Part 2

"Isn't it glorious!" cried Mollie, as she breathed in the crisp fresh air, and tasted just a tiny bit of the salt spray of the ocean on her lip.

"I guesso," whistled Whistlebinkie, with a little shiver. "Think-ide-like-it-better-'fwe-had-alittle-land-in-sight."

"O no, Whistlebinkie," returned Mollie, "it's a great deal safer this way. There are rocks near the shore but outside here the water is ever so deep--more'n six feet I guess. I'd be perfectly happy if the Unwiseman was only with us."

Just then up through one of the big yawning ventilators, that look so like sea-serpents with their big flaming mouths stretched wide open as if to swallow the passengers on deck, came a cracked little voice singing the following song to a tune that seemed to be made up as it went along:

"Yo-ho! Yo-ho-- O a sailor's life for me! I love to nail The blithering gale, As I sail the bounding sea. For I'm a glorious stowaway, I've thrown my rake and hoe away, On the briny deep to go away, Yeave-ho--Yeave-ho--Yo-hee!"

"Where have I heard that voice before!" cried Mollie clutching Whistlebinkie by the hand so hard that he squeaked.

"It's-sizz!" whistled Whistlebinkie excitedly.

"It's what?" cried Mollie.

"It's-his!" repeated Whistlebinkie more correctly.

"Whose--the Unwiseman's?" Mollie whispered with delight.

"Thass-swat-I-think," said Whistlebinkie.

And then the song began again drawing nearer each moment.

"Yeave-ho, Yo-ho, O I love the life so brave. I love to swish Like the porpoise fish Over the foamy wave. So let the salt wind blow-away, All care and trouble throw-away, And lead the life of a Stowaway Yeave-ho--Yeave-ho--Yo-hee!"

"It is he as sure as you're born, Whistlebinkie!" cried Mollie in an ecstacy of delight. "I wonder how he came to come."

"I 'dno," said Whistlebinkie. "I guess he's just went and gone."

As Whistlebinkie spoke sure enough, the Unwiseman himself clambered out of the ventilator and leaped lightly on the deck alongside of them still singing:

"Yeave-ho, Yo-ho, I love the At-lan-tic. The water's wet And you can bet The motion makes me sick. But let the wavelets flow away You cannot drive the glow away From the heart of the happy Stowaway. Yeave-ho--Yeave-ho--Yo-hee!"

Dear me, what a strange looking figure he was as he jumped down and greeted Mollie and Whistlebinkie! In place of his old beaver hat he wore a broad and shiny tarpaulin. His trousers which were of white duck stiffly starched were neatly creased down the sides, ironed as flat as they could be got, nearly two feet wide and as spick and span as a snow-flake. On his feet he wore a huge pair of goloshes, and thrown jauntily around his left shoulder and thence down over his right arm to his waist was what appeared to be a great round life preserver, filled with air, and heavy enough to support ten persons of his size.

"Shiver my timbers if it ain't Mollie!" he roared as he caught sight of her. "And Whistlebinkie too--Ahoy there, Fizzledinkie. What's the good word?"

"Where on earth did you come from?" asked Mollie overjoyed.

"I weighed anchor in the home port at seven bells last night; set me course nor-E by sou-sou-west, made for the deep channel running past the red, white and blue buoy on the starboard tack, reefed my galyards in the teeth o' the blithering gale and sneaked aboard while Captain Binks of the good ship _Nancy B._ was trollin' for oysters off the fishin' banks after windin' up the Port watch," replied the Unwiseman. "It's a great life, ain't it," he added gazing admiringly about him at the wonderful ship and then over the rail at the still more wonderful ocean.

"But how did you come to come?" asked Mollie.

"Well--ye see after you'd said good-bye to me the other day, I was sort of upset and for the first time in my life I got my newspaper right side up and began to read it that way," the old gentleman explained. "And I fell on a story of the briny deep in which a young gentleman named Billy The Rover Bold sailed from the Spanish main to Kennebunkport in a dory, capturing seventeen brigs, fourteen galleons and a pirate band on the way. It didn't say fourteen galleons of what, but thinkin' it might be soda water, it made my mouth water to think of it, so I decided to rent my house and come along. About when do you think we'll capture any Brigs?"

"You rented your house?" asked Mollie in amazement.

