Chapter XI: At the Exhibition

"I shan't be able to go," said John James, "and there's an end of it. Ugh! It's disgusting!"

"What's the matter with you?" asked Gladys.

The Golliwog knitted up his forehead, slid carefully off the table, and sitting in one chair, put his feet in another.

"It's my leg," he said at last, nearly twisting his nose off with the grimaces he made.

"Well," said Gladys impatiently, "what about it? I can't see anything the matter with it."

"I've got a _bone_ in it," said the Golliwog impressively, "and the fact is, I can't go to the Exhibition."

"Oh, dear, you poor old thing!" cried Gladys; "couldn't Freda and Tommy and I go without you! Then you could rest your poor leg, and perhaps the bone will come out."

"Well," said John James rather doubtfully, "will you promise to remember all the really important things?"

"Of course!" said Gladys, tossing her head; "and I daresay if I forget anything Tommy and Freda--why, there they are! Now we can tell them about it."

"Tell us what?" asked Tommy.

"Why, that John James has a bone in his leg, and we three are to go without him to the Teddio-Golliwog Exhibition."

"And represent _The Golliwog News_," put in John James, getting out his card case, and handing a card to Tommy, telling him at the same time to present it at the gate of the Exhibition, or whenever he had the least difficulty, and all would be well.

"I want to see the knick-knacks," began Freda, but John James interrupted.

"You'll have to go by the G. and T.B. Underground. I'll show you the way," and he climbed out of the window and let himself down by the water-shoot.

The three children followed him; they were not a bit afraid, and all of them alighted exactly in front of the black telegraph pole. It was zuzzing even then, and had a peculiar tarry smell. John James put his ear to it and listened.

"It's all right," he said. Then he looked up at the wires overhead, and repeated this rhyme:

"_Little Key, Little Key.
Won't you tumble down to me?_"

The next minute a little golden key with a diamond in it dropped right at their feet.

John James picked it up, fitted it into the pole, turned it, and a tiny door flew open, showing a flight of iron steps inside, and a board slanting downwards, which said:

THIS WAY TO THE G.& T.B. UNDERGROUND.

"There you are," said the Golliwog. "In you go. Mind you bring back all the news. Here's the Key. Take care of it."

He flung it down the steps after them, banged the door, and left them to find their way in the dark.

"How horrid of him!" said Gladys. "I suppose it's the bone in his leg. Jane gets it sometimes, and she's always cross then. Isn't it dark? We shall never find that Key."

"_Yes, you will, if you walk with care,
It's lying now on the middle stair,_"

said a voice, a very soft gentle voice too.

"Who's that?" said Gladys. "Freda where are you? Tommy, I can't see anything."

"_Oh, never fear
For I am still here,_"

continued the soft voice:

"_And when we come to the middle stair
I will remind you to pause just there._"

"Thank you very much, I'm sure," said poor Gladys, but she really was horribly frightened. She could hear Freda and Tommy talking and laughing below her, and the hand that held hers was such a very strange stiff hand. The soft voice was strange too. It was not only that it spoke in rhyme, but it shot out the words in sudden jerks, as if someone were pushing the speaker from behind.

"_The step at last,
Hold the Key fast,_"

said the voice again.

Gladys felt her foot grate against the Key, so she stooped and picked it up.

"_Here we are at the Underground,
I hope that the Key is safe and sound,_"

said her companion.

"How she does keep on," muttered Gladys crossly, as she tied the Key in a corner of her handkerchief. Then as they stepped out on to a brilliantly lighted platform, Gladys turned to see who it was, holding her so firmly by the hand. And, would you believe it--the owner of the soft voice was a Wooden Doll?

She had a sensible face, with a little bit of colour on each cheek, and a quantity of black hair smoothed over her ears. She wore a neat little bonnet, a nicely starched print dress, and she carried a brown basket with a packet of sandwiches done up in white paper.

Before Gladys could speak, Tommy and Freda rushed up, asking where ever she had been.

"Get into the train--get in--do get in!" shouted a funny little Golliwog guard, rushing up and waving a green flag.

He bundled the children in first, then popped the Wooden Doll into her basket with the sandwiches, and put her up in the rack, which was provided for light articles only. Then he slammed the door, and the train started.

"Do help that poor lady down!" began Gladys, but the Doll seemed quite unmoved by such strange treatment. She stepped out of the basket, slid down the window curtain, and sat herself by Freda with her well starched skirts crackling.

During the journey she confided to the children that her name was Selina Starchup, and that she was going to meet her husband at the Exhibition.

