Freddy and Simon the Dictator

by Walter R. Brooks

  So Freddy promised. What else could he do?

  CHAPTER

  5

  Out on the terrace, the members of the committee were still telling jokes, and Mr. Glockenspiel was making notes of the best ones for use in Mr. Camphor’s speeches. Freddy listened for a few minutes. He noticed that each of them laughed harder at his own jokes than he did at any that the others told, and nobody laughed at the jokes that Senator Blunder told except Senator Blunder. But of course, he made up for it by laughing twice as hard as anyone else. Indeed, he laughed so loud and slapped his knee and guffawed so excitedly at one of his own jokes that he ended by sticking the lighted end of his cigar back in his mouth. He jumped up and danced around, sputtering and roaring, and Mr. Slurp, thinking this was part of the joke, lay back in his chair and shouted with laughter. Of course, that made the Senator mad, and with an angry yell he went for Mr. Slurp and if the rest of the committee hadn’t separated them, the results might have been serious indeed for the party.

  When the excitement had died down, Mr. Slurp apologized to the Senator. “I did not realize,” he said, “that my distinguished friend had burnt his tongue; I assumed that he was putting on the performance strictly for laughs. I wish to point out, however, that if performed for laughs it would be a highly entertaining caper. I would like to suggest, therefore, that—”

  “I know what you’re going to say,” Mr. Camphor interrupted, “and I won’t do it. When you’re on the platform with me, if you feel that sticking the lighted end of a cigar in your mouth will get us some votes, you go ahead and do it. I won’t, and that’s flat.”

  “Gentlemen,” said Freddy, “since in spite of General Wiggins’s disapproval, you seem determined to continue Mr. Camphor as your candidate, there are one or two things I should like to speak about. The first is: What are the people who vote for him going to get out of electing him? I understand that the Honorable Mr. Feebler, the Democratic candidate, intends to promise that if he is elected, he will cut down taxes to half what they were last year. That’s a big promise, gentlemen. Every voter in the state has to pay taxes. Unless we can promise more than that, our next governor will be the Honorable Rufus Feebler.

  “Now gentlemen, Mr. Camphor has a brilliant suggestion. He suggests that we go Mr. Feebler one better. He suggests that we promise, if elected, to do away with all taxes! Gentlemen, on a platform like that, Mr. Camphor will sweep the state!”

  The members of the committee all began talking at once. “A bold idea, Doctor,” said Senator Blunder.

  “But if we do away with taxes,” said Mr. Glockenspiel, “who’s going to pay the governor’s salary?”

  “And our salaries,” Colonel Buglett said. “We all expect to be appointed to political jobs if Camphor is elected.”

  “You can’t run the state government without money,” said Mr. Slurp, “and the money all comes from taxes of one kind or another. I say the idea’s no good.”

  “But don’t let us be hasty,” put in Judge Anguish. “The idea has merit. Unquestionably, Mr. Camphor could be elected if he promised to do away with taxes. But what then? After election, couldn’t he just think things over and decide that maybe we ought to have taxes after all? The main thing is to get elected, isn’t it? Probably some of the people will be mad, when their tax bill comes in. But they forget pretty quickly. No, Camphor, I think you have something there. What do you say, Buglett?”

  The committee went on to discuss the proposition, and Freddy took Mr. Camphor’s arm and drew him out of earshot. “Golly, Mr. Cam—I mean, Jimson, I think up the craziest things to have you do, and the crazier they are, the better they like them. Look, wouldn’t it be simpler just to refuse to run?”

  “I can’t, Freddy. I promised. I was a fool to do it, but I won’t go back on a promise. Well, you’ve done your best. I guess you’ll just have to leave me to my fate.”

  “They seem determined to have you run, no matter how foolish you get,” Freddy said. “Of course, you may not be elected.”

  “I’m afraid I will. They seem pretty sure of it this year.”

  “Well, let’s try one more thing,” said Freddy. He walked back towards the committee. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we are agreed, I think, that our platform in the coming campaign is the promise to do away with all taxes. But there is another matter upon which Mr. Camphor feels very strongly—that is the question of animal suffrage. He feels that just as, years ago, women won the right to vote, today this right should be extended to animals. He feels—”

  “Animals!” Senator Blunder interrupted explosively. “Did you say animals?”

