ily, and
his forked  beard, so like  a snake's  forked tongue,  bobbed  up  and  down
craftily.
     The fathers of the boys who lived on farmsteads were breathing heavily.
Their eyes  drooped  as  Romashov droned  on.  The long-haired priest put  a
strand of hair behind  his ear, the  better  to hear him. The  tax collector
wiped his glasses intently,  as if he were going to  examine each and  every
one of the inspector's words through his spectacles. The shopkeeper bent one
plump finger after another meaningfully, in time to the inspector's words.
     Gutnik,  the fat miller  and  a  member of the Duma,  spoke up for  the
principal. "How can  you teachers take things into your own hands like this?
Let  me tell  you, it's not  right. You should have asked the District Board
first. Stomolitsky was always a man  for law and order. We knew that when he
was in charge, everything was as it should be. That's why he should stay on.
And I have a feeling that that's just how things will be. Besides, these are
troubled times. It's like everything was on  fire all  over. And the boys'll
start acting up. Aren't I right?"
     The parents began to nod in agreement. The men were afraid to let their
sons have  too  much freedom. If you let the reins go  just a little,  you'd
never again be able to manage that crowd of pigeon-fanciers, dare-devils and
loafers.


     THE PRINCIPAL'S LEDGER

     Nikita Pavlovich Kamyshov, the geography and science teacher, jumped to
his  feet excitedly. Mitya and Shura looked at  their favourite teacher with
hope. He was very intent and spoke heatedly. Every sentence he uttered was a
line in Fish-Eye's unwritten Ledger.
     "Gentlemen! What's the matter? The tsar's been dethroned, but we ... we
can't even get rid of the principal! You're the parents! Your children, your
sons came here to this hateful place, to get  an education. But what sort of
an  education could they get?  What,  I ask you, could they  get here, these
children, when we teachers,  we grown-up people, were suffocating? There was
no air  to  breathe. It was  disgraceful!  We had  a  regular  barracks-room
atmosphere! Why, if a boy was seen wearing a soft collar he was made to stay
after school for eight hours! My God! Now, when the air  has become  cleaner
all over Russia, we here, in our house, are afraid  to open a window and air
the  premises!"  He  yanked  at his  long,  drooping  moustache  and  dashed
breathlessly out of the room.
     It became very still.
     The principal, who  had been sitting  unobtrusively in a corner,  broke
the  quiet  with his flat voice. He had turned green from  the light of  the
lampshade and from bile. He tried  to explain away Kamyshov's accusations by
saying: "He's trying to get even. There's the law  ... and discipline ... my
duty ... the Board."
     He was interrupted by  Robiiko, a huge, dark-haired man, as tall as the
freight trains he drove were long. The trainman crashed his fist down on the
table  and said: "What's  the  use  of  all  this  talk? If there's  been  a
revolution,  that means  these are  revolutionary times!  We  go straight on
through  without  any  stops.  As  for  the principal,  we  haven't yet seen
anything good except bad from him. And  I  say we ought to ask the boys. Let
their delegates  have the floor. Otherwise,  what  was the use  of  electing
them?"
     Mitya rattled off the speech he had learned by heart.
     "And what do you say?" the chairman said, turning to Shura Gvozdilo.
     Shura jumped  up. His arms were  plastered to  his sides, as if he were
reciting a lesson.
     The principal's fishy eyes stared at him with loathing.
     Shura  cocked  a  wary eye at Stomolitsky.  Who could tell? Perhaps  he
would remain at his post and get even later. Shura swallowed the lump in his
throat. His heart  sank, all the way down to his heels, but  just then Mitya
squeezed his  foot so hard between his  own heels that Shura's heart bounded
back  into  place  again.  Shura  tossed his head, swallowed hard again  and
suddenly felt better.
     "We're all for down with the principal!" he shouted.
     Someone  had jarred the lamp. It  was swaying.  Once again  the shadows
began  to move. They were  shalfing their heads  reproachfully.  Noses began
growing longer  and getting shorter again, and the principal's dejected nose
seemed the longest of all.