"We are going to represent _The Golliwog News_," said Tommy, producing John James' card.

The Wooden Doll's rosy face went quite white.

"_I should not thus have calmly sat
If I had even dreamed of that!_"

she gasped.

Then speaking very faintly and breathlessly, she told them that her husband, who was well acquainted with the newspaper world, thought _The Golliwog News_ the most wonderful, and by far the most literary production in Golliwog Land.

She added that on one occasion her husband had actually sat near the Editor, and considered it the greatest honour of his life that so important a personage had actually spoken to him, and had condescended to accept an acid drop.

She was so excited that when the train began to slow up she could hardly wait for it to stop. She hung out of the window, waving her basket so wildly that the neat little packet of sandwiches would have toppled out, and fallen under the train, had not a very fat, good-tempered looking Doll rushed up and caught it in both hands.

"Caught out!" cried the new-comer joyously. "Hullo, Selina! Come along, my dear. The Exhibition is going full swing. Are these young people coming with you?"

The "young people" stared, for the wooden lady's husband was the very identical Fat Doll who had taken his collar off at the Dolls' Parliament, and said "Papa" and "Mamma."

"_Hush, my dear!
Your ways are so queer,_"

said his wife reprovingly, and then she told him that Gladys, Tommy, and Freda had come to the Exhibition to represent _The Golliwog News_.

The Fat Doll jumped off his feet, he was so much surprised, and when he came down again, he was some distance along the platform, where he was joined by a tall thin gentleman who carried a Gladstone Bag. These two engaged in a very earnest conversation for some minutes and then approached the children.

"Allow me to shake hands," cried the new comer. "You must--you really must! I'll take no refusal."

The little girls shook hands with him, but they could not help giggling. Tommy burst out laughing, a real ringing schoolboy laugh, that made the other passengers on the platform look round to see what it was all about. The Fat Doll seemed puzzled, for he began feeling round Tommy's waistcoat to see whether he had a string anywhere that could be pulled to make him laugh again.

He fumbled and tickled Tommy so much that lie literally shrieked and rolled with laughter.

"I say--that's enough!" he cried. "Let me alone. Oh, let go!--do!"

The Fat Doll looked at Tommy thoughtfully.

"It's not a string," he cried. "It must be one of those which you press. I suppose I touched the spring by accident. It's a very good contrivance, any way."

While this was going on the tall thin gentleman had stood by, his eyes twinkling with delight.

"I'm out for the day," he cried merrily as the little party moved on. "Business is very slack just now. So I'm taking a holiday."

"You look as if you needed it," said Gladys. "You are so very thin. You must work very hard, I fancy. What do you do for your living?"

"I'm only a poor Dustman," he answered jovially, swinging his bag round and round.

"Nonsense!" cried the children in chorus, laughing heartily. "You don't look a bit like a Dustman."

"Are you a comic entertainer, sir?" asked Tommy. "I should think you would be a splendid one."

"And all the children like you, don't they?" ventured little Freda, who had taken such a fancy to him that she was hanging on to his arm and looking up into his face.

The Dustman's eyes twinkled.

"Well--no," he admitted. "I'm not a great favourite, though if they only knew it I'm a very good friend to them, and save them from all kinds of unpleasant things. It's the grown-ups who feel glad when I put in an appearance. But don't let us talk about that, I'm out for the day, and I want to have a good time. Here we are at the gate."

Mr. and Mrs. Starchup had already passed through the turnstile. The Dustman appeared to have a season ticket, for he simply nodded to the gate-keeper, and passed in.

Tommy produced his press card, and the children were all amused to see the look of amazement, mingled with awe, which overspread the gate-keeper's face when he read the magic words--_The Golliwog News_.

"Do you want an escort, sir?" he asked Tommy very politely.

"Oh, no,--no!" cried the Dustman. "I'll show them everything worth seeing before my business hours commence," and he hurried them away.

"I must remember to tell John James how the gate-keeper stared," said Gladys as they went along, and the words were scarcely out of her mouth, before a cat, without a tail, came prancing along on his hind legs, waving something in his paw. He had a tray attached to his neck by a strap, and went about so fast that the tray kept swinging round and hitting him in the back.

"Ha'penny a packet!" he cried. "A penny the half-dozen," he said, stopping in front of Gladys.

"What is it?" she asked, feeling for a halfpenny.

"Memory Powder," said the cat. "Highly recommended. Sole proprietor. Hundreds of unsolicited testimonials," he continued, thrusting a packet into Gladys' hand, and rushing off to meet a party of Toy Monkeys who had just arrived in a char-a-banc.

