Heart's Desire by Emerson Hough (comprehension books .TXT) 📕

"It was a baddish fix, I must say, for to be marooned on a desert island is serious; and it's still more serious to lose one's ship in the British Army. Presently, however, we composed ourselves. 'I say,' said Sir Harry, 'this is a great go, isn't it? Here I am with no luggage whatever except one bar of soap!'

"Presently I saw approaching a band of natives, headed by a large person, who was apparently their leader or king."

"Then that was the real King of Gee-Whiz?" asked Doc Tomlinson.

"At that time, but not permanently, as I shall presently show you."

"I explained the situation to the King, who turned out to be a very good sort. 'God bless my soul!' said he. 'My dear sir, there's not the slightest occasion for uneasiness, there really isn't, indeed.'

"You may fawncy the situation! As it was, Sir Harry and I were obliged to make the best of it. We concluded to remain and to take possession of the region in the name of her Britennic Majesty."

"That's the most natural part of your story!" affirmed Uncle Jim, with conviction.

"Thank you. But I must tell you of the complications which now arose. You will see that all these people were sun-worshippers, or something of the sort, and they'd a beastly unpleasant habit, you know, of offering up a sacrifice now and again to appease the spirits, or the like. We learned they'd a valley of gold hidden away somewhere back in the island, and from this the King got all his gold, though even under these circumstances not so much as he wanted at all times. He'd the trouble of most royal families.

"The ruler of this golden valley was some sort of a princess, and she was downright niggardly with her money, as some of these heiresses are, you know. She'd promise the King to bring him an apronful of gold if he'd give her a sacrifice to offer up, but he had no way of providing an offering. No one had come for years in the line of a sacrifice, excepting ourselves. You can imagine the awkwardness this created. The King wanted to sacrifice us, one or both, directly. The princess, who by the by was a regular ripper in her way, was quite gone on Sir Harry, and he on her as well. At this point my own personal fortunes were much involved, as you may understand.

"Sir Harry explained that while he wished to be quite the gentleman about it, and accord me every courtesy, he'd be obliged if I'd be the sacrifice, and leave him to represent her Majesty in the new territory. We talked it over a bit, but came to no conclusion about the matter. It was at this time that one of the most remarkable portions of our experience occurred.

"One morning Sir Harry and I were standing in front of our residence, in our part of the island, talking over matters. Sir Harry was taking a bawth in a wash-hand basin—"

"What's that?" asked Uncle Jim.

"I reckon he means a wash-pan," explained Billy Hudgens.

"At least, Sir Harry was making a deuce of a row with the soap, and he'd the wash-hand basin quite full of bubbles. Just then the King of Gee-Whiz came by, and chawnced to notice the bubbles. You should have seen his expression!

"You must remember he'd never seen a bit of soap in all his life; and no one who has been without it—like the King and myself—can tell what that means. He was deucedly infatuated with the bubbles. In short, he valued them at once far more than all the gold in the valley; and he wound up by telling us flat, that so long as we could make bubbles for him, there would be no sacrifice. He commanded us to appear before him every day and make these bubbles—Sir Harry showed him how to do it with his pipe—every morning and awfternoon.

"Awfter he'd gone, Sir Harry and I looked at each other. 'It's death or bubbles,' said he to me. I pointed out to him that it was either death or no bawth. He was much shocked. Evidently the thing could not go on, for our soap was already very near exhausted. Sir Harry was a sad dog. Said he to me, 'While there is soap there is life,' meaning to say, you see, that while there was life there was hope. Ha, ha!"

"Leave that out," admonished Curly. "Go on."

"About now there went ashore on the island the private yacht of a gentleman whom we found to be Sir Isaac Morgenstern. He was a retired soap-maker, of wealth and station, and was on a voyage to Samoa with his daughter, his household servants, and the like. He'd with him, as chaplain, a missionary, William Cook, a person of very fat habit of body.

"When the boat went ashore, Sir Isaac, his daughter, Lady Sophie, her maid, a Miss Eckerstrom, Mr. Cook, and one or two others were saved, together with certain of their effects—an auto car or so, a piano, a harp, some books, pictures, and a number of other items which made our life much pleasanter. We all settled down together in a bit of colony, and we got on well enough.

"The King by this time was becoming most unpleasant again about his sacrifice. Sir Harry was a sad dog. 'Sacrifice Morgenstern,' suggested he, 'he's used to sacrifice.' You see, in the retail business—"

"Never mind dot," said Whiteman. "Tell vot happenet!"

"A great many things happened. For one thing, the death of Sir Isaac."

"How come that?" asked Billy Hudgens. "One day Sir Harry met Sir Isaac in the woods, and they'd a bit of talk. Without thinking much about it, Sir Harry explained that he was called on to blow soap bubbles for the King, and that he was in great need of soap, which at that time was worth far more than gold."

