THE GREAT MOOSNOOKER

“It was Uncle, Jake,” said the man down at the club, “who discovered it. He is not an ordinary sort of uncle; in fact he belongs to the ‘rara avis avuncular’ to be more correct; one of those uncles who are always thinking of their nephews.

But to “return to our muttons,” as the beefsteak-pie man said when he took up a partnership with a wholesale dealer in sheeps’ heads. The Jakes were few in family; in fact, they became rarer every year, which the persistent enemies of the Jakes said somewhat vindictively was a blessing, on the whole, to mankind. Nevertheless the mind of Uncle Jake, who was mercilessly oblivious to this opinion, growing rather anxious about the scarcity of Jakes, was always affectionately full of “Young Jake.” In fact, there was nothing he would, have denied in the way of toys to the infant bearer of his name.

Late one night Uncle Jake was mooning his way home, per the Underground Railway, by way of one of the back streets of the Strand, when he caught sight of a man, with a box under his arm, whose lineaments were faintly lit up by a lighted candle on the pavement. He was about to lift, his foremost foot, and put it down again, as a preliminary step on his wav homewards, when a husky voice said, “Keep yer ‘oof up, guv’nor; if yer don’t, ‘arf-a-crown’s worth of ‘The Great Moosnooker’ goes at one bang.”

“‘The Great Moosnooker’?” queried my uncle. “Never heard of the animal—where is it?” A-crawlin’ round yer bloomin’ anckle,” said the owner of the husky voice. “Good gracious,” said Uncle Jake, as he drew forth a magnifying glass and gazed at the strange object. “Is it a live creature?” “No,” said the man of the husky voice, who was a street vendor of up-to-date novelties and oddments. “It is a clockwork toy—it’s a marvel at the price, an’ if yer spend an hour in a-winding of it up it will walk, trumpet, an’ bellow fer any amount of time arter the fashion of the original ‘Great Moosnooker.'” “My friend. ‘That’s where I come in'” “Really?” interpolated Uncle Jake.

“Well, it’s nearly a fact, anyhow,” said the husky – voiced vendor. “‘The Great .Moosnooker’ frequents the murky and unexplored depths of the Bezel-nut Jungle, in the North of the Liberian Republic. It’s reg’lar with its food, which consists of stewed tapioca pudden flavoured with cayenne pepper, hut curious in its ‘abits, fer whenever it’s chased it always runs back’ards, which ‘as a’ uncanny effect on the hunter, who often thinks a mistake ‘as ‘appened, an’ fancies he’s bein’ chased ‘imself; but ‘ere is the bloomin’ toy, an’ the price is ‘arf-a-crown, an’ if yer don’t seize the chaunce on the nail I shall be shifted by fourteen stun o’ the best in the perlice force, an you’ll never see ‘The Great Moosnooker’ agin.”

Uncle Jake closed at once with the bargain. The husky-voiced man blow out his candle, and to oblige Uncle Jake wound up “The Great Moosnooker” and the new possessor of the model of that unique spacimen of nature proceeded rejoicing on hit, way. He had just time to catch the one o’clock train for Hammersmith, and what with this excitement, find an argument he had plunged in with a wart-headed man in the carriage on “Why should Balfour do the budge?” he quite forgot “The Great Moosnooker,” who was stabled in his coat-tail pocket. When the wart-headed man left him at the next station Uncle Jake fell asleep, and enjoyed the weirdest of dreams. It was at the moment, that he imagined that he was being chased on a sixpenny day at the Zoo by a mad cow-elephant with buffalo horns and was on the point of being tossed that he was awakened by a busy hum of human voices.

“Stand away from him, boys,” said a big, fat man who was punkahing Uncle Jake with a handkerehief the size of a workhouse bed sheet. “He’s all right now.” “What’s the matter?” inquired Uncle Jake, looking at a wild-eyed crowd which surrounded him in the carriage. “What’s the matter?” repeated a man with a long tallow face. “You may well ask that question. Why, I never heard a man breaths in such a strange fashion before.” “What do you meam?” said Uncle Jake. “I’m all right.” “Thank heavens!” said the big fat man. “I thought you had some new-fashioned sort of fit. but it’s evident you have ate something which has disagreed with you.” “That’s hit it.” said the tallow-faced man. “I should suggest, from the devilish noise he made, that he has dined not wisely but too well off a dish of stewed airballs and devilled lobsters.”

Uncle Jake had some trouble in breaking away from the crowd, a little man in a hard bowler hat lagging and praying to see him home till Uncle Jake lent him a shilling, accepting an elaborate receipt for the same, to be paid within six months, on the back of an old washing bill, which the little man found in his hip pocket.

It was very late when Uncle Jake, who lived with his ancient married sister and her husband, put his foremost foot in the door passage. He meant to creep in Apache-fashion up the stairs, when a strange whirr took place right behind him and brought him up with a jolt. A loud bang in his immediate rear brought him to with a start, and while he was puzzling as to whether his past excesses had overtaken him, a door opened upstair’s and he heard his sister’s voice say: “The grandfather’s clock must have run down. If that’s you, Jake, will you kindly wind it up?”

Uncle Jake did his best, but after the first minute’s hard work found out he had been trying to wind up the hat-rack with a crumb-brush. He proceeded, consumed with unearthly mirth, up to his bedroom. Carried away by his emotions, he sat somewhat suddenly on the edge of the bed, and just as suddenly he jumped no again with a yell. This time “The Great Moosnooker” had arrested and inserted itself in the great understanding of Uncle Jake.

Then Uncle Jake laughed. He had sense of humour and couldn’t help himself, and as he held forth the queer-looking little object, he laughed still louder, which caused his married sister, a lady of very decided views, and her husband, a man of very undecided views, to ask each other what all “the unearthly noise” was about; they called Uncle Jake to order by rapping the partition wall with the heel of an old slipper. He took the hint and abandoned himself to the arms of Morpheus after stowing “The Great Moosnooker” under the bed.

He didn’t rest long. Strange sounds awoke him. He thought at first that something had gone wrong with his right lung, that that particular organ was proclaiming its grievance aloud. After he had thumped himself all over he knew the lung was not to blame. He then paused and perspired; he distinctly heard something tramping about the room to the time of a muffled and unmusical bellow.

Then in the broad moonlight he saw a small, uncanny-looking animal crawl from under the bed and march round the room. He stared till bis eyes nearly rolled down his cheeks, then he gave a sigh of relief which nearly breezed all the blankets oft the bed. It was “The Great Moosnooker” finishing the unwinding of itself. In a moment Uncle Jake leapt out of bed and captured the creature, and, pulling it under his pillow, smothered its struggles and slept the sleep of the just.

He told the story to bis sailer and her husband. They didn’t laugh. They had thought during the night of getting out of their lease by declaring that the house was haunted. Uncle Jake packed off “The Great Moosnooker” to his nephew with a label bearing the legend, “A surprise for little Jake.”

Little Jake got it; so did his uncle an hour later, for a note arrived addressed to him saying: “Poor little Jake has had his ninth fit since, you sent him your unearthly surprise; if you ever came near our house again you’ll get a surprise with an axe. Since that episode Uncle Jake has wandered round the abode of his nephew with an air of remorse, while “The Great Moosnooker,” a shattered wreck, gazes up at the sky from the depths of the dustbin.

The People, Sunday 15 October 1911