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Chapter 10

      The Other Professor

      Table of Contents

      ‘We were looking for you!’ cried Sylvie, in a tone of great relief. ‘We do want you so much, you ca’n’t think!’

      ‘What is it, dear children?’ the Professor asked, beaming on them with a very different look from what Uggug ever got from him.

      ‘We want you to speak to the Gardener for us,’ Sylvie said, as she and Bruno took the old man’s hands and led him into the hall.

      ‘He’s ever so unkind!’ Bruno mournfully added. ‘They’s all unkind to us, now that Father’s gone. The Lion were much nicer!’

      ‘But you must explain to me, please,’ the Professor said with an anxious look, ‘which is the Lion, and which is the Gardener. It’s most important not to get two such animals confused together. And one’s very liable to do it in their case—both having mouths, you know—’

      ‘Doos oo always confuses two animals together?’ Bruno asked.

      ‘Pretty often, I’m afraid,’ the Professor candidly confessed. ‘Now, for instance, there’s the rabbit-hutch and the hall-clock.’ The Professor pointed them out. ‘One gets a little confused with them—both having doors, you know. Now, only yesterday—would you believe it?—I put some lettuces into the clock, and tried to wind up the rabbit!’

      ‘Did the rabbit go, after oo wounded it up?’ said Bruno.

      The Professor clasped his hands on the top of his head, and groaned. ‘Go? I should think it did go! Why, it’s gone! And where ever it’s gone to—that’s what I ca’n’t find out! I’ve done my best—I’ve read all the article “Rabbit” in the great dictionary—Come in!’

      ‘Only the tailor, Sir, with your little bill,’ said a meek voice outside the door.

      ‘Ah, well, I can soon settle his business,’ the Professor said to the children, ‘if you’ll just wait a minute. How much is it, this year, my man?’ The tailor had come in while he was speaking.

      ‘Well, it’s been a doubling so many years, you see,’ the tailor replied, a little gruffly, ‘and I think I’d like the money now. It’s two thousand pound, it is!’

      ‘Oh, that’s nothing!’ the Professor carelessly remarked, feeling in his pocket, as if he always carried at least that amount about with him. ‘But wouldn’t you like to wait just another year, and make it four thousand? Just think how rich you’d be! Why, you might be a King, if you liked!’

      ‘I don’t know as I’d care about being a King,’ the man said thoughtfully. ‘But it dew sound a powerful sight o’ money! Well, I think I’ll wait—’

      ‘Of course you will!’ said the Professor. ‘There’s good sense in you, I see. Good-day to you, my man!’

      ‘Will you ever have to pay him that four thousand pounds?’ Sylvie asked as the door closed on the departing creditor.

      ‘Never, my child!’ the Professor replied emphatically. ‘He’ll go on doubling it, till he dies. You see it’s always worth while waiting another year, to get twice as much money! And now what would you like to do, my little friends? Shall I take you to see the Other Professor? This would be an excellent opportunity for a visit,’ he said to himself, glancing at his watch: ‘he generally takes a short rest—of fourteen minutes and a half—about this time.’

      Bruno hastily went round to Sylvie, who was standing at the other side of the Professor, and put his hand into hers. ‘I thinks we’d like to go,’ he said doubtfully: ‘only please let’s go all together. It’s best to be on the safe side, oo know!’

      ‘Why, you talk as if you were Sylvie!’ exclaimed the Professor.

      ‘I know I did,’ Bruno replied very humbly. ‘I quite forgotted I wasn’t Sylvie. Only I fought he might be rarver fierce!’

      The Professor laughed a jolly laugh. ‘Oh, he’s quite tame!’ he said. ‘He never bites. He’s only a little—a little dreamy, you know.’ He took hold of Bruno’s other hand, and led the children down a long passage I had never noticed before—not that there was anything remarkable in that: I was constantly coming on new rooms and passages in that mysterious Palace, and very seldom succeeded in finding the old ones again.

      Near the end of the passage the Professor stopped. ‘This is his room,’ he said, pointing to the solid wall.

      ‘We ca’n’t get in through there!’ Bruno exclaimed.

      Sylvie said nothing, till she had carefully examined whether the wall opened anywhere. Then she laughed merrily. ‘You’re playing us a trick, you dear old thing!’ she said. ‘There’s no door here!’

      ‘There isn’t any door to the room,’ said the Professor. ‘We shall have to climb in at the window.’

      So we went into the garden, and soon found the window of the Other Professor’s room. It was a ground-floor window, and stood invitingly open: the Professor first lifted the two children in, and then he and I climbed in after them.

      The Other Professor was seated at a table, with a large book open before him, on which his forehead was resting: he had clasped his arms round the book, and was snoring heavily. ‘He usually reads like that,’ the Professor remarked, ‘when the book’s very interesting: and then sometimes it’s very difficult to get him to attend!’