  “Animals!” said Freddy firmly. “Cows and pigs and dogs and horses—all of them are natives of our great state; they are born here, work here; they have as good a right to the vote as you or I. Remember, gentlemen, the slogan of the founders of our nation: no taxation without representation. A good slogan, but Mr. Camphor proposes a better one: no taxation, full representation. Full representation, gentlemen. Not men only. Not men and women only. Men, women, and animals—every living being that has a stake in the country should have a voice in the government, and that voice is his vote. Then this nation will be a true democracy.”

  “Never heard such nonsense!” Colonel Buglett growled. “You mean a mouse ought to have as much say in the government as I do?”

  “A mouse,” said Mr. Camphor firmly, “is smaller than Colonel Buglett. Agreed. But the right to vote is not based on size. Otherwise the vote would be restricted to cows and horses, which are larger than Colonel Buglett. Let us be consistent, gentlemen. Let us extend the vote even to guinea pigs.”

  “We can’t support you in that kind of foolishness, Jimson,” said Senator Blunder.

  “If you want me to run for governor, you’ll have to,” Mr. Camphor replied. “For a bill to give the vote to animals is one of the first things I shall press the legislature to pass.”

  “My dear fellow!” Mr. Glockenspiel exclaimed. “The whole country will laugh; they’ll laugh us right out of politics. Gentlemen, if Mr. Camphor is determined about this—and I believe he is—the only thing we can do is withdraw his candidacy. Don’t you agree?”

  Mr. Slurp and the Senator and Colonel Buglett nodded vigorously. But Mr. Camphor, who was beginning to look much less gloomy, said: “So suppose they do laugh? That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? You run me as the giggling governor—O.K., I’ll make ’em giggle!”

  The committee began talking together, throwing disgusted glances at Mr. Camphor, who winked delightedly at Freddy. But Judge Anguish, who had said nothing for some time, suddenly spoke. “Your proposition, Camphor,” he said, “sounds pretty silly on the face of it. But you must have some good reason back of it. Do you mind telling us what it is?”

  “Certainly not,” Mr. Camphor replied. “The Republican party wants to win this election, doesn’t it? But somewhere around half the population of the state is in New York City, and the city is Democratic. The Republicans count on the upstate vote to win, because most of upstate is Republican. But the city hasn’t an awful lot of animals. Most of the animals are upstate, on farms and in the woods; and they’ll vote Republican, like the farmers whose land they live on. All right—that means you can add a few million Republican votes if you grant animal suffrage. And that means a Republican administration in Albany for the next hundred years.”

  “H’m,” said Senator Blunder, “hadn’t thought of that.” And the others stopped looking disgusted and began to look hopeful.

  “It is truly an excellent idea,” said the Judge. “Animals are certainly citizens, and as such have the right to vote. And they are good citizens; I have never heard of an animal criminal.”

  That was a smart idea of Mr. Camphor’s, Freddy thought. But it was a smart idea in the wrong place. If he hadn’t pointed out that the animal vote would make a Republican victory certain, probably they’d have refused to let him run for governor, and chosen some other candidate. Freddy frowned and shook his head at him, bu
t Mr. Camphor was so delighted with his own idea that he forgot entirely that he was trying to get out of being elected, and when Mr. Slurp asked him how he was sure that he could get the animals to vote for him, he turned to Freddy.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “my friend here, whom I have introduced as Dr. Hopper, is the answer to that question. He can deliver a statewide animal vote to the Republican party. Why do I think he can? Because, gentlemen, he is an animal himself.” And he snatched off Freddy’s wig, unhooked his beard, and, with an arm across his shoulders, drew him forward. “This, my friends,” he said, “is Mr. Frederick Bean, President of the First Animal Bank, Editor of the Bean Home News, head of the detective firm of Frederick & Wiggins, the most influential pig in the state. I think you have heard of him, gentlemen.”

  “This, my friends, is Mr. Frederick Bean.”