"Yes--to a Burgular," said the Unwiseman. "I thought that was the best way out of it. If the burgular has your house, thinks I, he won't break into it, spoiling your locks, or smashing your windows and doors. What he's got likewise moreover he won't steal, so the best thing to do is to turn everything over to him right in the beginning and so save your property. So I advertised. Here it is, see?" And the Unwiseman produced the following copy of his advertisement.

FOR TO BE LET ONE FIRST CLASS PREMISSES ALL MODDERN INCONVENIENCES HOT AND COAL GAS SIXTEEN MILES FROM POLICE STATION POSESSION RIGHT AWAY OFF ONLY BURGULARS NEED APPLY.

Address, The Unwiseman, At Home.

"One of 'em called the next night and he's taken the house for six months," the Unwiseman went on. "He's promised to keep the house clean, to smoke my pipe, look after my Qs and commas, eat my meals regularly, and exercise the umbrella on wet days. It was a very good arrangement all around. He was a very nice polite burgular and as it happened had a lot of business he wanted to attend to right in our neighborhood. He said he'd keep an eye on your house too, and I told him about how to get in the back way where the cellar window won't lock. He promised for sure he'd look into it."

"Very kind of him I'm sure," said Mollie dubiously.

"You'd have liked him very much--nicest burgular I ever met. Had real taking ways," said the Unwiseman.

"Howd-ulike-being-outer-sighter-land?" asked Whistlebinkie.

"Who, me?" asked the Unwiseman. "I wouldn't like it at all. I took precious good care that I shouldn't be neither."

"Nonsense," said Mollie. "How can you help yourself?"

"This way," said the Unwiseman with a proud smile of superiority, taking a bottle from his pocket. "See that?" he added.

"Yes," said Mollie. "What is it?"

"It's land, of course," replied the Unwiseman, holding the bottle up in the light. "Real land off my place at home. Just before I left the house it occurred to me that it would be pleasant to have some along and I took a shovel and went out and got a bottle full of it. It makes me feel safer to have the land in sight all the way over and then it will keep me from being homesick when I'm chasing those Alps down in Swazoozalum."

"Swizz-izzerland!" corrected Whistlebinkie.

"Swit-zer-land!" said Mollie for the instruction of both. "It's not Swazoozalum, or Swizziz-zerland, but Switzerland."

"O I see--rhymes with Hits-yer-land--when the Alp he hits your land, then you think of Switzerland--that it?" asked the Unwiseman.

"Well that's near enough," laughed Mollie. "But how does that bottle keep you from being homesick?"

"Why--when I begin to pine for my native land, all I've got to do is to open the bottle and take out a spoonful of it. 'This is my own, my native land,' the Poet said, and when I look at this bottle so say I. Right out of my own yard, too," said the Unwiseman, hugging the bottle tightly to his breast. "It's queer isn't it how I should find out how to travel so comfortably without having to ask anybody."

"I guess you're a genius," suggested Whistlebinkie.

"Maybe I am," agreed the Unwiseman, "but anyhow you know I just knew what to do as soon as I made up my mind to come along."

Mollie looked at him admiringly.

"Take these goloshes for instance. I'm the only person on board this boat that's got goloshes on," continued the old gentleman, "and yet if the boat went down, how on earth could they keep their feet dry? It's all so simple. Same way with this life preserver--it's nothing but an old bicycle tire I found in your barn, but just think what it would mean to me if I should fall overboard some day."

"Smitey-fine!" whistled Whistlebinkie.

"It is that. All I'll have to do is to sit inside of it and float till they lower a boat after me," said the Unwiseman.

"What have you done about getting sea-sick?" asked Mollie.

"Ah--that's the thing that bothered me as much as anything," ejaculated the Unwiseman, "but all of a sudden it came to me like a flash. I was getting my fishing tackle ready for the trip and when I came to the sinkers, there was the idea as plain as the nose on your face. Six days out, says I, means thirty-seven meals."

"Thirty-seven?" asked Mollie.

"Yes--three meals a day for six days is--," began the Unwiseman.

"Only eighteen," said Mollie, who for a child of her size was very quick at multiplication.

"So it is," said the Unwiseman, his face growing very red. "So it is. I must have forgotten to set down five and carry three."

"Looks that way," said Whistlebinkie, with a mirthful squeak through the top of his hat. "What you did was to set down three and carry seven."

"That's it," said the Unwiseman. "Three and seven make thirty-seven--don't it?"

