Number Three Joy Street

THE SHIP-BOY'S SONG ( Fourteenth Century ) By DOROTHY MARGARET STUART

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A Humming Breeze.

OLD JOE By WALTER DE LA MARE

The house in which old Mr. Bolsover lived was of a faded primrose colour, and, apart from a high gable in which showed the windows of the guest-room and an attic, it was long and low. Its other back windows looked out across meadows which now lay spreading out before them into the distance, bright green beneath a merry morning sun. A narrow terrace skirted the house. At either end of this was a worn, grey stone pedestal on which stood two dancing fauns, for ever piping one to another above the wallflowers and the pinks. And it was the pinks that were now in full bloom, filling the air with their fragrance.

Along the terrace leaning down from the house wall was a canopy made of copper, and painted green; and this was supported by slim pillars, around which clematis and jessamine clambered. It was just after breakfast-time, and old Mr. 80Bolsover at this very moment was coming out at the French windows of the breakfast-room with his small niece, Letitia. She had a nimble way of walking and a quick way of turning her head that was like a bird, and she was chattering away to her old uncle as she stepped along beside him. They came to a standstill together, looking out across the meadows.

“Oh, Uncle Tim, what a perfectly lovely morning!” said she.

“A lovely morning,” repeated Uncle Tim. “One of the most beautiful I can remember, simply because a small person of the name of Letitia is here to share it with me.”

“Oh, Uncle Tim,” said Letitia; “that's flattery.”

“No, my dear, not exactly flattery,” replied Uncle Tim, squinnying at her from under the glasses of his spectacles; “but just the plain, beautiful, solemn truth.”

“Ah, I know all about that!” said she.... “And to think, Uncle Tim, it's exactly a year since I was here before. Why, you wouldn't believe a single flower was different. And there,” she went on hastily, twisting her head on her slender neck—“why there's that curious old Guy Fawkes thing still, over there by the willows.”

“Why, yes, so it is,” said Uncle Tim.

Letitia continued to gaze at it. “You know, he is a little alarming, Uncle Tim, if you look at him long enough. And you don't seem to remember,” she went on solemnly, “that the very last morning I was here you promised faithfully to tell me what it's there for. And then you didn't, because Mother came in just when I was asking you, and you forgot all about it.”

“Well, so I did,” said Uncle Tim. “That's just what comes of the piecrust which promises are made of. It melts 81in your mouth.... That's Old Joe right enough. Old Joe indeed, poor soul, for he must be at least as old as I am. Ninety-nine, Letitia, if he's a day!”

“You're please not to say that, Uncle Tim. You are the youngest, kindest Uncle Tim there ever was. So there! But what is Old Joe? Where did he come from? What is he for? Isn't there a tune about an Old Joe, Uncle Tim? Is that him? Tell me now,” cried Letitia. “Let's sit down here comfily on the stones—they're as warm as toast in the sun. And now go straight on. Please.”

Down sat old Mr. Bolsover; down sat Letitia—side by side like an ancient Pharaoh and his bride. And this is his story of Old Joe:

“I must tell you first, Letitia,” he began, “that when I was about your age I used frequently to stay with an old friend of my mother's—your grandmother's, that is—whose name was Mrs. Lumb. She was a stout woman, and used, I remember, to wear an amethyst-coloured velvet cap flat over her ears, and a lace thingummy over her shoulders. I can see her now: her wide face all creased up in smiles, and her fat fingers with the emeralds and the sapphires; and even the cameo brooch at her neck. She wasn't even so much as my godmother, but she was immensely kind to me. She had a cook, too, that could make every sort of prime rich cake there is. Jams, jellies, raspberry-fool, apple charlotte, tipsy-cake—they were the best I've ever tasted. So were her stuffed eggs.”

“Oh, Uncle Tim,” said Letitia, “you greedy thing!”

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“You shall see for yourself at lunch,” said her uncle; “for if I'm not an unprophetic Dutchman, I can smell apple charlotte. But never mind about that. You'll agree, at any rate, that my friend Mrs. Lumb was the right kind of person to stay with. It was always during the holidays, and in those days, while there was plenty of honest hard tack at school—impots, ferrules, bread-and-scrape and what-not—there was no such thing as a holiday task. You hadn't, I mean, to sit and hate reading a book you'd have loved to read for its own sake if you had never been told to. But never mind about that either. At Mrs. Lumb's I did just what I liked. Hers was an old, roaming house; a good deal older than this, and twice the size; and there was beautiful country all around it. Wide sweeping hills with ploughed fields stretching down their sunny slopes; little woods and copses, too, on the crests and in the folds and valleys; and a stream meandering its way along and actually brawling over stones at the foot of our long, sloping 83garden. If ever I go to heaven, my dear, I hope to see that house and garden again.”

“But isn't it here still?” said Letitia. “I mean wherever in the world it used to be?”

“Alas, my dear, no,” said old Mr. Bolsover. “The house was destroyed by fire—burned clean to the ground—forty years ago. But not, I am thankful to say, before Mrs. Lumb had left it and had gone out to live with her younger brother in Ceylon—where the strong tea comes from.

“In those days I was uncommonly fond of birds; too fond of them to carry a catapult, but not too fond of them to set traps and try to catch and keep them, poor creatures, for pets. How would you like to be a linnet or a starling or a blackbird 84barred up inside a cage by an oaf of a boy like me when I was nine or thereabouts?”

“Not at all,” said Letitia; “though I would sooner be kept by you than by any other boy.”

“Thank you, my dear,” said Mr. Bolsover; “that's a bargain. Still, caging wild birds is usually very poor fun for the wild birds. But I was a boy and I did as boys do, bless their hearts. My traps were scattered everywhere, sometimes in places where they had no business to be. What I was after was rare birds, and deep down my one desire was for a bird unspeakably marvellous in colour and appearance and song, and one that nobody had ever seen. Which means I was a little cracked on the subject. There was a particular place that I had in mind for a trap for a long time before I ventured to make the attempt. It was at the edge of a field where I used to notice a great many birds were accustomed to visit, and that in spite of Old Joe there.”

“That Old Joe there?” enquired Letitia, pointing with her finger at the queer, stooping figure with its head and old hat on one side which stood blankly gazing at them from under the willow where she had noticed him before.

“Yes, that same Old Joe there,” said Uncle Tim. “Between you and me, my dear—though please not to look his way for a minute, as I shouldn't like to hurt his feelings—Old Joe is a Scarecrow, an antiquated hodmadod. And he has never been anything else; though, after all these years he and I have been together, of course he's now a kind of twin brother. He's Joseph, you see (in the coat), and I'm Benjamin; and as you see, my dear, we are much alike.”

“How can you say such things, Uncle Tim,” cried Letitia, pushing her hand in under his arm. “You know quite 85well that's a kind of flattery, too—of yourself, you bad thing!”

“No,” said Uncle Tim, “but of Old Joe. But never mind about that. The first time I saw him, he gave me a real fright. I had come creeping along on the other side of the hedge, keeping a wary eye open for anybody that might be in the field; even though there was very little likelihood of this, for, unless the field was being ploughed or harrowed or sown or hoed, there never was anybody. The field belonged to a farmer called Jones. It was a good-sized, sloping, forty-acre field, with a plantation of spruce down along all one side of it.

“That particular morning was in March; and the field was just waiting—and on a morning rather like this, but much 86colder—for its crops to come up. I was skirting along the hedge, as I say, carrying the snare I had with me under my jacket, and hardly able to breathe for excitement. For, thought I to myself as I peered through the hedge in which the thornbuds were just breaking, that's the place for me. I could just see across to the lower edge of it, where lay a ditch and another hedge that had been allowed to sprout. It was truly a little paradise of birds, my dear. There seemed to be hundreds busying and disporting and delighting themselves there in the early sunshine.

“As bold as paint I turned the corner by the old gate, and at that precise moment caught sight of what I supposed was either Farmer Jones himself or one of his men staring at me across the field not thirty yards away. I fairly jumped in my clodhoppers at sight of him, turned hot, then cold, and waited, staring back. It seemed almost as if I could see his very eyeballs moving. But not he! No common human he! It was Old Joe. My Old Joe—that Old Joe there!

“I have seen a good many scarecrows in my time, but never one at which you must look longer before you can be perfectly sure he is not real—alive. After all, what is life, Letitia?”

“That's perfectly true, Uncle Tim,” whispered Letitia, edging a little closer. “He might be alive at this very moment.”

“You must remember, too,” went on Mr. Bolsover, “all this was in Old Joe's better days. He was young then. He has been peacocked up in many a new suit of old clothes since then, and more hats than I could count on my fingers. But then he was in his heyday—in the very bloom of his youth, the glass of fashion and the Knave of Trumps! But still, even as he stands now under his old willow there, I wouldn't part 87with him not for a bulging fat bag of guineas. Not for twenty bags. Chiefly for his own sake; but in part, my dear Letitia—in part because one doesn't too often actually see fairies in this world.”

88Letitia burst out laughing. “Fairies, Uncle Tim!” she cried, dragging in her amusement her skirts tight over her knees. “Why, you don't mean to say, you poor thing, that Old Joe's a fairy?”

“No, I don't mean to say quite that,” said Mr. Bolsover. “Then, as now, Old Joe was the scaringest of scaring scarecrows I have ever set eyes on. But like the primrose in the poem he was nothing more. No, indeed, it wasn't Old Joe was the fairy. But he was all but next best, for he was one of her rendez-vouses, as the old word goes. That morning he was wearing immense loose great trousers and a greenish-black coat very wide on the shoulders. Apart from the stick for his arms, another had been pushed up one of his coat-sleeves for a cudgel. Another with a lump at the top made his head, and on that was a high, hard, battered, square hat like the hats old-fashioned farmers and churchwardens used to wear. He was stooping forward, cudgel in hand. And the eyes from under the penthouse brim of the shadowy battered hat seemed to be fixedly staring straight towards the corner by the gate and at me.

“I hugged the wire snare closer and stared back. And whether it was due to the hot air coming up from the flinty soil, or some cheating effect of the light on the white field, I can't say, Letitia. But even while I watched him, his head seemed to be ever so gently turning on his shoulders, as if for all the world he were furtively endeavouring to get a better view of me without my noticing it.

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“I was still pretty well startled, I can tell you, my dear. For in those days young trespassers on seedling fields might find themselves in for a smart walloping, if not for something worse. The amusing thing is that this Old Joe was alarming me a great deal more than he was alarming the birds. They seemed to be perfectly used to him. A couple of tits were positively playing hide-and-seek, with him for goal. And there were rooks in their black coats pacing up and down and preening themselves in the sunshine not more than a few paces away from where he stood.

“Well, at last, after confronting him like this for a minute or two together—at last I became sure he was not an angry farmer, but merely Old Joe. Yet, something in the look of him was different from any other scarecrow I had seen up to that moment. Even from where I stood I could spy a few 90wild flowers already blooming at his feet, and I felt, too, that even if there were no real eyes in his head, somebody or something was actually looking at me from under that hat or from out of his sleeve—from somewhere.

“Already the birds were becoming accustomed to me being there, simply because I stood so still. I squatted on my haunches and began to set the trap, but the whole time I was thinking of that queer old creature half-way up the field, and knew I was being watched. And whenever I stooped, I took a little secret look at him either over my shoulder or between my legs. And then I sat down on the grass of the bank under the hedge and steadily fixed my eyes on him for I should think a full half-hour.

“Nothing happened, however. The sun climbed a little higher into the sky; the shadows cast by the trees shifted a 91little on the wide-stretching field, and at last I turned back home again. At the corner under an old thorn-tree I stooped down for yet another moment and had yet another look. And at that very instant I was perfectly sure I had caught a glimpse of something moving there. It was as if a face had peered out and had as swiftly been withdrawn again into hiding.

“All the rest of that day I could think of nothing else but Old Joe, assuring myself that my eyes had deceived me, or that perhaps a bird had fluttered down, or that a little breeze had moved his sleeve—something of that kind. And yet I knew inside me that this wasn't true.”

“It might,” said Letitia—“it might, you know, of course, have been not a bird but a little animal you saw, mightn't it, Uncle Tim? I once saw a hare skipping about in the middle of a field. Or mightn't a bird have been building its nest in him? Robins, you know, will build their nests even in an old boot. And look! There's a bird actually sitting on Old Joe's shoulder now.”

92“Well, you shall hear,” said Uncle Tim. “I am sure, my dear, if you had seen Old Joe that morning you would have agreed that there was something different about him from what he looks like now. I can't quite explain, except that it was the difference between an empty house and one with people living in it. The difference between a pond with fish in it and one with none. The difference between you yourself when you are really asleep and when you are only foxing and pretending to be. And sure enough, I was right.

“I had my bedtime at Mrs. Lumb's, and always an apple and a glass of milk. But she was not one of those Uncle Tims who want everything done exactly at the right moment. She didn't wait till the clock struck eight and them come peeping in to see if one was safe in bed.”

“Why, you know very well,” said Letitia, “you don't do that yourself.”

