And the story he told was as follows.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SPRITE'S STORY
"WHEN I was not more than a thousand years old – " said the sprite.
"Excuse me," interrupted the major. "But what was the figure?"
"One thousand," returned the sprite. "That was nine thousand years ago – before this world was made. I celebrated my ten-thousand-and-sixteenth birthday last Friday – but that has nothing to do with my story. When I was not more than a thousand years of age, my parents, who occupied a small star about forty million miles from here, finding that my father could earn a better living if he were located nearer the moon, moved away from my birthplace and rented a good-sized, four-pronged star in the suburbs of the great orb of night. In the old star we were too far away from the markets for my father to sell the products of his farm for anything like what they cost him; freight charges were very heavy, and often the stage-coach that ran between Twinkleville and the moon would not stop at Twinkleville at all, and then all the stuff that we had raised that week would get stale, lose its fizz, and have to be thrown away."
"Let me beg your pardon again," put in the major. "But what did you raise on your farm? I never heard of farm products having fizz to lose."
"We raised soda-water chiefly," returned the sprite, amiably. "Soda-water and suspender buttons. The soda-water was cultivated and the suspender buttons seemed to grow wild. We never knew exactly how; though from what I have learned since about them, I think I begin to understand the science of it; and I wish now that I could find a way to return to Twinkleville, because I am certain it must be a perfect treasure-house of suspender buttons by this time. Even in my day they used to lie about by the million – metallic buttons every one of them. They must be worth to-day at least a dollar a thousand."
"What is your idea about the way they happened to come there, based on what you have learned since?" asked the major.
"Well, it is a very simple idea," returned the sprite. "You know when a suspender button comes off it always disappears. Of course it must go somewhere, but the question is, where? No one has ever yet been known to recover the suspender button he has once really lost; and my notion of it is simply that the minute a metal suspender button comes off the clothes of anybody in all the whole universe, it immediately flies up through the air and space to Twinkleville, which is nothing more than a huge magnet, and lies there until somebody picks it up and tries to sell it. I remember as a boy sweeping our back yard clear of them one evening, and waking the next morning to find the whole place covered with them again; but we never could make money on them, because the moon was our sole market, and only the best people of the moon ever used suspenders, and as these were unfortunately relatives of ours, we had to give them all the buttons they wanted for nothing, so that the button crops became rather an expense to us than otherwise. But with soda-water it was different. Everybody, it doesn't make any difference where he lives, likes soda-water, and it was an especially popular thing in the moon, where the plain water is always so full of fish that nobody can drink it. But as I said before, often the stage-coach wouldn't or couldn't stop, and we found ourselves getting poorer every day. Finally my father made up his mind to lease, and move into this new star, sink a half-dozen soda-water wells there, and by means of a patent he owned, which enabled him to give each well a separate and distinct flavor, drive everybody else out of the business."
"You don't happen to remember how that patent your father owned worked, do you?" asked the major, noticing that Jimmieboy seemed particularly interested when the sprite mentioned this. "If you do, I'd like to buy the plan of it from you and give it to Jimmieboy for a Christmas present, so that he can have soda-water wells in his own back yard at home."
"No, I can't remember anything about it," said the sprite. "Nine thousand years is a long time to remember things of that kind, though I don't think the scheme was a very hard one to work. For vanilla cream, it only required a well with plain soda-water in it with a quart of vanilla beans and three pints of cream poured into it four times a week; same way with other flavors – a quart of strawberries for strawberry, sarsaparilla for sarsaparilla, and so forth; but the secret was in the pouring; there was something in the way papa did the pouring; I never knew just what it was. He always insisted on doing the pouring himself. But if you don't stop asking questions I'll never finish my story."
"You shouldn't make it so interesting if you don't want us to have our curiosity excited by it," said Jimmieboy. "I'd have asked those questions if the major hadn't. But go ahead. What happened?"
"Well, we moved, and in a very short time were comfortably settled in the suburban star I have mentioned," continued the sprite. "As we expected, my father grew very, very rich. He was referred to in the moon newspapers as 'The Soda-water King,' and once an article about him said that he owned the finest suspender-button mine in the universe, which was more or less true, but which, as it turned out, was unfortunate in its results. Some moon people hearing of his ownership of the Twinkleville Button Mines came to him and tried to persuade him that they ought to be worked. Father said he didn't see any use of it, because the common people didn't wear suspenders, and so didn't need the buttons.
