CHAPTER X THE PUZZLED PROFESSOR

On the return of the boys to the house of Dr. Manning, Val’s hospitable young mind had been somewhat disturbed as to how he should amuse his new friend during the remaining hours of the afternoon.

“To-morrow,” he said, “I’ll get father to lend us the carriage, and we’ll have a grand drive, and next day we’ll do something else. Maybe we’ll go fishing. There’s plenty of fun evenings, but what’ll we do now?”

“One thing I’d like to do,” said Bar.

“What’s that?”

“Why, I never saw so many books and things in all my life as there are in your library. Do you suppose your father’d object to my taking a closer look at them?”

“The library?” exclaimed Val. “Why, that isn’t much. Father’d be glad enough if I’d put in more time there than I do. Then he’s got a[Pg 125] whole lot of things in his laboratory. Fun there, now!”

“I should say so,” said Bar. “I know something about that. We had to work up a whole lot of experiments once.”

“We?” said Val, inquiringly.

“Yes,” said Bar. “I and some other fellows. Only we just learned enough to play our tricks, that’s all.”

“That’s more’n I know, except to spoil my clothes with acids and things,” said Val. “Anyhow, if you can amuse yourself in the library I’m glad of it. Go ahead.”

It seemed to Bar Vernon that afternoon, as he wandered vaguely from one treasure of printing to another, as if he were soaking in learning from those elegantly bound volumes. The very leather on their backs had something wise and instructive in the smell of it.

So it seemed, indeed; nor was Bar’s notion so far wrong as it might be thought. A man is always a good deal influenced by his companions, especially if he takes a personal interest in them.

The companionship of books is only less[Pg 126] powerful than that of human beings, just as their “study” is. As for the reverse of the proposition, if anybody doubts that human beings—boys, especially—“make an impression” on books, just let him lend them his own favorite volumes, and he will be speedily convinced.

Dr. Manning was by no means displeased that evening when he heard from Val a faithful account of the day’s doings.

Val had nothing to conceal, and he would never have dreamed of doing so, if he had, for he was his father’s own son in straightforward simplicity.

The dinner-hour was six o’clock, and after that there were visitors, and the doctor’s back-parlor, opening into the library, looked remarkably cheerful.

It was a warm evening, and the whole suite of rooms was thrown into one by opening the folding-doors, but the front part was only half-lighted.

Bar felt more than a little shy at first, but a strong feeling of gratitude was rapidly growing upon him.

[Pg 127]What would he not do to keep such friends as these?

Very kind they were, too; and so were their visitors, all except the big, burly, pretentious-seeming personage, who was planting himself on the piano-stool in such a lordly way, just as Val whispered to his father:

“Mayn’t Bar play a trick on Professor Sturm?”

“Trick? No, my son, nothing rude. How could you ask?”

“Not rude, father, only funny. Bar’s a ventriloquist.”

“Oh!” said the doctor, “I see; Bar, you must be careful.”

Now it happened that “Professor Sturm” had already stirred up Bar’s sense of “personal resistance,” by his previous superciliousness to both him and Val, and he was quite ready to act upon the doctor’s halfway consent.

The professor had evidently proposed to himself that he would electrify the little company by what he would do with that piano, and he now made a dignified and self-confident dash at the keyboard, after the usual manner of experts.

[Pg 128]This would have been succeeded promptly by another artistic effort if it had not been followed instantly by a smothered and mournful howl from the depths of the piano.

The professor’s hands, on which more than one huge ring was glittering, came down with a convulsive start, and the discord produced was acknowledged by a repeated and more bitter cry of pain.

“Vas is dese tings?” exclaimed the man of music, springing to his feet. “Dere is somepody in de biano!”

“Of course there is,” replied a voice from the heart of the mysterious instrument, while the amazed doctor and his guests came crowding up with one accord.

“Doctor,” asked Professor Sturm, “dit you hear dat biano? I shall blay him some more. You see.”

The professor was a man of pluck, but no sooner did his fingers again begin to wander over the chords than a tumult began behind the rosewood in front of him.

Now it was one cat, then three or four. Then a distressed dog. And then a human voice appealed to the professor.

[Pg 129]“Please, don’t. You hurt us dreadfully.”

