V
THE STORY OF JANG
"Did you ever own a dog, Baron Munchausen?" asked the reporter of the_Gehenna Gazette_, calling to interview the eminent nobleman duringDog Show Week in Cimmeria.
"Yes, indeed I have," said the Baron, "I fancy I must have owned asmany as a hundred dogs in my life. To be sure some of the dogs wereiron and brass, but I was just as fond of them as if they had beenmade of plush or lamb's wool. They were so quiet, those iron dogswere; and the brass dogs never barked or snapped at any one."
"I never saw a brass dog," said the reporter. "What good are they?"
"Oh they are likely to be very useful in winter," the Baron replied."My brass dogs used to guard my fire-place and keep the blazing logsfrom rolling out into my room and setting fire to the rug the Khan ofTartary gave me for saving his life from a herd of Antipodes he and Iwere hunting in the Himalaya Mountains."
"I don't see what you needed dogs to do that for," said the reporter."A fender would have done just as well, or a pair of andirons," headded.
"That's what these dogs were," said the Baron. "They were fire dogsand fire dogs are andirons."
Ananias pressed his lips tightly together, and into his eyes came atroubled look. It was evident that, revolting as the idea was to him,he thought the Baron was trying to deceive him. Noting hisdispleasure, the Baron inwardly resolving to be careful how he handledthe truth, hastened on with his story.
"But dogs were never my favourite animals," he said. "With my pets Iam quite as I am with other things. I like to have pets that areentirely different from the pets of other people, and that is why inmy day I have made companions of such animals as the sangaree, and thecamomile, and the--ah--the two-horned piccolo. I've had tame beeseven--in fact my bees used to be the wonder of Siam, in which countryI was stationed for three years, having been commissioned by a Britishcompany to make a study of its climate with a view to finding out ifit would pay the company to go into the ice business there. Siam is,as you have probably heard, a very warm country, and as ice is a veryrare thing in warm countries these English people thought they mightmake a vast fortune by sending tug-boats up to the Arctic Ocean, andwith them capture and tow icebergs to Siam, where they might be cut upand sold to the people at tremendous profit. The scheme was certainlya good one, and I found many of the wealthy Siamese quite willing tosubscribe for a hundred pounds of ice a week at ten dollars a pound,but it never came to anything because we had no means of preservingthe icebergs after we got them into the Gulf of Siam. The water was sohot that they melted before we could cut them up, and we nearly gotourselves into very serious trouble with the coast people for thatsame reason. An iceberg, as you know, is a huge affair, and when adozen or two of them had melted in the Gulf they added so to thequantity of water there that fifty miles of the coast line werecompletely flooded, and thousands of valuable fish, able to live inwarm water only, were so chilled that they got pneumonia, and died.You can readily imagine how indignant the Siamese fishermen were withmy company over the losses they had to bear, but their affection forme personally was so great that they promised not to sue the companyif I would promise not to let the thing occur again. This I promised,and all went well. But about the bees, it was while I was living inBangkok that I had them, and they were truly wonderful. There washardly anything those bees couldn't do after I got them tamed."
"How did you tame them, Baron," asked Ananias.
"Power of the eye, my boy," returned the Baron. "I attracted theirattention first and then held it. Of course, I tried my plan on onebee first. He tamed the rest. Bees are very like children. They liketo play stunts--I think it is called stunts, isn't it, when one boydoes something, and all his companions try to do the same thing?"
"Yes," said Ananias, "I believe there is such a game, but I shouldn'tlike to play it with you."
"Well, that was the way I did with the bees," said Mr. Munchausen. "Itamed the king bee, and when he had learned all sorts of funny littletricks, such as standing on his head and humming tunes, I let him goback to the swarm. He was gone a week, and then he came back, he hadgrown so fond of me--as well he might, because I fed him well, givinghim a large basket of flowers three times a day. Back with him cametwo or three thousand other bees, and whatever Jang did they did."
"Who was Jang?" asked Ananias.
"That was the first bee's name. King Jang. Jang is Siamese for Billie,and as I was always fond of the name, Billie, I called him Jang. Byand by every bee in the lot could hum the Star Spangled Banner andYankee Doodle as well as you or I could, and it was grand on thosesoft moonlight nights we had there, to sit on the back porch of mypagoda and listen to my bee orchestra discoursing sweet music. Ofcourse, as soon as Jang had learned to hum one tune it was easy enoughfor him to learn another, and before long the bee orchestra could giveus any bit of music we wished to have. Then I used to give musicalesat my house and all the Siamese people, from the King down asked to beinvited, so that through my pets my home became one of the mostattractive in all Asia.