"My memory is so bad," began Gladys, "and Jane has said so often that I ought to get some memory powder. I wonder----"

She forgot what she was going to say, for just then they overtook Selina and her husband, standing arm in arm looking at the Jolly-Woggle.

The Jolly-Woggle was a gigantic see-saw, which woggled in a very peculiar way, and made everybody feel jolly. The Dustman told the children that it was recommended by all the doctors in Golliwog Land as a splendid remedy for nervous ailments.

"Going on?" cried the Fat Doll.

"Rather! What do you think?" replied the Dustman, and so when the see-saw stopped, they all climbed on, Mr. and Mrs. Starchup on one side, and the children and the Dustman on the other.

It was very amusing to watch Selina when the thing began to woggle. She tried so hard to sit upright and look dignified, and to keep her basket properly balanced. The Fat Doll bounced up and down like a Jack-in-the-Box, and several times the children heard faint cries of "Papa" and "Mamma" as they joggled to and fro.

Freda and Gladys clung to the Dustman like leeches, and even Tommy was glad to lay hold of his coat tails, the Jolly-Woggle did woggle so dreadfully. But they enjoyed it very much, and were quite sorry when it came to a stand still, and they had to get off, because all the animals from a Noah's Ark were waiting impatiently to get on.

"How John James would have enjoyed that!" said Gladys, as they walked on.

"I do wonder how the bone in his poor leg is getting on."

"Oh, all right, I expect," said Tommy. "Aren't we going to see the Knick-Knacks?"

"Of course we are," said the Dustman and the Fat Doll both together.

"Jane says she can't bear knick-knacks," began Gladys doubtfully, looking up at the narrow building, with a perplexed expression on her face.

"Nasty dust-traps, she calls them. Do you think we ought to go?"

"Bother Jane!" said Tommy. "Of course we're going."

He opened the glass door, and the Dustman, with Freda still clinging to his arm, went in. Gladys followed, then the Fat Doll and his wife, who nearly got squeezed to death trying to walk in arm in arm, and last of all, Tommy himself entered.

Each knick-knack was in a separate room with its name over the entrance.

The first was:

A STITCH IN TIME.

"I've heard that before," said Gladys. "I think it was Jane who said it. I don't want to see it very much."

"Nonsense!" said Tommy. "No one can make you do any mending to-day. Look! There's someone who ought to go in," he added, pointing to a very ragged Doll.

"She is going in," said the Dustman, and so they all trooped behind her.

In the middle of the floor there was an arm-chair, and Father Time sat in it. They knew who he was, because he held an hour glass in one hand and a scythe in the other, and looked so very old.

The old fellow smiled and nodded to the Dustman, and asked him to give the hourglass a shake on the quiet, for the sand seemed running very slowly, and he wanted his dinner.

Of course, the Dustman contrived to do as he was asked, and no one but the children saw him, for the Fat Doll and Selina were examining the scythe, and the Ragged Dollie was calling for a needle at the top of her voice.

Presently a neat little Teddy in a white apron and a cap brought her a needle threaded with black cotton, and she then walked up to Father Time and put a large stitch in his waistcoat.

"What is she doing that for?" whispered Gladys to Selina.

"_Just look again
And all will be plain,_"

whispered back the Wooden Doll.

The stitches flew in and out on Father Time's coat, and as if by magic, for every stitch she made, nine neat little stitches appeared in her own ragged garments. In a very short time she began to look quite a Smart Doll, very different from the disreputable creature she had seemed on first entering the place.

She smiled amiably at the children, but they did not like her, for as she was going out she made a grimace at the Dustman, who only shook his bag at her, and grinned.

Father Time was getting irritable.

"I can hear the rattling of the plates," he said. "I want my dinner."

The children left hastily, in search of the next Knick-Knack, which was an ancient instrument known as:

THE SECOND FIDDLE.

It was kept on a white satin cushion, and covered with a glass case, and the Toy Elephant in charge of it told them it was the greatest curiosity at the Exhibition.

"But why?" asked Tommy. "It looks quite ordinary to me, only rather old and fusty."

"It is so exceedingly wonderful," said the Elephant, slowly and patiently, looking at Tommy over the top of his spectacles, "because no one has ever been able to play it."

"Has anyone ever tried?" asked the Fat Doll, nudging Tommy in the ribs, hoping to make him laugh.

