Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (90 page)

KNOT III.

MAD MATHESIS.

"I waited for the train."

"Well, they call me so because I
am
a little mad, I suppose," she said, good-humouredly, in answer to Clara's cautiously-worded question as to how she came by so strange a nick-name.
"You see, I never do what sane people are expected to do now-a-days.
I never wear long trains, (talking of trains, that's the Charing Cross Metropolitan Station—I've something to tell you about
that
), and I never play lawn-tennis.
I can't cook an omelette.
I can't even set a broken limb!
There's
an ignoramus for you!"

Clara was her niece, and full twenty years her junior; in fact, she was still attending a High School—an institution of which Mad Mathesis spoke with undisguised aversion.
"Let a woman be meek and lowly!"
she would say.
"None of your High Schools for me!"
But it was vacation-time just now, and Clara was her guest, and Mad Mathesis was showing her the sights of that Eighth Wonder of the world—London.

"The Charing Cross Metropolitan Station!"
she resumed, waving her hand towards the entrance as if she were introducing her niece to a friend.
"The Bayswater and Birmingham Extension is just completed, and the trains now run round and round continuously—skirting the border of Wales, just touching at York, and so round by the east coast back to London.
The way the trains run is
most
peculiar.
The westerly ones go round in two hours; the easterly ones take three; but they always manage to start two trains from here, opposite ways, punctually every quarter-of-an-hour."

"They part to meet again," said Clara, her eyes filling with tears at the romantic thought.

"No need to cry about it!"
her aunt grimly remarked.
"They don't meet on the same line of rails, you know.
Talking of meeting, an idea strikes me!"
she added, changing the subject with her usual abruptness.
"Let's go opposite ways round, and see which can meet most trains.
No need for a chaperon—ladies' saloon, you know.
You shall go whichever way you like, and we'll have a bet about it!"

"I never make bets," Clara said very gravely.
"Our excellent preceptress has often warned us——"

"You'd be none the worse if you did!"
Mad Mathesis interrupted.
"In fact, you'd be the better, I'm certain!"

"Neither does our excellent preceptress approve of puns," said Clara.
"But we'll have a match, if you like.
Let me choose my train," she added after a brief mental calculation, "and I'll engage to meet exactly half as many again as you do."

"Not if you count fair," Mad Mathesis bluntly interrupted.
"Remember, we only count the trains we meet
on the way
.
You mustn't count the one that starts as you start, nor the one that arrives as you arrive."

"That will only make the difference of
one
train," said Clara, as they turned and entered the station.
"But I never travelled alone before.
There'll be no one to help me to alight.
However, I don't mind.
Let's have a match."

A ragged little boy overheard her remark, and came running after her.
"Buy a box of cigar-lights, Miss!"
he pleaded, pulling her shawl to attract her attention.
Clara stopped to explain.

"I never smoke cigars," she said in a meekly apologetic tone.
"Our excellent preceptress——," but Mad Mathesis impatiently hurried her on, and the little boy was left gazing after her with round eyes of amazement.

The two ladies bought their tickets and moved slowly down the central platform, Mad Mathesis prattling on as usual—Clara silent, anxiously reconsidering the calculation on which she rested her hopes of winning the match.

"Mind where you go, dear!"
cried her aunt, checking her just in time.
"One step more, and you'd have been in that pail of cold water!"

"I know, I know," Clara said, dreamily.
"The pale, the cold, and the moony——"

"Take your places on the spring-boards!"
shouted a porter.

"What are
they
for!"
Clara asked in a terrified whisper.

"Merely to help us into the trains."
The elder lady spoke with the nonchalance of one quite used to the process.
"Very few people can get into a carriage without help in less than three seconds, and the trains only stop for one second."
At this moment the whistle was heard, and two trains rushed into the station.
A moment's pause, and they were gone again; but in that brief interval several hundred passengers had been shot into them, each flying straight to his place with the accuracy of a Minie bullet—while an equal number were showered out upon the side-platforms.

Three hours had passed away, and the two friends met again on the Charing Cross platform, and eagerly compared notes.
Then Clara turned away with a sigh.
To young impulsive hearts, like hers, disappointment is always a bitter pill.
Mad Mathesis followed her, full of kindly sympathy.

"Try again, my love!"
she said, cheerily.
"Let us vary the experiment.
We will start as we did before, but not to begin counting till our trains meet.
When we see each other, we will say 'One!'
and so count on till we come here again."

Clara brightened up.
"I shall win
that
," she exclaimed eagerly, "if I may choose my train!"

Another shriek of engine whistles, another upheaving of spring-boards, another living avalanche plunging into two trains as they flashed by: and the travellers were off again.

