_The Daily Papers._

There is a King in a Tragedy of Maeterlinck who woefully exclaims, "Wherever I am, nothing happens." But the old fellow was accustomed to uneventfulness; Norman had reason to expect something better of life, and the mysterious words of the old poet had led him to hope for thrills and sensations. The four days succeeding the day of the interview with Peronella, described in the last chapter, drew blanks in the game of his destiny. On the fifth day he was walking moodily about, trying to extract amus.e.m.e.nt from the inquisitive glances with which a subtly deceived populace already eyed him, when he heard a voice at his shoulder saying in good English, "Keep it up," but though he turned quickly he could see no one in the street who appeared at all guilty of the observation, which might have been ventriloquial.

Another week pa.s.sed, and the old resolve to leave Alsander again took possession of Norman's mind. Remorse at his hypocrisy, and longings for Peronella, gnawed his heart: while he felt that if he did not speedily retire from the scene startling harm would come of what was really a loveless pa.s.sion. He decided, however, not to leave her without getting her a present, which he shrewdly (but I think unjustly) suspected would compensate the girl for the loss of a lover. And of course he remembered that the old Poet, whom by now he had almost given up as a fraud, had given special advice in this matter too. Well, he could but follow it, and see if there was anything to be found for Peronella in the little dark shop the Poet had recommended, and which he himself had discovered almost his first day in Alsander. He therefore invited her to come with him and choose herself a present.

When they arrived in front of the little shop it looked more fascinating than ever. It had evidently been rearranged, and seemed to Norman to exhibit more amusing things in its narrow frontage than all the other shops in Alsander set on end. For it contained snuff-boxes, shawls, dirty old silver, tattered bits of embroidery, carved walking sticks, some worm-eaten books, last century oak settees, Turkish zarfs, Hitt.i.te cylinders, Chinese saucers full of Greek and Roman coins, real stones and bits of gla.s.s, animals in beaten bronze ware from Damascus, very old leather bottles from England, some forged Egyptian antiquities, some very horrible cameos, some rather pretty intaglios, about three quarters of what had been a fine Persian rug, and boxes of things and cases of things and bales of things and trays of things, and all of them finely powdered with a most pestilential dust.

They entered. Peronella, spitting and sneezing without restraint, exclaimed loudly and bitterly (with utter disregard to the feelings of the shopkeeper, a pretty, slender, dark-eyed, young fellow, who seemed quite out of place among his musty surroundings) that there was nothing to be found there and _what_ he had dragged her there for _she_ couldn't imagine when there was that nice new shop where they sold wonders from Ulmreich ever so much nearer home. Norman, undaunted, was preparing to turn the shop upside down to show Peronella what marvels were to be found there if one only knew, when he was surprised to hear the shopkeeper exclaim quietly and rapidly in English, "Send her away, I want to talk to you." Now this was indeed startling, for it was only an accident that had led him to the shop on that particular day. However, at all events, Norman, eager to fathom the mystery, rose to the occasion. Perhaps this was the poet's hand and he had recommended the shop on purpose.

"Look here, Peronella," he said, immediately. "If you don't like the dust (and it _is_ dusty here) why don't you go home without me? I'll stay here and find something. Besides, I would much rather bring you home a surprise."

"But suppose I don't like it," she objected. "You told me I might choose, and I'm sure there is nothing in this dusty, musty rat cupboard of a place."

"I'll arrange that it can be changed. Or I'll get something you do like as well," he added, with ridiculous vainglory, for his hundred pounds were ebbing faster than the sands of time.

"Very well," said Peronella, half convinced and pouting. "If you don't want me, I'll go." And more in pique than compliance she left him alone with the fine young shopman, who was really a remarkably graceful young man, and one who obviously had no doubts as to his own good looks.

Indeed he had ostentatiously set them off by wearing the national costume of Alsander--puffed breeches, pleated silk shirt, and a short loose coat with wing-like sleeves, of dark blue gracefully lined with gold. This costume appeared all the more striking to Norman, as he had never seen one before; for it is rarely worn by the Alsandrians except on ceremonial occasions.