"'True,' said they, 'but we can compel them to need them, by making a law requiring that everybody over sixteen shall wear suspenders.'
"'That's a good idea,' said my father, and he tried to have it made a law that every one should wear suspenders, high or low, and as a result he got everybody mad at him. The best people were angry, because up to that time the wearing of suspenders had been regarded as a sign of noble birth, and if everybody, including the common people, were to have them they would cease to be so. The common people themselves were angry, because to have to buy suspenders would simply be an addition to the cost of living, and they hadn't any money to spare. In consequence we were cut off by the best people of the moon. Nobody ever came to see us except the very commonest kind of common people, and they came at night, and then only to drop pailfuls of cod-liver oil, squills, ipecac, and other unpopular things into our soda-water wells, so that in a very short time my poor father's soda-water business was utterly ruined. People don't like to order ten quarts of vanilla cream soda-water for Sunday dinner, and find it flavored with cod-liver oil, you know."
"Yes, I do know," said Jimmieboy, screwing his face up in an endeavor to give the major and the sprite some idea of how little he liked the taste of cod-liver oil. "I think cod-liver oil is worse than measles or mumps, because you can't have measles or mumps more than once, and there isn't any end to the times you can have cod-liver oil."
"I'm with you there," said the major, emphasizing his remark by slapping Jimmieboy on the back. "In fact, sir, on page 29 of my book called 'Musings on Medicines' you will find – if it is ever published – these lines:
"The oils of cod!
The oils of cod!
They make me feel tremendous odd,
Nor hesitate
I here to state
I wildly hate the oils of cod."
"Bravo!" cried the sprite. "When I start my autograph album I want you to write those lines on the first page."
"With pleasure," returned the major. "When shall you start the album?"
"Never, I hope," replied the sprite, with a chuckle. "And now suppose you don't interrupt my story again."
Clouds began to gather on the major's face again. The sprite's rebuke had evidently made him very angry.
"Sir," said he, as soon as his feelings permitted him to speak. "If you make any more such remarks as that, another duel may be necessary after this one is fought – which I should very much regret, for duels of this sort consume a great deal of time, and unless I am much mistaken it will shortly rain cats and dogs."
"It looks that way," said the sprite, "and it is for that very reason that I do not wish to be interrupted again. Of course ruin stared father in the face."
"How rude of ruin!" whispered the major to Jimmieboy, who immediately silenced him.
"Trade having fallen away," continued the sprite, "we had to draw upon our savings for our bread and butter, and finally, when the last penny was spent, we made up our minds to leave the moon district entirely and try life on the dog-star, where, we were informed, people only had one eye apiece, and every man had so much to do that it took all of his one eye's time looking after his own business so that there wasn't any left for him to spend on other people's business. It seemed to my father that in a place like this there was a splendid opening for him."
"In what line?" queried the major.
"Renting out his extra eye to blind men," roared the sprite.
Jimmieboy fell off the rock with laughter, and the major, angry at being so neatly caught, rose up and walked away but immediately returned.
"If this wasn't a duel I wouldn't stay here another minute," he said. "But you can't put me to flight that way. Go on and finish."
"The question now came up as to how we should get to the dog-star," resumed the sprite. "Our money was all gone. Nobody would lend us any. Nobody would help us at all."
"I should think they'd have been so glad you were leaving they'd have paid your fare," said the major, but the sprite paid no attention.
"There was no regular stage line between the moon and the dog-star," said he, "and we had only two chances of really getting there, and they were both so slim you could count their ribs. One was by getting aboard the first comet that was going that way, and the other was by jumping. The trouble with the first chance was that as far as any one knew there wasn't a comet expected to go in the direction of the dog-star for eight million years – which was rather a long time for a starving family to wait, and besides we had read of so many accidents in the moon papers about people being injured while trying to board comets in motion that we were a little timid about it. My father and I could have managed very well; but mother might not have – ladies can't even get on horse cars in motion without getting hurt, you know.