"Unt Morgenstern a retiret soap-mager" exclaimed Whiteman, involuntarily.

"Now that was shore hard luck for him," added Uncle Jim.

"You may quite believe so," said the teller of the story, gently. "And the saddest part of it, he'd nearly solved our problem before he left us. At once Sir Harry began talking of soap, Sir Isaac began wondering how he could make soap. Ere long he thought of Mr. Cook, the missionary. 'Soap making is simple,' said he, 'if one has fat and a bit of alkali.' The water there was most alkaline, I may add. 'Now there is Mr. Cook?'

"'You cawn't have the missionary,' interrupted Sir Harry, 'until after he has married me and the princess. Then I don't mind.'

"I've every reason to believe that Mr. Cook was made over into soap. But for once Sir Isaac was wrong. He oversold the market, and that was his mistake. As soon as the King of Gee-Whiz found that there was abundance of soap he lost his fawncy for bubbles. The shock of this lost opportunity prostrated Sir Isaac, and he presently passed away. We mourned him for a time, but presently other events occurred which deadened the loss.

"You will understand that the King of Gee-Whiz was a deucedly good sort. He'd take a nip now and again, of course. The only thing he had to drink was palm wine, which he got by chopping a notch in a tree and catching the juice in a cup."

"That sounds like wood alcohol," said Billy Hudgens, in a professional tone of voice. "It ain't safe."

"Quite right. It wasn't safe. The palm wine itself caused the King to cut a pretty caper now and then; but awfter his mistake, he was far worse—far, far worse. He never got over that, never."

"What happened to him?"

"A most extraordinary thing. I never knew of anything like it in all the world.

"You see, there were two trees which grew close together near the royal palace. One of these was his Majesty's private drinking tree. The other, as it chawnced, was a rubber tree."

Curly deliberately removed his hat and placed it on his knee, wiping, as he did so, a brow dotted thick with moisture. No one broke the silence.

"You will easily understand," resumed the speaker, "that when the King of Gee-Whiz had chopped into the rubber tree with his little gold axe, drinking awfterwards a cupful of pure caoutchouc, it did not take him long to repent of his inadvertence. The results were what I may call most extraordinary. I should judge the rubber juice to have been of very high proof indeed.

"To be brief, I give you my word of honor, the King was turned into an absolutely elastic person on the spot! When he stamped his foot he bounded into the air. 'He's a regular bounder, anyway,' said Sir Harry, who would always have his joke. 'And,' said he to me, as I remember distinctly, 'if his conscience becomes elastic, we're gone, the same as Cook and Morgenstern.' Sir Harry was a great wit.

"Now, the more furious the King became, the more helpless he became as well. He simply bounced up and down and around and about. Reigning monarch, too—lack of dignity—all that sort of thing—must have been most annoying to him. We could do nothing to calm him. In all my travels, I have never seen such a state of affairs; I haven't, really."

"Nor me neither," said Billy Hudgens, sighing, "and I've kept bar from Butte to El Paso."

"Then what happened?" demanded Curly.

"Everything that could happen," said the other, bitterly. "Lady Sophie and her maid, Sir Harry and the princess—the entire household suite of the King of Gee-Whiz—were mad enough to taste also of the juice of this rubber tree. It had the same effect upon them! I say to you, positively and truthfully, that then and there the island of Gee-Whiz was inhabited by the maddest population ever known in any possession of her Britannic Majesty."

"Reckon they was a pretty lively bunch to hold," suggested Curly; "but what happened next?"

"I am not quite clear as to all that transpired awfter that. I know that I was the only sane man left on the island."

"Then," remarked Curly, with conviction, taking a huge chew off his plug, "then that must shore have been one hell of a island!"

But the narrator went on unmoved: "I reproved the others, and they resented it. There was a great battle with the natives one day, of which I remember but little. I seem to have been left insensible on the field. When I recovered, I saw dawncing off across the sea the figures of all these different persons except Sir Harry—who, of course, was with me in the battle. Sir Harry was still with me, quite sober at lawst, and quite dead, I do not know from what cause. I was left alone.

"It was thus, gentlemen, that I acquired, by right, as I think, my title which I assumed—awfter acting for a time as Viceroy for her Britannic Majesty—as the King of Gee-Whiz. For a while I lived there alone. Awfterwards, in some way, which I do not quite call to mind at present, I appear to have been discovered. It was shortly awfter that I received my decoration—I beg your pardon." He flushed a dull red. "It was nothing, of course," said he. "As to saving Sir Harry, it was only what any other fellow would have done in the Army or the Navy—I don't remember which.

"So, gentlemen, I've told you my story as a gentleman should. I've been deucedly down on my luck ever since then, and I cawn't tell you, really I cawn't, how I happened to be here and in this business as you found me. There's many a younger son, in the Army or the Navy, who knocks about and gets a bit to the bad. I hope you'll not lay it up against me, I do