"Looked at sideways," said Mollie, with a chuckle.

"I know I got it somehow," observed the Unwiseman, his smile returning. "So I prepared myself for thirty-seven meals. I brought a lead sinker along for each one of them. I'm going to tie one sinker to each meal to keep it down, and of course I won't be sea-sick at all. There was only one other way out of it that I could think of; that was to eat pound-cake all the time, but I was afraid maybe they wouldn't have any on board, so I brought the sinkers instead."

"It sounds like a pretty good plan," said Whistlebinkie. "Where's your State-room?"

"I haven't got one," said the Unwiseman. "I really don't need it, because I don't think I'll go to bed all the way across. I want to sit up and see the scenery. When you've only got a short time on the water and aren't likely to make a habit of crossing the ocean it's too bad to miss any of it, so I didn't take a room."

"I don't think there's much scenery to be seen on the ocean," suggested Mollie. "It's just plain water all the way over."

"O I don't think so," replied the Unwiseman. "I imagine from that story about Billy the Rover there's a lot of it. There's the Spanish main for instance. I want to keep a sharp look out for that and see how it differs from Bangor, Maine. Then once in a while you run across a latitude and a longitude. I've never seen either of those and I'm sort of interested to see what they look like. All I know about 'em is that one of 'em goes up and down and the other goes over and back--I don't exactly know how, but that's the way it is and I'm here to learn. I should feel very badly if we happened to pass either of 'em while I was asleep."

"Naturally," said Mollie.

"Then somewhere out here they've got a thing they call a horrizon, or a horizon, or something like that," continued the Unwiseman. "I've asked one of the sailors to point it out to me when we come to it, and he said he would. Funny thing about it though--he said he'd sailed the ocean for forty-seven years and had never got close enough to it to touch it. 'Must be quite a sight close to,' I said, and he said that all the horrizons he ever saw was from ten to forty miles off. There's a place out here too where the waves are ninety feet high; and then there's the Fishin' Banks--do you know I never knew banks ever went fishin', did you? Must be a funny sight to see a lot o' banks out fishin'. What State-room are you in, Mollie?"

"We've got sixty-nine," said Mollie.

"Sixty-nine," demanded the Unwiseman. "What's that mean?"

"Why it's the number of my room," explained Mollie.

"O," said the Unwiseman scratching his head in a puzzled sort of way. "Then you haven't got a State-room?"

"Yes," said Mollie. "It's a State-room."

"I don't quite see," said the Unwiseman, gazing up into the air. "If it's a State-room why don't they call it New Jersey, or Kansas, or Mitchigan, or some other State? Seems to me a State-room ought to be a State-room."

"I guess maybe there's more rooms on board than there are States," suggested Whistlebinkie. "There ain't more than sixty States, are there, Mollie?"

"There's only forty-six," said Mollie.

"Ah--then that accounts for number sixty-nine," observed the Unwiseman. "They're just keeping a lot of rooms numbered until there's enough States to go around."

"I hope we get over all right," put in Whistlebinkie, who wasn't very brave.

"O I guess we will," said the Unwiseman, cheerfully. "I was speaking to that sailor on that very point this morning, and he said the chances were that we'd go through all right unless we lost one of the screws."

"Screws?" inquired Whistlebinkie.

"Yes--it don't sound possible, but this ship is pushed through the water by a couple of screws fastened in back there at the stern. It's the screws sterning that makes the boat go," the Unwiseman remarked with all the pride of one who really knows what he is talking about. "Of course if one of 'em came unfastened and fell off we wouldn't go so fast and if both of 'em fell off we wouldn't go at all, until we got the sails up and the wind came along and blew us into port."

"Well I never!" said Whistlebinkie.

"O I knew that before I came aboard," said the Unwiseman, sagely. "So I brought a half dozen screws along with me. There they are."

And the old gentleman plunged his hand into his pocket and produced six bright new shining screws.

"You see I'm ready for anything," he observed. "I think every passenger who takes one of these screwpeller boats--that's what they call 'em, screwpellers--ought to come prepared to furnish any number of screws in case anything happens. I'm not going to tell anybody I've got 'em though. I'm just holding these back until the Captain tells us the screws are gone, and then I'll offer mine."

"And suppose yours are lost too, and there ain't any wind for the sails?" demanded Whistlebinkie.