"Then the other scheme was equally dangerous. It's a pretty big jump from the moon to the dog-star, and if you don't aim yourself right you are apt to miss it, and either fall into space or land somewhere else where you don't want to go. For instance, a cousin of mine who lived on Mars wanted to visit us when we lived at Twinkleville, but he was too mean to pay his fare, thinking he could jump it cheaper. Well, he jumped and where do you suppose he landed?"
"In the sun!" cried the major, in horror.
"No. Nowhere!" returned the sprite. "He's jumping yet. He didn't come anywhere near Twinkleville, although he supposed that he was aimed in the right direction."
"Will you tell me how you know he's falling yet?" asked the major, who didn't seem to believe this part of the sprite's story.
"Certainly. I saw him yesterday through a telescope," replied the sprite.
The major began to whistle.
"And he looked very tired, too," said the sprite. "Though as a matter of fact he doesn't have to exert himself any. All he has to do is fall, and, once you get started, falling is the easiest thing in the world. But of course with the remembrance of my cousin's mistake in our minds, we didn't care so much about making the jump, and we kept putting it off and putting it off until finally some wretched people had a law made abolishing us from the moon entirely, which meant that we had to leave inside of twenty-four hours; so we packed up our trunks with the few possessions we had left and threw them off toward the dog-star; then mother and father took hold of hands and jumped and I was to come along after them with some of the baggage that we hadn't got ready in time.
"According to my father's instructions I watched him carefully as he sped through space to see whether he had started right, and to my great joy I observed that he had – that very shortly both he and mother would arrive safely on the dog-star – but alas! My joy was soon turned to grief, for a terrible thing happened. Our great heavy family trunk that had been dispatched first, and with truest aim, landed on the head of the King of the dog-star, stove his crown in and nearly killed him. Hardly had the king risen up from the ground when he was again knocked down by my poor father, who, utterly powerless to slow up or switch himself to one side, landed precisely as the trunk had landed on the monarch's head, doing quite as much more damage as the trunk had done in the beginning. When added to these mishaps a shower of hat-boxes and hand-bags, marked with our family name, fell upon the Lord Chief Justice, the Prime Minister and the Heir Apparent, my parents were arrested and thrown into prison and I decided that the dog-star was no place for me. Wild with grief, and without looking to see where I was going, nor in fact caring much, I gave a running leap out into space and finally through some good fortune landed here on this earth which I have found quite good enough for me ever since."
Here the sprite paused and looked at Jimmieboy as much as to say, "How is that for a tale of adventure?"
"Is that all?" queried Jimmieboy.
"Mercy!" cried the major, "Isn't it enough?"
"No," said Jimmieboy. "Not quite. I don't see how he could have jumped so many years before the world was made and yet land on the world."
"I was five thousand years on the jump," explained the sprite.
"It was leap-year when you started, wasn't it?" asked the major, with a sarcastic smile.
"And your parents? What finally became of them?" asked Jimmieboy, signaling the major to be quiet.
"I hadn't the heart to inquire. I am afraid they got into serious trouble. It's a very serious thing to knock a king down with a trunk and land on his head yourself the minute he gets up again," sighed the sprite.
"But didn't you tell me your parents were unfairies?" put in Jimmieboy, eying the sprite distrustfully.
"Yes; but they were only my adopted parents," explained the sprite. "They were a very rich old couple with lots of money and no children, so I adopted them not knowing that they were unfairies. When they died they left me all their bad habits, and their money went to found a storeroom for worn out lawn-mowers. That was a sample of their meanness."
"Well that's a pretty good story," said Jimmieboy.
"Yes," said the sprite, with a pleased smile. "And the best part of it is it's all true."
"Tut!" ejaculated the major, scornfully. "Wait until you hear mine."
CHAPTER X.
THE MAJOR'S TALE
"A GREAT many years ago when I was a souvenir spoon," said the major, "I belonged to a very handsome and very powerful potentate."
"I didn't quite understand what it was you said you were," said the sprite, bending forward as if to hear better.
"At the beginning of my story I was a souvenir spoon," returned the major.
"Did you begin your career as a spoon?" asked the sprite.
