I did, Jasper," she added remorsefully.

"Yes, we neither of us liked him," said Jasper, "and that's the honest truth, Polly."

"And to think it was that great Herr Bauricke!" exclaimed Polly. Then her feelings overcame her, and she sank down on the cushioned seat in the angle.

Jasper sat down beside her. "I suppose it won't do to say anything about people after this until we know them. Will it, Polly?"

"Jasper," declared Polly, clasping her hands, while the rosy colour flew over her cheek, "I'm never going to say a single - "

Just then the big form of Herr Bauricke loomed up before them, as he turned into the corridor.

Polly shrank up in her corner as small as she could, wishing she was as little as Phronsie, and could hop up and run away.

Herr Bauricke turned his sharp eyes on them for a moment, hesitated, then came directly up, and stopped in front of them. "I meant - I
in tended to speak to your grandfader first. Dat not seem best
now ." The great man was really talking to them, and Polly held her breath, not daring to look into his face, but keeping her gaze on his wonderful fingers. "My child," those wonderful fingers seized her own, and clasped them tightly, "you have great promise, mind you, you know only a leedle now, and you must work - work - work ." He brought it out so sharply, that the last word was fairly shrill. "But I tink you will," he added kindly, dropping his tone. Then he laid her fingers gently in her lap.

"Oh, she does, sir," exclaimed Jasper, finding his tongue first, for Polly was beyond speaking. "Polly works all the time she can."

"Dat is right." Herr Bauricke bobbed his head in approval, so that his spectacles almost fell off. "I hear dat, in de music she play. No leedle girl play like dat, who doesn't work. I will hear you sometime at de hotel," he added abruptly, "and tell you some tings dat will help you. To-morrow, maybe, when we go down from dis place, eh?"

"Oh, sir," exclaimed Polly, springing off from her cushion before Jasper could stop her. "You are so