"What service can I be to you, sir?" said Norman. Himself a shopkeeper, he knew the value of a gentlemanly treatment, and did not allow his curiosity to get the better either of his self-control or of his manners.

"The question," replied the dealer in antiques, in a very soft and gentle voice, "is not so much what you can do for me as what you can do for yourself."

"And what can I do for myself?" inquired Norman, wondering at the fine but feminine beauty of the young man.

"The question is not really so much what you can do for yourself as what you can do for Alsander."

"The question is," retorted Norman, with some heat, "exactly how long the pantomime season is going to last?"

"The reply in general is for as long as woman gives birth to child: in particular, for as long as the A.A.A. is uncertain of your devotion."

"And what is the A.A.A.?"

"It is," replied the shopman, "the a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Alsander."

"I am sure that it is an admirable society."

"Like all earthly inst.i.tutions," observed the dandified young shopman, with a sententiousness ill befitting his years, "it has its defects, but want of precaution is not one of them."

"And where does it meet?"

"Here," said the shopman, briefly.

"And when does it meet?"

"Now," was the reply, followed almost immediately by a clatter and a crash as if all the machinery of a steam-mill had started with a jerk.

Norman had just time to see the shutters going down; then he found himself in total darkness.

"What in h.e.l.l do you mean by this?" he cried out, thunderstruck: but the shopman gave no answer or other sign of existence, and Norman suddenly realized with dismay that he was alone and a prisoner. For a moment or two he groped and fumbled in the dark. Then he remembered his matches.

He found three and lit them one by one. They cast all sorts of curious and flickering shadows from odd-shaped objects like crocodile G.o.ds and water-skins; one by one they went out. Norman was only the wiser in as far as the little light had lasted long enough for him to find out that the end of the shop had no exit and that his interloctuor had certainly disappeared, and he therefore spared himself the trouble of stumbling about in the dark for a means of escape. "This is fun," he thought boyishly, and sat down on what he had seen to be a horribly dusty and cracked Chippendale chair to await proceedings. When ten minutes had pa.s.sed he began to scratch his head; after twenty minutes the room had grown insufferably stifling and the philosophic mood had pa.s.sed: after half-an-hour he had formulated a scheme in accordance with which he would use the hindquarters of a large bra.s.s elephant, probably Indian, which he had noticed faintly glimmering on a shelf, as a battering ram.

His idea was that with so heavy an implement he could break a hole in the shutters, which seemed to have closed automatically, or at least by hammering attract the attention of some pa.s.sers by in the street outside. He was about to act on this ingenious plan and had already grasped the elephant firmly by one leg when his ear was attracted by a noise of heavy breathing from behind the shop, and a fumbling sound which suggested the turning of keys. The next instant a sort of panel-door opened at the back of the shop, flooding the place with a light that made Norman blink, and a butler, who, with his side whiskers, livery and portly presence looked so like a butler that he positively made Norman gasp, said in the most servile and insinuating English, "_Would_ you step this way, sir?"

Norman stepped, hoping that a chance had come at last of discovering the meaning, if any, of what he now felt sure was a superb and intricate joke. He followed the butler-like butler down a bare corridor and was ushered into a large room, which he judged from a symbol AA, which was hung on a bit of cardboard on the wall opposite and was the first thing that struck his eye, could be nothing else than the head-quarters of the Alsander Advancement a.s.sociation. But the room, which was neither sumptuous nor sordid, but eminently respectable, was a disappointment to Norman, and so were the presumed a.s.sociates, to whom the same adjectives were applicable. They were sitting at the end of the room behind a long table for all the world as if they were a board of examiners, and were all dressed in badly-cut frock coats. In front of each was a sheet of clean foolscap, pen, ink, and blotting paper. The young shopman sat in the centre in a slightly more comfortable chair, radiant in his extravagant costume as a parrot among crows; but Norman scanned their faces in vain to find the old Poet whom he naturally expected would be present on this mysterious occasion.

"Take a chair, my man, take a chair," said a wizened little old fellow, with a fussy, irritable voice.

"Certainly," said Norman, not pleased with the style of address, and he seated himself opposite the shopman, where the single unoccupied chair in the room was placed.

"I hear," observed the little old man gain, but in grave and serious tones, "that you are a candidate for the Crown of Alsander."