        PRESENCE OF MIND

     The  meeting dragged  on  far into the night.  At last,  the  following
resolution was drawn up:
     "Juvenal  Bogdanovich Stomolitsky  is to  be  relieved of  his  post as
principal of the Boys School. Nikolai Ilyich Romashov, the school inspector,
is  to be temporarily appointed principal until the District Board  confirms
his appointment."
     The former principal left the meeting in silence without saying goodbye
to anyone.  Romashov  fluffed  his  beard  with  a victorious  air. The  new
principal's pleased beard no longer looked like a snake's forked tongue but,
rather, like a chunk of bread with a dent in the middle.
     Shura  had  become  much  bolder.  He mentioned  setting  up  a student
council. The flame in the lamp leaped from the sudden burst of laughter that
followed. Someone even slapped his back.
     "Ah, it's good to be young! Such spit and fire!"
     "Delegates of those snot-nosed babies! Ha-ha-ha!"
     Shura was embarrassed. He sniffled and rubbed his belt buckle.
     The discussion passed  on to another matter. The parents began to yawn,
covering  their  mouths with their  hands. Shura could  barely keep his eyes
open.  The green parachute-lamp  floated above the  table. The  flame hissed
faintly,  casting ragged shadows. Waves of heat rose from the  lamp glasses.
He was dying  to  sleep.  To top it all,  the ventilator  whirred on  and on
monotonously.
     The principal had been kicked  out. Shura felt he  had accomplished his
mission,  but  the teachers,  parents  and  the  new  principal  were  still
debating, and he felt it was impossible to simply get up and leave. That was
when  he construed  a very adult sentence about his presence no longer being
required and, therefore, it being possible for  him  to  leave  the meeting.
Shura  rose. He  opened his  mouth to say  all this when he realized he  had
forgotten the first word of the sentence. As  he searched  for it he  forgot
all the others. The words seemed happy to have escaped  from his drowsy mind
and  pranced  about in front of  his  sleepy eyes. "Presence", a  very adult
word, had just donned  a tunic with  gold  buttons and climbed into the lamp
glass  insolently. The flame stuck  its  tongue out  at him,  and "possible"
started tossing  the dot  over the "i"  at him.  It  was attached to  a long
rubber  band and bounced  off his head just like the paper  balls  that  Chi
Sun-cha sold at the market.
     "What is it you wish to say?" the chairman inquired.
     All eyes were on Shura.
     He tugged at the bottom of his jacket in despair and said: "May I leave
the room?"


     SEIZE'EM ENDS THE DAY

     Shura went outside. The sky  was as  black as a blackboard. A cloud-rag
had wiped  it clean  of all  the  star designs.  A dense  black silence  had
engulfed the town. For  the first few  moments after  leaving the  Teachers'
Room he stumbled about in the  dark like a  fly in an inkblot.  At last,  he
made out the shape of a human figure.
     "Is that you, Shura? I'm frozen stiff."
     "Atlantis!"
     "Well? What happened?"
     Shura  dragged  on each word to  make  an impression. "Nothing special,
really. Naturally,  we  got  what  we wanted.  Fish-Eye  got  the sack.  The
inspector's taking his place for the time being."
     "Wait a minute! What about the student council?"
     "Ha!  Anything else you'd like?  They laughed  their  heads off when  I
mentioned it."
     "What? Then what did you get? That's no revolution! They kicked out the
principal and put the inspector in his place. Ah!" Stepan disappeared in the
dark. Shura Gvozdilo shrugged and headed home. The night watchman's clapper,
that wooden cuckoo of all provincial nights, sounded in the  stillness. Soon
the parents and teachers trudged home across the dark square.
     Seize'em was the last  to leave. He  had  stayed on in order  to  enter
Lamberg and Gvozdilo's  names in the Black Book-just  in case.  And  so that
memorable  day came  to a close  with  the  Ledger  and  Seize'em's  spindly
signature.


        REFORMING THE OLD SCHOOL MARKS

     A  new portrait was  hung  in the Teachers' Room. It was  a portrait of
Alexander Kerensky. His hair was cut in a short brush, and  the tabs  of his
wing collar stood out stiffly.
     The teachers  pledged allegiance  to  the Provisional  Government at  a
special service. The general morning prayers were  discontinued.  Instead, a
short prayer  was read in each classroom before lessons began each  morning.
Finally, the liberal-minded new principal took a bold step and did away with
the old system of grading our work.
     "All these  'F's',  'D's' and  'A-minuses' are unpedagogical," Romashov
said, addressing the Parents Committee.
     From  that day on the teachers no longer  gave us "F's" and "A's". They
now   wrote  "Poor"  instead  of   "F",  "Unsatisfactory"  instead  of  "D",
"Satisfactory" instead of "C", "Good" instead of "B" and "Excellent" instead
of "A". Then, in order to keep up the idea of pluses and minuses, they began
writing  "Very  good",  "Not  quite satisfactory", "Nearly  excellent", etc.
Roachius was very dissatisfied with the new system of grading and once wrote
"Very poor,  with two minuses" on Hefty's test paper. This was also the mark
he gave him for the term.
     "If 'Poor'  is an 'F',"  Hefty mused, "then the grade  he  gave me  for
Latin this term is someplace way down the line. Probably a 'Z'. What if it's
even worse than that?"