Each gazed eagerly from her carriage window, holding up her handkerchief as a signal to her friend.
A rush and a roar.
Two trains shot past each other in a tunnel, and two travellers leaned back in their corners with a sigh—or rather with
two
sighs—of relief.
"One!"
Clara murmured to herself.
"Won!
It's a word of good omen.
This
time, at any rate, the victory will be mine!"

But
was
it?

KNOT IV.

THE DEAD RECKONING.

"I did dream of money-bags to-night."

Noonday on the open sea within a few degrees of the Equator is apt to be oppressively warm; and our two travellers were now airily clad in suits of dazzling white linen, having laid aside the chain-armour which they had found not only endurable in the cold mountain air they had lately been breathing, but a necessary precaution against the daggers of the banditti who infested the heights.
Their holiday-trip was over, and they were now on their way home, in the monthly packet which plied between the two great ports of the island they had been exploring.

Along with their armour, the tourists had laid aside the antiquated speech it had pleased them to affect while in knightly disguise, and had returned to the ordinary style of two country gentlemen of the Twentieth Century.

Stretched on a pile of cushions, under the shade of a huge umbrella, they were lazily watching some native fishermen, who had come on board at the last landing-place, each carrying over his shoulder a small but heavy sack.
A large weighing-machine, that had been used for cargo at the last port, stood on the deck; and round this the fishermen had gathered, and, with much unintelligible jabber, seemed to be weighing their sacks.

"More like sparrows in a tree than human talk, isn't it?"
the elder tourist remarked to his son, who smiled feebly, but would not exert himself so far as to speak.
The old man tried another listener.

"What have they got in those sacks, Captain?"
he inquired, as that great being passed them in his never ending parade to and fro on the deck.

The Captain paused in his march, and towered over the travellers—tall, grave, and serenely self-satisfied.

"Fishermen," he explained, "are often passengers in My ship.
These five are from Mhruxi—the place we last touched at—and that's the way they carry their money.
The money of this island is heavy, gentlemen, but it costs little, as you may guess.
We buy it from them by weight—about five shillings a pound.
I fancy a ten pound-note would buy all those sacks."

By this time the old man had closed his eyes—in order, no doubt, to concentrate his thoughts on these interesting facts; but the Captain failed to realise his motive, and with a grunt resumed his monotonous march.

Meanwhile the fishermen were getting so noisy over the weighing-machine that one of the sailors took the precaution of carrying off all the weights, leaving them to amuse themselves with such substitutes in the form of winch-handles, belaying-pins, &c., as they could find.
This brought their excitement to a speedy end: they carefully hid their sacks in the folds of the jib that lay on the deck near the tourists, and strolled away.

When next the Captain's heavy footfall passed, the younger man roused himself to speak.

"
What
did you call the place those fellows came from, Captain?"
he asked.

"Mhruxi, sir."

"And the one we are bound for?"

The Captain took a long breath, plunged into the word, and came out of it nobly.
"They call it Kgovjni, sir."

"K—I give it up!"
the young man faintly said.

He stretched out his hand for a glass of iced water which the compassionate steward had brought him a minute ago, and had set down, unluckily, just outside the shadow of the umbrella.
It was scalding hot, and he decided not to drink it.
The effort of making this resolution, coming close on the fatiguing conversation he had just gone through, was too much for him: he sank back among the cushions in silence.

His father courteously tried to make amends for his
nonchalance
.

"Whereabouts are we now, Captain?"
said he, "Have you any idea?"

The Captain cast a pitying look on the ignorant landsman.
"I could tell you
that
, sir," he said, in a tone of lofty condescension, "to an inch!"

"You don't say so!"
the old man remarked, in a tone of languid surprise.

"And mean so," persisted the Captain.
"Why, what do you suppose would become of My ship, if I were to lose My Longitude and My Latitude?
Could
you
make anything of My Dead Reckoning?"

"Nobody could, I'm sure!"
the other heartily rejoined.

But he had overdone it.

"It's
perfectly
intelligible," the Captain said, in an offended tone, "to any one that understands such things."
With these words he moved away, and began giving orders to the men, who were preparing to hoist the jib.

Our tourists watched the operation with such interest that neither of them remembered the five money-bags, which in another moment, as the wind filled out the jib, were whirled overboard and fell heavily into the sea.

But the poor fishermen had not so easily forgotten their property.
In a moment they had rushed to the spot, and stood uttering cries of fury, and pointing, now to the sea, and now to the sailors who had caused the disaster.

The old man explained it to the Captain.

"Let us make it up among us," he added in conclusion.
"Ten pounds will do it, I think you said?"