"Wont you buy some rose-buds, missy?" she said. "De puttiest rose-buds I ever brought you yit."
Corny looked at her with a withering glare, but Priscilla didn't wither a bit. She was a poor hand at withering.[192]
"Please buy 'em, missy. I kep' 'em fur you. I been a-keepin' 'em all de mornin'."
"I don't see how you dare ask me to buy your flowers!" exclaimed Corny. "Go away! I never want to see you again. After all you did——"
"Please, missy, buy jist this one bunch. These is the puttiest red-rose buds in dis whole town. De red roses nearly all gone."
"Nearly all gone," said I. "What do you mean by telling such a fib?"—I was going to say "lie," which was nearer the truth (if that isn't a bull); but there were several ladies about, and Priscilla herself was a girl. "You know that there are red roses here all the year."
"Please, boss," said Priscilla, rolling her eyes at me like an innocent calf, "wont you buy dese roses fur missy? They's the puttiest roses I ever brought her yit."
"I guess you've got a calcareous conscience, haven't you?" said Rectus.
Priscilla looked at him, for a moment, as if she thought that he might want to buy something of that kind, but as she hadn't it to sell, she tried her flowers on him.
"Please, boss, wont you buy dese roses fur——"
"No," said Rectus, "I wont."
And we all turned and walked away. It was no use to blow her up. She wouldn't have minded it. But she lost three customers.
I said before that I was the only one in our party who liked fishing, and for that reason I didn't go[193] often, for I don't care about taking trips of that kind by myself. But one day Mr. Burgan and the other yellow-legs told me that they were going to fish in Lake Killarney, a lovely little lake in the interior of the island, about five miles from the town, and that if I liked I might go along. I did like, and I went.
I should have been better pleased if they had gone there in a carriage; but this wouldn't have suited these two fellows, who had rigged themselves up in their buck-skin boots, and had all the tramping and fishing rigs that they used in the Adirondacks and other sporting places where they told me they had been. It was a long and a warm walk, and trying to find a good place for fishing, after we got to the lake, made the work harder yet. We didn't find any good place, and the few fish we caught didn't pay for the trouble of going there; but we walked all over a big pineapple plantation and had a splendid view from the highest hill on the whole island.
It was pretty late in the afternoon when we reached home, and I made up my mind that the next time I went so far to fish, in a semi-tropical country, I'd go with a party who wore suits that would do for riding.
Rectus and Corny and Mrs. Chipperton were up in the silk-cotton tree when I got home, and I went there and sat down. Mrs. Chipperton lent me her fan.
Corny and Rectus were looking over the "permission paper" which the English governor had given us.
"I guess this isn't any more use, now," said Corny, "as we've done all we can for kings and[194] queens, but Rectus says that if you agree I can have it for my autograph book. I never had a governor's signature."
"Certainly, you can have it," I said. "And he's a different governor from the common run. None of your State governors, but a real British governor, like those old fellows they set over us in our colony-days."
"Indeed!" said Mrs. Chipperton, smiling. "You must be able to remember a long way back."
"Well, you needn't make fun of this governor," said Corny, "for he's a real nice man. We met him to-day, riding in the funniest carriage you ever saw in your life. It's like a big baby-carriage for twins, only it's pulled by a horse, and has a man in livery to drive it. The top's straw, and you get in in the middle, and sit both ways."
"Either way, my dear," said Mrs. Chipperton.
"Yes, either way," continued Corny. "Did you ever see a carriage like that?"
"I surely never did," said I.
"Well, he was in it, and some ladies, and they stopped and asked Rectus and I how we got along with our queen, and when I told them all about it, you ought to have heard them laugh, and the governor, he said, that Poqua-dilla shouldn't suffer after we went away, even if he had to get all his pepper-pods from her. Now, wasn't that good?"
I admitted that it was, but I thought to myself that a good supper and a bed would be better, for I was awfully tired and hungry. But I didn't say this.
I slept as sound as a rock that night, and it was[195] pretty broad daylight when I woke up. I don't believe that I would have wakened then, but I wanted to turn over and couldn't, and that is enough to make any fellow wake up.
When I opened my eyes, I found myself in the worst fix I had ever been in in my life. I couldn't move my arms or my legs, for my arms were tied fast to my body, at the elbows and wrists, and my feet and my knees were tied together. I was lying flat on my back, but I could turn my head over to where Rectus' bed stood—it was a small one like mine—and he wasn't there. I sung out:
"Rectus!" and gave a big heave, which made the bed rattle. I was scared.
In a second, Rectus was standing by me. He had been sitting by the window. He was all dressed.
"Don't shout that way again," he said, in a low voice, "or I'll have to tie this handkerchief over your mouth," and he showed me a clean linen handkerchief all folded up, ready. "I wont put it so that it will stop your breathing," he said, as coolly as if this sort of thing was nothing unusual. "I'll leave your nose free."
"Let me up, you little rascal!" I cried. "Did you do this?"
At that he deliberately laid the handkerchief over my mouth and fastened it around my head. He was careful to leave my nose all right, but I was so mad that I could scarcely breathe. I knew by the way he acted that he had tied me, and I had never had such a trick played on me before. But it was no use to be[196] mad. I couldn't do anything, though I tugged and twisted my very best. He had had a good chance to tie me up well, for I had slept so soundly. I was regularly bandaged.
He stood by me for a few minutes, watching to see if I needed any more fixing, but when he made up his mind that I was done up securely, he brought a chair and sat down by the side of the bed and began to talk to me. I never saw anything like the audacity of the boy.
"You needn't think it was mean to tie you, when you were so tired and sleepy, for I intended to do it this morning, any way, for you always sleep sound enough in the mornings to let a fellow tie you up as much as he pleases. And I suppose you'll say it was mean to tie you, any way, but you know well enough that it's no use for me to argue with you, for you wouldn't listen. But now you've got to listen, and I wont let you up till you promise never to call me Rectus again."
"The little rascal!" I thought to myself. I might have made some noise in spite of the handkerchief, but I thought it better not, for I didn't know what else he might pile on my mouth.
"It isn't my name, and I'm tired of it," he continued. "I didn't mind it at school, and I didn't mind it when we first started out together, but I've had enough of it now, and I've made up my mind that I'll make you promise never to call me by that name again."
I vowed to myself that I would call him Rectus[197] until his hair was gray. I'd write letters to him wherever he lived, and direct them: "Rectus Colbert."
"I WOULDN'T LIKE IT MYSELF." "I WOULDN'T LIKE IT MYSELF."
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CHAPTER XIV. A HOT CHASE.
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CHAPTER XVI. MR. CHIPPERTON KEEPS PERFECTLY COOL.
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