Baron Trump's Marvelous Underground Journey. Lockwood Ingersoll

OF A MOST WONDERFUL RIVER. — HOW THE DAY BROKE IN THIS UNDER WORLD.

       Chapter 31

      IN WHICH YOU READ OF THE GLORIOUS CAVERNS OF WHITE MARBLE FRONTING ON THE WONDERFUL RIVER. — IN THE TROPICS OF THE UNDER WORLD. — HOW WE CAME UPON A SOLITARY WANDERER ON THE BANKS OF THE RIVER. MY CONVERSATION WITH HIM, AND MY JOY AT FINDING MYSELF IN THE LAND OF THE RATTLEBRAINS, OR HAPPY FORGETTERS. — BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THEM.

       Chapter 32

      HOW WE ENTERED THE LAND OF THE HAPPY FORGETTERS. — SOMETHING MORE ABOUT THESE CURIOUS FOLK. — THEIR DREAD OF BULGER AND ME. — ONLY A STAY OF ONE DAY ACCORDED US. — DESCRIPTION OF THE PLEASANT HOMES OF THE HAPPY FORGETTERS. — THE REVOLVING DOOR THROUGH WHICH BULGER AND I ARE UNCEREMONIOUSLY SET OUTSIDE OF THE DOMAIN OF THE RATTLEBRAINS. — ALL ABOUT THE EXTRAORDINARY THINGS WHICH HAPPENED TO BULGER AND ME THEREAFTER. — ONCE MORE IN THE OPEN AIR OF THE UPPER WORLD, AND THEN HOMEWARD BOUND.

      BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF

       WILHELM HEINRICH SEBASTIAN VON TROOMP

       COMMONLY CALLED

       LITTLE BARON TRUMP

      As doubting Thomases seem to take particular pleasure in popping up on all occasions, Jack-in-the-Box-like, it may be well to head them off in this particular instance by proving that Baron Trump was a real baron, and not a mere baron of the mind. The family was originally French Huguenot — De la Trompe — which, upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, took refuge in Holland, where its head assumed the name of Van der Troomp, just as many other of the French Protestants rendered their names into Dutch. Some years later, upon the invitation of the Elector of Brandenburg, Niklas Van der Troomp became a subject of that prince, and purchased a large estate in the province of Pomerania, again changing his name, this time to Von Troomp.

      The “Little Baron,” so called from his diminutive stature, was born some time in the latter part of the seventeenth century. He was the last of his race in the direct line, although cousins of his are today well-known Pomeranian gentry. He began his travels at an incredibly early age, and filled his castle with such strange objects picked up here and there in the far away corners of the world, that the simple-minded peasantry came to look upon him as half bigwig and half magician—hence the growth of the many myths and fanciful stories concerning this indefatigable globe-trotter. The date of his death cannot be fixed with any certainty; but this much may be said: Among the portraits of Pomeranian notables hanging in the Rathhaus at Stettin, there is one picturing a man of low stature, and with a head much too large for his body. He is dressed in some outlandish costume, and holds in his left hand a grotesque image in ivory, most elaborately carved. The broad face is full of intelligence, and the large gray eyes are lighted up with a good-natured but quizzical look that invariably attracts attention. The man’s right hand rests upon the back of a dog sitting on a table and looking straight out with an air of dignity that shows that he knew he was sitting for his portrait.

      If a visitor asks the guide who this man is, he always gets for answer: —

      “Oh, that’s the Little Baron!”

      But little Baron who, that’s the question?

      Why may it not be the famous Wilhelm Heinrich Sebastian von Troomp, commonly called “Little Baron Trump,” and his wonderful dog Bulger?

      Illustrations

       Only Authentic Portrait of Wilhelm Heinrich Sebastian von Troomp (from the oil painting)

       Departure from Castle Trump

       Along a Highway of the Under World

       Before her Majesty Galaxa, Queen of the Mikkamenkies

       A Dinner easily provided for

       Princess Crystallina uncovers her Heart

       Crystallina’s Heart on a Screen

       Bulger parts his Master from Princess Crystallina

       The Formifolk try the Beat of the Baron’s Heart by Telephone

       Barrel Brow engaged in reading Four Books at once

       A Soodopsy Maiden reading her Favorite Poet

       The Gigantic Tortoise that devoured Pouting Lip

       Sailing away from the Land of the Soodopsies

       The Battle for Life with the White Crabs

       The Little Man with the Frozen Smile

       Bulger shows the Baron Something Wonderful

       The Baron’s Flight to the Ice Palace

       Death of Fuffcoojah

       Koltykwerpian Quarrymen hewing a Passage the the Wall of Ice

       The Wonderful Ride on the Block of Ice

       The Tropics of the Under World

       Through the Revolving Door

       Caught up in the Arms of the Torrent

       Hurled out in the Sunshine

      Chapter 1

      BULGER IS GREATLY ANNOYED BY THE FAMILIARITY OF THE VILLAGE DOGS AND THE PRESUMPTION OF THE HOUSE CATS. — HIS HEALTH SUFFERS THEREBY, AND HE IMPLORES ME TO SET OUT ON MY TRAVELS AGAIN. I READILY CONSENT, FOR I HAD BEEN READING OF THE WORLD WITHIN A WORLD IN A MUSTY OLD MS. WRITTEN BY THE LEARNED DON FUM. — PARTING INTERVIEWS WITH THE ELDER BARON AND THE GRACIOUS BARONESS MY MOTHER. — PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE.

      Bulger was not himself at all, dear friends. There was a lack-lustre look in his eyes, and his tail responded with only a half-hearted wag when I spoke to him. I say half-hearted, for I always had a notion that the other end of Bulger’s tail was fastened to his heart. His appetite, too, had gone down with his spirits; and he rarely did anything more than sniff at the dainty food which I set before him, although I tried to tempt him with fried chickens’ livers and toasted cocks’ combs — two of his favorite dishes.

      There was evidently something on his mind, and yet it never occurred to me what that something was; for to be honest about it, it was something which of all things I never should have dreamed of finding there.

      Possibly I might have discovered at an earlier day what it was all about, had it not been that just at this time I was very busy, too busy, in fact, to pay much attention to anyone, even to my dear four-footed foster brother. As you may remember, dear friends, my brain is a very active one; and when once I become interested in a subject, Castle Trump itself might take fire and burn until the legs of my chair had become charred before I would hear the noise and confusion, or even smell the smoke.

      It so happened at the time of Bulger’s low spirits that the elder baron had, through the kindness of an old school friend, come into possession of a fifteenth-century manuscript from the pen of a no less celebrated thinker and philosopher than the learned Spaniard, Don Constantino Bartolomeo Strepholofidgeguaneriusfum, commonly known among scholars as Don Fum, entitled “A World within a World.” In this work Don Fum advanced the wonderful theory that there is every reason to believe that