“Ha, ha! Never mind,” said Mr. Bolsover. “That evening, about seven o'clock, I made my way down to the field again, just creeping from bush to bush, tree to tree as cautiously as I could—so cautiously that I actually nearly trod on a bunny's tail that happened to be enjoying a dandelion on the other side of a bramble. And when I reached my hawthorn, I sat down by its root very low to the ground, having made up my mind I would watch until it really began to grow dark. It was towards the end of April, you will remember, so the evenings were a good deal shorter and duskier than they are now. And as it began to be twilight, it seemed almost that Old Joe was steadily moving nearer. And then at the very instant when I noticed the first star in the sky, I saw—well, what do you think I saw?”

“Why, the fairy, of course,” said Letitia, and sighed.

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“Full marks, my dear,” cried Mr. Bolsover. “The fairy. The odd thing is that I can't really describe her. Maybe the light was not very good; maybe my young eyes were strained with watching. But it was not only that. For I seemed to be looking at her partly as if I was imagining her, though I knew she was really there. She was leaning a little forward, and reached, I should say, about up to what you might call Old Joe's waist. Her face was rather long and narrow, and there was fair hair hanging down from side to side, something between gold and grey, rather like the colour you see on a phosphorescent fish in the dark, only more golden. She stood unearthly still, looking out towards my thorn. And the very sight of her filled me with a sensation I simply cannot describe.

“It was as if I was in the middle of a dream in another world, and cold prickles went down my back just as if unawares 94I had heard the sound of enchanted music. There was not a breath stirring, everything about me seemed suddenly to grow sharp and clear, even though the light was dim. The flowers were different; the trees; the birds. Like that old story of the Cap of Invisibility, it was as if I knew deep down what the flowers were feeling, what it was like to be a tendril of ivy creeping up a tree-stem, or to have feathers all over me, and to be looking with a bright small eye at my own bird-world. I can't explain it, my dear, but I am sure you will understand.”

Letitia gave two solemn nods. “I think so, Uncle Tim—a little.”

“Now I believe,” Uncle Tim went on, “that the fairy knew I was there, but that she could not delay what she wanted to do any longer. For presently—after a minute or two—she drew back and began to hasten away over the field towards the utmost corner furthest away from me, keeping all the time so that Old Joe stood in between us and prevented me from seeing her clearly, however much I dodged my head from side to side. Now that, you will agree, was a difficult thing to do, and I don't know how she did it. Only a fairy could—without once looking back.”

“And what was she like from behind?” said Letitia.

“She was like wood-smoke going up from a bonfire; she was like a puff of wind over snow; or a silver cloud in the sky. She moved, I mean, my dear, as if she were hovering on her way, and yet she never left the ground. Far, far lighter than a gazelle, and so lovely to watch it fairly took my breath away. And me only a clodhopping boy of ten.”

Mr. Bolsover took a large coloured silk handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose. “I ought to say, at once,” 95he continued, pushing the handkerchief back into his pocket, “that this is not really a story at all.”

“Well, I think, Uncle Tim, it's a lovely story,” said Letitia. “Please go on.”

“Well, you see, Letitia, a story ought to be like a piece of embroidery: it ought to have a beginning and a middle and an end. It ought to be like a whiting with its tail in its mouth. But this one just goes off into nothing.”

“I think I understand,” said Letitia once more. “But please go on with the fairy, Uncle Tim.”

“Well,” continued Uncle Tim, “as soon as the fairy was out of sight my one desire was to steal into the field and take a look at Old Joe at close quarters. And yet I hadn't the courage. He was her dwelling; her hiding-place; her habitation—that was certain. Now that she was absent, had hied away, the very look of him had changed. He was empty, vacant, a husk.

“I fear, Letitia, you must be thinking I was a remarkably stupid boy. Indeed I was. And, anyhow, I must confess that I simply could not make up my mind to go any nearer. Old Joe was quite empty now, but after what I had seen I felt a dreadful strangeness all about me. I felt I had been a spy, and that every living thing around me knew it, and hated my company. I didn't even go to my trap—and when I went again it had disappeared.

“I talked about fairies next morning to my old friend Mrs. Lumb at breakfast, just to see if she knew anything about them. She believed in them right enough, but she had never seen one. I asked her what she thought a fairy would be like if she ever did see one, and I can see her now as she sat there 96in her chair, looking out of the window munching her toast. 'Well, between you and me, my dear Tim,' she said—crunch, crunch—'I never have cared much about those little flibbety-gibbety creatures that are supposed to find a water-lily as big as we human beings find a four-post bed. And I don't believe myself that they'd pay much attention to me. I expect'—crunch, crunch—'there are not very many of them left now—not in these parts. Mr. Lumb, as you know was an entomologist. He'd have been able to tell you more about it. And he—had once seen a ghost.'”

“A ghost, Uncle Tim?”

“That's what Mrs. Lumb said, my dear. And I asked her what that was like. 'Well, it was like,' she said (and I can remember her very words), 'it was like'—crunch, crunch—'seeing something with your eyes shut. It made him feel very cold; the room grew darker, but he was not frightened.'”

Letitia sidled yet a little closer to her uncle. “Between you and me, Uncle Tim,” she said, “I think that ghost would have given me the shudders. But please let's go back to the fairy. Did you tell Mrs. Lumb about that?”

“I never breathed so much as a syllable; though, if you were to ask me why, I couldn't say. It's just like small boys, I suppose, and small girls too, eh?”

“I think I'd have told you, Uncle Tim,” said Letitia. “And what happened then?”

“Two whole days went by before I went near the field again, though I doubt if an hour went by without my thinking about it. I forgot about my bird-traps and everything else, and just loafed about wondering if perhaps all that I had seen had not been a dream or a trick of fancy. And then on the 97third afternoon, I was so ashamed of myself that I determined to go down to the field and keep watch again.

98“This time I made my way to its upper corner by the plantation where I had seen the fairy disappear. I crept down under some bushes, and had taken with me a little pocket telescope that my father had given me. Through this I could see everything that happened near Old Joe as clearly as if I was at the bottom of the field. It was later in the evening than before, and already the sun had set. But my legs and arms were cramped and my left eye tired out with being kept shut long before anything unusual occurred.

“And then suddenly I knew not only that the fairy was preparing to take her walks abroad, but that she knew also I was there. She had stolen out of her hiding-place, though I had seen no actual movement, and was openly and steadily gazing across the faint green of the sprouting wheat of the field in my direction. After a while she advanced a few paces towards the corner of the field in which I was lying hid.

“Then in a breath she hesitated; turned and sped away, just as she had done on that first evening, towards the very thorn-tree from which I had first spied out on her. And somehow the conviction that she was doing this in order to avoid coming near me awakened my curiosity more than ever, and gave me courage. She was setting her wits against mine, and I determined to try and meet her face to face. Even then, I confess, the thought of what I should do if we did so meet was not very pleasant. I lay there till it was almost dark, in the hope of seeing her come back, and then made my way to the house and crept in at a side door a good two hours after my bedtime.

99“It was a warm still evening for the time of year, and while I was undressing a full-moon began to rise. I could see it shining through my bedroom blind, for I had not lit my candle. I drew up the blind and looked out of the window, and the whole world looked as if it was enchanted. There was not a sound in the air, and though here I was in Mrs. Lumb's house, it seemed as if no human being had ever been there before. And, what is more, Letitia, the same queer feeling came over me as when I first caught sight of Old Joe, and I knew in my very bones, as they say, that the fairy was concealing herself somewhere not very far from the house, and was watching my window.”

“Oh, Uncle Tim,” said Letitia, “and did you go out?”

“No, my dear, I didn't dare. But not from fear. No; I stood steadily watching until presently a bird began to sing, a bird which I can't think was a nightingale. It was not too early in the year for nightingales, mind you; and there was a hurst or thicket near the house to which they always resorted. The song was as sweet and sorrowful, too, as theirs; but it was more shrill, more human, than a nightingale's, and there seemed to be more tune in it—more melody, you know. And a curious sadness came over me at the sound of it, and even when I got to bed it was hours before the echo of it had died away in my mind and I was able to fall asleep.

“It was just my stupidity, perhaps, to persist in persecuting the fairy. But then I had become used to persecuting birds, and perhaps I didn't quite realize that my company in her field was as disquieting as hers would be to us if she came to afternoon tea.”

“Oh, Uncle Tim, if only she would!”

“Well, Letitia,” said her uncle, “it's no good denying it: they don't. We ourselves may pine for them; but not they, 100alas, for us. She didn't want me there. Old Joe was company enough. And her own world's solitude. But I met her face to face, none the less. It was the day before I had to go home again, and two or three visits to the field had been quite in vain. I could tell by now almost at first glance at Old Joe whether she was there or not. Just as you could tell at one glance at me if I was here or not. Not just my body and bones, I mean, eyes and nose and mouth and so on, but the spirit of me which is really and truly, I hope, your Uncle Tim.”

“Yes,” said Letitia.

“This particular evening I was in just as morose and sulky a temper as a small boy can be. My legs were aching because, I suppose, the ground was damp on which I had been lying, and night after night had been so crowded with dreams that I had had little real sleep. It seemed that the fairy had deserted the field. It seemed that all my hope and longing and watching had been in vain. I scowled at Old Joe as if he were to blame. Just vanity and fretfulness. Besides, Mrs. Lumb had found out that I was creeping into the house while she was at dinner. And though she never scolded me, she had a tart tongue, and could smile at you with her handsome face and be uncommonly sarcastic at the same time.”

“There's a mistress at school, Miss Jennings, just like that,” cried Letitia. “And then ... you saw her?”

“Yes, I saw her, face to face. I was on my way back through the copse at the upper corner where two hedges met at the end of a little lane. And as I came stumping along, I suddenly went cold all over, and I really believe my cap got pushed up a little on top of my head, for certainly my hair seemed to stand up beneath it. And yet I was not really frightened. Startled, but not frightened. It was the loveliness 101of that face. I can't even tell you, Letitia, what clothes she was wearing, but, as I recall her, it was as if she were surrounded with a haze like that of wood-smoke. She was the colour of a drift of bluebells in the distance. That may or may not be, but I did see her face, for I was staring steadily into her eyes. They were blue, like the blue of flames in a wood-fire, and they were gazing at me out of a face all pale and wan, the hair on either side hanging in one long strand down to the narrow sloping shoulder.

“All else then in the world was completely forgotten. Just me, a small, uncouth human animal, looking as if into another world into those set unearthly eyes. There was no movement between us; not the least stir of recognition or reproach or apprehension on her face. But as I looked—how can I describe it, my dear?—there came a faint far-away change in her eyes. It was as if, while you were looking out to sea some summer's evening, a flight of distant sea-birds appeared in the blue and vanished. We poor mortals can smile with our eyes alone, but not like that. That was her way of smiling at me. It told me in my heart of hearts that she was not unfriendly to me, and yet that she was entreating me to trespass no more near her lair. There was what she must do in the world to consider, she was assuring me, though I hadn't then, nor have now, the least notion of what it was. And those eyes were telling me also as best she could—for she had no language she could share with my dull wits—that though she wished me no harm, all she asked me was not to keep a watch upon her, not to spy, not to intrude. And then she was gone.

“It was easy to take hiding in the evening dusk of the woods, and the copse and the hedges grew dense just there. She was 102gone, my dear, and I have never seen her since—nor her like.... But you can't call that a story,” added Uncle Tim, vigorously polishing his spectacles with his silk handkerchief and blinking at his small niece rather like an owl in the morning sun.

Letitia remained silent. “I do call it a story, Uncle Tim,” she said at last. “And oh, how I wish.... But then what about Old Joe?”

“Ah, Old Joe, the rascal! Look at him there. You see, my dear, I never forgot that evening. Years and years afterwards—I suppose I must have been then in my early twenties—I stayed a night or two with my old friend Mrs. Lumb again. She was very much older then, alas—and the first walk I took was to my field.

“Would you believe it? There was Old Joe in his customary place, though the barley-crop he was guarding that particular summer was now well above his knees. And whether I myself was changed or had gone a little blind in some respects; or whether, as I think, the fairy had long since given up her hiding-place; or whether perhaps this had always been merely her way of getting into and out of our world, I don't know. Old Joe in any case looked, well, just as he looks now, absolutely empty—forsaken, abandoned. He had brand-new old clothes on, of course, and a rare old wide-brimmed hat, green as a robin's back. And what do you think I did?”

“You didn't steal him, Uncle Tim?” whispered Letitia.

“No, Letitia; I purchased him; I bought him,” said Uncle Tim. “But 'ssh! I went to the old farmer—old Farmer Jones—and asked him how many guineas he'd take 103for his hodmadod as a curiosity. Just told him I knew Old Joe when I was a boy, and had a sentimental affection for him.

“Farmer Jones was as fat as a porpoise, with a large mulberry red face and eyes like bits of agate. He laughed at me. And what do you think he charged?”

Letitia pondered rapidly, blinking her eyes. “I suppose £5 would be a good deal, wouldn't it, Uncle Tim? Even for Old Joe. Though, of course,” she added in a slightly louder voice, in case the old creature should hear, “it would be 'strordinarily cheap, too.”