     THE DARLING OF THE LADIES' COMMITTEE

     The plot our house was on belonged to a large grain company. A winnower
was forever whirring under an overhang. Golden dunes of wheat rose on canvas
spread out on the ground,  and the broad-shouldered scales would jerk  their
iron  shoulders  like  a   person  who  was   trying  to  scratch  his  back
unobtrusively.  All  day long women were  busy patching canvas sacks in  the
yard,  sewing with long needles  as  they  sang  mournful songs of love  and
parting.
     One of the  sack-menders was  taken  on as a  cook for the family  of a
company  employee. The  cook had a  son named Arkasha, who attended  primary
school. Arkasha  was small for  his  age and so  full of freckles  his  face
looked like a piece of canvas covered with spilled grains of wheat. He was a
very bright boy and wanted very much to go on to high school.
     There  was  a  Ladies'  Charity  Committee  in  our town, and  the lady
Arkasha's  mother worked  for belonged to it.  At her  urging  the Committee
decided to sponsor the gifted boy. That was how Arkasha Portyanko came to be
a scholarship pupil in my grade, having passed the entrance examination with
flying colours.
     He was a  very serious  and kind-hearted boy, and  he  and I became the
best of friends. He was not a quiet boy, but his mild pranks and jokes  were
quite unlike the rough play  of his classmates. He was an honour pupil,  and
as  each  term ended he  would take  his excellent report card  home  to his
mother in the kitchen.  There was a line  marked "Parent's signature" at the
bottom,  and  his  mother would sign it  laboriously  and with  great pride,
placing a dot at the end of her name as reverently as if she were lighting a
votive candle in church.


        PLUS MINUS LUCY

     All the boys in my class knew  that  Arkasha was in  love.  The blaring
formula of his love  appeared regularly on the blackboard: "Arkasha + Lucy =
!!"  Lucy  was  the  daughter  of  the wealthy  chairwoman  of  the  Ladies'
Committee. When Arkasha's  mother discovered whom her son had a crush on she
shook her head.  "Good  Lord!  What  a girl  you've chosen! Have  a  look at
yourself! You'll be the death of me yet!"
     However, Lucy liked Arkasha very much. He would meet  her in the arbour
and they  would read together. The sun  shining through  the leaves showered
warm bits of its confetti on them. One day Arkasha brought Lucy a bouquet of
lilies-of-the-valley.
     At Christmas Lucy's  mother had a  party for  her. Lucy invited Arkasha
without having  asked her mother's  permission to do so. Arkasha set out for
the party in his  well-brushed,  well-pressed school uniform. He entered the
brightly-lit hall  and  was  imagining  the  delights that  awaited him when
Lucy's mother suddenly blocked  his way. She was a  tall woman with rustling
skirts and seemed very  much disturbed to have discovered a cook's son about
to attend her daughter's party.
     "Come  back some other time,  child," she said in a sugary  voice, "and
use  the  back  stairs. Lucy's busy.  She can't see you now. Here  are  some
sweets for you and your mother."
     Arkasha did not  see Lucy again after that. He missed her very much. He
looked wan and began slipping in his studies.
     In February of 1917, soon after the revolution, a portly gentleman in a
fine,  fur-lined  coat  was speaking animatedly  to  a  crowd  of  people on
Troitskaya Square, saying  that now there were  no more  masters and no more
slaves,  that from now on everyone was equal. Arkasha believed every word of
what he said, for it seemed to him that since a wealthy man was saying there
would  be no more masters, it must be so. That  was when he decided to write
Lucy a letter. I found it in the Ledger  several years later together with a
single dried lily-of-the-valley.


        THE LETTER

     "My dearest sweetheart Lucy,
     "Since there has now been  an overthrow of the tsarist regime, it means
everybody  is  equal and free. There are no more masters, and  nobody has  a
right to  insult me and send me packing from a Christmas party like  then. I
miss you  so much. My  mother says  I even  lost weight.  I don't go  to the
skating  rink any  more,  but not because  I'm  jealous, as  Lizarsky  says,
watching him  and you skating together.  How  do you like that,  he says. To
hell (scratched out)  To blazes with  him. I'm  not  one bit jealous. He got
what  was coming to him, because he's a monarchist (that means he's  for the
tsar), and that's why he's so mad. And now, dear Lucy, you and I can be like
a brother and a sister,  that is, if you want to. That's because there was a
revolution and we're equals  now. Actually,  though, you're a hundred  times
better than I am. I can't tell you how much I miss you. My word of honour. I
keep thinking about  you when I do my homework,  and even when I sleep I see
you in my dreams. Just as clear as day. We had the word 'lucid' in spelling,
and I wrote 'Lucy'.  You  spend all your time with Petya Lizarsky. He's  the
one who cribs his math from me  and then says he solved the problem himself.
And he  holds  your arm. I'm  not  one bit jealous,  though.  It's  strange,
though,  because  you're  so smart,  and  pretty, and good, and intelligent,
Lucy, and there you  are, walking out, arm-in-arm with a monarchist. There's
liberty, fraternity and equality now, so that no one will be angry at you if
you go  out with me.  I won't ever  say anything about  you  going out  with
Petya, because that  was during the tsar's reign and three hundred years  of
the autocracy.
     "My  mother  and I have never  been very happy. My greatest joy was the
revolution and you, dear Lucy. And I never cried like I did that day of your
party.
     "I finally decided to write to you, though it means I have no pride. If
you haven't  forgotten me and want  to  be  friends again, write me a  note.
It'll be the happiest day of my life. . "This flower is from that bouquet.
     "Yours truly,
     "Arkasha Portyanko, 3rd grade.
     "P.S. Please excuse the blots. And please tear up this letter."