"Of _course_ not!" replied the Elephant indignantly, polishing up the glass case with a chamois leather. "I guard it, sir, most vigilantly all day, and at night I sleep with it locked up in my trunk. And _no one_, sir, ever _will_ be able to play it!"

Tommy laughed loudly, which was what the Fat Doll wanted. Freda and the Dustman laughed too, and even Selina giggled in a perfectly lady-like manner, but Gladys did not smile.

"I remember Jane once said----" she began, but Tommy turned round and looked at her.

"Look here, Gladys, why on earth must you remember every disagreeable thing your Jane ever said?"

"I'm sure I don't know," she replied, "I'm generally so forgetful, too."

"Why it's the memory powder!" cried the Dustman. "We ought not to have let her buy it."

"Give it to me," said Tommy, and seizing the packet he went to a window and threw it out as far as he could.

The children then passed on to the next room over which they saw the mysterious words:

THE LITTLE PITCHERS.

These Little Pitchers stood in a row against the wall. They were ten in number, and their ears were very long; but in spite of this, a cross-faced Golliwog was walking round them, pulling their ears to make them grow longer still.

"Doesn't it hurt?" said Gladys, to the smallest of the Little Pitchers.

"Hurt?" replied the poor little thing. "Rather! I should just think it does."

"But how did your ears get long to start with?" asked Tommy curiously.

"Well"--the Little Pitcher looked rather ashamed--"I used to listen about at doors, when grown-up people were talking, and er--er--my ears began to grow, and they have been getting longer ever since. It's awful. I can hear the flies walking about on the ceiling. The smallest sound seems like thunder. That bluebottle fly on the wall over there, can't you hear him? He's stamping along, like--Old Boots!--Oh, there he is!"

The Little Pitcher shut his eyes, and put a tea cosy over both ears and would not speak any more.

The children looked round to see what could have upset him, and they saw coming towards them on tiptoe the strangest little old person you ever imagined.

"My name is Boots," he remarked in a thin piping voice, "and I am usually known as Old Boots."

"Are you a real person?" asked Freda. "Dad often says he has been working like Old Boots. Was that you?"

"It was," said the old gentleman looking very pleased with himself. "Some people fight like Old Boots, or hurry like Old Boots----"

"Or _squeak_ like Old Boots," added the Dustman slyly, and at this our merry little party laughed again, and the Fat Doll turned a somersault.

But the old man went off offended, piping to himself, like--just like Old Boots!

"Now," said the Dustman, picking up his Gladstone Bag. It's six o'clock. I have just one hour left before I start business again, so we'd better all go and have some tea, and then we might have a look round the Magic Corridor."

Off they went to a celebrated tea house called "The Lions' Share." It was kept by a large family of Toy Lions. They were very obliging creatures, and if you wanted anything, and could not catch the waiter's eye, all you had to do was to pull his tail, and he brought you whatever you happened to fancy.

Tea being over--and a very merry meal it was--our friends went to the Magic Corridor, where they found a most fascinating automatic machine.

All you did--as the Dustman explained--was to peep in, turn the handle, and think of an absent friend, when immediately you saw in the machine an animated picture, which told you what the friend was doing at that precise moment.

"I should like to look in first," said Gladys, "because I do so badly want to know what John James is doing, and how the bone in his leg is getting on."

And seizing the handle, she peered through the glass.

"Can you see him?" asked Freda.

"Ye-es," said Gladys after a pause; then she added: "He is writing at the nursery table. He seems to have a huge pile of letters beside him. What can he be doing?"

"Oh, now he has finished them, and is stretching his back. Poor old thing! I expect it aches. Ah, now he is sticking down the envelopes. Oh, my! What a pile! And now, if he isn't even running to the pillar box. Running ever so fast----"

Gladys turned the handle very quickly.

"And he told me he had a bone in his leg! It must have been a story. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I shall go home this very minute and see----"

She dropped the handle, and ran down the Magic Corridor, with Tommy and Freda at her heels. On--on--till they reached the G. & T.B. Underground.

"Well, I must be off," said the Dustman, shouldering his Gladstone Bag, and he too hurried away.

"Look!" said the Fat Doll, as he and his thin wife walked leisurely down the Corridor. "The little lady has dropped something."

The "something" was a handkerchief. He picked it up, and was putting it in his pocket when a small round object fell out, with a slight clatter.

It was the Magic Key!

CHAPTER XII

The most illustrious G.N.
Now gives a Christmas party.
We meet our merry friends again
With smiles and handshakes hearty.
But, oh! their faces were so glum
When the last guest of all had come!