"I did not, sir," replied the major. "I began my career as a nugget in a lead mine where I was found by the king of whom I have just spoken, and on his return home with me he gave me to his wife who sent me out to a lead smith's and had me made over into a souvenir spoon – and a mighty handsome spoon I was too. I had a poem engraved on me that said:
'Aka majo te roo li sah,
Pe mink y rali mis tebah.'
Rather pretty thought, don't you think so?" added the major as he completed the couplet.
"Very!" said the sprite, with a knowing shake of his head.
"Well, I don't understand it at all," said Jimmieboy.
"Ask this native of Twinkleville what it means," observed the major with a snicker. "He says it's a pretty thought, so of course he understands it – though I assure you I don't, for it doesn't mean anything. I made it up, this very minute."
The sprite colored deeply. It was quite evident that he had fallen into the trap the major had set for him.
"I was only fooling," he said, with a sickly attempt at a smile. "Go on with your story."
"I think perhaps the happiest time of my life was during the hundreds of years that I existed in the royal museum as a spoon," resumed the major. "I was brought into use only on state occasions. When the King of Mangapore gave a state banquet to other kings in the neighborhood I was the spoon that was used to ladle out the royal broth."
Here the major paused to smack his lips, and then a small tear appeared in one corner of his eye and trickled slowly down the side of his nose.
"I always weep," he said, as soon as he could speak, "when I think of that broth. Here is what it was made of:
'Seven pies of sweetest mince,
Then a ripe and mellow quince,
Then a quart of tea.
Then a pint of cinnamon,
Next a roasted apple, done
Brown as brown can be.
Add of orange juice, a gill,
And a sugared daffodil,
Then a yellow yam.
Sixty-seven strawberries
Should be added then to these,
And a pot of jam.
Mix with maple syrup and
Let it in the ice-box stand
Till it's good and cold —
Throw a box of raisins in,
Stir it well – just make it spin —
Till it looks like gold.'
Oh, my!" cried the major. "What a dish it was, and I, I used to be dipped into a tureen full of it sixteen times at every royal feast, and before the war we had royal feasts on an average of three times a day."
"Three royal banquets a day?" cried Jimmieboy, his mouth watering to think of it.
"Yes," returned the major. "Three a day until the unhappy war broke out which destroyed all my happiness, and resulted in the downfall of sixty-four kings."
"How on earth did such a war as that ever happen to be fought?" asked the sprite.
"I am sorry to say," replied the major, sadly, "that I was the innocent cause of it all. It was on the king's birthday that war was declared. He used to have magnificent birthday parties, quite like those that boys like Jimmieboy here have, only instead of having a cake with a candle in it for each year, King Fuzzywuz used to have one guest for each year, and one whole cake for each guest. On his twenty-first birthday he had twenty-one guests; on his thirtieth, thirty, and so on; and at every one of these parties I used to be passed around to be admired, I was so very handsome and valuable."
"Absurd!" said the sprite, with a sneering laugh. "The idea of a lead spoon being valuable!"
"If you had ever been able to get into the society of kings," the major answered, with a great deal of dignity, "you would know that on the table of a monarch lead is much more rare than silver and gold. It was this fact that made me so overpoweringly valuable, and it is not surprising that a great many of the kings who used to come to these birthday parties should become envious of Fuzzywuz and wish they owned a treasure like myself. One very old king died of envy because of me, and his heir-apparent inherited his father's desire to possess me to such a degree that he too pined away and finally disappeared entirely. Just regularly faded out of sight. Didn't die, you know, as you would, but vanished.
"So it went on for years, and finally on his sixty-fourth birthday King Fuzzywuz gave his usual party, and sixty-four of the choicest kings in the world were invited. They every one came, the feast was made ready, and just as the guests took their places around the table, the broth with me lying at the side of the tureen was brought in. The kings all took their crowns off in honor of my arrival, when suddenly pouf! a gust of wind came along and blew out every light in the hall. All was darkness, and in the midst of it I felt myself grabbed by the handle and shoved hastily into an entirely strange pocket.
"'What, ho, without there!' cried Fuzzywuz. 'Turn off the wind and bring a light.'