CHAPTER VIII

HOW NORMAN FAILED TO Pa.s.s A QUALIFYING EXAMINATION FOR THE POST OF KING OF ALSANDER, AND WAS WHIPPED: TOGETHER WITH A DIGRESSION ON THE EXCELLENCE OF WHIPPING

Les cris ne sont pas des chants.

_Paul Fort_

Norman was about to laugh at this unusual question when he seemed to catch the eyes of the Board of Examiners at once (for he could think of them under no other designation). All the eyes seemed to be looking at him with such peering intentness that he began to believe that they were all unintentional and not intentional lunatics, and therefore dangerous.

So he simply bowed. If it is a joke, thought Norman, that will be in keeping; if it is not, it will be expected of me. And he thought himself clever.

"Very good," said the little man, abruptly. "I think, Doctor," he continued, turning to a prominent Hebrew on his left, "that the preliminary examination should be conducted by you in person."

"I will begin at once. Take off your clothes," said the Doctor, addressing the last remark to Norman in a tone of command.

"But really...." began Norman, in expostulation.

"Absolutely necessary, I a.s.sure you," continued the Doctor. "For the proper exercise of monarchical functions nothing, not even courtesy, not even common sense, is more important than a sound physical condition. To judge of that condition it is imperative that you should take off your clothes. I may add," he continued, not unkindly, "that considering your general appearance I do not think that you will have much difficulty in satisfying the examiners on that score."

Norman was so puzzled by the evident gravity of the heavy-bearded doctor's speech and demeanour that he began to believe that a certain mad seriousness underlay the whole proceedings. It seemed to him unlikely that a dozen lunatics possessed of a common mania should find such a facility of meeting together in solemn a.s.sembly, even in Alsander. The poet, whom he still believed to be the prime instigator of this curious comedy, though eccentric, was no madman. So, having rapidly summed up in his mind the pros and cons of the case, Norman cautiously took off his coat.

However nothing less than complete nudity would satisfy the Doctor, and Norman, with growing reluctance, shed garment upon garment till, in the words of the Eastern poet, "the shining almond came out of his dusky sh.e.l.l," and "the petals of the rose lay strewn? upon the ground."

However, at a word from the shopman, who seemed in authority, Norman was permitted to retain as much clothing as would satisfy the by-laws of a very free bathing resort. The Doctor then rose, came round the table, and, seizing hold of the unfortunate, tapped him, pinched him, prodded him, poked him, felt his muscles, sounded his chest, examined his tongue, blew in his ears, slapped his stomach and tried his pulse. All this to the intense aggravation of his victim.

But when the Doctor finally commanded him to rim round the room as he was and climb along the rope that dangled from the ceiling, the boy succ.u.mbed to over-mastering indignation.

"I am not going to stand any more d.a.m.ned nonsense from you or anybody else," cried Norman. "This joke has gone quite far enough, and though it may amuse you vastly to make a fool of me I'll knock down the next one of you who tries it on."

The effect of his words was as instantaneous as he could have wished; there could be no mistaking the anger that flashed in the eyes of these curious examiners. Even Norman, in the heat of his excitement, noticed that, though he failed to notice that the youthful President's face (for the young shopkeeper seemed to be President, to judge from his central chair) remained unmoved save for a slight ocular twinkle. It was the President, however, who addressed him: "I am afraid," he said, "that we shall have to ask you to dress and leave us at once."

"I won't leave the room until you apologize to me, and if you don't apologize I'll punch your head." And Norman, all but naked as he was, began to bend up and down a very decent right arm and seemed well capable of executing his threat.

"You should be more patient, sir," observed the President, waving towards Norman his gold-embroidered sleeve with a conciliating smile. "I a.s.sure you that it is to your advantage to obey us, and very much to your disadvantage to be rude. I admit that our demands, coming from total strangers, seem both impertinent and extravagant, but I a.s.sure you that they are necessary, and I should like to impress you with the earnestness of this apparently inane procedure. The Doctor only desires to see your muscles in motion. I a.s.sure you, your body is not a thing of which you need be ashamed. Should you disobey, you will be in serious danger."