“Guess again, my dear! Nothing like £5—nothing like even tuppence. 'Give me a pipe of that plug tobacco of yours,' said the farmer, 'and he's yours for ever.'

“So mine he was; and I am glad it wasn't money.”

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“I set her on my pacing steed....”

105“And so am I,” said Letitia. “A pipe of tobacco was much better than money. It doesn't hurt your feelings, Uncle Tim. And you never saw the fairy again?”

“In a manner of speaking,” said Uncle Tim in a rather solemn voice, “I don't think, Letitia, I have ever really seen anything else. Nothing—even in the dreams that flock into my old head nowadays—nothing ever resembles in loveliness that face, those deep-dark, unsmiling eyes. I set her on my pacing steed, and nothing else saw all day long.... You know how it goes, my child; but I dare say in your dreams....”

Letitia shook her head violently. “Oh no! Oh, how I wish,” she cried; then fell silent. “You know, I believe, Uncle Tim,” she went on in a low ruminative voice—“I believe it was almost as if you must have fallen in love with that fairy. Was it that, Uncle Tim?”

“Ah, my dear!” replied old Mr. Bolsover. “But if you don't think the long grass under the willows over there is still too wet with the night's dew, we might venture across and ask Old Joe.”

THE DRAGONS By MAXWELL ARMFIELD — RICHARD — TIMOTHY — MIRANDOLA — PAUL

MABEL IN QUEER STREET By COMPTON MACKENZIE

“Will you walk on the pavement like a little lady, Miss Mabel, and not keep on bobbing up and down in and out of the gutter as if I hadn’t have told you thirteen times to the dozen every day of your life how to walk properly.”

Nurse was feeling very cross this morning, because the strings of her bonnet would keep blowing about, and Baby would keep throwing his rattle out of the perambulator, and Robert would keep shuffling his feet, and she had had an argument with Cook about the way Cook had burnt a milk-pudding; and her sister had written to say that she could not come to see her, after all, this week, but she hoped she’d be able to come next week, but she wasn’t sure, and she couldn’t come the week after, what’s more, because the family was going down into the country.

Mabel made matters worse by being argumentative:

“Well, a dozen is the same as twelve, Nannie,” she pointed out, “so I don’t think you could have told me thirteen times to twelve.”

“Will you not be so argumentative, Miss Mabel! I’m sure, ever since you won that blessed prize for writing a letter to that blessed paper there’s been no doing anything with you, such a dictatorial, domineering, proctorising little girl as it’s made you.”

112

“Will you walk on the pavement!”

113But Mabel liked to be called all these long words. It made her feel years older and yards taller to be so many long words that she didn’t know how to spell, and was pretty sure Nannie didn’t know how to spell either; because she had asked her once how to spell “dictatorial” and Nannie had said, “Hush, what’s that?” which was what she always said when she didn’t want to answer an uncomfortable question.

“Well, you couldn’t,” Mabel obstinately repeated.

“Now, that’s quite enough, Miss! One more word from you and straight up to bed you go the very moment we get home.”

Mabel was bursting to say that she couldn’t go straight up to bed, because she had to turn round and walk along two landings before she could reach her bedroom. However, Nannie was in such an unpleasant humour that she held her tongue. To tell the truth, before coming out this afternoon, Mabel had caught a glimpse in the pantry of a particularly pleasant-looking pink cake, which was likely to appear at tea, but most unlikely to appear in her bedroom.

“What’s the harm in hopping up and down from the gutter?” she asked.

“Why, before you know where you are, you’ll be getting your foot stuck in a drain, and there you’ll be till doomsday, and that’ll be a nice state of affairs.”

114

A big crowd would collect.

As a matter of fact, it would be rather nice, Mabel thought; and she walked along, imagining what a big crowd would collect to watch a little girl with her foot stuck in a drain till doomsday, and making up in her head all sorts of remarks that the people would be saying about her when they saw her plight. By this time they had reached the place where they 115always crossed the road to go into Kensington Gardens. Robert was picked up and plumped down into the perambulator opposite Baby; and when Nurse had looked first to the right and then to the left, and then behind her, and then in front of her, she called out in a voice trembling with excitement, “Come along now and mind how you step or we shall all be run over.” Mabel was always thrilled by this crossing. It made her think of the “Charge of the Light Brigade” which the Vicar had read aloud last Christmas at the children’s party in the Parish Hall, and which she had read lots of times since to herself.

“Half-a-league! Half-a-league! Half-a-league onward,” Mabel murmured as they swept on toward the greenness and the safety of the Gardens.

“Don’t chatter,” Nurse snapped, panting on across the wide road while a most enormous policeman held up the traffic for them.

“Suppose he fell right down dead at this moment?” Mabel asked herself. “Then all the buses would come charging on, and there’d be nothing left of the pram, or of Baby, or of Nannie, or of Robert, or of me.”

“Will you not dawdle, you bad girl!” Nurse was gasping irritably. And just then with a bump the perambulator landed safely on the opposite pavement.

“Charge for the guns, Nolan said,” Mabel dreamily murmured.

“What are you muttering to yourself now?” Nurse asked.

“Poetry,” Mabel replied loftily. Then she returned to the subject of the gutter. “But suppose I didn’t hop up and down, Nannie?” she asked. “Suppose I just walked all the 116time in the gutter and didn’t ever walk on the pavement at all? What would happen then?”

“What would happen then? Why, you’d precious soon find yourself in Queer Street,” Nurse told her. But before Mabel had time to ask any more questions about Queer Street Nannie’s attention was occupied by Robert, who had put in his mouth a broken piece of shell that he had picked up from the path.

“You dare do such a thing ever again, you naughty boy,” she exclaimed, “and in the pram you’ll stay for the rest of the afternoon.”

Robert scowled; but he spat out the piece of shell, and he did nothing more that was naughty until he began to stroke the tyres of the perambulator-wheels.

Mabel gazed longingly at some little ragged children who were climbing up the railings beside the path and jumping off them, and balancing themselves on the top of them, and rolling over and over in the grass on the other side.

“Do those children live in Queer Street?” she asked.

“They live anywhere,” said Nurse. “And if I’ve told you once, Miss Mabel, not to turn round and stare after common children I’ve told you twenty times.”

Mabel yawned.

“Well, will you tell me a story, Nannie?”

“I’ll tell you a story about good Queen Victoria when she was a little girl and lived in Kensington Palace.”

Mabel yawned again.

“If you’ve told me that story once, you’ve told me twenty times,” she ventured to say.

117

Mabel had an idea that she was being rather rude in thus mimicking Nannie’s way of talking; but she was really astonished to find quite how angry it did make her. Nannie’s face turned such a bright purple that Mabel backed away from her in alarm, because she thought that she was going to be picked up as Robert was picked up and plumped down in the perambulator opposite Baby. And that would have been a most terrible disgrace. Luckily at that moment two large dogs began to fight close by. Nurse who was always afraid of dogs picked up Robert instead and, turning the perambulator quickly round, hurried away from the noise and confusion.

Mabel never knew just how it happened, but all of a sudden she was lost.

The last thing she remembered was hurrying after Nannie away from the confusion and crashing into a lot of other people that were running towards it. And then, when all was quiet again she found herself standing in the middle of the Broad Walk completely alone. Her heart began to beat very fast, and an uneasy lump came into her throat and she found that she was making a strange little noise that wasn’t exactly crying, but was rather like it. She twirled round and round in despair; but Nurse and Robert and Baby and the perambulator had utterly vanished. Crowds of most enormous trees stared down at her until she felt smaller and smaller and more and more frightened. Crowds of strange nurses and crowds of strange children went walking past. And then she saw coming towards her a KEEPER.

118“A keeper,” she whispered in horror. Oh, where could Nurse have gone? A KEEPER!

She turned and fled.

Now, of course, if Mabel had been a sensible little girl, she would have waited for the keeper and told him that she was lost. Unfortunately she had often been so naughty during walks in Kensington Gardens that Nannie had threatened her more than once that, if she could not behave herself better, the keeper would come and lock her up in his little green house. She had no reason to believe that the keeper was not a savage and brutal man, because several times she had heard him shout in a very loud and angry voice at boys who were misbehaving themselves. She had seen him shake his stick, and once she had actually dared to peep into his little green house and had seen inside it a live baby. Ugh!

My goodness, how fast Mabel did run, and when she stopped running she was more lost than ever. At least, that was the way she felt she ought to feel, though as a matter of fact, after she had got over her first fright she found that she had reached one of the gates of the Gardens and began to say to herself that if the worst did come to the worst she could find her way home alone.

“My name is Mabel Evangeline Marjorie Deane, and I live at Forty-three Cherrington Gardens, and my father is Doctor Deane, and I’m seven and a half years old.”

119It sounded extremely grand when she repeated all that quickly over to herself.

“And it wasn’t my fault,” she went on, “it was Nannie who ran away from the dogs. It wasn’t me who ran away from Nannie.”

While she was trying to make up her mind to take the plunge out of the quiet green Gardens and set out home along the noisy street, a ragged boy came by, playing a tune on a penny whistle. Naturally, Mabel took advantage of being lost to stare at him as hard as she could. The ragged boy did not appear to pay much attention to her; but when he had passed her he turned right round and came marching by again, still playing his jolly tune. This time he did look at her and deliberately winked one of his blue eyes. Mabel turned rather pink and felt inclined to rush off. She had never in all her life been able to stare long enough at a ragged boy to be winked at, and really she did not quite know what she ought to do. Perhaps if she had been able to wink well she might have winked back; but Uncle Tom had laughed at her so much the last time she had tried to wink for his benefit that Mabel had decided to be content with being able to make a noise like a cork by putting her forefinger in her cheek and letting it go with a pop. Uncle Tom had told her that she did this splendidly. So, while the ragged boy walked up and down before her, whistling and winking, Mabel could only stand still and look pink and uncomfortable.

“What’s the matter, kid?” said the ragged boy at last. “Lost your mammy?”

“No, she’s at home; but I’ve lost my nurse.”

The ragged boy went off into another tune that made his listener want to go dancing along beside him anywhere he chose to play her on.

120“What are you going to do about it, kid?”

“Well, I’m going to walk home by myself,” Mabel announced.

The ragged boy piped a long trill on his whistle that seemed to say better than any words could have done how very much astonished he was to hear this.

“Ain’t you afraid the copper’ll nab you?” he asked.

Mabel, who had never before heard a policeman called a copper and had not the least idea what “nab” meant, but had no intention of admitting to a ragged boy that she could be frightened of anything, shook her head.

“Coo! You’re a plucky kid. I’ll walk along with you a bit of the way if you like. My name’s Bill Hawkins. Only mostly they calls me Piping Billie.”

Mabel hesitated a moment before she accepted this offer. She was really most anxious to enjoy the ragged boy’s company, but she felt rather afraid of meeting any of her little girl friends in case they should fancy that he was a relation of hers. It would be terrible if it went round the dolls’ tea-parties of Kensington that Mabel Evangeline Marjorie Deane had such a very ragged relation. Still, there was that crossing to be managed, and she did not feel quite so much as if she was riding at the head of the Light Brigade, now that she might have to cross the road all by herself.

“You can come with me to the pavement over there, if you like,” she told him.

121

... a red coat and cocked hat.

The ragged boy struck up the jolliest tune that she had ever heard and led the way. Mabel wondered if the policeman who was holding back the great grumbling buses and the irritable taxis supposed that she was a princess. It was a 122pity that Bill Hawkins was not wearing a red coat and a cocked hat and white gaiters. She wished that next Christmas she could have enough money in her money-box to buy him such a dress. If she could, she would ask if she might not keep him always to march before her and play these jolly tunes. Where would he sleep, though? There were only two spare-rooms, and they were nearly always full of uncles and aunts. To be sure, as he was dressed at present, he might easily sleep in the coal-cellar; but if he ever had that lovely uniform he could hardly sleep there. The larder was too small, and besides he might get smeared with bacon fat. The pantry would do, if Mary didn’t mind. But Mary was a bit fussy about her china, as she called it. Why shouldn’t he sleep outside her own little room? No need then to be afraid of fire, or of witches, or of burglars, or of cats, or even of murderers.

Mabel walked on toward Cherrington Gardens, dreaming away to the tunes that Bill Hawkins was piping on his whistle. Once she nearly grazed her forehead on an old gentleman’s watch-chain, and once she had to take a step to the right and then a step to the left and then another to the right and then another to the left, while a lady in a great hurry coming from the other direction did just the opposite until at last she and Mabel discovered that if both of them stepped to the right at the same time they could pass each other quite easily. Apart from these two small accidents Mabel threaded her way along the busy pavements as easily as if there was nobody in all the world except herself and the ragged boy. She did not want to talk to him. Just to walk along behind his playing was as good as the most interesting talk that was ever known. Once he stopped for a moment and asked Mabel where she 123lived, and when she told him he nodded his head and started to play Cherry Ripe.