"The slaves hastened to do as they were told, and in less time than it takes to tell it, light and order were restored. And then a terrible scene ensued. I could see it very plainly through a button-hole in the cloak of the potentate who had seized me and hidden me in his pocket. Fuzzywuz immediately discovered that I was missing.
"'What has become of our royal spoon?' he roared to the head-waiter, who, though he was an African of the blackest hue, turned white as a sheet with fear.
"'It was in the broth, oh, Nepotic Fuzzywuz, King of the Desert and most noble Potentate of the Sand Dunes, when I, thy miserable servant, brought it into the gorgeous banqueting hall and set it here before thee, who art ever my most Serene and Egotistic Master,' returned the slave, trembling with fear and throwing himself flat upon the dining-hall floor.
"'Caitiff!' cried the king. 'I believe thou hast played me false. Do spoons take wings unto themselves and fly away? Are they tadpoles that they develop legs and hop as frogs from our royal presence? Do spoons evapidate – '
"'Evaporate, my dear,' suggested the queen in a whisper.
"'Thanks,' returned the king. 'Do spoons evaporate like water in the sun? Do they raise sails like sloops of war and thunder noiselessly out of sight? No, no. Thou hast stolen it and thou must bear the penalty of thy predilection – '
"'Dereliction,' whispered the queen, impatiently.
"'He knows what I mean,' roared the king, 'or if he doesn't he will when his head is cut off.'"
"Is that what all those big words meant?" asked Jimmieboy.
"As I remember the occurrence, it is," returned the major. "What the king really meant was always uncertain; he always used such big words and rarely got them right. Reprehensibility and tremulousness were great favorites of his, though I don't believe he ever knew what they meant. But, to continue my story, at this point the king rose and sharpening the carving knife was about to behead the slave's head off when the potentate who had me in his pocket cried out:
"'Hold, oh Fuzzywuz! The slave is right. I saw the spoon myself at the side of yon tureen when it was brought hither.'
"'Then,' returned the king, 'it has been percolated – '
"'Peculated,' whispered the queen.
"'That's what I said,' retorted Fuzzywuz, angrily. 'The spoon has been speculated by some one of our royal brethren at this board. The point to be liquidated now is, who has done this deed. What, ho, without there! A guard about the palace gates – and lock the doors and bar the windows. We shall have a search. I am sorry to say, that every king in this room save only myself and my friend Prince Bigaroo, who at the risk of his kingly dignity deigned to come to the rescue of my slave, must repeal – I should say reveal – the contents of his pockets. Prince Bigaroo must be innocent or he would not have ejaculated as he hath.'
"You see," said the major, in explanation, "Bigaroo having stolen me was smart enough to see how it would be if he spoke. A guilty person in nine cases out of ten would have kept silent and let the slave suffer. So Bigaroo escaped; but all the others were searched and of course I was not found. Fuzzywuz was wild with sorrow and anger, and declared that unless I was returned within ten minutes he would wage war upon, and utterly destroy, every king in the place. The kings all turned pale – even Bigaroo's cheek grew white, but having me he was determined to keep me and so the war began."
"Why didn't you speak and save the innocent kings?" asked the sprite.
"How could I?" retorted the major. "Did you ever see a spoon with a tongue?"
The sprite made no answer. He evidently had never seen a spoon with a tongue.
