









                         Chapter XV

                       "Ho, Ho, Hoh!"


The clerk shut the great tome, bowed low, and withdrew to
his place; and an ominous silence reigned in the hall.
   Master Nathaniel sat watching the scene with an eye so
cold and aloof that the Eye of the Law itself could surely
not have been colder.  What power had delusion or legal
fictions against the mysterious impetus propelling him along
the straight white road that led he knew not whither?
   But Master Ambrose sprang up and demanded fiercely that
the honourable Senator would oblige them by an explanation
of his offensive insinuations.
   Nothing loth, Master Polydore again rose to his feet,
and, pointing a menacing finger at Master Nathaniel, he
said: "His worship the Mayor has told us of a man stealthy,
mocking, and subtle, who has brought this recent grief and
shame upon us.  That man is none other than his Worship the
Mayor himself."
   Master Ambrose again sprung to his feet, and began
angrily to protest, but Master Nathaniel, ex cathedra,
sternly ordered him to be silent and to sit down.
   Master Polydore continued: "He has been dumb, when it was
the time to speak, feeble, when it was the time to act,
treacherous, as the desolate homes of his friends can
testify, and *given to vanities.*  Aye,  *given to
vanities,* for what," and he smiled ironically, "but vanity
in a man is too great a love for grograines and tuftaffities
and other costly silks?  Therefore, I move that in the eye
of the Law he be accounted dead."
   A low murmur of approval surged over the hall.
   "Will he deny that he is over fond of *silk*?"
   Master Nathaniel bowed, in token that he did deny it.
   Master Polydore asked if he would then be willing to have
his house searched; again Master Nathaniel bowed.
   There and then?
   And Master Nathaniel bowed again.
   So the Senate rose and twenty of the Senators, without
removing their robes, filed out of the Guildhall and marched
two and two towards Master Nathaniel's house.
   On the way who should tag himself on to the procession
but Endymion Leer.  At this, Master Ambrose completely lost
his temper.  He would like to know why this double-dyed
villain, this shameless Son of a Fairy, was putting his 
rancid nose into the private concerns of the Senate!  But
Master Nathaniel cried impatiently, "Oh, let him come,
Ambrose, if he wants to.  The more the merrier!"
   You can picture the consternation of Dame Marigold when,
a few minutes later, her brother -- with a crowd of Senators
pressing up behind him -- bade her, with a face of grave
compassion, to bring him all the keys of the house.
   They proceeded to make a thorough search, ransacking
every cupboard, chest and bureau.  But nowhere did they find
so much as an incriminating pip, so much as a stain of
dubious colour.
   "Well," began Master Polydore, in a voice of mingled
relief and disappointment, "it seems that our search has
been a..."
   "*Fruitless* one, eh?" prompted Endymion Leer, rubbing
his hands, and darting his bright eyes over the assembled
faces.  "Well, perhaps it has.  Perhaps it has."
   They were standing in the hall, quite close to the
grandfather's clock, which was ticking away, as innocent and
foolish-looking as a newly-born lamb.
   Endymion Leer walked up to it and gazed at it
quizzically, with his head on one side.  Then he tapped its
mahogany case -- making Dame Marigold think of what the
guardian at the Guildhall had said of his likeness to a
woodpecker.
   Then he stood back a few paces and wagged his finger at
it in comic admonition ("Vulgar buffoon!" said Master
Ambrose quite audibly), and then the wag turned to Master
Polydore and said, "Just before we go, to make quite sure,
what about having a peep inside this clock?"
   Master Polydore had secretly sympathised with Master
Ambrose's ejaculation, and thought that the Doctor, by
jesting at such a time, was showing a deplorable lack of
good breeding.
   All the same, the Law does not shrink from reducing
thoroughness to absurdity, so he asked Master Nathaniel if
he would kindly produce the key of the clock.
   He did so, and the case was opened; Dame Marigold made a
grimace and held her pomander to her nose, and to the
general amazement that foolish, innocent-looking
grandfather's clock stood revealed as a veritable cornucopia
of exotic, strangely coloured, sinister-looking fruits.
   Vine-like tendrils, studded with bright, menacing berries
were twined round the pendulum and the chains of the two
leaden weights; and at the bottom of the case stood a gourd
of an unknown colour, which had been scooped hollow and
filled with what looked like crimson grapes, tawny figs,
raspberries of an emerald green, and fruits even stranger
than these, and of colour and shape not found in any of the
species of Dorimare.
   A murmur of horror and surprise arose from the assembled
company.  And, was it from the clock, or down the chimney,
or from the ivy peeping in at the window? -- from somewhere
quite close came the mocking sound of "Ho, ho, *hoh!*"

