LITMIR.BIZ

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is not your room,” I maintained; “and what is more, you are not going to stay here,” and I pushed the creature towards the door.

      “We’ll soon see all about that,” shouted the Pelican, wrenching himself from my grasp, and rushing at me with his beak wide open, and his wings outstretched.

      He was an enormous bird, and I had a great struggle with him. We went banging about the room, knocking over the furniture and making a terrible racket. At last, however, I managed to get him near the door, and giving a terrific shove I pushed him outside, and, pulling the door to, quickly turned the key.

      I could hear Mr. Pelican slipping and stumbling about on the highly polished floor of the corridor outside, and muttering indignantly. Presently he came to the door, and banging with his beak, he cried, “Look here! this is beyond a joke – let me in, I say – where do you suppose I am going to sleep?”

      “Anywhere you like except here,” I replied, feeling that I had got the best of it. “Go and perch or roost, or whatever you call it, on the banisters, or sleep on the mat if you like – I don’t care what you do!”

      “Impertinent wretch!” yelled the bird. “You only wait till the morning. I’ll pay you out;” and I could hear him muttering and mumbling in an angry way as he waddled down the corridor to seek some other resting-place. “What ridiculous nonsense it is,” I thought, as I tumbled into bed shortly after this little episode; “these creatures giving themselves such airs. No wonder the Wallypug is such a meek little person if he has been subjected to this sort of treatment all his life.” And pondering over the best method of altering the extraordinary state of affairs, I dropped off to sleep.

      I do not know how long it may have been after this, but a terrific din, this time in the courtyard below my window, caused me once more to jump from my bed in alarm. I could hear a most unearthly yelling going on, a babel of voices, and occasionally a resounding crash as though something hollow had been violently struck.

      Pushing open the latticed windows I saw in the moonlight a little man dressed in a complete suit of armor with an enormous shield, like a dishcover, arranged over his head, playing the guitar, and endeavoring to sing to its accompaniment. He was continually interrupted, however, by a shower of missiles thrown from all of the windows overlooking the courtyard, out of which angry heads of animals and other occupants of the palace were thrust; he was surrounded by a miscellaneous collection of articles which had evidently been thrown at him, and some of them, had it not been for his suit of armor and the erection over his head, would have caused him considerable injury.

      He did not seem to mind them in the least, though, and continued singing amid a perfect storm of boots, brushes, and bottles, as though he was quite accustomed to such treatment: and it was only when an irate figure, which somehow reminded me of his Majesty’s Sister-in-Law, clad in white garments and flourishing a pair of tongs, appeared in the courtyard, that he took to his heels and fled, pursued by the white-robed apparition, till both disappeared beneath an archway at the farther end of the courtyard. Most of the windows were thereupon closed, and the disturbed occupants of the palace returned to their rest. I was just about to close my lattice too, when I caught sight of a familiar figure at the adjoining window. It was my old friend A. Fish, Esq.

      “Oh! id’s you iz id,” he cried. “You have cub thed, I heard that you were egspegded.”

      “Yes, here I am,” I replied. “How are you? How is your cold?”

      “Oh, id’s quide cured, thags; dote you dotice how butch better I speak?”

      “I’m very glad to hear it, I’m sure,” I replied, waiving the question and trying to keep solemn. “What’s all this row about?”

      “Oh! thad’s the troubadour, up to his old gabes agaid; he’s ad awful dusadce. I’ll tell you aboud hib in the bordig – good dight.” And A. Fish, Esq., disappeared from view.

      CHAPTER IV

LATE FOR BREAKFAST

      I awoke very early in the morning, just as it was daylight, and being unable to get to sleep again amid my strange surroundings, I arose and crept down-stairs as noiselessly as possible, intending to go for a long walk before breakfast.

      At the bottom of the stairs I came upon a strange-looking white object, which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be the Pelican, asleep on the floor.

      He was not sleeping as any respectable bird would have done, with his head tucked under his wing; but was lying stretched out on a rug in the hall, with his head resting on a cushion. His enormous beak was wide open, and he was snoring violently, and muttering uneasily in his sleep.

      I did not disturb him for fear lest he should make a noise; but hurrying past him I made my way to the hall door, which after a little difficulty I succeeded in unfastening. An ancient-looking turtle with a white apron was busily cleaning the steps, and started violently as I made my appearance at the door.

      “Bless my shell and fins!” he muttered; “what’s the creature wandering about this time of the morning for; they’ll be getting up in the middle of the night next. Just mind where you’re treading, please!” he called out. “The steps have been cleaned, and I don’t want to have to do them all over again.”

      I managed to get down without doing much damage, and then remarked pleasantly:

      “Good morning; have you – ”

      “No, I haven’t,” interrupted the Turtle snappishly; “and what’s more, I don’t want to.”

      “What do you mean?” I inquired, in surprise.

      “Soap!” was the reply.

      “I don’t understand you,” I exclaimed.

      “You’re an advertisement for somebody’s soap, aren’t you?” asked the Turtle.

      “Certainly not,” I replied, indignantly.

      “Your first remark sounded very much like it,” said the Turtle suspiciously. “‘Good morning, have you used – ’”

      “I wasn’t going to say that at all,” I interrupted. “I was merely going to ask if you could oblige me with a light.”

      “Oh, that’s another thing entirely,” said the Turtle, handing me some matches from his waistcoat pocket, and accepting a cigarette in return. “But really we have got so sick of those advertisement catchwords since the Doctor-in-Law returned from London with agencies for all sorts of things, that we hate the very sound of them. We are continually being told to ‘Call a spade a spade,’ which will be ‘grateful and comforting’ to ‘an ox in a teacup’ who is ‘worth a guinea a box,’ and who ‘won’t be happy till he gets it.’”

      “It must be very trying,” I murmured sympathetically.

      “Oh, it is,” remarked the Turtle. “Well,” he continued in a business-like tone, “I’m sorry you can’t stop – good morning.”

      “I didn’t say anything about going,” I ejaculated.

      “Oh, didn’t you? Well, I did then,” said the Turtle emphatically. “Move on, please!”

      “You’re very rude,” I remarked.

      “Think so?” said the Turtle pleasantly. “That’s all right then – good-by,” and he flopped down on his knees and resumed his scrubbing.

      There was nothing for me to do but to walk on, and seeing a quaint-looking old rose garden in the distance, I decided to go over and explore.

      I was walking slowly along the path leading to it, when I heard a curious clattering noise behind me, and turning around I beheld the Troubadour, still in his armor, dragging a large standard rosebush along the ground.

      “As if it were not enough,” he grumbled, “to be maltreated as I am every night, without having all this trouble every morning. I declare it is enough to make you throw stones at your grandfather.”

      “What’s the matter?” I ventured to ask of the little man.

      “Matter?”

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