"I've got a pair o' bellows down in my box," said the Unwiseman gleefully. "We can sit right behind the sails and blow the whole business right in the teeth of a dead clam."

"Dead what?" roared Mollie.

"A dead clam," said the Unwiseman. "I haven't found out why they call it a dead clam--unless it's because it's so still--but that's the way we sailors refer to a time at sea when there isn't a handful o' wind in sight and the ocean is so smooth that even the billows are afraid to roll in it for fear they'd roll off."

"We sailors!" ejaculated Whistlebinkie, scornfully under his breath. "Hoh!"

"Well you certainly are pretty well prepared for whatever happens, aren't you, Mr. Unwiseman," said Mollie admiringly.

"I like to think so," said the old gentleman. "There's only one thing I've overlooked," he added.

"Wass-that?" asked Whistlebinkie.

"I have most unaccountably forgotten to bring my skates along, and I'm sure I don't know what would happen to me without 'em if by some mischance we ran into an iceberg and I was left aboard of it when the steamer backed away," the Unwiseman remarked.

Here the deck steward came along with a trayful of steaming cups of chicken broth.

"Broth, ma'am," he said politely to Mollie.

"Thank you," said Mollie. "I think I will."

Whistlebinkie and the Unwiseman also helped themselves, and a few minutes later the Unwiseman disappeared bearing his cup in his hand. It was three hours after this that Mollie again encountered him, sitting down near the stern of the vessel, a doleful look upon his face, and the cup of chicken broth untasted and cold in his hands.

"What's the matter, dearie?" the little girl asked.

"O--nothing," he said, "only I--I've been trying for the past three hours to find out how to tie a sinker to this soup and it regularly stumps me. I can tie it to the cup, but whether it's the motion of the ship or something else, I don't know what, I can't think of swallowing _that_ without feeling queer here."

And the poor old gentleman rubbed his stomach and looked forlornly out to sea.

III.

AT SEA

It was all of three days later before the little party of travellers met again on deck. I never inquired very closely into the matter but from what I know of the first thousand miles of the ocean between New York and Liverpool I fancy Mollie and Whistlebinkie took very little interest in anybody but themselves until they had got over that somewhat uneven stretch of water. The ocean is more than humpy from Nantucket Light on and travelling over it is more or less like having to slide over eight or nine hundred miles of scenic railroads, or bumping the bumps, not for three seconds, but for as many successive days, a proceeding which interferes seriously with one's appetite and gives one an inclination to lie down in a comfortable berth rather than to walk vigorously up and down on deck--though if you _can_ do the latter it is the very best thing in the world _to_ do. As for the Unwiseman all I know about him during that period is that he finally gave up his problem of how to tie a sinker to a half-pint of chicken broth, and diving head first into the ventilator through which he had made his first appearance on deck, disappeared from sight. On the morning of the fourth day however he flashed excitedly along the deck past where Mollie and Whistlebinkie having gained courage to venture up into Mollie's steamer chair were sitting, loudly calling for the Captain.

"Hi-hullo!" called Mollie, as the old gentleman rushed by. "Mr. Me!"--Mr. Me it will be remembered by his friends was the name the Unwiseman had had printed on his visiting cards. "Mister Me--come here!"

The Unwiseman paused for a moment.

"I'm looking for the Captain," he called back. "I find I forgot to tell the burgular who's rented my house that he mustn't steal my kitchen stove until I get back, and I want the Captain to turn around and go back for a few minutes so that I can send him word."

"He wouldn't do that, Mr. Me," said Mollie.

"Then let him set me on shore somewhere where I can walk back," said the Unwiseman. "It would be perfectly terrible if that burgular stole my kitchen stove. I'd have to eat all my bananas and eclairs raw, and besides I use that stove to keep the house cool in summer."

"There isn't any shore out here to put you on," said Mollie.

"Where's your bottle of native land?" jeered Whistlebinkie. "You might walk home on that."

"Hush, Whistlebinkie," said Mollie. "Don't make him angry."

"Well," said the Unwiseman ruefully. "I'm sure I don't know what to do about it. It is the only kitchen stove I've got, and it's taken me ten years to break it in. It would be very unfortunate just as I've got the stove to do its work exactly as I want it done to go and lose it."

"Why don't you send a wireless message?" suggested Mollie. "They've got an office on board, and you can telegraph to him."