        MERRY MONOKHORDOV

     The  algebra teacher had a very strange last name: Monokhordov. He  had
fiery  red hair and huge round  jowls, which earned  him  his  nickname, Red
Hippo.
     He was  forever giggling,  and this constant  merriment was  weird  and
impossible to understand.
     "He-he-he!" he would giggle shrilly. "He-he-he! You don't know a thing.
Here, he-he-he  ... you  should have written a  plus  sign, not a  minus ...
he-he-he.... That's why I've ... he-he-he ... given you  ... he-he-he ... an
'F'."
     Arkasha  had taken out the letter he had  written  and was  reading  it
under his desk. He was so engrossed that he did not see Monokhordov creep up
on  him. Arkasha jumped, but it was too late. The  teacher's  thick fingers,
covered generously with red hairs, closed on the letter.
     "Ha-ha-ha! A letter! He-he, it's not sealed.  This should be very, very
interesting... he-he ... I'd like to know what  you've been doing  ... he-he
... during my class!"
     "Please give it back!" Arkasha shouted, shaking visibly.
     "Oh, no ... he-he-he. I'm sorry, but... he-he ... this is my trophy."
     A  reddish giggling filled the  classroom. Monokhordov went back to the
lectern and pored over the letter. A boy he had called  on and had forgotten
all about stood by the blackboard unhappily.  His fingers were full of chalk
dust. The teacher was busy reading.
     "He-he-he  ... very amusing...," he said as he came to the end. "Rather
interesting. A letter ... he-he ... to his lady-love. I will  read it  aloud
... he-he-he ... as a lesson to you all."
     "Read it! Read  it!" everyone shouted excitedly, drowning out Arkasha's
desperate pleas.
     Monokhordov kept stopping  every now and then to get the giggles out as
he read the letter addressed to Lucy aloud  from beginning  to end. The boys
yowled. Arkasha was as white as a sheet. He had never  been so humiliated in
his life.


        THE FLOWER IN THE LEDGER

     "You're  starting young,  Portyanko ...  he-he ... very young." Arkasha
knew that  he could never send Lucy the defiled  letter. All the lofty words
he had used and which had  caused such ribald laughter now seemed stupid  to
him,  too. However,  the terrible hurt  he felt made him say in a very quiet
and menacing voice:
     "Please give me my letter."
     The boys stopped laughing instantly.
     "Oh,  no,"  Monokhordov  chuckled. "This'll  go  into  the  Ledger  ...
he-he-he."
     Then Arkasha  exploded.  "Don't  you  dare! You've  no  right  to!"  he
screamed and stamped his feet. "Reading somebody else's letter's the same as
stealing!"
     "Get  out! This minute!" Monokhordov bellowed and his  fat jowls shook.
'Don't you ever forget that you're a charity boy. You'll fly out of here ...
he-he ... ike a balloon."
     The  dried lily-of-the-valley cracked faintly as the hard covers of the
class journal snapped shut over it. Later, the new principal  gave Arkasha a
dressing down.
     "You scoundrel," he said softly. "How dare you talk to your elders like
that? I'll expel you, you brat. You'll  end your  days at hard  labour,  you
ingrate. Just who do you think you are? Hm?"
     Arkasha was again reminded that he was a charity boy, that he  was only
there because of the kindness of others, and that the revolution had nothing
to  do  with anything. There  had to  be order, above all, and he,  Arkasha,
would be  expelled in no  time if this  order were disturbed. Arkasha's name
was entered  in the Ledger.  He was left after school for two hours. In  the
end, what he gathered  was that the world was  still the same  old place and
that it was still divided into the rich and the poor.

