“Er—laugh, good mother?” he replied. “Oh, yes, of course. Would you like----”
“I want to be amused,” she interrupted angrily rapping on the table. “It’s your job, isn’t it? Don’t stand there like a pump but say amusing things!”
“I’ll do my best, dame,” said Baldry, rousing himself. “Perhaps a few rib-tickling conundrums will please you. If so, tell me the difference between an unripe gooseberry----”
“Shan’t!” shouted Mother Meldrum.
“Oh—then would you like a merry song?”
“Not a bit.”
“Oh—then perhaps—perhaps a jolly tale would please you.”
“Let’s hear your jolly tale,” she said, after a moment’s consideration.
“Well, then, good dame,” said Baldry, making a special effort, “there was once an honest collector of the King’s taxes who----”
“Don’t believe it.”
“But this one was honest,” pleaded Baldry.
“Then why didn’t you say he was a freak? Go on.”
“And this collector of taxes was on his way home after the day’s toil, riding on his ass, when he met three beggars, who begged of him----”
“Well, that’s what they usually do, isn’t it? What’s there funny about that?”
“Nothing very much,” replied Baldry. “But it will get better as I go on.”
“Go on, then, what are you waiting for?”
“And so, good dame, being charitable as well as honest, he gave to the first beggar a penny, to the second a piece of sausage, and to the third a small loaf of bread. But the first beggar, having had a full meal some half-hour before----”
“Excuse me for stopping you,” interrupted Mother Meldrum, “but I don’t think I care to hear any more. You say it is meant to be a funny tale, don’t you?”
“It is generally so considered,” replied Baldry sulkily.
“To me,” said the old woman, “it’s about as funny as a bilious attack.”
To those who know from experience—as I confess I do—how painful it is to have one’s verbal efforts to be sparkling received with cold, unappreciative looks or smiles in which pity lurks behind a mere pretence at mirth, will appreciate how Baldry suffered from this really pointed rudeness. He stood looking miserably at the venomous old person, too distressed to notice that Sylvia was endeavouring to console him by patting his hand. His profession was to make laughter, to spread good humour, to (at meal times) set the table in a roar; yet he was roaming the earth, an outcast, because of the ill-success of his late jest with the King, and now he had failed again. Was he losing his power to captivate? That is what troubled him.