"First rate," said the old man. "I'd forgotten that." And the Unwiseman sat down and wrote the following dispatch:

DEAR MR. BURGULAR:

Please do not steal my kitchen stove. If you need a stove steal something else like the telephone book or that empty bottle of Woostershire Sauce standing on the parlor mantel-piece with the daisy in it, and sell them to buy a new stove with the money. I've had that stove for ten years and it has only just learned how to cook and it would be very annoying to me to have to get a new one and have to teach it how I like my potatoes done. You know the one I mean. It's the only stove in the house, so you can't get it mixed up with any other. If you do I shall persecute you to the full extent of the law and have you arrested for petty parsimony when I get back. If you find yourself strongly tempted to steal it the best thing to do is to keep it red hot with a rousing fire on its insides so that it will be easier for you to keep your hands off.

Yours trooly, THE UNWISEMAN.

P.S. Take the poker if you want to but leave the stove. It's a wooden poker and not much good anyhow.

Yours trooly, THE UNWISEMAN.

"There!" he said as he finished writing out the message. "I guess that'll fix it all right."

"It-tortoo," whistled Whistlebinkie through the top of his hat.

"What?" said Mollie, severely.

"It-ought-to-fix-it," repeated Whistlebinkie.

And the Unwiseman ran up the deck to the wireless telegraph office. In a moment he returned, his face full of joy.

"I guess I got the best of 'em that time!" he chortled gleefully. "What do you suppose Mollie? They actually wanted me to pay twenty-one dollars and sixty cents for that telegram. The very idea!"

"Phe-ee-ew!" whistled Whistlebinkie.

"Very far from few," retorted the Unwiseman. "It was many rather than few and I told the man so. 'I can buy five new kitchen stoves for that amount of money,' said I. 'I can't help that,' said the man. 'I guess you can't,' said I. 'If you could the price o' kitchen stoves would go up'."

"What did you do?" asked Mollie.

"I told him I was just as wireless as he was, and I tossed my message up in the air and last time I saw it it was flying back to New York as tight as it could go," said the Unwiseman. "I guess I can send a message without wires as well as anybody else. It's a great load off my mind to have it fixed, I can tell you," he added.

"What have you been doing with yourself since I saw you last, Mr. Me?" asked Mollie, as her old friend seated himself on the foot-rest of her steamer chair.

"O I've managed to keep busy," said the Unwiseman, gazing off at the rolling waves.

Whistlebinkie laughed.

"See-zick?" he whistled.

"What me?" asked the Unwiseman. "Of course not--we sailors don't get sea-sick like land-lubbers. No, sirree. I've been a little miserable due to my having eaten something that didn't agree with me--I very foolishly ate a piece of mince pie about five years ago--but except for that I've been feeling first rate. For the most part I've been watching the screw driver--they've got a big steam screw driver down-stairs in the cellar that keeps the screws to their work, and I got so interested watching it I've forgotten all about meals and things like that."

"Have you seen horrizon yet?" asked Whistlebinkie.

"Yes," returned the Unwiseman gloomily. "It's about the stupidest thing you ever saw. See that long line over there where the sky comes down and touches the water?"

"Yep," said Whistlebinkie.

"Well that's what they call the horrizon," said the Unwiseman contemptuously. "It's nothin' but a big circle runnin' round and round the scenery, day and night, now and forever. It won't go near anybody and it won't let anybody go near it. I guess it's just about the most unsociable fish that ever swam the sea. Speakin' about fish, what do you say to trollin' for a whale this afternoon?"

"That would be fine!" cried Mollie. "Have you any tackle?"

"Oh my yes," replied the Unwiseman. "I've got a half a mile o' trout line, a minnow hook and a plate full o' vermicelli."

"Vermicelli?" demanded Mollie.

"Yes--don't you know what Vermicelli is? It's sort of baby macaroni," explained the Unwiseman.

"What good is it for fishing?" asked Whistlebinkie.

"I don't know yet," said the Unwiseman "but between you and me I don't believe if you baited a hook with it any ordinary fish who'd left his eyeglasses on the mantel-piece at home could tell it from a worm. I neglected to bring any worms along in my native land bottle, and I've searched the ship high and low without finding a place where I could dig for 'em, so I borrowed the vermicelli from the cook instead."

"Does-swales-like-woyms?" whistled Whistlebinkie.

"I don't know anything about swales," said the Unwiseman.

"I meant-twales," said Whistlebinkie.