        PART TWO

        SCHWAMBRANIA

        THE SCHWAMBRANIAN REVOLUTION



        THE VOYAGE OF THE BRENABOR

     The Schwambranian Fleet set out on a great voyage  around the continent
in order to chart the exact boundaries of Schwambrania.  The ships  set sail
in the middle of 1916 and did not dock until November 1917. The significance
of this  voyage in the history of  Schwambrania was great, indeed, as can be
seer from the documents which have come down to us. My Schwambranian archive
contain a detailed map of Schwambrania and the log of the  flagship Brenabor
There is no sense  quoting it in  full here,  as it is very long  and rather
dull. Today's  readers will find many of  its pages hard to understand. That
is why the account o the  voyage is given in a revised and abridged form and
some  things  are  explained  in  parenthesis.  I have  tried to  retain the
Schwambranian style of writing wherever possible.
     I would also like to explain the following:
     At  the  time  in  question,  Brenabor  Case  IV  was  the  Emperor  of
Schwambrania We borrowed the name complete from a well-known  ad of the day.
That  was  when  two  automobiles   were  added  to  the  coat  of  arms  of
Schwambrania, although  it already boasted  the Schwambranian  wisdom tooth,
the Black Queen,  Keeper of the  Secret, and the ship of  Jack, the Sailor's
Companion.
     King Brenabor No. 4  was a  rather easy-going fellow. Still and all, he
was a monarch, and none of  us wanted to be him. Then again,  we didn't want
to be plain commoners, either. That was when Brenabor adopted us. We decided
he had picked  us  up at  sea when  we  were very  little. The  vicious  old
Chatelains Urodena had put us, new-born, into an empty sauerkraut barrel and
had tossed us into the sea. King Brenabor was out rowing when he got a whiff
of stale cabbage and rescued us.
     At that time nearly  every children's story had an orphan in it. A tale
about  an adopted child was both fashionable and  touching. As for the smell
of stale cabbage, that  did not in any way make us less attractive, for many
parents insisted that all children, and not only adopted ones, were found in
cabbage patches.
     The squadron was made up of the following ships: the flagship Brenabor,
Beef Stroganoff, the Jules Verne, the Liquid Metal, the  Prince Courant, the
Cascara Sagrada, the Gratis, the Valiant, the Gambit,  and the Donnerwetter.
Despite his  youth, Admiral  and  Captain Ardelar Case, meaning  me, was  ii
command of the squadron.  Oska was the  Vice-Admiral  and  Chief Able-Bodied
Seaman.  His name was  Satanrex. The name was  of operatic origin. The local
druggist often  sang  at our home musicales.  He had  a  deep basso and sang
Mephistopheles'  aria, which included the words "Satan wreaks his  vengeance
there".  Hi ran his words together when he sang, and  so the first two words
sounded like "Satanrex". Oska kept asking everyone who Satanrex was.
     Jack, the Sailor's Companion, was our faithful guardian at sea.


        DEPARTURE

     Page 1 of Admiral Ardelar Case's diary  began as follows: "The sun rose
in  the morning and  shone above the horizon. The view of  the sea was  very
beautiful. A hundred  thousand soldiers  and a million people were there  to
see  us  off.  A  brass  band  was  blasting  away,  and it  was  a  regular
manifestation.  New Schlyamburg was all illustrated  (This is an error.  The
admiral wanted to say "illuminated".).  I had on a pair of white bell-bottom
flannel trousers, white shoes and spurs, a starched collar, a light-blue bow
tie, a  long-waisted  purple Circassian coat  with gold  cartridge slots and
epaulets, a short crimson cape lined with  a tiger-skin and a captain's  cap
with a plume. I led the way. I was tall and lithe."
     The ships were moored at the pier. The second whistle  had sounded. The
stevedores were  busy loading pastries and thousands of tubes of  strawberry
jelly.
     The Navy-passenger dreadnought Brenabor was  so huge  that  street cars
and hacks coursed back  and forth along the deck, charging twenty kopecks to
take you from  the  stern  to the  bow,  although  oats were  very cheap  in
Schwambrania. The Brenabor's six stacks smoked like six huge fires. It had a
ten  thousand camel-power whistle,  and  its masts  were so high  they  were
always capped with snow.
     "Attention in the engine room!" I said.
     "Stand by!" Jack, the  Sailor's  Companion, said. "Steh fertig bei  der
Machine!"
     The tsar was there to see us off. He  climbed  up on a barrel  and said
the following manifesto:
     "Yo-ho-ho, ye Schwambranian knights in shining armour! We, by the Grace
of God,  Emperor of  Schwambrania, Tsar  of Caldonia, Balvonia et cetera, et
cetera, command you to have a bon voyage  both ways. If you  happen to see a
war anyplace, get right  into the fight and slash away! Give the enemy their
comeuppance. Men! All the centuries, as many  as there were and will be, are
looking down on you from the tops of these masts! Forward march, my friends,
on your voyage! Bugles,  blare a song of  victory! And  be sure  to go below
deck if you  get caught in a squall or a  storm so's you  won't  catch cold.
Forward,  fearless knights! Off to the rolling seas, heading  southwest. God
bless us and Godspeed!"
     At this, everyone burst into the Schwambranian anthem, composed by  the
Vice-Admiral, and having all the stresses on the first syllable:

     "Hoo-ray, hoo-ray!" they all shouted,
     The Schwambranians.
     "Hoo-ray, hoo-ray!" they were clouted!
     Do-re-mi-mans.
     But not one of them was murdered,
     All of them survived.
     And they blasted all the others.
     Lo! They're strong and live!

     The Brenabor sounded its ten thousand camel-power whistle for the third
time. Riders tumbled, and their horses galloped off. Anyone standing was now
sitting. Anyone sitting was now  lying. As  for those that  had been  lying,
there  wasn't much else they could  do. The ships  cast  off. The voyage had
begun.
     "Don't forget to write!" the tsar shouted.
     The squadron was going full steam ahead. The  pennants fluttered in the
breeze. The tall, sleek Brenabor led the caravan,  going  a hundred knots an
hour.  The wind was blowing up. The waves churned. The sun went down in  the
evening.


