Aileen Aroon, A Memoir

fear she won't digest.'

  "`Wretch!' cried Peterie, starting to his feet, `behold me. Gaze uponthis wasted form: I am he who loved poor Peggy before her fatalmarriage. Oh! my Peggy, my loved, my lost, my half-digested Peggy,shall we never meet again?'

  "`Sooner,' cried Peterie, `perhaps than you are aware of. So it was youwho loved my silly wife?'

  "`It was I.'

  "`Wretch, you shall die.'

  "`Never,' roared Pompey, `while I live.'

  "`We shall see,' said Peterie.

  "`Come on,' said Pompey, `set the table on one side and give us room.'

  "That was a fearful fight that battle of the polyps. It is awful enoughto see two men fighting who have only two arms a side, but when it comesto twenty arms each, and all these arms are whirling round at once, likea select assortment of windmills that have run mad, then, I can tellyou, it is very much more dreadful. Now Peterie has the advantage.

  "Now Pompey is down.

  "Now he is up again and Peterie falls.

  "Now Peterie half swallows Pompey.

  "Now Pompey appears again as large as life, and half swallows Peterie;but at last, by one unlucky blow administered by ten fists at once, downrolls Potassium Pompey lifeless on Peterie's floor. Peterie bent overthe body of Pompey.

  "`Bad job,' he mutters, `he is dead. And the question comes to be, whatshall I do with the body? Ha! happy thought! the struggle has given mean appetite, _I'll swallow him too_.'

  "Barely had he thus disposed of poor Pompey's body, when a renewedknocking was heard at the outside door. There was not a moment to lose;so Peterie hastily set the furniture in order, and bustled away to openthe door, and hardly had he done so when in rushed an excited mob ofpolyps headed by two warlike policemen, who _headed_ them by keepingwell in the rear, but being, after the manner of policemen, very loud intheir talk.

  "`Where is Potassium Pompey?' cried one; and--

  "`Ay! where is Potassium Pompey?' cried another; and--

  "`To be sure, where is Potassium Pompey?' cried a third; and--

  "`That is the question, young man,' cried both policemen at once.

  "`Where is Potassium Pompey?'

  "`Oh!' groaned Peterie, `would I were as big as a bullfrog, that I mightswallow you all at a gulp.'

  "`Away with him, my friends,' cried the warlike policemen, `to the hallof justice.'

  "In the present state of Peterie's digestive organs, resistance was notto be thought of; so he quietly submitted to be led out with ten pairsof handcuffs on his wrists, and dragged along the street, followed bythe hooting mob, who wanted to hang him on the spot; but a multitude ofpolicemen now arrived, and being at the rate of three policemen to eachcivilian polyp, the hanging was prevented. The justice hall was a verylarge building right in the centre of Coral Town. There the judges usedto sit night and day on a large pearl throne at one end to try the casesthat were brought before them.

  "Now Potassium Pompey was a very great favourite in Coral Town, so thatwhen the wretched Peterie was dragged by fifteen brave policemen beforethe pearl throne, the hall was quite filled, and you might have heard amidge sneeze, if there had been a midge to sneeze, so great was thesilence. The first accuser was Popkins, the miserly old polyp who waspoor Peggy's father. He was too wretchedly thin and weak and old to hopin like any other polyp, so he came along the hall walking on his onefoot and his twenty hands after the fashion of the looper caterpillar,which I daresay you have observed on a currant-bush.

  "`Where is me chee--ild?' cried the aged miser, as soon as he couldspeak. `Give me back me chee--ild?'

  "`If that's all you've got to say,' said the judge, sternly, `you'dbetter stand down.'

  "`I merely want me chee--ild,' repeated Popkins.

  "`Stand down, sir,' cried the judge.

  "After hearing various witnesses who had seen Pompey enter Peterie'shouse and never return, the judge opened his mouth and spake, forPeterie had said never a word. The judge gave it as his unbiassedopinion that, considering all things, the mysterious disappearance ofMrs Polypus, coupled with that of Potassium Pompey, whom every oneloved and admired, the absence of all defence on the part of theprisoner, and the extraordinary rotundity of his corporation, as well asthe fact that he had always been a spare man, there could be littledoubt of the prisoner's guilt; `but to make assurance doubly sure,'added the judge, `let him at once be opened, to furnish additionalproof, and the opening of the prisoner, I trust, will close the case.'If guilty, the sentence of the Court was that he should then be draggedto the common execution ground, and there divided into one hundredpieces, and he, the judge, hoped it would be a warning to the prisonerin all future time."