The pavements were not so crowded now that they had passed the big shops, and presently they turned off the main road into an old-fashioned square. Mabel found that she was once more beginning to hop up and down from the gutter as she walked along. And then she began to take two steps in the gutter for one she took on the pavement. And then she began to take only one step on the pavement for half-a-dozen in the gutter. And then Bill Hawkins began to play a jollier tune than any he had yet played so far. And then Mabel forgot to step back on the pavement at all, but went walking along all the time in the gutter. And then the most extraordinary thing happened, because she suddenly heard a tremendous argument going on, and when she looked up to see who it was she saw that all the railings of the square were quarrelling with each other.

“I don’t care,” one rusty old railing was saying to another very smart railing who had just been painted a rich peacock blue, “beauty’s only paint deep, and if you rail at me I’ll rail at you.”

“Old iron! Old iron!” retorted the painted railing. “Don’t you speak in that ironical tone of voice to me.”

Mabel didn’t at all like the voices of these quarrelsome railings, which grated on her ears horribly.

“Don’t you stare at me, little girl,” one of them creaked.

“Pooh!” said Mabel. “You want a good oiling, you disagreeable, rusty old thing.”

At this the railings turned palings, and Mabel wondered if railings objected to being given oil as much as she objected 124to being given castor-oil when she would go on being naughty. But she had no time to go into this question, because she suddenly realized that she was once more quite alone. She began to wish that she had not spoken so rudely to the railings, and she crossed the road to the side of the Square where the houses lived. But now another extraordinary thing happened. When she tried to step up on the opposite pavement her foot at once came back into the gutter. She tried jumping on it with both feet, but the pavement might have been made of indiarubber the way she bounded off again back into the gutter.

“Oh, well,” said Mabel aloud, trying to appear calm. “I may as well be phisolophical.”

This was what her mother said when Mary came in to tell her that the cat had broken one of the best glasses. Mabel had practised the word in bed, but this was the 125first time she had ventured to say it right out in broad daylight.

“If I can’t walk on the pavement, I’ll just have to walk in the gutter,” she went on.

And then she gave her shoulders a most tremendous shrug. After all, there was something to be said for being lost. At any rate, you could shrug your shoulders without being lectured for doing so.

Mabel walked on in the direction of Cherrington Gardens, hoping every moment to hear the sound of Billie Hawkins’ piping. In spite of her philosophical shrugs she was beginning to feel just a little bit uneasy. Somehow or other the square did not look the same as usual, and when she saw one of the front-doors suddenly leave its hinges and come walking down the little front garden, its letter-box stretched in a wide grin, and wave its handle at her, she started to run. But the faster she ran, the faster the door bolted after her, and if Mabel had not found a funny little passage too narrow for the door to follow her it would soon have caught her.

126“Slam!” the door ejaculated angrily, when it perceived that Mabel had escaped.

Mabel, however, did not stop to listen to its exclamations of baffled rage, but hurried along the narrow passage until she came out in a street that she had never seen before in all her walks, and looking up to find out what its name was, she saw a huge pointed finger write QUEER STREET on a signpost.

And it certainly was.

All the houses were a different colour and they had the most extraordinary shapes; but Mabel could not see anybody about who might tell her how to reach Cherrington Gardens and when she got to the other end of Queer Street she found that there was no way out and that a bright red house as round and nearly as tall as a lighthouse took up all the space. Mabel did not feel at all inclined to venture back by the small passage down which she had run to escape from the door. However, when she found that she could not get out of Queer Street at the far end she went back cautiously to see if she could somehow muster up enough courage to discover if the door was still hanging about. But things were getting queerer every minute. The passage was gone now. There was nothing but an immense blank wall on which was written in gigantic letters: NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT ON OMNIBUSINESSES.

Mabel really was frightened now. There was nobody to be seen at any of the windows of these strange-coloured houses, and she simply did not know what to do next. It had sounded rather exciting when Nannie had told her that she would one day find herself in Queer Street. Now that she really was in Queer Street it was horrid. At last she collected enough courage to make up her mind to ring the bell of one of the houses and, if anybody answered it, to ask the way out of 127Queer Street. She finally decided to try the tall red house, which at first she had thought was rather like a lighthouse, but which now that she examined it more closely was apparently an enormous pillar-box. The door was painted white and covered with sums. There was only one window that she could see; and that was very high up and shaped like the hole up to which she used often to be lifted to post the letters when she was quite a little girl. Mabel could not find any sign of a bell or a knocker, but after she had walked round the red house several times she found a white plate on which was printed LICK AND STAMP.

“Yes, but what am I to lick?” Mabel asked herself.

“The licker’s broken,” came a gruff voice from what seemed miles above, where she was standing. Mabel stepped back to look up and see who it was speaking; but she had only just time to catch sight of a head disappearing inside as the flap of the window shut with a clang.

“Bother!” Mabel exclaimed.

She wasn’t allowed to say “bother” at home, but being in Queer Street she did not care how much she let herself go. No sooner had she stepped back to the door than the gruff voice was heard again from above.

“As the licker’s broken, half a stamp will bring an answer.”

“But I haven’t got a stamp,” Mabel shouted.

“You’ve got feet, haven’t you?” the gruff voice called down.

Once more Mabel stepped back to try to catch sight of the owner; but once more the flap of the window dropped with a clang.

128“You’ve got feet, haven’t you,” the gruff voice repeated when Mabel was once more outside the door.

“Yes, I’ve got feet.”

“Then you’ve got a stamp. And if you’ve got a stamp you’ve got half a stamp.”

“Do you mean I ought to stamp with one foot?” Mabel shouted.

“Certainly not. That’s a whole stamp. Of course, if you like to waste shoe-leather you can use a whole stamp, but you won’t get the answer any quicker if you do. You may just as well stamp with the sole only. Don’t bother about putting on your gum-boots.”

Mabel was anxious to get an answer as soon as possible, so she stamped as hard as she could. Whereupon the door flew back and she saw standing in the entrance behind a cage, a lump of wood dressed in dark blue and wearing a cap peaked in front and behind.

“Yes, good-morning. I’m the Postman. What can I do for you?”

“I want to find the way home to Cherrington Gardens, please,” said Mabel very politely.

“You’ll have to address yourself first,” the Postman snapped.

“But how can I address myself?”

“You can dress yourself, can’t you?”

“Well, nearly everything,” said Mabel. “Only, my nurse helps me with my frock.”

“You can undress yourself, can’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mabel eagerly. “At least I can if Nurse undoes the buttons at the back and if there aren’t any knots.”

129

“Good-morning. I’m the Postman....”

130She rather wished that she had kept off the subject of knots, because the Postman’s face was full of them. However, he did not seem to mind the allusion.

“Then you ought to be able to address yourself,” he told her severely. “Addressing is twice as easy as dressing or undressing. Can you undress an envelope?”

“No, I don’t think I could.”

“Can you dress an envelope?”

“No, I’m sure I couldn’t.”

“You can address one, can’t you?”

“Yes, if the lines are ruled,” Mabel said.

“There you are,” the Postman cried triumphantly. “So the sooner you set about addressing yourself the sooner you’ll get home. In fact, if you can address yourself in another minute, you’ll get home by the first delivery to-morrow morning.”

“But where shall I be all night?” Mabel gasped.

“You’ll be addressed and put to bed.”

“Yes, but where?” Mabel persisted.

“In my pillow-box.”

“But I thought it was a pillar-box.”

“It’s a pillar-box by day, stupid, but by night it’s a pillow-box, of course. Why, I knew that long before I was your age. I knew that when I was quite a twig. There’s only one thing you want to look out for. Sleep well up in the corner of the pillow-box, otherwise you’ll be getting woken up all the time by parcels coming back late and tumbling down on top of you.”

“Yes, but Mother will be anxious if I don’t come home all night,” said Mabel, who didn’t at all relish the idea of 131going to bed with a lot of parcels. “Couldn’t you tell me the way to walk home?”

“... parcels tumbling down.”

132The Postman shook his wooden head so vigorously that his neck squeaked.

“Well, I think I’ll ask at another house first if you don’t mind, because really Mother will be terribly anxious....”

But Mabel need not have bothered herself about being polite, for the Postman shut the door abruptly and vanished.

A moment afterwards she heard his gruff voice again from above:

“This was a letter-box,” he called down angrily. “But since you won’t be sensible, as far as you’re concerned, in future it’s a don’t-letter-box.”

Mabel turned round and decided to try another house. She chose a green one. This was much more like an ordinary house than the Postman’s, and, indeed, except that it was green all over and that the windows were like cucumber-frames it might not have been situated in Queer Street. She rang the bell, and presently the door was opened by a bulbous-nosed man in a mouldy suit with lawn sleeves, and an apron of green bays. There was only one thing that was very queer about him which was that he had a grass moustache.

“Please, could you tell me the way to Cherrington Gardens?” Mabel asked.

133“I could,” said the Greengrocer, for that was who it was, of course.

“Oh, thank you!” Mabel exclaimed.

“But it’s a very heavy weigh from here. It’s a good three pecks, and perhaps a pint or two over. You take the second turnip to the right and the first turnip to the left beyond that, and then if you’re lucky you’ll find a taxi-cabbage or a motor-carrot to lift you the rest of the weigh. It’ll be quite a nice little spinach for you.”

“But, please....” Mabel began.

“Do you mean ‘peas’?” the Greengrocer interrupted.

“Well, I didn’t exactly,” said Mabel.

The Greengrocer shook his head.

“Politeness weighs nothing, you know,” he said severely. “Didn’t your nurse ever tell you that?”

“But I did say ‘please.’”

“You ought to have said ‘peas.’”

Mabel thought she would be wise to humour him.

“Peas, Mr. Greengrocer....” she began again.

“Do you mean ‘peas, Mr. Greengrow, sir?’”

Poor Mabel was getting so fussed by all these interruptions that she could have cried.

“Peas, Mr. Greengrow, sir, I can’t find any turnings—I mean turnips—anywhere.”

“Well, of course, if you can’t find them, you can’t take them, can you?”

“No, I couldn’t, could I?”

“And that’s that?”

She nodded her head dolefully.

134“Well, we all have our disappointments,” said the Greengrocer. “I’ve tried for years to find a future for beans. But there isn’t one. So there it is, and we’ll leave it at that.”

With which the Greengrocer retired into his house and shut the door in Mabel’s face. She waited for a moment or two outside in the hope that he would come out again; but a shower of brussels-sprouts came tumbling down on her from one of the upper windows and drove her away from the green-house.

Once more Mabel walked up and down Queer Street trying to find a way out. But the great blank wall was still there, and she began to think that she should have to spend all the rest of her life looking vainly at these strange-coloured houses. The tears rolled down poor Mabel’s pink cheeks, and there’s no knowing how much she would have cried if she had not discovered that she had lost her pocket-handkerchief. So she even had to stop crying, which made her feel terribly sad. At last, after another long examination of the various houses, she decided to try a white house with a zinc door and curious glass windows which instead of having curtains were half full of milk. When Mabel rang the bell she heard the most tremendous jangling you can imagine, such a jangling that she was afraid she had broken something inside, and she was just going to turn round and run away when the door was opened by a very tall, thin man in a long white coat and a face that looked exactly as if it was made of cheese, which in fact it was.

“Please, I can’t....” Mabel began.

“My business is ‘cans,’” he sang. “I’ve nothing to do with ‘can’ts.’ And just mind where you’re treading. You’re trampling down all my buttercups and dairies.”

135“I beg your pardon,” said Mabel, moving quickly to one side.

“You can borrow my pardon,” sang the Milkman. “Or if you’re quick enough you can steal my pardon. But don’t start begging it, if you don’t want the Policeman in the blue house next door to jug you on the spot.”

“Please, can you tell me the way out of Queer Street?”

“Which way? The milky way, the buttery way, or the curds and way?”

“Oh, any way,” Mabel sighed in desperation.

“Then you’d better take the buttery one. You can slip out more easily that way,” he sang in a very high voice.

“Well, which is the way to the buttery way?”

“Take the first churning to the left or the first churning to the right, whichever you cheese. Then skim the ground and tell the first person you meet the cream of the joke.”

“Yes, but supposing I don’t meet anybody?” poor Mabel asked.

“Why, if it’s a question of meat, you’d better enquire from the Butcher who lives at the flesh-coloured house two doors down. You can’t mistake it. The garden is full of cowslips, bullrushes, and ox-eyed daisies. But mind he doesn’t chop you up when he’s chopping them down.”

The zinc door closed behind him with a rattle and jangle.

“Well, wherever I ask,” Mabel decided, “I won’t ask the Butcher anything. Or the Policeman either.”

Accordingly, she walked past the flesh-coloured house and the blue house without lingering for a moment. The next house was a brown one shaped like a cottage loaf. There was 136a breakfast Rolls-Royce car outside the gate, which was much more like a fender than a gate. Mabel was on the point of asking at the oven-door if the car could drive her home when the oven-door opened and a woman with her hair done in a hot cross bun puffed out, followed by such a terribly crusty old man that Mabel was afraid to make any enquiries here, and determined to give the Baker and his wife as wide a berth as the Butcher and the Policeman. The next house she came to was the silver house of the Fishmonger. He was leaning over his gate, and as he looked fairly pleasant Mabel asked him to tell her the way out of Queer Street.