  The members of the committee pressed forward to shake hands with Freddy. “A great pleasure,” said Senator Blunder, “to see you again, sir.” For the Senator, like all good politicians, never forgot a face, and he had once met Freddy at an evening party at Mrs. Underdunk’s.

  The others, of course, had heard of Freddy, and were pleased to meet him. Only Colonel Buglett seemed doubtful. “A pig?” he said. “You are a pig, are you not? Quite so. Well, if you are to take an active part in this campaign, may I suggest that you buy yourself a new outfit? That coat, those pants!” He looked Freddy up and down disgustedly.

  Freddy was quite aware of the shabbiness of his costume. The coat and pants had been borrowed from a scarecrow a year earlier, and they were wrinkled and patched so that except at twilight they were scarcely correct for wear in good society. But Freddy had taken a dislike to Colonel Buglett, who from the first had seemed inclined to sneer at him.

  He tipped back his head and looked down his long nose at the Colonel. “My good sir,” he said snippily, “economy in government is our watchword in this campaign. And it ill befits those who go about preaching economy to wear costly raiment. The British have taken the lead in emphasizing economy and we might do well to follow them. Are you aware, sir, that at the opening of Parliament, the Marquess of Ilming, one of the richest men in England, wore a ragged shirt? And that Sir James Gobbling was out at elbows and had a hole in the seat of his pants?”

  The Colonel backed down. “Er—no,” he said. “Well, perhaps you’re right.”

  Leaving the committee to discuss whether mice should be allowed to vote, or whether it should be restricted to animals twelve inches long or over, Freddy again drew Mr. Camphor aside. “Well,” he said, “you fixed yourself good, Jimson. When they thought you were crazy for suggesting that animals should vote, why couldn’t you leave it alone? They’d have given you the old heave ho, and you’d be out of politics for good. But no, you had to go point out that it would give you more votes. Why didn’t you keep still?”

  “I guess I was kind of dumb, huh?” Mr. Camphor said.

  “No, you’re too smart; that’s worse. And you’ve convinced ’em that you’re pretty smart, that you’d make a good governor. No use now trying to convince ’em that you aren’t. I’ll try to think of something else, but I don’t have much hope. In the meantime, let’s go have a look at Senator Blunder’s room. Maybe the thief left some clue that will tell us who he was.”

  But though they went over the room thoroughly, they found no clues.

  Freddy had put on his wig and beard again, because that was the easiest way to carry them. When they came down through the living room, Miss Anguish put down her book, which she had resumed reading, and said: “Oh, how do you do?”

  Freddy thought it was a funny thing to say, when he had just left her ten minutes earlier. “Er—how do you do?” he said.

  Her hands fluttered at a bow of ribbon at her throat and she looked up archly at him. “I don’t think I know you, do I?” she said.

  Mr. Camphor winked at the pig. “This is Mr. Frederick Bean, the celebrated detective, Miss Anguish,” he said. “I don’t think you’ve met him.”

  “How do you do,” said Miss Anguish. “No, I don’t think so. But he does remind me so much of someone. Now who could it be?”

  “Possibly old Dr. Hopper, who was here yesterday,” said Mr. Camphor.

  “Oh, of course!” said Miss Anguish. “Well, it’s nice to see you again, Doctor. I hope your Aunt Judith is better.”

  “Yes,” Freddy stammered. “Tha—thank you.” And he bowed and hurried out. “What’s the matter with her, Jimson?” he asked. “And who am I? And who’s my Aunt Judith? And are you C. Jimson Camphor or General Grant?”

  Mr. Camphor laughed. “She’s not as queer as she sounds,” he said. “Nobody’s ever figured out why she does that sort of thing. Probably mixing people up is her idea of a joke.”

  “You were the one that was trying to mix her up,” said Freddy. “Introducing me as two different people.”

  “Sure. Only you see, you can’t mix her up. —Hey, look at that bird; has he got on glasses?”

  “Gosh,” said Freddy, “that’s Uncle Solomon, the screech owl. After me, I guess. It must be important to bring him out in the daytime. That’s why he wears those dark glasses: daylight hurts his eyes.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  The news that Uncle Solomon had for Freddy was indeed important. Mr. Bean had been arrested. Mr. Herbert Garble’s sister, Mrs. Underdunk, with whom he lived, had found a handkerchief marked W.F.B. in front of her bureau that morning, and on looking through the bureau drawers, claimed to have missed several valuable rings. She had at once called the sheriff, who had had no choice but to go out and arrest Mr. Bean and take him down to the jail.

