There was no use to look in the Rules and Schedules. Everyone knew there was nothing on the subject in the Rules and Schedules. The Chief,
with the near-genius which signifies predestined high rank, simply put the file down and went home early.
Brunk — Brunk was by the way the coal-magnate; Gronk was the inventor — Brunk had not got everything quite right. The bit about digging up the entire bed of dried mixed coal-dust and sawdust and carefully breaking it into egg-sized pieces, this he had done exactly as directed. It was the rations which had confused him, and this confusion he had passed on to Frow Brunk. Frow Brunk kept a very hearty table, and she did as she thought she was told. She emptied the smoke-house, she emptied the bake-house, she filled a wagon full of bread and cake and sausage and hams and brawns and cheeses and roasted this and pickled that. Who knew what Bonaparte might want. The five soldiers and four sailors whom Burgenblitz had in effect personally conscripted had never had such a feast since . .. since . .. well, likely, never. And the barrel of home-brewed ale which Frow Brunk had sent along caused the thin and sour beer of the corner tavern to be quite forgotten, something for which the keeper of the corner tavern was thankful, as when he had mentioned the matter of payment the Baron Burgenblitz had given him such a look that he had thought best to follow the example of that one of whom it was written, “And so he departed, not being greatly desired.”
The conscripts had of course wondered what it was all about, but of course they had not asked. True, they were technically on liberty, but they had all spent all their money anyway, and their liberty now amounted to the right to sleep on the Armory floor if they wished. The Baron instead sent them to the Armory with a note for blankets, instead. The Baron set up guard-posts; they stood guard. When the mysterious whatever-it-was arrived, the Baron ordered it put in the middle of his impromptu camp in the middle of the Old Fair Grounds. Food having arrived, he had ordered rations distributed. To be sure, there were no dishes, no utensils, no table nor even table-linen: no matter: his share was neatly served him on a fresh-laundered skivvy shirt from a sailor’s ditty-bag. And he ate every bit of it. And when some folk, having noticed the campfire with curiosity, came nosing around, they were promptly told to nose out.
Next morning:
First came the four fellows from the Royal and Imperial Navy, carrying what appeared to be a New England whaleboat, saving only that New England whaleboats are seldom if ever wo ven out of wicker-work. Almost immediately after that two soldiers came drawing a gun carriage, and riding on the limber and smoking a pipe and wearing his best ask-me-no- questions look was Baron Burgenblitz. How had he obtained the gun carriage? If you were an artilleryman alone on duty at the Armory and Baron Burgenblitz appeared at five in the morning saying merely the two
words, “Gun carriage,” would you not have let him have it, being merely thankful he did not also say, “Gun-horses,” as well? Hah. On the carriage was something covered over with oiled cloth. An expert on the subject might have conjectured that under the cover was a steam engine. A very small steam engine. And as to its being on a gun carriage, this may in fact have been co-source of rumors which long subsequently vexed Graustark and Ruritania, to the effect that “S-P-T has got steam-cannon! Oh God!”
— a few other vehicles followed.
There was no established drill for what came next. Out of the wickerwork “boat” was produced a pile of bright red silk... well, bright red silk what? the sailors might have wondered . . . but theirs not to reason why, theirs only to fix the what? in places ordered by a suddenly in-the-here- and-now Professor Gronk. There were a number of sections of wicker framework. There were cries of, “Belay that rope! Smartly now! Five marlin hitches on the larboard side! A bowline on a bight, I say! Rouse up, rouse up, a bowline on a bight there!’’and so on. Before the eyes of those who did not pass the fence around the Old Fair Grounds something rather like the ghost of an immense sausage — also made of wicker
— gradually took form. Bright red masses hung in place. A murmur came from beyond the fence, then cries, then shouts. The cover was removed from the gun carriage, a flat trough of thin wood was hoisted aboard and promptly filled with sand from the ground and a thin metal plate placed in it, and what was now sure enough affirmed to be a small steam engine was lifted by many strong hands and set on the plate. And the Professor was everywhere, setting in place struts, screws, braces, all thin, all light, all strong, all long prepared — he filled the boiler and stacked jugs of water fore and aft —
And now a number of pasteboard containers were opened by order of Dr. Eszterhazy and given here a snap and there a slap, and one by one were filled with the curious black objects from under the tarpaulins. What were they? Professor Gronk, dreamer or not, had sometimes a way of getting to the heart of things. “What are they?” he asked.
Eszterhazy, the wind riffling the short beard which had grown a trifle darker in recent years, said, “This is that new fuel of which I spoke. It is composed of the waste-dust of very soft coal mixed with sawdust of, I should estimate, pine, with of course some residue of resin which acts as both a binding agent and an inflammatory ... as a sort of phlogiston, to apply a rather passe term ... the whole lavaged with the water of the lower Little Ister, and what semi-solids that might contain awaits further analysis. I have had this fuel-substance cut up into small pieces so as to make easier such finer adjustments of the flame as —”
“Get it up,” said Gronk, shortly. His pop-eyes darted here and there, rather like those of a chameleon keeping a sharp eye out for the cat. The boxes of fuel were gotten up, the engine was by now fastened in its place,
whence, one hoped, any sparks would fall harmlessly into the sand, and a lucifer struck to the first piece of fuel; a briquette it might perhaps be called; perhaps not. It glowed and continued glowing even after the match burned out. It was blown upon. More was added. In a few moments a small fire burned in the grate beneath the engine’s boiler. The arrangements above the engine were complex. From the catchment above it led a number of sleeves and each sleeve terminated in one of the drooping masses of red silk. . . .
And now was displayed one of the true beauties of the Autogondola- Invention, for the fuel was made to do double duty: the same heat which turned the water into steam also filled with heated air the bellies of what were gradually discerned to be five beautiful, big balloons — five they were in number, but the wicker-work frame lashed together according to its inventor’s directions held all five cohesively as though they had been one. The wicker boat lashed beneath began slightly to tremble.
And then two voices were heard, one of them familiar to the Doctor. “Bon jour! Bon jour!” this one cried, in a strong accent not French. “Thee spear-eats say'ed me, ‘Ascend! These morning you shall Ascend!' Who knowed what eat mins, ‘Ascend’? So I comb over wheeth Jawnny to find out. These ease Jawnny. Bon jour! Bon jour!” Katinka Ivanovna wore an outfit of brilliant-bright-orange, and a beaming smile, as she climbed into the “boat” and looked eagerly around. Her blue eyes sparkled. Whatever the spirits had meant, it evidently contained none of the gloom of the Road to En-Dor.
Climbing in right after her was a fine large glossy animal of a man, with astrakhan lapels on his surtout, a long thick sleek moustache, and an atmosphere of the very best hair-oiclass="underline" this, presumably, was Jawnny. “Buon giorno! Buon giorno! Gian-Giacomo Pagliacci-Espresso; allow me to present you a cold fiasco my very best produced Italian sparkle-wine, tipo di champagne, you will prodigiously delight; maron! And achi also some bearskin lap-robe, plus here an entirety of one case of such my wine, I bottle in Bologna, next my sausage-factory, brrr!”