  [When a polyp is cut into pieces, each piece becomes a new individual.]

  "Twenty policemen now rushed away and brought the biggest knife theycould find; twenty more went for ropes, and having procured them, thewretched Mr Polypus was bound to a table, and before he could have said`cheese,' if he had wanted to say `cheese,' an immense opening was madein his side, and, lo and behold! out stepped first Potassium Pompey, andafter him hopped, modestly hopped, poor Peggy. But the most wonderfulpart of the whole business was, that neither Peggy nor Pompey seemed abit the worse for their strange incarceration. Indeed, I ought to saythey looked all the better; for Pompey was all smiles, and Peggy waslooking very happy indeed, and even Peterie seemed immensely relieved.Pompey led Peggy before the throne, and here he told all the story abouthow Peggy was murdered, and then how he, Pompey, was murdered next.And--

  "`Enough! enough!' cried the judge; `away with the doomed wretch! Letthe execution be proceeded with without a moment's delay.'

  "`Please, my lord,' said Peggy, modestly, `may I have a divorce?'

  "`To be sure, to be sure,' said the judge; `you are justly entitled to adivorce.'

  "`And please, my lord,' continued Peggy, `may--may--'

  "`Well? well?' said the judge, with slight impatience, `out with it.'

  "`She wants to ask if she may marry me,' said Pompey, boldly.

  "`Most assuredly,' said the judge, `and a blessing be on you both.'

  "In vain the unhappy Peterie begged and prayed for mercy; he was hurriedaway to the execution ground and led to the scaffold. In all that crowdof upturned faces, Peterie saw not one pitying eye. And now a largebarrel was placed to receive the pieces, and, beginning with his headand arms, the executioners cut him into one hundred pieces, leavingnothing of Peterie but the foot.

  "`Now,' cried the judge, `empty the barrel on the floor.'

  "This was done.

  "And it did seem that wonders would never cease, for as soon as eachpiece was thrown on the floor it immediately _grew up into a real livepolyp, and body and arms all complete and hopping_; and the foot, whichhad been left, and which was more especially Peterie's--being all thatremained of him, you know--grew up into another polyp, and behold therewas another and a new Peterie. He was at once surrounded by the ninetyand nine new polyps, who all threw their arms--nineteen hundred andninety arms--around his neck, and began to kiss him and call him dearestdada.

  "`On my honour,' said Peterie, `I think this is rather too much of ajoke.'

  "But nobody had any pity on him, and the judge said--`Now, Mr Polypus,let this be a lesson to you. Go home at once and work for yourchildren, and remember you support them; if even one of them comes tosolicit parish relief, dread the consequences.'

  "`How ever shall I manage?' said poor Peterie.

  "And he hopped away disconsolate enough amid his ninety and nine babypolyps all crying--

  "`Dada dear, give us a fish.'

  "`I think,' said the judge, when Peterie had gone--`I think, MrPopkins, you cannot now do better than consent to make these two youngthings happy by letting them wed. Pompey, it is true, isn't a king, buthe has an excellent business in the potassium line, and none of us canlive without fire, you know.'

  "`But I'm a king,' cried the aged miser; `I have mines of wealth, andall I have is theirs. Come to y
our father's arms, my Peggy and Pompey.'

  "`Hurrah!' shouted the mob; `three cheers for the old miser, and threefor Pompey the brave, and three times three for the bonny bride Peggy.'

  "And away rolled Peggy in the golden chariot, with her father--such ahappy, happy Peggy now; and Pompey was carried through the streets,shoulder high, to his old home.

  "So nothing was talked about in Coral Town for the next month but thegrandeur of the coming wedding, and the beauty of Peggy, and everybodywas happy and gay except poor Peterie; for who could be happy withninety-nine babies to provide for--ninety-nine breakfasts to