“You might row out,” he suggested in a strange gurgling kind of a voice like water running out of a bath. “But it’s not at all a soft row, you know. Oh no, it’s a very hard row. Yes, Queer Street is a very fishy plaice to row out of.”

“But couldn’t I walk out?”

“Oh, you could. But you’ll wear out your soles and your eels long before you 137walk out of Queer Street. Take my advice, young lady, for I wouldn’t cod you, and trust to boats not boots if you want to get out of Queer Street. Still, if you insist on walking, why, take the first turbot to the right, and the second turbot to the....”

But Mabel put her hands up to her ears and ran away.

“I think all these people must be mad,” she said to herself. “Oh dear, I wish I hadn’t ever walked in the gutter. Nannie always says so many things that don’t come true, but this did come true.”

While Mabel was talking to herself, she suddenly became aware that it was growing dark, and just as she settled to risk being jugged (whatever that might mean) by the Policeman for begging the Greengrocer’s pardon and ask him to take her home, she heard close behind her a horrible voice that sounded like somebody being sick. A moment later she was popped into a large black bag, swung up in the air, and carried off.

“Help! Help!” Mabel shrieked, but the louder she shrieked the more her mouth was filled with some kind of dust. And then she turned perfectly black with fright, for she suddenly realized that it must be the Sweep who had caught her up like this and popped her in his bag. She was on the point of fainting right away, when she was hauled out of the bag by the scruff of the neck and found herself (at least, she didn’t exactly find herself because it was too dark to find anything) in a black room.

“So you want to find your way home, do you?” the horrible voice demanded.

“Yes, please, Mr. Sweep,” she whispered.

138“Then up the chimney you’ll go,” the voice whooped.

“Oh, please, I’d rather not go up a chimney,” Mabel screamed.

“Up the chimney you’ll go,” the voice whooped. “We don’t want inquisitive little girls like you in Queer Street.”

“I won’t ever be inquisitive again, Mr. Sweep, if only you’ll show me another way home.”

But it was no use for Mabel to beg for mercy. She felt a pair of bony arms seize her and gasping for breath she found herself being pushed further and further up the chimney by a long pole. Up and up she was pushed, and the further up she got the narrower the chimney became, and then just as she felt she simply must burst she heard the sound of Billie Hawkins’ whistle. The sound seemed to be tumbling down on her like delicious drops of water and looking up she found herself lying on the grass under a great big tree. There was Nannie bending over her with a cup in her hand, and beyond her a little ragged boy was playing a penny whistle, and beyond him a lot of other little ragged boys and girls were staring at her.

“Why ever don’t you look where you’re going?” Nannie was saying. “You gave me a terrible turn when you bumped into that tree and knocked yourself insensible for I don’t know how long.”

“I’m sorry I gave you such a terrible turbot, Nannie, I mean turnip, Nannie.”

“Pore little mite, she’s still feeling queer,” a woman in the crowd said.

“Oh, shan’t I ever get out of Queer Street?” Mabel cried, bursting into tears.

139

The dolls’ tea-parties in Kensington.

140“Why, you silly girl, you’re in Kensington Gardens.”

“Was I quite insensible, Nannie?” she asked.

And I really can’t tell you how proud Mabel was of having been knocked insensible and how jealous all her little girl friends were when Mabel used to boast at the dolls’ tea-parties in Kensington about her exciting adventures in Queer Street.

KING OF THE CASTLE By MADELEINE NIGHTINGALE

142

King of the castle.

THE BIRD-BATH By MADELEINE NIGHTINGALE

145

The bird-bath.

CARAWAY CAKE By MABEL MARLOWE

Biddy the Brownie-cook stood in her little garden, talking over the fence to her neighbour.

“I am going to make a cake for my husband,” she said.

“What kind of cake?”

“A caraway cake.”

“I shouldn’t if I were you,” said the neighbour. “Never make a caraway cake for your husband on Midsummer Eve. The cookery book tells you not to.”

“Oh, I never bother about a cookery book,” said Biddy the Brownie-cook. “I cannot fuss with all the rules, and all the weights and measures. I simply go to the larder and take out all the things that I have, and mix them in a basin, and make a cake—and it is always a nice cake, too.”

She gave her neighbour a smile, and went into her house. She looked in the larder, and found some flour, some butter, some sugar, some spice, and a little packet of caraway seeds.

She put all the things on the table, beside her wooden pastry bowl. Then she looked on the shelf for an egg, but the only egg to be seen was a greenish one, which she had once found in a deserted nest by the mulberry tree.

“Never mind, I must make this do. An egg is an egg all the world over,” said Biddy the Brownie-cook. She took the egg between her finger and thumb, held it over the bowl, and gave it a smart tap with a fork.

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“Never make a caraway cake on Midsummer Eve....”

148Pop! The egg flew into a thousand pieces, and out fluttered a tiny yellow bird.

“Tweet! I see some butter,” said the bird, and it flew down to the table and began to peck at the butter.

“Stop that at once! It is my butter,” cried Biddy the Brownie-cook, clapping her hands at the bird.

“Never make caraway cake on Midsummer Eve,” said the bird. It dropped a yellow feather from its tail, then it went on eating the butter. It pecked and it pecked! It ate and it ate! It grew and it grew until it was the size of a missel-thrush.

“Dear, dear! How shall I make my cake now, with no egg and no butter?” said Biddy the Brownie-cook.

“Swee-eet! I see some flour,” said the thrush, and it hopped on to the flour bag, and began to eat up the flour.

“Stop that at once! It is my flour,” cried Biddy, reaching for the rolling-pin, and holding it up like a stick.

“Never make caraway cake on Midsummer Eve,” said the thrush. It dropped a nut-brown feather from its tail, then it went on eating the flour. It pecked and it pecked! It ate and it ate! It grew and it grew, until it was the size of a pigeon.

“Dear dear! How shall I make my cake now, with no egg, no butter, and no flour?” said Biddy the Brownie-cook.

“Coo-ooo! I see some sugar,” said the pigeon, and it hopped upon the sugar bag, and began to eat the sugar.

“Stop that at once! Stop it this moment! It is my sugar. Don’t you dare to touch it, you bothersome bird!” cried Biddy, waving the rolling-pin about.

“Never make caraway cake on Midsummer Eve,” cooed the pigeon, and it steadily set to work to eat up all the sugar. 149It dropped a grey-green feather from its tail. It pecked and it pecked! It ate and it ate! It grew and it grew until it was the size of a peacock.

“Dear dear! How shall I make my cake now, with no egg, no butter, no flour, and no sugar?” wailed poor Biddy the Brownie-cook.

“Cluck-a-cluck-a-clickety! I see some spice,” said the peacock, dipping its beak into the spice box.

“Stop that at once! Stop it this moment! It is my spice. Don’t you dare to touch it, you good-for-nothing, bothersome bird!” cried Biddy, banging on the table with the rolling-pin. “Don’t you dare to eat my spice, or I will crack you over the head with my rolling-pin.”

“Never make caraway cake on Midsummer Eve,” mumbled the peacock, with his beak half full of spice. It dropped a beautiful peacock’s feather from its tail, then it went on eating the spice. It pecked and it pecked! It ate and it ate! It grew and it grew, until it was the size of an ostrich.

“Dear dear! How shall I make my cake now, with no egg, no butter, no flour, no sugar, and no spice?” cried poor Biddy, wiping her eyes.

“Hallo-ullo-ullo-ullo! I see some caraway seeds,” said the ostrich.

“Don’t you dare to touch them! They are my caraway seeds. You have eaten my butter. You have eaten my flour. You have swallowed my sugar and gobbled up my spice. But you shall not have my caraway seeds, indeed you shall not!” cried Biddy the Brownie-cook.

“Never make caraway cake on Midsummer Eve,” clucked the ostrich. He dropped a trailing tail-feather upon the 150table. Then he picked up the bag of caraway seeds, and swallowed them at one gulp.

“Hullo ... I see some caraway seeds.”

“You thieving, bothersome, good-for-nothing rascal!” cried Biddy. “How shall I make my cake now, I wonder, with no egg, no butter, no flour, no sugar, no spice, and no caraway seeds? What will my hungry husband say when he comes home?”

“Better make some oat-scones,” said the ostrich.

151Then Biddy the Brownie-cook went into the larder, dropping tears as she went. She reached a bag of oatmeal down from the shelf, and came back into the kitchen.

The ostrich was gone.

The caraway seeds, the spice, the sugar, the flour, and the butter were lying on the table beside the wooden pastry bowl. The shell of the little greenish egg was in the bottom of the bowl cracked neatly in half, quite empty.

“Goodness me! I must have been dreaming,” said Biddy the Brownie-cook.

But lying beside the caraway seeds were five feathers: a yellow one, a nut-brown one, a greenish-grey one, a peacock’s one, and a beautiful drooping, ostrich feather.

THE WITCH By ROSE FYLEMAN

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THE PRINCESS WHO COULD NOT LAUGH By A. A. MILNE

There was once a King who had an only daughter, the pride of his heart. She was sweet, she was good, she was beautiful, and the King would have said that she was perfection itself, but for one thing. She never laughed. Nothing seemed to amuse her.

Her father, the King, was often amused. The court fool had only to open his mouth, and His Majesty was leaning back in his throne roaring with laughter. Nobody was so quick as His Majesty to see the point of a good story or a clever riddle. But the Princess would listen gravely, and then say “Fancy!” or “Did he really?” or “Well, what happened next?” when the end of the joke had been reached. “My darling,” the King would say, wiping away the tears of laughter which had come into his eyes, “don’t you understand? It’s a joke!” And the Princess would answer, “Yes, I see it’s a joke, Father, but why do you make that noise about it?”

For Her Royal Highness always said that she saw a joke as well as anybody. What made her different from the King was that when His Majesty saw a joke he had to make a loud roaring noise, whereas when she saw one, she didn’t want to make any noise at all. Did that matter very much?

“My darling,” said the King, “it isn’t a question of wanting to. If you have a sense of humour, you have to laugh.”

“I don’t,” said the Princess.

155“I know,” sighed the King; “you don’t.”

And this made him very miserable. Nothing is so pleasant as to tell a funny story to somebody whom you love, to watch the smile coming on her face, and to hear her sudden laughter, and then to linger with her, your laughter catching new life from hers, in happy enjoyment of the joke. And this pleasure the King did not have.

He did his best. He read straight through to her, from beginning to end, that amusing book One Thousand Merrie Jestes collected from Manye Sources, pausing for a moment at the end of each story so that her laughter should not run over on to the next story. But she never laughed once. He then read it through again; still she did not laugh. He gave her to read for herself, Diverting Tales from Divers Lands, and watched her face anxiously. She did not smile. Nothing that he could say or do, nothing that the court fool could say or do, changed the gravity of her face. She was sweet, she was good, she was beautiful—but she could not laugh.

A time came when the King could not bear it any longer, and he felt that somehow or other the young Princess must be 156moved to laughter. In his difficulty he consulted his Chancellor, than whom there was supposed to be no wiser man in His Majesty’s kingdom. Now the Chancellor had a son, the young Count Hoppo, a fellow of no great learning, nor beauty, nor bravery—a fellow, indeed, of no personal attraction whatsoever, but a young man esteemed in his family as a jester. The Chancellor therefore spoke as follows:

“I would suggest Your Majesty, that it be announced to Your Majesty’s faithful people that he who is first able to move Her Royal Highness to laughter be rewarded by the hand of Her Royal Highness and half your Majesty’s kingdom.”

“What do you say, my love?” said the King to his daughter.

“As you please,” said the Princess. “I shall not laugh, for it seems that I have no wish to laugh, nor do I greatly desire to marry. But as you please.”

The King turned to his Chancellor.

“Let it be so announced,” he commanded. “At noon henceforward, for the space of one half-hour, those with humorous riddles or merry jests to tell shall have audience before the whole court, and he who first moves Her Royal Highness to laughter shall be rewarded by her hand in marriage.”

“And half the kingdom?” said the Chancellor anxiously.

“Is that usual?” asked the King.

“Entirely, Your Majesty.”

“Very well. So be it. To-morrow at noon we shall await the competitors.”

At noon, then, all those with good stories to tell, or merry riddles to propound, attended at the Palace, and foremost amongst them was the young Count Hoppo. So one by one 157they put their riddles or told their stories, and Her Royal Highness listened to them.

“Why does a dragon cross the road?”

158“Tell me, Your Royal Highness,” said Count Hoppo, “why does a dragon cross the road?”

The King, who knew this one, began to chuckle to himself.

“I suppose,” said the Princess, “that he crosses the road in order to get to the other side.”

“Y-yes,” said Hoppo, a little annoyed. “Yes, exactly.”

“Well?” said the Princess.

“That’s all,” said Hoppo crossly.

“Was it funny?” she said, turning to the King.

“My dear,” said her father, “you missed the point of the joke. The point of the joke was that if you said—I mean, what he expected you to say—then he would have said—only you didn’t.”

“But why else should a dragon cross the road?”

“Quite so,” said the King quickly. “Next competitor.”

Another young man stepped forward and enquired of Her Royal Highness why a silver bowl was like a wasp’s nest.

