THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ – Complete 16 Book Collection (Fantasy Classics Series). Лаймен Фрэнк Баум
then he came along a side street where a number of men were at work digging a long and deep ditch in which to lay a new sewer.
“Now these men,” thought the WoggleBug, “must get money for shoveling all that earth, else they wouldn’t do it. Here is my chance to win the charming vision of beauty in the shop window!”
Seeking out the foreman, he asked for work, and the foreman agreed to hire him.
“How much do you pay these workmen?” asked the highly magnified one.
“Two dollars a day,” answered the foreman.
“Then,” said the WoggleBug, “you must pay me four dollars a day; for I have four arms to their two, and can do double their work.”
“If that is so, I’ll pay you four dollars,” agreed the man.
The WoggleBug was delighted.
“In two days,” he told himself, as he threw off his brilliant coat and placed his hat upon it, and rolled up his sleeves; “in two days I can earn eight dollars—enough to purchase my greatly reduced darling and buy her seven cents worth of caramels besides.”
He seized two spades and began working so rapidly with his four arms that the foreman said: “You must have been forewarned.”
“Why?” asked the Insect.
“Because there’s a saying that to be forewarned is to be four-armed,” replied the other.
“That is nonsense,” said the WoggleBug, digging with all his might; “for they call you the foreman, and yet I only see one of you.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed the man, and he was so proud of his new worker that he went into the corner saloon to tell his friend the barkeeper what a treasure he had found.
It was just after noon that the WoggleBug hired as a ditch-digger in order to win his heart’s desire; so at noon on the second day he quit work, and having received eight silver dollars he put on his coat and rushed away to the store that he might purchase his intended bride.
But, alas for the uncertainty of all our hopes! Just as the WoggleBug reached the door he saw a lady coming out of the store dressed in identical checks with which he had fallen in love!
At first he did not know what to do or say, for the young lady’s complexion was not wax—far from it. But a glance into the window showed him the wax lady now dressed in a plain black tailor-made suit, and at once he knew the wearer of the Wagnerian plaids was his real love, and not the stiff creature behind the glass.
“Beg pardon!” he exclaimed, stopping the young lady; “but you’re mine. Here’s the seven ninety-three, and seven cents for candy.”
But she glanced at him in a haughty manner, and walked away with her nose slightly elevated.
He followed. He could not do otherwise with those delightful checks shining before him like beacon-lights to urge him on.
The young lady stepped into a car, which whirled away rapidly. For a moment he was nearly paralyzed at his loss; then he started after the car as fast as he could go, and this was very fast indeed—he being a wogglebug.
Somebody cried: “Stop, thief!” and a policeman ran out to arrest him. But the WoggleBug used his four hands to push the officer aside, and the astonished man went rolling into the gutter so recklessly that his uniform bore marks of the encounter for many days.
Still keeping an eye on the car, the WoggleBug rushed on. He frightened two dogs, upset a fat gentleman who was crossing the street, leaped over an automobile that shot in front of him, and finally ran plump into the car, which had abruptly stopped to let off a passenger. Breathing hard from his exertions, he jumped upon the rear platform of the car, only to see his charmer step off at the front and walk mincingly up the steps of a house. Despite his fatigue, he flew after her at once, crying out:
“Stop, my variegated dear—stop! Don’t you know you’re mine?”
But she slammed the door in his face, and he sat down upon the steps and wiped his forehead with his pink handkerchief and fanned himself with his hat and tried to think what he should do next.
Presently a very angry man came out of the house. He had a revolver in one hand and a carvingknife in the other.
“What do you mean by insulting my wife?” he demanded.
“Was that your wife?” asked the WoggleBug, in meek astonishment.
“Of course it is my wife,” answered the man.
“Oh, I didn’t know,” said the insect, rather humbled. “But I’ll give you seven ninety-three for her. That’s all she’s worth, you know; for I saw it marked on the tag.”
The man gave a roar of rage and jumped into the air with the intention of falling on the WoggleBug and hurting him with the knife and pistol. But the WoggleBug was suddenly in a hurry, and didn’t wait to be jumped on. Indeed, he ran so very fast that the man was content to let him go, especially as the pistol wasn’t loaded and the carvingknife was as dull as such knives usually are.
But his wife had conceived a great dislike for the Wagnerian check costume that had won for her the WoggleBug’s admiration. “I’ll never wear it again!” she said to her husband, when he came in and told her that the WoggleBug was gone.
“Then,” he replied, “you’d better give it to Bridget; for she’s been bothering me about her wages lately, and the present will keep her quite for a month longer.”
So she called Bridget and presented her with the dress, and the delighted servant decided to wear it that night to Mickey Schwartz’s ball.
Now the poor WoggleBug, finding his affection scorned, was feeling very blue and unhappy that evening, When he walked out, dressed (among other things) in a purple-striped shirt, with a yellow necktie and pea-green gloves, he looked a great deal more cheerful than he really was. He had put on another hat, for the WoggleBug had a superstition that to change his hat was to change his luck, and luck seemed to have overlooked the fact that he was in existence.
The hat may really have altered his fortunes, as the Insect shortly met Ikey Swanson, who gave him a ticket to Mickey Schwartz’s ball; for Ikey’s clean dickey had not come home from the laundry, and so he could not go himself.
The WoggleBug, thinking to distract his mind from his dreams of love, attended the hall, and the first thing he saw as he entered the room was Bridget clothed in that same gorgeous gown of Wagnerian plaid that had so fascinated his bugly heart.
The dear Bridget had added to her charms by putting seven full-blown imitation roses and three second-hand ostrich-plumes in her red hair; so that her entire person glowed like a sunset in June.
The Wogglebug was enraptured; and, although the divine Bridget was waltzing with Fritzie Casey, the Insect rushed to her side and, seizing her with all his four arms at once, cried out in his truly educated Bostonian way:
“Oh, my superlative conglomeration of beauty! I have found you at last!”
Bridget uttered a shriek, and Fritzie Casey doubled two fists that looked like tombstones, and advanced upon the intruder.
Still embracing the plaid costume with two arms, the WoggleBug tipped Mr. Casey over with the other two. But Bridget made a bound and landed with her broad heel, which supported 180 pounds, firmly upon the Insect’s toes. He gave a yelp of pain and promptly released the lady, and a moment later he found himself flat upon the floor with a dozen of the dancers piled upon him—all of whom were pummeling each other with much pleasure and a firm conviction that the diversion had been planned for their special amusement.
But the WoggleBug had the strength of many men, and when he flopped the big wings that were concealed by the tails of his coat, the gentlemen resting upon him were scattered like autumn leaves in a gust of wind.
The Insect stood up, rearranged his dress, and looked about him. Bridget had run away and gone