“De defil’s in de biano!” exclaimed the professor.

“No,” replied the voice, “not the devil. Only a lot of notes broke loose. If you’d only tie us up again.”

“Die ’em up!” said the professor. “Doctor, dit you hear ’em?”

“Yes, I heard them,” said the doctor. “Did you have any loose notes with you when you came?”

“Loose note, Doctor! Vat is de loose note?” cried Professor Sturm, with a fast-reddening face.

“In your pocket. Here we are,” replied a curious little voice from the professor’s own loose sack-coat. “We love you very much.”

“You lofe me! Who are you?”

“Oh! let us out, please. It’s dark in here. No air. If you don’t, I’ll tell them all what I’ve found.”

The poor professor was evidently becoming sadly perplexed when kind-hearted Mrs. Manning decided that the boys had pushed their fun quite far enough.

[Pg 130]“Not any more, Barnaby,” she said, pleasantly. “Professor, you mustn’t be angry with the boys. But don’t you think he’s a very good ventriloquist for one so young?”

“Oh! dat’s it,” exclaimed the professor, glad enough of an escape from his difficulties. “Den I serve him right if I make him sit down at de biano. Maybe he make some cat and dog music, eh?”

The burly professor suited the action to the word, and almost before Bar knew it, he found himself seated at the piano. He would never have ventured there of his own accord, but it occurred to him that the very least he could do was to amuse his new friends by any little accomplishments he might happen to possess, and the piano, therefore, immediately asked him:

“What are you there for?”

Many a stray hour of Barnaby’s “old time” had been spent in pounding away at one rickety piano or other, and he really had some natural genius for music, so that his reply in the shape of “amateur performance” was by no means discreditable to him.

Mrs. Manning was looking at her husband in[Pg 131] a good deal of amazement, when the music was interrupted again by what Val called “trouble in the piano.”

This time the instrument complained that that kind of playing made him very sick, and begged Bar to “fetch on his orchestra.”

In response to this, there followed a very fair medley of imitations of half a dozen different instruments, winding up with a duet between a cat and an accordion, gleefully accompanied by the piano.

“There,” said the latter, “now, if you only get away, I’d like to have the professor for a while. Don’t you wish you could play as well as he can?”

“Indeed I do,” remarked Bar, politely, as he rose from the piano-stool. “I suppose, Professor, I ought to beg your pardon.”

“Oh! no—no, my young frent,” exclaimed the enthusiastic German. “You haf de great genius. Nefer in all de vorlt was dere a biano filled with cats and togs before. I shall ask you to come mit me some tay. It is all fery goot fun.”

So the lady guests declared, but Mrs. Manning[Pg 132] determined to have another serious talk with her husband about the very remarkable companion he had selected for Valentine’s next year at school.

A little later and Judge Danvers himself was announced.

The doctor and the lawyer had a long conference of their own in the study, and then Barnaby was sent for.

The judge had a number of questions to ask, especially concerning Bar’s meeting that day with Major Montague, and at the end of it, as if entirely satisfied with the young adventurer’s account of himself, he remarked to Dr. Manning:

“You are right, Doctor. He and Val had better be off as soon as possible. Send them down to the seashore for a few days, and then let them start for Ogleport. It won’t hurt them to get there a little before school begins. Have you secured a boarding-place?”

“Oh, yes,” said the doctor. “Old Mrs. Wood will be glad enough of another boarder in her big old barn of a house. I only wish she could cram it full, if they were all of the right sort.”

“Yes,” replied the judge; “but, from what[Pg 133] you have told me of Barnaby’s performance this evening, I fear there are curious times in store for Mrs. Wood, if not for all Ogleport.”

“Indeed, sir!” exclaimed Bar, “I pledge you my word——”

“There, now,” interrupted the judge; “don’t say that. I’m a dried-up old lawyer myself, but I am not so cruel or so foolish as to expect all the boys to be sixty years old. You won’t do anything bad or mean, I feel sure of that, and you mustn’t lead Val into scrapes; but if you did promise not to have any fun you couldn’t keep it. I don’t want you to try.”

And so Bar’s two “guardians” decided, much to his delight, that he was to be delivered from any further risks of meeting his “uncle” or old Prosper.