“It isn’t,” said the Princess. She turned to the King. “Is it, father?”

“It’s a riddle, dear,” explained His Majesty, and he murmured to himself, “Why is a silver bowl like a wasp’s nest—like a wasp’s nest.”

“I still think it isn’t,” said the Princess.

“Well?” said the King to the questioner. “Why is a silver bowl like a wasp’s nest?”

“Because there’s a ‘B’ in ‘Both,’ Your Majesty.”

His Majesty roared with laughter.

159“Not in a wasp’s nest,” said the Princess, “surely!”

The King explained that the letter “B” was in the word “Both.”

“Then why drag in the wasps’ nest?”

The King explained that that was the joke.

“I see,” said the Princess, but she did not laugh.

Then a third young man came forward, and this was the Count Rollo. Tall and handsome he was, and of a pleasant smiling countenance, so that the Princess thought to herself: “If only he would win, and not that horrid Count Hoppo.” Count Rollo, it seemed, desired to know the difference between a fly and a bird.

“A fly and a bird,” murmured the King to himself, “a fly and a bird, a fly and a bird, a fly and a bird.”

The Princess hastened to tell him.

“A bird,” she said, “has feathers on its wings, but a fly has not. A bird lays eggs, and a fly—no, that’s wrong, because flies do lay eggs. But a fly hasn’t got a beak. And it doesn’t build a nest. Oh, and it’s much smaller than a bird.”

“All this is true!” smiled Rollo, “but there is another difference, Your Royal Highness.”

160“Well?” said the King.

“A bird can fly, Your Majesty, but a fly cannot bird.”

“Ha-ha-ha!” went the King. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha!”

“Cannot what?” asked the Princess.

“Cannot bird, Your Royal Highness.”

“But what is ‘birding’?”

“That is what the poor fly never knew, Your Royal Highness, and often wondered. It seems so unfair, does it not, that if a bird can fly whenever it likes, the fly can never bird, however much it wants to.”

“It does seem rather unfair,” said the Princess, nodding to him in a friendly way.

But she did not laugh.

So, in their turn, all the young men of the country put their riddles and told their stories, not only on that day, but on many other days. And, one by one, they grew tired of trying to make laugh a Princess who could not laugh, and they came no more to the court at the hour of noon. But Count Hoppo and Count Rollo came always, for that Hoppo wished mightily for the half of His Majesty’s kingdom, and Rollo loved and was loved by the Princess. So in the end they two stood there alone.

Now this was to be the last trial between them, wherefore each had spent the night in anxious preparation for the morrow, Rollo wondering which of the few stories he had left untold would be most likely to amuse the Princess, and Hoppo bethinking him of a plan whereby at the same time he might win the Princess and discomfort his rival.

161

162On the morrow, then, before the whole court Count Hoppo and Count Rollo made final trial for the hand of the Princess. And the Princess looked at them as they stood there before her, and wished with all her heart that it might be Count Rollo who should make her laugh. So Count Rollo came forward to tell her his story.

“There was,” he said, “a stranger who came into a far country, and he desired to know the way to the King’s palace, for he had a present to lay before the King. So he stopped one whom he met on the road, and said to him: ‘Pray, sir, do you know the way to the King’s palace?’ Whereupon the man, wishing to be thought humorous, replied, ‘Yes, I do,’ and walked on. But a moment later, fearing lest his joke should be mistaken for rudeness, he hurried after the stranger, and said, ‘I beg your pardon, sir, but do you wish to know the way to the palace?’ ‘No,’ said the stranger, ‘I don’t,’ and left him there.”

To the King this seemed such a delightfully silly joke that it was some minutes before he could recover his gravity, but the Princess could only look sadly and wistfully at Count Rollo.

“Well, well,” said the King, “you shall have one more turn later. Now it is for Count Hoppo to try.”

Now Count Hoppo was minded to try a trick with which he had often amused the members of his own family. For it had long been a habit of his, when some unwelcome guest was arriving at his father’s door, to prepare a butter-slide in the hall, so that, treading unwarily upon it, the visitor should slip, and his feet should fly into the air, and he should fall heavily to the ground, to the great enjoyment of those of the family who were looking on. So for this occasion he had prepared a most amusing butter-slide a few paces from where 163he and Count Rollo stood, and had warned his father, the Chancellor, to take care that no members of the court trod upon it before the trial began. So now he stepped forward, feeling well assured that in one and the same moment he would win the hand of the Princess and put to shame and laughter the hated Count Rollo.

He had prepared a most amusing butter-slide.

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“I propose,” he said, “to show Your Royal Highness a small humorous joke of a practical nature, which cannot fail to move Your Royal Highness to loud and hearty laughter. Perhaps, before I begin, the Count Rollo would oblige me by moving a little farther away, so as to give me more room for my joke.” He turned to Rollo. “If you would be so good as to withdraw a few paces towards the window——”

He indicated with a careless gesture the necessary direction, and bowed to Rollo. Rollo bowed to him in reply; bowed gracefully to the King and still more gracefully to the Princess. Then, still bowing with the utmost ease and elegance, he retired a few paces backwards and stepped gracefully upon the butter-slide. There was a loud crash.

“Oh!” gasped the Princess. “Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! Oh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Oh-he-he-he-he-he!” It was as if somebody had suddenly pressed a button inside her. Her 165laughter pealed round the palace walls. She laughed up and up and up and up, and she laughed down and down and down and down. She trilled and gurgled and choked, and choked and gurgled and trilled. It seemed that there was no end to her laughter.

The King too was laughing, the Chancellor was laughing, Count Hoppo was laughing. Save for one man the whole court was laughing.

Count Rollo did not laugh. Feeling ashamed and miserable and angry, he picked himself up and gave the Princess one reproachful look.

“I’m s-s-sorry,” gasped the Princess. “I didn’t mean to laugh, I don’t know why I did laugh, I don’t want to laugh, I——” And then she trilled and gurgled and choked, and choked and gurgled and trilled all over again.

As soon as quiet was restored, the Chancellor stepped forward.

“Your Majesty,” he said, “on behalf of the young Count Hoppo I claim the promised reward.”

“Count Hoppo?” said the King in surprise. “But it was just an accident, was it not?”

“Not so, Your Majesty,” replied Hoppo proudly. And he explained how, with great cleverness, he had prepared the butter-slide, and how, with great cunning, he had arranged for Count Rollo to step upon it. And all the court said 166“Well, well, well!” and “Fancy that now!” And the King frowned and considered the matter.

“Ah, well, in that case,” said His Majesty, “you may fairly claim to have succeeded in moving Her Royal Highness to laughter.” He turned to Count Rollo. “You agree that that is so, Count Rollo?”

Rollo looked at the Princess, and she looked back at him, and their eyes spoke to each other. As plainly as if she were speaking her eyes cried to him, “Save me from this Count Hoppo!” And Rollo smiled back at her, and gave a little nod, as if he would say, “It will be all right.” For an idea had come to him.

So he turned like one in thought, and walked a few paces off. Then, turning again to the King, he said:

“Your Majesty, since I have seen Her Royal Highness day by day, these many days, I have dared to love her. If Your Majesty says now that she is to be wedded to the Count Hoppo, it will be better that I should not look upon her again. But I venture to make this last request of her. I ask her to come down from her throne and say farewell to me here, not as Princess to subject, but as maid to man.”

And he went down on one knee and waited for her.

“I will come,” said the Princess softly.

So she came to him; and, as she drew near, she stepped suddenly upon the butter-slide, and her feet shot into the air, and she fell heavily upon the floor.

There was a cry of anger from the Princess, followed by a cry of horror from all the court. A dozen hands helped her to her feet, and supported her again to the side of her father, the King, who comforted her with royal words.

167“But this is passing strange!” said Rollo loudly. “How comes it that Her Royal Highness does not laugh? Was it not a funny jest?”

The King looked at him with sudden suspicion.

“What does this mean?” said the King sternly. “This talk of saying farewell, was it just a plot to make Her Royal Highness fall?”

“Certainly, Your Majesty,” said Rollo pleasantly. “I hoped that Count Hoppo’s delightful jest would amuse us all again.” He turned to the Princess. “Was Your Royal Highness not amused?”

“We were not amused,” said Her Royal Highness coldly.

“Certainly not,” said the King with dignity.

“But Your Royal Highness was amused before,” said Rollo gently.

“That was altogether different,” said the King.

Then Count Rollo smiled at them all. “In that case, Your Majesty, it was not Count Hoppo’s butter-slide which made Her Royal Highness laugh, but my extremely humorous way of kicking my feet in the air and falling to the ground.”

Then it was the turn of the Princess to smile, as she saw what Rollo would be at.

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Dropped twenty feet below, splash! into the royal fish pond!

169“Why, yes,” said the King in surprise. “That had not occurred to me, but indeed it would seem to be so. What do you say, my dear?”

“Of course it is, father!” said the Princess quickly. “It was Count Rollo who made me laugh, not Count Hoppo.”

But now Count Hoppo, seeing how things were going against him, cried out suddenly:

“It was me, Your Majesty, it was me! If I had fallen down, I would have made the Princess laugh, just as loudly as Count Rollo did! I’ll make her laugh now! Watch me!” And with these words, he ran across the butter-slide so swiftly that his feet leapt in the air, and he shot heavily through the window and dropped twenty feet below, splash! into the royal fishpond!

“How vulgar!” said the Princess, with her nose in the air.

So young Count Rollo married the Princess, and they lived and loved and laughed happily together for more years than I can remember. But what happened to Count Hoppo when they had dragged him out of the fishpond, I never heard; nor, indeed, does it matter very much.

“WISH TO GOODNESS!” By LAURENCE HOUSMAN

In spite of his name, Mr. Peter Comely was a very ordinary-looking person; and but for one initial circumstance his life had not contained any event worth recording. The initial circumstance took place upon the day of his birth: though the son of poor but honest parents, he managed by accident to get a fairy-godmother.

This is how it came about. His mother, having previously had eleven daughters, in pairs or in triplets, remarked at the moment when she was most expecting him: “Well, I hope to gracious goodness that this time they’ll bring a boy.”

Now it so happened that the fairy Gracious Goodness was passing by at the time—out of employment and looking for something to do; and hearing her name thus invoked, she stopped and gave the matter her attention.

Peter Comely was born a boy, and without accompaniments, as his mother had desired; and the fairy, having seen him into the world, in order that she might know him again when necessary, made a neat finish of the matter by appearing before the eyes of his astonished parents, to whom she announced her name and calling. Then, having bestowed upon the child a birthday gift suitable to his station in life, she vanished into thin air, and seemed thenceforth to have washed her fairy hands of him.

171The gift she left to him, though to his parents it seemed humdrum and useless, to Peter himself was quite satisfactory. She gave him contentment; and so through life contented he remained though poor, and therefore—in spite of the efforts of his parents to sow in him the seeds of a criminal ambition—honest, meek, unassuming, and to most people rather uninteresting.

As he grew up, having few wants, he had also few ideas; and though upon each of his birthdays, unknown to his parents, his fairy-godmother paid him a private visit to ask whether he wanted for anything, his answer always was that he wanted nothing; nor did he even trouble to tell anybody of the fairy’s visits, or give a thought himself to the brilliant bargains he might have got out of life from the offers made to him.

So when he came to man’s estate, though he might have had anything for the asking, he turned to and worked for a weaver’s wage, as his father had occasionally done before him, and lived as all other poor men have to do—with only this unfortunate difference, that he remained quite contented with his lot; and though he worked well, and was worth much more than his master paid him, he never asked for a rise; which, while it mattered little to him, was bad for his master.

That, however, is only by the way; but I don’t want any of my readers to think that contentment is everything, or good under all circumstances. Disturbance is sometimes far better: water, in a kettle that doesn’t boil over, makes bad tea.

Now one day—one of his birthdays—a certain young person of the village, who had a sharp eye for the main chance, happened to look in and see him over his loom, talking to a beautiful lady with wings; and all of a sudden it came to her 172that a certain queer story she had heard told by his disreputable parents, and had never believed, was true after all; and that poor simple Peter Comely really had a fairy-godmother. It seemed also—and this made the discovery more valuable—that the fairy still took an interest in him.

Instantly she made up her mind to marry him; and Peter, though he would have been quite content to remain a bachelor, was equally content when, by the various ways available to that end, the young woman managed to become first “his young woman,” as the saying goes, and then his wife.

Having got him, Mrs. Comely lost no time in tackling him on the subject of his fairy birthright. Peter was quite simple and open about it; and his wife discovered that, having been given a contented nature from his birth, he had made no further use of it in spite of the opportunities which the fairy’s repeated visits afforded him.

“I wish to goodness you’d told me sooner!” was her complaining remark, when she found that it was only on his birthday that the fairy visited him. For now there was nearly a year to run; and with the knowledge that her married circumstances could so easily have been altered for the better, had only the right remedy been applied at the start, Mrs. Comely became deeply discontented with her surroundings, with Peter’s wages as a weaver, and with Peter himself as a man. In fact, there was nothing now that pleased her; and what pleased her least of all was her husband’s contentment with things as they were.