"And the honey those bees made! It was the sweetest honey you evertasted, and every morning when I got down to breakfast there was afresh bottleful ready for me, the bees having made it in the bottleitself over night. They were the most grateful pets I ever had, andonce they saved my life. They used to live in a hive I had built forthem in one corner of my room and I could go to bed and sleep withevery door in my house open, and not be afraid of robbers, becausethose bees were there to protect me. One night a lion broke loose fromthe Royal Zoo, and while trotting along the road looking for somethingto eat he saw my front door wide open. In he walked, and began tosniff. He sniffed here and he sniffed there, but found nothing but apot of anchovy paste, which made him thirstier and hungrier than ever.So he prowled into the parlour, and had his appetite furtheraggravated by a bronze statue of the Emperor of China I had there. Hethought in the dim light it was a small-sized human being, and hepounced on it in a minute. Well, of course, he couldn't make anyheadway trying to eat a bronze statue, and the more he tried the morehungry and angry he got. He roared until he shook the house and wouldundoubtedly have awakened me had it not been that I am always a soundsleeper and never wake until I have slept enough. Why, on oneoccasion, on the Northern Pacific Railway, a train I was on ran intoand completely telescoped another while I was asleep in the smokingcar, and although I was severely burned and hurled out of the carwindow to land sixty feet away on the prairie, I didn't wake up fortwo hours. I was nearly buried alive because they thought I'd beenkilled, I lay so still.
"But to return to the bees. The roaring of the lion disturbed them,and Jang buzzed out of his hive to see what was the matter just as thelion appeared at my bed-room door. The intelligent insect saw in amoment what the trouble was, and he sounded the alarm for the rest ofthe bees, who came swarming out of the hive in response to thesummons. Jang kept his eye on the lion meanwhile, and just as theprowler caught sight of your uncle peacefully snoring away on the bed,dreaming of his boyhood, and prepared to spring upon me, Jang buzzedover and sat down upon his back, putting his sting where it would dothe most good. The angry lion, who in a moment would have fastened histeeth upon me, turned with a yelp of pain, and the bite which was tohave been mine wrought havoc with his own back. Following Jang'sexample, the other bees ranged themselves in line over the lion'sbroad shoulders, and stung him until he roared with pain. Each time hewas stung he would whisk his head around like a dog after a flea, andbite himself, until finally he had literally chewed himself up, whenhe fainted from sheer exhaustion, and I was saved. You can imagine mysurprise when next morning I awakened to find a dying lion in myroom."
"But, Baron," said Ananias. "I don't understand one thing about it. Ifyou were fast asleep while all this was happening how did you knowthat Jang did those things?"
"Jang buzzed over and sat down upon his back, puttinghis sting where it would do the most good." _Chapter V._]
"Why, Jang told me himself," replied the Baron calmly.
&nbs
p; "Could he talk?" cried Ananias in amazement.
"Not as you and I do," said the Baron. "Of course not, but Jang couldspell. I taught him how. You see I reasoned it out this way. If a beecan be taught to sing a song which is only a story in music, why can'the be taught to tell a story in real words. It was worth tryinganyhow, and I tried. Jang was an apt pupil. He was the mostintelligent bee I ever met, and it didn't take me more than a month toteach him his letters, and when he once knew his letters it was easyenough to teach him how to spell. I got a great big sheet and coveredit with twenty-six squares, and in each of these squares I painted aletter of the alphabet, so that finally when Jang came to know them,and wanted to tell me anything he would fly from one square to anotheruntil he had spelled out whatever he wished to say. I would follow hismovements closely, and we got so after awhile that we could conversefor hours without any trouble whatsoever. I really believe that ifJang had been a little heavier so that he could push the keys down farenough he could have managed a typewriter as well as anybody, and whenI think about his wonderful mind and delicious fancy I deeply regretthat there never was a typewriting machine so delicately made that abee of his weight could make it go. The world would have been verymuch enriched by the stories Jang had in his mind to tell, but it istoo late now. He is gone forever."
"How did you lose Jang, Baron?" asked Ananias, with tears in his eyes.
"He thought I had deceived him," said the Baron, with a sigh. "He wasas much of a stickler for truth as I am. An American friend of minesent me a magnificent parterre of wax flowers which were so perfectlymade that I couldn't tell them from the real. I was very proud ofthem, and kept them in my room near the hive. When Jang and his tribefirst caught sight of them they were delighted and they sang as theyhad never sung before just to show how pleased they were. Then theyset to work to make honey out of them. They must have laboured overthose flowers for two months before I thought to tell them that theywere only wax and not at all real. As I told Jang this, Iunfortunately laughed, thinking that he could understand the joke ofthe thing as well as I, but I was mistaken. All that he could see wasthat he had been deceived, and it made him very angry. Bees don't seemto have a well-developed sense of humour. He cast a reproachful glanceat me and returned to his hive and on the morning of the third daywhen I waked up they were moving out. They flew to my lattice andranged themselves along the slats and waited for Jang. In a moment heappeared and at a given signal they buzzed out of my sight, humming afarewell dirge as they went. I never saw them again."
Here the Baron wiped his eyes.
"I felt very bad about it," he went on, "and resolved then never againto do anything which even suggested deception, and when several yearslater I had my crest designed I had a bee drawn on it, for in my eyesmy good friend the bee, represents three great factors of the good andsuccessful life--Industry, Fidelity, and Truth."
Whereupon the Baron went his way, leaving Ananias to think it over.