   Of course, before many hours were over the whole of
Lud-in-the-Mist was laughing at the anti-climax to the
Mayor's high-falutin' speech that morning in the Senate. 
And in the evening he was burned in effigy by the mob, and
among those who danced round the bonfire were Bawdy Bess and
Mother Tibbs.  Though it was doubtful whether Mother Tibbs
really understood what was happening.  It was an excuse for
dancing, and that was enough for *her.*
   It was reported, too, that the Yeomanry and their
Captain, though not actually taking part in these
demonstrations, stood looking on with indulgent smiles.
   Among the respectable tradesmen in the far from
unsympathetic crowd of spectators was Ebeneezor Prim the
clockmaker.  He had, however, not allowed his two daughters
to be there; and they were sitting dully at home, keeping
the supper hot for their father and the black-wigged
apprentice.
   But Ebeneezor came back without him, and Rosie and
Lettice were too much in awe of their father to ask any
questions.  The evening dragged wearily on -- Ebeneezor sat
reading _The Good Mayor's Walk Through Lud-in-the-Mist_ (a
didactic and unspeakably dreary poem, dating from the early
days of the Republic), and from time to time he would glance
severely over the top of his spectacles at his daughters,
who were whispering over their tatting, and looking
frequently towards the door.
   But when they finally went upstairs to bed the apprentice
had not yet come in, and in the privacy of their bedroom the
girls admitted to each other that it was the dullest evening
they had spent since his arrival, early in spring.  For it
was wonderful what high spirits were concealed behind that
young man's prim exterior.
   Why, it was sufficient to enliven even an evening spent
in the society of papa to watch the comical grimaces he
pulled behind that gentleman's respectable back!  And it was
delicious when the shrill "Ho, ho, *hoh!*" would suddenly
escape him, and he would instantly snap down on the top of
it his most sanctimonious expression.  And then, he seemed
to possess and inexhaustible store of riddles and funny
songs, and there was really no end to the invention and
variety of his practical jokes.
   The Misses Prim, since their earliest childhood, had
craved for a monkey or a cockatoo, such as sailor brothers
or cousins brought to their friends; their father, however,
had always sternly refused to have any such creature in his
house.  But the new apprentice had been ten times more
amusing than any monkey or cockatoo that had ever come from
the Cinnamon Isles.
   The next morning, as he did not come for his usual early
roll and glass of home-made cordial, the two girls peeped
into his room, and found that his bed had not been slept in;
and lying neglected on the floor was the neat black wig. 
Nor did he ever come back to claim it.  And when they
timidly asked their father what had happened to him, he
sternly forbade them ever again to mention his name, adding,
with a mysterious shake of the head, "For some time I have
had my suspicions that he was not what he appeared." 
   And then he sighed regretfully, and murmured, "But never
before have I had an apprentice with such wonderfully
skillful fingers.

   As for Master Nathaniel -- while he was being burned in
effigy in the market-place, he was sitting comfortably in
his pipe-room, deep in an in-folio.
   He had suddenly remembered that it was something in the
widow Gibberty's trial that was connected in his mind with
Master Ambrose's joke about the dead bleeding.  And he was
re-reading that trial -- this time with absorption.
   As he read, the colours of his mental landscape were
gradually modified, as the colours of a real landscape are
modified according to the position of the sun.  But if a
white road cuts through the landscape it still gleams white
-- even when the moon has taken the place of the sun.  And a
straight road still gleamed white across the landscape of
Master Nathaniel's mind.
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