The consequence was she was always in a bad temper; and, as is the way with people when they are far from a state of goodness themselves, “Wish to goodness!” became the daily expression of her impatience against one who took everything so patiently. But nothing she could do—though she tried her best—ever made him discontented.

173Behind her back, friends—who saw what sort of a wife he had become saddled with—would come to condole. “Your wife’s a bit of a handful, isn’t she?” one would say. And “Oh, aye!” Peter would answer; “a nice handful she is, for sure—or would be, if you tried to hold her. But let her go her own way, it’s no odds to me.”

“Hard to please, isn’t she? I’ve been told so.”

“I’ve never seen anything please her yet,” said Peter, smiling, “except to tell me what a fool she thinks me! And put it that way, you might say that I do manage always to please her. Well, if that suits her, it suits me all right; gives her something to talk about, and me something to listen to that I can understand. For I’m not clever, you know, and if I’d any doubt about it myself, I’ve got her word for it.”

“Peter, you are too easy,” said his friend. “You’ve got your senses like all the rest of us. The mistake you make is to think too little of yourself. The fact is your wife has got a bad temper.”

“Oh yes,” said Peter, “her temper’s bad, I know. But it’s beautifully bad; it suits her.”

And just then Mrs. Peter put her head in at the door, and cried: “Wish to goodness, you wouldn’t have lazy giddygaddies coming in talking and wasting your time all day, when you ought to be at work. Goodness gracious! I might as well have married a turnstile, the way you let folk in for the asking, as ought to be stopped if they don’t know any better themselves, coming in work-time.”

Before she had finished her commentary, Peter’s friend had slunk away, having had enough of it.

174But Peter only said: “We were talking about you, my dear.”

“And what were you saying about me, I’d like to know?”

“I was saying that whatever you did suited you.”

“Did? Suited me? Like what?”

“Well, for instance—losing your temper.”

“If I ever lost my temper with a fool like you, there’d be no finding it again.”

“No, my dear; but you never do. When you are with me you are always in a temper.”

“And reason enough, too!”

“Yes, my dear; I’ve never denied it.”

“Better not. If you did there’d be trouble.”

“Yes, my dear; and I don’t like giving trouble, you see.”

“Giving, indeed!” she cried; “it’s I have to pay for it!” and off she flounced. Try as she would, she could never get at him. Peter always remained amiable and contented, and also—which is what tried her most—slightly amused. Whatever she did to make him do otherwise, Peter always appreciated her qualities at their full worth. Once, losing all patience with him, she gave him quite a hard knock over the head with a rolling-pin.

Peter looked at her with admiration.

“Now I should never have thought you could hit me as hard as that,” he said—“a little woman like you. I wonder if I could hit you as hard?”

“You’d better not try!” she retorted.

“No, my dear: you mightn’t like it,” explained Peter, smiling, as he put court sticking-plaster on his forehead, tied a piece of string round it to keep it in place, and stuck it with sealing-wax for a neat finish.

175Mrs. Comely was beaten, and knew it. “I don’t know what’s the matter with him!” she would say to herself sometimes. “It’s not human; it’s not reasonable. It’s that fairy of his has gone and got into his blood, and made him into something that’s more like a ball of wool or a piece of putty than a man. And I wish to goodness his birthday would come round quick, so that I could put things right for us!”

Poor woman! during that time of waiting she was sadly tried. But at last his birthday did come round again.

Mrs. Comely was full of expectation and hope. She was almost nice to him on the morning of the day, feeling her cares so nearly at an end; for, of course, now, being his wife and upon the spot, she meant to do the wishing, and had instructed him accordingly. When the fairy came he was to be sure to call for her before doing anything.

But it so happened that Peter, being short of yarn for his weaving, had to go out and buy more.

Mrs. Comely let him go, for she could not bear to see him not working; but she called after him to be quick home again, being afraid that the fairy might come while he was out.

Unfortunately he met the fairy before he had got back from his errand. Just as he was coming through the wood, she slid down the tree on which she had been waiting for him, and standing before him, radiant with gracious goodness, cried: “Many happy returns of the day, Peter. Is there anything you want?”

Peter stood considering: “No,” he said, “there’s nothing I want for myself; but my wife wants me to be quick home again.”

And scarcely had he said it, when home he was, and the fairy—having done her duty by him—nowhere to be seen for the whole of another year.

176

“... My wife wants me to be quick home again,”

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and scarcely had he said it, when home he was.

178“Gracious goodness! you have been quick!” cried his wife, as he came in. “I’ll say that for you.”

“Yes, I have rather,” said Peter, as he moved off to his work. Then he bethought him, and stopped to explain. “You see, it happened like this: while I was out I met godmother. She said, Did I want anything? I said I didn’t, but you wanted me quick home again. So here I am. Very kind of her, wasn’t it?”

What Mrs. Comely said then, cannot be set down upon the printed page. And what she continued to say, for a whole year whenever she thought of it, was so similar that the only thing one can do in decency is to leave it at that, and let the year go by unrecorded till it bring us to the morning of Peter’s next birthday.

Peter was in bed with a cold, an extremely bad cold—the sort of cold that is called double pneumonia, which, though it sounds like the name of a flower, is really something much more ugly and dangerous and hard to get rid of. And only the night before, the Doctor had come and told Mrs. Comely that he was very much afraid Peter was going to die.

Mrs. Comely was much put out by the news. “Can’t you make him live just for another day, Doctor?” she enquired complainingly; and the Doctor said he would do his best.

“You see, he hasn’t made his will,” said Mrs. Comely by way of explanation, not wishing to let more be known about her actual expectations than was necessary.

To Peter, also, she said much the same thing. “I do really think,” she exclaimed, “after all I’ve had to put up with, marrying you, and only finding out after what a fool you are, that you might at least do that for me—keep alive till your 179godmother has come to make it more worth while to me than it’s ever been yet.”

The Doctor thought he would die....

180“What exactly is it you want this time?” enquired Peter. “You’d better let me know so that I don’t make any mistake.”

“Well, I want you to keep alive,” she replied; “you do that, and I’ll see to the rest.”

And having him there in bed, and she being herself on the spot to answer the door, she made sure that this time at all events the situation was fool-proof, and that all would be right.

But things did not happen quite as she had expected, she not being accustomed to the ways of fairies, who can, if they like, be quite independent of such gradual methods of approach as front-doors with door-mats, and door-bells with some one to answer them; a fairy who really knows her job is right in the middle of things before you know that she is there at all.

And so, when Mrs. Comely went down to make some beef-tea for her husband, the fairy arrived, this time not down a tree but down the chimney; and very sorry to find him so ill, wished Peter much happier returns of the day than could be said of the present one. “And what,” she then enquired, “can I do for you?”

Peter said he didn’t know that there was anything she could do for him. He had got double pneumonia, and had got it so well that the Doctor—so his wife told him—thought he would die of it.

“And I don’t know,” he added, “whether she wants me not to die of it. All she has said she does want is that I may live for another day.”

181“You shall live for another day,” said the fairy, “and for many another day too. Here’s life to you! Take your own time, and get well! A year hence I will come again and see how you are doing.”

Scarcely had the fairy departed when Mrs. Comely returned with the beef-tea. Her husband, though with the fairy’s word for it he might now be said to be on the mend, showed so little sign of a change for the better that she would not have noticed it, had he not himself told her.

“You have got your wish, my dear,” he said. “I am not going to die to-day. She has just been and promised that I shan’t—that I am going to get well.”

Mrs. Peter was so amazed and so angry to think that she had again missed meeting the fairy through her husband’s stupidity, that with a flounce and a bounce she upset the soup over him.

“Well, that’s an easy way of taking it, isn’t it?” he remarked, as he watched it slide over the bed-clothes in a large shifting pattern of brownish yellow. “I suppose if you leave it it’ll soak in all right.”

“It’s my belief,” snapped his wife, ignoring the discomfort she had caused him, “that you haven’t got a fairy godmother at all, and that what I saw was only a young woman out of the circus, and one no better than she should be—with wings stuck on for her to act with; and that you’ve been deceiving me all this time!”

“Very well, my dear,” replied Peter, “believe what you like to believe, if it makes you happier. But you’ll have to believe your eyes presently, when you see me get well. Only yesterday, you told me, the Doctor said I was dying.”

182“Doctors make mistakes,” she retorted. “I almost wish you were going to die!”

“Now what a pity,” said Peter, “that I didn’t know that sooner, and then I might have asked for it. But what you told me, you know, my dear, was just the contrary. You wanted me to live, you said.”

“Only a day!” said his wife. “And now I’ve got to have another year of you, and then perhaps find out that it’s all a lie, and that fairy-godmother of yours just straw and moonshine, like all the rest of you. Goodness gracious! I wish I’d never married you!”

She had now got it so fixed in her head that he had only been deceiving her, that she said the same thing several times—most days, in fact—during the year. And especially she would say it whenever he was in a state not of doing anything that she could find fault with, but just being himself. It was his quiet, contented character which most infuriated her. For, as she said to herself when she considered him in this sure setting which Heaven had bestowed on him: “There’s no getting at him! He’s so made you’ve just got to lump it or leave it.”

So when for the third time his birthday came round, and Mrs. Comely, waking as the alarm-clock went off, sat up in bed and looked at him still peacefully sleeping, in spite of the racket which her friend the alarm-clock was making—so like herself in its way, yet only doing its duty—as she sat up and looked at him lying there undisturbed by the noise, all her stored-up resentment against him broke out once more, and, “Goodness gracious!” she cried, “I wish I weren’t married to him!”

183Now it so happened that on this particular birthday Goodness Gracious had come early, having a good many other things in the day that she wanted to do. So there she was already in the room when the alarm-clock sounded, sitting on the foot of the bed where Mrs. Comely’s hot-water bottle had not yet got cold, and Peter’s feet, which had no hot-water bottle to comfort them, were sticking out from under the coverlet.

So sitting there, unnoticed as yet by Mrs. Comely, who was too much occupied looking at her husband and hating him, she gave a sharp pinch to one of Peter’s toes which made him wake up.

“Yes, yes, my dear!” said Peter, thinking it was his wife giving him his birthday greeting. “The same to you, and more of them!”

“Peter,” said the fairy—and Mrs. Peter, starting up, stared at her in sudden hope and astonishment—“Peter, your wife says she wishes she wasn’t married to you. Do you wish it too?”

“I’ve no wish in the matter for myself,” said Peter. “It’s not for me to decide. But if she wishes it, then I do.”

“Then you shall have your wish, both of you,” said the fairy, while Mrs. Comely, seeing too late the mistake she had made, started screaming and protesting that that was not the thing she wished most, or first, or indeed at all, if the fairy would only wait and let her think a minute.

But fairies don’t wait, or only when it suits them in order to drive home a moral. And here the fairy was going to drive home a moral simply by not waiting—having it already up her sleeve, as you shall now hear.

184“Very well, Mrs. Comely,” she said; “then as you wish it you shall not be married to him any longer. And as there are only three ways in which that can possibly be brought about I now give you your choice of them. Either he must die, or you must die, or you must have been married to somebody else before you married him, somebody about whom you may have entirely forgotten.”

“I never was married to anybody else!” exclaimed Mrs. Peter, fastening upon the last alternative with great indignation. “Of what wickedness are you accusing me?”

“Of none,” said the Fairy; “as I say, you may have entirely forgotten it.”

But this did not appease Mrs. Peter. “I’m not likely to forget a thing like that,” she protested. “I’m no fool like him; and if you think so, you’re the same, and nothing to choose between you! Goodness gracious! if you haven’t more sense than that, and you a fairy, I wish I’d never set waking eyes on you!”

“Have your wish!” said the fairy. “You never have.” And so saying, she vanished.

Mrs. Peter rubbed her eyes. It was hard to believe, but it was true. The meeting with the fairy had been a dream. And now she was gone—or the dream had gone—and there was nothing to be done for another year.

Mrs. Comely turned in bewilderment to her husband. “I’ve been having a dream,” she said.

“Have you, my dear?” replied Peter cautiously. “I hope it has done you good. What was it about?”

“It was about that fairy of yours. I don’t believe in her. She’s only a dream. I had my suspicions about it before; and now I know.”

185“Very well then, my dear, we must do without,” said Peter. “It’s much easier to be contented with life if you don’t expect anything. Your believing that I had a fairy-godmother who could do things for me has made you discontented. Now you’ll feel better.”

Mrs. Peter would not admit it; but as a matter of fact it did. Having nothing miraculous to look forward to in her married life, she became resigned to it; and for a year was just an ordinary wife as other people’s wives are, only complaining of Peter twice as often as she had cause, which was not often, he being such a very easily contented and accommodating character.

And on Peter’s next birthday, having no curiosity or expectation left about the fairy, whom she no longer believed in, she left Peter, without instructions, to see the fairy alone. And alone he was when the fairy called on him.

“Well, Peter,” said the fairy, “is there anything you want this time?”

“Not that I want,” said Peter; “but last year you gave my wife a disappointment. She doesn’t believe in you any more, she thinks you are only a dream. She’s been very good hiding it; but I can’t help thinking she feels it.”