        THE BATTLE OF CHARADE

     The  voyage was progressing well, with the sun coming up in the morning
and going down in the evening. If  we are to believe the Admiral's log,  the
wind was becoming stronger with each passing day. The squadron  did not drop
anchor a Port  Manteau  and  passed  Cape  Gialmar,  coming round the tip of
Cacophonia   and  Cape  Rugby   as  it  headed  for  Drandzonsk.   A  small,
single-breasted  ship  was sent out to meet  us (Another  error.  Suits  are
single-breasted,  not  ships.),  and  the people  of  Drandzonsk offered  us
Triumph  cigarettes. We stopped  for a smoke and continued  on our  way. Two
days later we dropped anchor in Medusa Harbour.
     Vast,  masculine forests stretched  off into the distance beyond Medusa
(Naturally, there  are  no  such forests. One  sometimes speaks of a  virgin
forest,  but the  admiral  was  a  woman-hater.).  There,  in the  masculine
forests,  we hunted wild run toddies. The rum  toddies  were  animals we had
discovered in an ad of the well known Shustov Distilleries. Rum toddies were
not to be found in any other country except Schwambrania. They had the  head
of a buffalo and the body of a horse, s'  that they  both kicked and butted.
They were ferocious.
     Then  Satanrex and  I  explored the  Cor-i-Dor Desert.  Everything  was
deserted  in the desert. Meanwhile,  the squadron  under Jack, the  Sailor's
Companion  rounded Cape Pudding  and steamed into Balvonsk. We  boarded  our
ship again and continued on our way. The Piliguinian  Fleet was sighted  off
Cape Charade, with the vile cad, Count Chatelains Urodenal, in command.
     "Ah, main royal  yard!" Jack, Sailor's  Companion,  cursed. "Fore royal
standin  backstay! Unter  lissel  left  and  right, too!  Plombiren Sie  die
Schiffsraume! Seal the  holds!" And he began to  flash his eyes.  Chatelains
Urodenal picked up his  megaphone and  declared war  on us. A battle  at sea
followed.  Our ships and their  ships attacked each other  and tried to send
over boarding parties. What followed was a regular Trafalgar, which ended as
our Waterloo. The Liquid  Metal,  Donnerwetter and the Boef  a la Stroganoff
were all sunk, and the others were towed off by the Piliguinians. They  took
them off to their  prison, which  was on Garlandia, a  desert island in  the
Arsenic Ocean. Our valiant Brenabor was the only ship that did not surrender
to the enemy and managed to break through the fiery circle. The lone vessel,
its sails billowing, sped across the ocean blue. There was an island in that
ocean. It was a bleak granite island without a  sign of life.  It was  named
Punishment Isle and  was a part of the Liverpill Archipelago. Cape Comer was
on that island and there,  in a seashell grotto, the  Black  Queen lived. We
dropped anchor. The Queen did not look bad, although she was a bit mouldy.
     Then we  passed the dangerous islands of  Quinine, Biomalt,  Cocoa  and
Codlive-roil. As we drew alongside Cape  Colt, we sighted  the tops  of  the
Overthere Mts. and the inaccessible  Peak Puzzle, so we turned westwards and
entered Seven Scholars Bay.
     We were approaching Elfin Island.


        THE FAMOUS PERSONS FOREST RESERVE

     The Prince and the Pauper, Max  and Moritz, Bobus and Bubus, Tom Sawyer
and Huck Finn, Oliver Twist,  the  Little Women and the Little Men, and when
they  were  grown, Captain  Grant's Children,  Little  Lord Fauntleroy,  the
Twelve   Huntsmen,  the  Three   Spinners,  the  Seven  Wise  Scholars,  the
Thirty-three Knights, who were the  nephews of Uncle Chernomor, the Last Day
of Pompeii, and the One Thousand and One Nights all came out to welcome us.
     "Long live Your Royal Brilliance!" they shouted.
     There was a  green oak on the island. And  a  gold chain on the oak.  A
puss-in-boots walked round and  round it, looking very wise. When he went to
the right, he would read a book out  loud, and when  he went to the left, he
would  turn  on a gramophone. Just  like Durov's  famous  circus animals.  A
sphinx sat on the top of a cliff, making up riddles and charades.
     Familiar  characters from many books lived here, for Elfin Island was a
forest  preserve for  all the famous characters we had ever read about. They
lived here out of time and place.
     A large  company  was riding  towards us, led by the Mysterious  Knight
with his  visor down. Next came  the Headless Horseman. Don Quixote  whipped
his old nag on,  with his  faithful sword-bearer Sancho Panza trotting along
on a donkey.  Sancho  was carrying some windmill slats that Don Quixote  had
hacked  off  some place or other. Then came Ivan the Fool  on the Humpbacked
Horse. He stuck out his tongue as he rode by. Then  came the  Three Knights,
Ilya Muromets, Alyosha Popovich and Dobrynya Nikitich  on their three mighty
steeds.  The  horses were  harnessed to the  Tsar-Cannon. Nat Pinkerton, the
well-known  detective, crept along in  their wake.  He was  looking for  the
Mysterious Knight and was being  shadowed  by the famous detective, Sherlock
Holmes.
     A man with long  hair and a  long  beard  and clothed in  animal  skins
appeared  from behind  some  bushes. A wise  old  parrot was perched  on his
shoulder. The parrot was plucking fortune cards from his master's pocket.
     "Rrrr-robinson Crr-rusoe!" the parrot squawked.
     We  recognized  the  great  hermit.  Following  Robinson  was a  savage
carrying  several parcels. He was completely naked.  He didn't  have on  any
pants  at all.  All he had on  was a calendar leaf for a loincloth. The word
written on the page was:
     "Friday". At  the  sight of us Robinson begged our pardon and asked Don
Quixote to lend him his shaving basin, which Don Quixote did. Robinson  went
off to shave, while Friday, having stopped to  gossip with Sancho  Panza and
ask his advice about something, ran  off to put on  some  clothes in a house
with a sign outside that read:

        ORDERS FILLED
     Ladies and Men's
     Valiant Little Tailor
     Sews seven cloaks at a stroke

     "They mean us," the Seven Wise Scholars said.
     That evening our visit was marked by  a gala  fete and fireworks in the
Mysterious  Garden. Bluebirds  and Blue Herons were there.  Golden Cockerels
crowed, and geese laid golden eggs, while squirrels whistled popular tunes.
     We were there, too, and drank  mead with the rest, but since  we had no
moustaches, it did not flow down our chests.


        THE SUNSET WAS CANCELLED

     The days of  the festivities coincided  with  the  first  days  of  the
revolution Russia.  Reality  was  wonderful. It turned everything  about  us
topsy-turvy. The following telegram was received from Schwambrania:

     The people of Schwambrania  are worried.  Indignant over the  Battle of
Charade. Brenabor partially abdicated. Chatelains Urodenal temporary ruler.

     Half an hour later the Brenabor, having sealed the holds and raised the
red  flag,  sailed  at full steam off  to  the  Brightasday Sea.  We  passed
Lilliputia, Shellacputia, Port Folio and  Getamoveonio. We rechristened  our
ship. It  was now  the  Carshandar and Jupiter.  The  crew was  all  for the
republic and had renounced the traitor of  a tsar. After all, Brenabor No. 4
had  temporarily  installed the  villian  Chatelains  Urodenal  in  order to
preserve his  crown. Urodenal's troops were  guarding the Hopscotch Plateau,
having dug in along the  Nitty, Plotzky and  Socko-Pocko canyons.  We had no
choice but to  press  on  towards  the  Candelabra Mountains. There, in  the
northern  foothills,  the  republican  conspirators  were hiding  out in the
environs of Port Rait. We took them on  board. Then, rounding Cape Clock and
bypassing  Knuckle  duster, we  sailed for  the free shores  of  Carshandar,
dropping anchor in Port Yippee.  The Carshandarians  welcomed us  with  open
arms.  Carshandar  was  enveloped in  a revolutionary  uprising.  Urodenal's
landing  party was only able  to take Condora. We set siege  to Condora from
the Lilac Sea. Condora fell. We absconded  with  great riches. Then, passing
Cape Rick-Rack  and  Cape Billbock, we stopped off at Port  Ico, and finally
dropped anchor on the Carshandar Riviera. I  changed my last name and became
Ardelar de Carshandar.
     In  order to  prepare a coup on the entire continent, I  stowed away in
the sealed hold of one of the ships and  made  my way  to New Shiyamburg.  I
lived in the capital, disguised  as an Indian. However, on the very  eve  of
the  uprising,  Brenabor recognized  me  by  the scar  in my  left  eyebrow.
Urodenal had me arrested and brought me before a court martial.
     The trial of Admiral de Carshandar lasted a whole day (Sunday). This is
how the Admiral described it in his diary:
     "The  courtroom was full of  people  who  were staring at  me with open
curiosity.  I was in the dock,  so handsome and lithe. Four guards had their
rifles trained on me, to make  sure I didn't escape. The former Brenabor was
the chief  justice. He really  hated  my  guts.  Count  Chatelains Urodenal,
black-haired and a cad, was prosecuting me personally.
     "There was no brass band at all. Satanrex was my lawyer. They had sworn
they  wouldn't  arrest  him or  throw him  into  jail. The  prosecutor lied,
telling everyone to their  face that I was  a crook, but my  lawyer got even
and said  that Urodenal was  a crook if there  ever  was one. Then  Brenabor
said: 'Mr. Prisoner  at the Bar! You have five minutes to give them  a peace
of  mind.' Then  I rose, so  tall  and  lithe, and  the courtroom died down.
'Honourable Judges!'  I shouted. 'You  are  under  arrest in the name of the
Free  Continent  of  Big  Tooth!'  In  a flashing  eye  Jack,  the  Sailor's
Companion,  dashed into  the  courtroom  with some revolutionaries  and they
overthrew the tyrants. Everyone cheered, and there was a general ovation."
     The admiral did not mention the sunset that day. Apparently, due to the
coup, there was a continuous sunrise over Schwambrania.