  “Why, that’s outrageous!” said Freddy. “And I suppose the handkerchief was clean and unironed.”

  The screech owl said it was.

  “H’m,” said Freddy thoughtfully. “There were four handkerchiefs stolen from the Beans’ clothesline, I think.”

  “That means that whoever stole them will probably burglarize two more houses, leaving a handkerchief in each one,” said Mr. Camphor.

  “Not while Mr. Bean’s in jail, if they have any sense,” Freddy said.

  “Correct,” said Uncle Solomon in his precise little voice. “That would merely be confirmation of your theory of Mr. Bean’s innocence. For while in jail, Mr. Bean could certainly not be engaged in burgling, and so could not have left the third handkerchief. And if he could not have left the third handkerchief, one could assume it much less likely that he had left the first and second.”

  “I don’t need ’em to leave any more handkerchiefs around to prove that Mr. Bean isn’t a burglar,” Freddy said a little crossly.

  “To prove it, that’s just what you do need,” said the owl. “I think it is unlikely that Mr. Bean stole anything. But that is an opinion; it is not knowledge. Knowledge is something you know, and I do not know that he is innocent.”

  “Well, I do,” Freddy said. “For that matter, I don’t know that you’re innocent either, Uncle Solomon. Maybe you stole the things. You could get in a window and steal something and leave a handkerchief.”

  But if Freddy hoped to make the owl mad, he failed. “Dear me,” said Uncle Solomon, giving a cold little tittering laugh; “now you’re beginning to think. And if you’ll only think a little more along that line, you’ll think of a way to get Mr. Bean out of jail.”

  “Golly,” Freddy exclaimed after a minute. “I know what you mean. But I can’t climb up into any window. Look, if I get the handkerchief for you, will you do it?”

  Freddy expected that the owl would refuse, and probably laugh at him for suggesting such a dangerous mission. But for once, Uncle Solomon was serious. “You get the handkerchief,” he said. “I’ll do it tonight. I like your Mr. Bean,” he continued. “And though you probably don’t realize it, he’s in a very dangerous situation.”

  “This handkerchief trick will get him out of it,” said Freddy.

  “Oh, I don’t mean his being in jail. Matter of f
act, he’s probably safer there than he would be back in his own home.”

  “Good gracious,” said Mr. Camphor, “you mean this revolt among the animals that Freddy has told me about? But it’s silly of them to think they can take over and run things. It’s—”

  “Listen,” the owl interrupted. “I know more about this than you suspect. I’ve heard a great deal, and I’ve put two and two together, and I do not like the answer. These talks that someone is giving up at the Grimby house—they are only part of it. They are being given for the purpose of turning farm animals against the men who own the land they live on. So that on the day when the revolution begins, there won’t be much local resistance.

  “But the leader of this revolution knows quite well that farm animals alone cannot seize the power. Up in the woods, across Otesaraga Lake, in the foothills of the Adirondacks, he is training an army—an army of wild animals who are no friends to humans. Animals that humans have hunted and trapped. And with them are a good many discontented farm animals. Mr. Witherspoon’s horse, Jerry, is one of them. You’ve probably heard that he’s been missing for a month. He got sick of not having enough to eat at Witherspoon’s and he joined the revolutionists. And some of your Bean farm rabbits are there too.

  “When the signal is given, they’ll come down and drive the farmers from their farms. They’re going to start right in this neighborhood around Centerboro. As soon as the farmers are driven off, they’ll turn over the management of the farm to those of the farm animals who have joined up with their organization, and they’ll go on to the next farm. They believe in a year, they’ll have the whole state under animal control.”

  “My goodness,” said Mr. Camphor, “that would let me out of being governor, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would also let you out of living on this nice estate,” said the owl. “Unless you get busy, a year from now, perhaps two months, there’ll be cows and horses and porcupines sitting in the comfortable chairs out there on your terrace, instead of politicians.”