“Well, what do you want for her?” enquired the fairy.

“If it isn’t too much to ask,” said Peter, “and if it isn’t too much trouble, can’t you make her contented like you’ve made me?”

“Of course I can,” said the fairy. “Why didn’t you ask that before.”

Peter thought awhile.

186“She didn’t want it,” he said. “She’d got other ideas. Now that she’s got none left, I can think for her.”

“Very well,” said Goodness Gracious, “then from this moment your wife shall be as contented as you are.”

And just then, from outside came Mrs. Peter’s voice calling to him, as she mopped the kitchen floor.

“Goodness gracious, Peter, who’s that you’re talking to?”

The question embarrassed him. He felt it was so much better to let sleeping dogs lie.

“Never you mind!” he said roguishly.

“Oh, all right!” replied his wife, and went on with her mopping.

“There!” said the fairy.

“Goodness Gracious!” cried Peter. “You’ve done it!”

WILLIAM SHAND By HILAIRE BELLOC

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THE CROCODILE By ADRIAN MOTT

THE HARE AND THE LIONS A Tibetan Tale By VALERY CARRICK

One day a lion met a hare, and was just going to eat him, when the hare began to beg and implore, saying:

“Now what good would I do you, I’m so small and so frail! If you are hungry, I’ll show you the way to a great big fat beast. Only, he has such terrible strength, you might get the worst of it!”

At that the lion got very angry, and said:

“What? Me get the worst of it? Is there ANY beast stronger than I? Show me this beast at once!”

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“Oh, I do BEG you to take care!” said the hare. “Don’t go and get killed! You don’t know what a fearsome beast he is! And he lives in a WELL!”

“Take me to him at once!” answered the lion.

So the hare led the lion to the well, and the lion began to look down into the well, and his own face looked out at him from the water, and the hare said:

“You see what a fearsome beast he is! You had really better stop where you are. Don’t jump into the well, or he’ll tear you in pieces!”

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“What?” said the lion. “Do you think I’m afraid of him? Then I just will jump!”

“Oh no! Don’t! Please!” begged the hare. And almost before he had done speaking the lion had jumped down the well, and there he stopped.

And, meanwhile, at home the lioness was waiting and waiting in vain for the return of her husband. Every now and 202then she would come out of her cave and have a look round, but could see no sign of him.

All at once the hare appeared in front of the cave, and said:

“How do you do! I’ve brought you a message of greeting from your husband. He himself is ill and can’t get up. He and I had a bit of an argument, and in the end it came to blows. To put the matter in two words: I gave him a thorough good hiding.”

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At that the lioness got very angry and said:

“You wretched, miserable little boaster!” and was just going to catch hold of him, when off he ran.

Now the hare knew of a place in the rock where it was broad on the outside and easy to get in, but narrow on the inside and very hard to get out of, and he dashed straight off there, with the lioness at his heels. And when they got to this cleft in the rock he jumped in.

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The lioness, without further thought, jumped in after him, and got stuck in the narrow place. And she could neither move forward nor backward, and there

THE COLOURED LANDS By G. K. CHESTERTON

Once upon a time there was a little boy whose name was Tommy. As a matter of fact, his name was Tobias Theodore; the former because it was an old name in the family, and the latter because it was an entirely new name in the neighbourhood. It is to be hoped that the parents who called him Tobias Theodore, moved by a natural desire to keep it quiet, agreed to call him Tommy; and anyhow we will agree to call him Tommy. It is always assumed in stories that Tommy is a common name for a boy; just as it is always assumed that Tomkins is a common name for a man. I do not really know very many boys named Tommy. I do not know any man named Tomkins. Do you? Does anybody? But this enquiry would lead us far.

206Anyhow, Tommy was sitting one very hot afternoon on a green lawn outside the cottage that his father and mother had taken in the country. The cottage had a bare white-washed wall; and at that moment it seemed to Tommy very bare. The summer sky was of a blank blue, which at that moment seemed to him very blank. The dull yellow thatch looked very dull and rather dusty; and the row of flower-pots in front of him, with red flowers in them, looked irritatingly straight, so that he wanted to knock some of them over like ninepins. Even the grass around him moved him only to pluck it up in a vicious way; almost as if he were wicked enough to wish it was his sister’s hair. Only he had no sister and, indeed, no brothers. He was an only child and at that moment rather a lonely child, which is not necessarily the same thing. For Tommy, on that hot and empty afternoon, was in that state of mind in which grown-up people go away and write books about their view of the whole world, and stories about what it is like to be married, and plays about the important problems of modern times. Tommy, being only ten years old, was not able to do harm on this large and handsome scale. So he continued to pull out the grass like the green hair of an imaginary and irritating sister, when he was surprised to hear a stir and a step behind him, on the side of the garden far away from the garden gate.

He saw walking towards him a rather strange-looking young man wearing blue spectacles. He was clad in a suit of such very light grey that it looked almost white in the strong sunlight; and he had long loose hair of such very light or faint yellow that the hair might almost have been white as well as the clothes. He had a large limp straw hat to shade him from the sun; and, presumably for the same purpose, he flourished in his left hand a Japanese parasol of a bright peacock green. 207Tommy had no idea of how he had come on to that side of the garden; but it appeared most probable that he had jumped over the hedge.

208All that he said was, with the most casual and familiar accent, “Got the blues?”

Tommy did not answer and perhaps did not understand; but the strange young man proceeded with great composure to take off his blue spectacles.

“Blue spectacles are a queer cure for the blues,” he said cheerfully; “but you just look through these for a minute.”

Tommy was moved to a mild curiosity and peered through the glasses; there certainly was something weird and quaint about the discoloration of everything—the red roses black and the white wall blue, and the grass a bluish green like the plumes of a peacock.

“Looks like a new world, doesn’t it?” said the stranger. “Wouldn’t you like to go wandering in a blue world once in a blue moon?”

“Yes,” said Tommy, and put the spectacles down with a rather puzzled air. Then his expression changed to surprise; for the extraordinary young man had put on another pair of spectacles, and this time they were red.

“Try these,” he said affably. “These, I suppose, are revolutionary glasses. Some people call it looking through rose-coloured spectacles. Others call it seeing red.”

Tommy tried the spectacles, and was quite startled by the effect; it looked as if the whole world were on fire. The sky was of a glowing or rather glaring purple, and the roses were not so much red as red-hot. He took off the glasses almost in alarm, only to note that the young man’s immovable countenance 209was now adorned with yellow spectacles. By the time that these had been followed by green spectacles, Tommy thought he had been looking at four totally different landscapes.

210“And so,” said the young man, “you would like to travel in a country of your favourite colour. I did it once myself.”

Tommy was staring up at him with round eyes.

“Who are you?” he asked suddenly.

“I’m not sure,” replied the other. “I rather think I am your long-lost brother.”

“But I haven’t got a brother,” objected Tommy.

“It only shows how very long-lost I was,” replied his remarkable relative. “But I assure you that, before they managed to long-lose me, I used to live in this house myself.”

“When you were a little boy like me?” asked Tommy with some reviving interest.

“Yes,” said the stranger gravely. “When I was a little boy and very like you. I also used to sit on the grass and wonder what to do with myself. I also got tired of the blank white wall. I also got tired even of the beautiful blue sky. I also thought the thatch was just thatch and wished the roses did not stand in a row.”

“Why, how do you know I felt like that?” asked the little boy, who was rather frightened.

“Why, because I felt like that myself,” said the other with a smile.

Then after a pause he went on:

“And I also thought that everything might look different if the colours were different; if I could wander about on blue roads between blue fields and go on wandering till all was blue. And a wizard who was a friend of mine actually granted 211my wish; and I found myself walking in forests of great blue flowers like gigantic lupins and larkspurs, with only glimpses now and then of pale blue skies over a dark blue sea. The trees were inhabited by blue jays and bright blue kingfishers. Unfortunately they were also inhabited by blue baboons.”

“Were there any people in that country?” enquired Tommy.

The traveller had to reflect for a moment; then he nodded and said:

“Yes; but, of course, wherever there are people there are troubles. You couldn’t expect all the people in the Blue Country to get on with each other very well. Naturally there was a crack regiment called the Prussian Blues. Unfortunately there was also a very energetic semi-naval brigade called French Ultramarines. You can imagine the consequence.” He paused again for a moment and then said: “I met one person who made rather an impression on me. I came upon him in a place of great gardens shaped in a crescent like the moon, and in the centre above a fringe of blue-gum trees there rose a great blue lustrous dome, like the Mosque of Omar. And I heard a great and terrible voice that seemed to toss the trees to and fro, and there came out between them a tremendously tall man, with a crown of huge sapphires round his turban, and his beard was quite blue. I need not explain that he was Bluebeard.”

“You must have been frightened,” said the little boy.

“At first perhaps,” replied the stranger, “but I came to the conclusion that Bluebeard is not so black—or perhaps so blue—as he is painted. I had a little confidential talk with him, and really there was something to be said on his side of 212the case. Living where he did, he naturally married wives who were all blue-stockings.”

“What are blue-stockings?” asked Tommy.

“Naturally you don’t know,” replied the other; “if you did you would sympathize more with Bluebeard. They were ladies who were always reading books. They even read them aloud.”

“What sort of books were they?”

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“Blue books, of course,” replied the traveller. “They are the only kind of book allowed there. That is why I decided to leave. With the assistance of my friend the Wizard, I obtained a passport to cross the frontier, which was a very vague and shadowy one, like the fine shade between two tints 214of the rainbow. I only felt that I was passing over peacockcoloured seas and meadows, and the world was growing greener and greener, till I knew I was in a Green Country. You would think that was more restful, and so it was, up to a point. The point was when I met the celebrated Green Man, who has given his name for so many excellent public houses. And then there is always a certain amount of limitation in the work and trade of these beautiful harmonious landscapes. Have you ever lived in a country where all the people were greengrocers? I think not. After all, I asked myself, why should all grocers be green? I felt myself longing to look at a yellow grocer. I saw rise up before me the glowing image of a red grocer. It was just about this time that I floated insensibly into the Yellow Country; but I did not stay there very long. At first it was very splendid, a radiant scene of sunflowers and golden crowns; but I soon found it was almost entirely filled with Yellow Fever and the Yellow Press discussing the Yellow Peril. Of the three I preferred the Yellow Fever; but I could not get any real peace or happiness even out of that. So I faded through an orange haze until I came to the Red Country, and it was there that I really found out the truth of the matter.”

“What did you find out?” asked Tommy, who was beginning to listen much more attentively.

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“You may have heard,” said the young man, “a very vulgar expression about painting the town red. It is more probable that you have heard the same thought put in a more refined form by a very scholarly poet who wrote about a rose-red city, half as old as time. Well, do you know, it is a curious fact that in a rose-red city you cannot really see any roses. Everything is a great deal too red. Your eyes are tired until it might just as well all be 216brown. After I had been walking for ten minutes on scarlet grass under a scarlet sky and scarlet trees, I called out in a loud voice, ‘Oh, this is all a mistake.’ And the moment I had said that the whole red vision vanished, and I found myself standing in quite a different sort of place; and opposite me was my old friend the Wizard, whose face and long rolling beard were all one sort of colourless colour like ivory, but his eyes of a colourless blinding brilliance like diamonds.

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘you don’t seem very easy to please. If you can’t put up with any of these countries of any of these colours, you shall jolly well make a country of your own.’

“And then I looked round me at the place to which he had brought me; and a very curious place it was. It lay in great ranges of mountains, in layers of different colours; and it looked something like sunset clouds turned solid and something like those maps that mark geological soils grown gigantic. And all along the terraces of the hills, they were trenched and hollowed into great quarries; and I think I understood without being told that this was the great original place from which all the colours came, like the paint-box of creation. But the most curious thing of all was that right in front of me there was a huge chasm in the hills that opened into sheer blank daylight. At least, sometimes I thought it was a blank and sometimes a sort of wall made of frozen light or air and sometimes a sort of tank or tower of clear water; but anyhow the curious thing about it was that if you splashed some of the coloured earths upon it they remained where you had thrown them, as a bird hangs in the air. And there the Wizard told me, rather impatiently, to make what sort of world I liked for myself, for he was sick of my grumbling at everything.

217“So I set to work very carefully; first blocking in a great deal of blue, because I thought it would throw up a sort of square of white in the middle; and then I thought a fringe of a sort of dead gold would look well along the top of the white; and I spilt some green at the bottom of it. As for red, I had already found out the secret about red. You have to have a very little of it to make a lot of it. So I just made a row of little blobs of bright red on the white just above the green; and as I went on working at the details, I slowly discovered what I was doing; which is what very few people ever discover in this world. I found I had put back, bit by bit, the whole of that picture over there in front of us. I had made that white cottage with the thatch and that summer sky behind it and that green lawn below, and the row of the red flowers just as you see them now. That is how they come to be there. I thought you might be interested to know it.”

And with that he turned so sharply that Tommy had not time to turn and see him jump over the hedge; for Tommy remained staring at the cottage, with a new look in his eyes.

EVENSONG By KATHARINE TYNAN