"The war was a terrible one," said the major, resuming his story. "One by one the kings were destroyed, and finally only Bigaroo remained, and Fuzzywuz not having found me in the treasures of the others, finally came to see that it was Bigaroo who had stolen me. So he turned his forces toward the wicked monarch, defeated his army, and set fire to his palace. In that fire I was destroyed as a souvenir spoon and became a lump of lead once more, lying in the ruins for nearly a thousand years, when I was sold along with a lot of iron and other things to a junk dealer. He in turn sold me to a ship-maker, who worked me over into a sounding lead for a steamer he had built. On my first trip out I was sent overboard to see how deep the ocean was. I fell in between two huge rocks down on the ocean's bed and was caught, the rope connecting me with the ship snapped, and there I was, twenty thousand fathoms under the sea, lost, as I supposed, forever. The effect of the salt water upon me was very much like that of hair restorer on some people's heads. I began to grow a head of green hair – seaweed some people call it – and to this fact, strangely enough, I owed my escape from the water. A sea-cow who used to graze about where I lay, thinking that I was only a tuft of grass gathered me in one afternoon and swallowed me without blinking, and some time after, the cow having been caught and killed by some giant fishermen, I was found by the wife of one of the men when the great cow was about to be cooked. These giants were very strange people who inhabited an island out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, which was gradually sinking into the water with the weight of the people on it, and which has now entirely disappeared. There wasn't one of the inhabitants that was less than one hundred feet tall, and in those days they used to act as light-houses for each other at night. They had but one eye apiece, and when that was open it used to flash just like a great electric light, and they'd take turns at standing up in the middle of the island all night long and turning round and round and round until you'd think they'd drop with dizziness. I staid with these people, I should say, about forty years, when one morning two of the giants got disputing as to which of them could throw a stone the farthest. One of them said he could throw a pebble two thousand miles, and the other said he could throw one all the way round the world. At this the first one laughed and jeered, and to prove that he had told the truth the second grabbed up what he thought was a pebble, but which happened to be me and threw me from him with all his force."
"Did you go all the way around?" queried Jimmieboy.
"Did I? Well, rather. I went around once and a half. And sad to say I killed the giant who threw me," returned the major. "I went around the world so swiftly that when I got back to the island the poor fellow hadn't had time to get out of my way, and as I came whizzing along I struck him in the back, went right through him, and leaving him dead on the island went on again and finally fell into a great gun manufactory in Massachusetts where I was smelted over into a bullet, and sent to the war. I did lots of work for George Washington. I think I must have killed off half a dozen regiments of his enemies, and between you and me, General Washington said I was his favorite bullet, and added that as long as he had me with him he wasn't afraid of anybody."
Here the major paused a minute to smile at the sprite who was beginning to look a little blue. It was rather plain, the sprite thought, that the major was getting the best of the duel.
"Go on," said Jimmieboy. "What next? How long did you stay with George Washington?"
"Six months," said the major. "I'd never have left him if he hadn't ordered me to do work that I wasn't made for. When a bullet goes to war he doesn't want to waste himself on ducks. I wanted to go after hostile generals and majors and cornet players, and if Mr. Washington had used me for them I'd have hit home every time, but instead of that he took me off duck shooting one day and actually asked me to knock over a miserable wild bird he happened to want. I rebelled at this. He insisted, and I said, 'very well, General, fire away.' He fired, the duck laughed, and I simply flew off into the woods on the border of the bay and rested there for nearly a hundred years. The rest of my story is soon told. I lay where I had fallen until six years ago when I was picked up by a small boy who used me for a sinker to go fishing with, after which I found my way into the smelting pot once more, and on the Fifteenth of November, 1892, I became what I am, Major Blueface, the handsomest soldier, the bravest warrior, the most talented tin poet that ever breathed."
A long silence followed the completion of the major's story. Which of the two he liked the better Jimmieboy could not make up his mind, and he hoped his two companions would be considerate enough not to ask him to decide between them.
"I thought they had to be true stories," said the sprite, gloomily. "I don't think it's fair to tell stories like yours – the idea of your being thrown one and a half times around the world!"
"It's just as true as yours, anyhow," retorted the major, "but if you want to begin all over again and tell another I'm ready for you."
"No," said the sprite. "We'll leave it to Jimmieboy as it is."
"Then I win," said the major.
"I don't know about that, major," said Jimmieboy. "I think you are just about even."
"Do you really think so?" asked the sprite, his face beaming with pleasure.
"Yes," said Jimmieboy. "We'll settle it this way: we'll give five points to the one who told the best, five points to the one who told the longest, and five points to the one who told the shortest story. As the stories are equally good you both get five points for that. The major's was the longest, I think, so he gets five more, but so does the sprite because his was the shortest. That makes you both ten, so you both win."
"Hurrah!" cried the major. "Then I do win."
"Yes," said the sprite, squeezing Jimmieboy's hand affectionately, "and so do I."
Which after all, I think, was the best way to decide a duel of that sort.