        THE END OF THE BLACK BOOK



        I WANT TO ATTEND MEETINGS

     All sorts of  meetings were being  held  everywhere, for the  grown-ups
were quite carried away by politics. My own  mother had been elected  to the
Council of Deputies by the Ladies' Circle. Papa was Vice-Chairman of the new
Duma. Since the Duma and the Council were at odds. Papa and Mamma were, too.
     I was burning with a desire  to enter politics, since T, too, wanted to
attend  meetings,  make speeches and  elect  candidates.  That  was  when  I
received a letter  from my  friend Vitya Expromptov in Saratov. He described
his  Boy  Scout troop in  such  glorious terms that I decided to  organize a
branch in my school.
     I read whatever I could about scouting. Then one day after classes were
over and the boys were buckling their satchels, I climbed  onto  the lectern
and made a long speech.
     "Gentlemen, we've had enough of fighting during recesses, playing cards
and being disunited. We should band together, that is, like  a  club.... And
we won't lie,  smoke or curse. We'll  drill, have our own  clubroom and hold
club meetings. We'll elect a leader,  and we'll be  young scouts. I mean Boy
Scouts. What do you say? Who wants to be a Boy Scout?"
     Practically every boy  there  wanted  to  be  one.  The  commotion that
followed was unimaginable.  Nikolai Ilyich looked in to  see what  was going
on. He said that if we didn't stop yelling, he'd have all our names put down
in the Ledger before we ever drew up a list of future Boy Scouts.


        A THREE-FINGERED SALUTE

     The following Sunday the first scout meeting was held in school. To  my
surprise, there were a great  many boys  from other grades and  even several
seniors.
     We  conducted  our  meeting  just like  adults:  we  stood up  and made
speeches, and someone kept the minutes.
     Two  troops were  formed. I  was elected  scout leader. Shalferov,  the
horse  doctor's son, was elected Treasurer, for he was considered  to be the
most honest of us all.
     Our Rules were based on  the scout law: we would not smoke, drink,  lie
or use bad language, but would  be courteous, cheerful, do a good deed every
day, always smile, and  salute our superiors on  the street by raising three
fingers to  our caps. The three fingers stood for the three  commandments of
the  scout  oath: "...to  do my duty to God  and my country and to obey  the
scout  law." Actually, the Handbook said: "...and my monarch", but  we  used
the alternative "country". There was  a  hitch as far as God was  concerned,
for  Stepan  Atlantis suddenly announced that he was  an atheist. We had  to
convince him that God was  actually like your conscience and, anyway. He had
only been included to make things sound right. We finally convinced him, and
Stepan solemnly  raised  three fingers and repeated  the scout oath. He then
promised to stop smoking within a week.
     We signed up quite a few parents  as sponsors. They donated money which
we  used  to  buy a tricoloured flag  and  an old  automobile horn  that was
missing its rubber bulb. This home-made bugle called for  a great  amount of
wind. It would then produce a loud and  horrible  sound. Hefty was  the only
one who had  the necessary lung power, and  so he was elected bugler. He was
flattered  and tried  his  best, blowing  so  hard it  made trucks veer  and
steamships green with envy.
     We were given  a room in  the local children's library to serve  as our
clubhouse. By then so many other boys had signed up, we had  formed two more
troops. I was now a troop leader. Boys saluted me on the street. I felt very
proud.


        SIR ROBERT, ST. GEORGE AND GOOD DEEDS

     All  the  preparatory  work  was finally  completed.  The clubroom  was
furnished, the flag displayed, the scout promise  made, the patrol and troop
leaders  elected, the scout law learned  by heart. Every one of  us knew who
Lord Baden-Powell was and what St. George had to do with scouting.
     However,  nobody knew  what  to  do after  all  of the  above  had been
accomplished. We  decided to stage a mock battle between  the two troops  on
granary row, but the watchmen chased us away.
     We tried  doing good  deeds, deciding we would  patrol the town and fix
street benches and fences, and  help old  ladies carry their  shopping bags.
However, schoolboys had a bad reputation in Pokrovsk, and the very first old
lady  whom Atlantis tried to help  began screaming wildly the moment he took
hold of her heavy bag. A crowd  gathered  on the spot. Stepan barely managed
to escape.
     I then  discovered that my fellow-scouts were doing their good deeds in
the following manner:  they would sneak up to a  stout fence in the dark and
pry off some boards. The following morning they would appear on the scene as
benefactors  and  me