Chapter XX: The Last 264 (4)

This made Peggy see how trustworthy dolls really were. If they are ever naughty, it is only because their mistresses like to make them pretend to be, just for fun. And they are never _really_ naughty, and soon get over whatever little trouble there may be with them, and are good and obedient again. Peggy wondered now whether all this might not be owing to the wise and temperate rule of Queen Rosebud. Perhaps if Selim were to go on ruling it might all be altered, and dolls might become as bad as some human beings.

“I am sure when the people know you are alive,” she said, “they will very soon take you back to your palace. And they will be most awfully glad to have you reigning over them again.”

“Well, you must tell them,” said the Queen. “I can wait here a little longer in patience, now that I know things are to be put right. And I am very pleased to see you here, my dear; but I wish you had come at a happier time.”

Peggy had never before conversed with a Queen, or indeed with any royal person, though she had once seen her own King and Queen driving through London; but she knew somehow that she was being dismissed from the presence. She kissed the Doll-Queen’s hand, which she had read somewhere was the proper way to behave, and went out of the room, leaving Queen Rosebud sitting by the window.

As she went down the five hundred steps, she thought it was rather extraordinary that the Queen had not said anything about the way in which she was to be rescued. She had seemed to take it for granted that when her people knew what had happened, everything would come right for her. She could leave the details to them.

This seemed to Peggy rather royal, too, and also that she had not grumbled at all about her imprisonment. Though she was only a doll, Peggy had gained a great respect for Queen Rosebud.

XI

THE RELEASE OF PEGGY AND WOODEN

Peggy went down to the kitchen. She had time as she went down the five hundred stairs, to make up her mind as to whether she should tell Mr. and Mrs. Emma that the Wax lady on the top floor was the Queen. She decided not to do so just yet, but to wait a little longer and see what happened. They might be very indignant at hearing what Selim and Rose had done, but on the other hand they might be frightened that they would be punished for having let Peggy see such an important prisoner; and in that case they would probably not let her see her again. And Peggy wanted to see Queen Rosebud again.

When Peggy went into the kitchen Mrs. Emma said, “You have been a long time away, but I know it takes a long time to go up and down those stairs. How did you find the lady? I hope she liked the tea I sent her. I gave her some bread and honey instead of bread and butter.”

Peggy thought this rather remarkable, as she remembered the nursery rhyme about the Queen being in her parlour eating bread and honey. She wondered whether Mrs. Emma had any suspicion of the prisoner being the Queen.

Before she could reply Mrs. Emma went on, “I was just saying to my husband that she is very like what Queen Rosebud was, except for her crown. Queen Rosebud had no sisters, but I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she didn’t turn out to be a sort of cousin. If you think that is likely, I shall ask her to write her name in my birthday book.”

So she seemed to have no suspicion of the truth; but that seemed to be only because the Queen was not wearing her crown.

“It would be nice to have her name in your book,” said Peggy. “Shall I take up the other tray now?”

“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Emma. “And then will you please bring the keys down? You have been very kind helping us, but of course we must not forget that you are a prisoner.”

Peggy smiled to herself as she went upstairs again. If she took the keys down, their room would not be locked, and she would hardly be a prisoner. But she did not say anything, as she thought that if the door was left unlocked she might take Wooden or Lady Grace, or both of them, up to see the Queen.

The dolls were interested in what she told them, but they were now quite used to the idea of Queen Rosebud being alive, and showed less excitement at her news than Peggy had expected. While she had been away, they seemed to have been talking about the failure of the plan concocted by Teddy and Colonel Jim, and to have agreed that Teddy had not behaved well in telling Colonel Jim that Mr. Emma would say, “With pleasure,” when he asked him if he could go up to the top story. For Mr. Emma had said quite the opposite.

“I always knew Teddy was flighty,” said Wooden, “but I did not think that he would go so far as to tell a story.”

“So many people seem to be telling them now,” said Lady Grace sadly. “It is very dreadful.”

“But Teddy didn’t tell a story,” said Peggy. “He only thought that Mr. Emma would say that, and told Colonel Jim so.”

Wooden’s aunt, who was already very busy with her tea, slapped her knee, and said, with a mouth full of bread and butter, “There now! Didn’t I say the very same thing? I was the only one as stuck up for Teddy. I said he wouldn’t tell a lie, because I knowed he wouldn’t.”

“You didn’t say what Peggy says he told Colonel Jim,” said Wooden’s mother. “Are you sure he said that, dear?”

“Yes,” said Peggy stoutly. “That is what he must have said.”

“Well, I am sure I am very glad to hear it,” said Wooden, with a sigh of relief. “I know _you_ wouldn’t tell a story, dear, and if you say that is what Teddy said, of course he said it. I am _very_ glad he didn’t tell a story, as I shouldn’t like to think ill of him. I suppose you couldn’t tell us what Rose really said, could you? I have never liked her, but you did exchange her for me over there, and I have always felt sorry for her, because the exchange was such a good thing for me. I should like not to think badly of her, if I could.”

“Rose has told nothing but stories,” said Peggy decisively. “She is really wicked, and when Queen Rosebud comes to the throne again I hope she will do something to her. I am very glad I did exchange her for you, dear Wooden, especially now I know what she is really like.”

“Perhaps if she had stayed with you she might not have been so wicked,” said Wooden; and Peggy thought this was a great compliment from a doll, because in some ways they are better than human beings. Of course they have not so many temptations to be naughty, but I am not sure that they don’t resist the temptations that they do have better than a good many humans. Rose was quite an exception, and as for Selim, he wasn’t a proper doll at all, and had spent his active life in being so harried about a chess board, with hectoring Queens, and heavy Castles, and sliding Bishops, and hopping Knights, and perky little Pawns always giving him check, and he not able to move more than one square at a time, that perhaps it was no wonder that he would do anything to get into a position in which he could really act like a King. However, I am far from excusing his abominable behaviour at this particular time, and think that Peggy was quite right in hoping that he would come to be soundly punished for it.

When they had nearly finished their tea, footsteps and voices were heard coming up the stairs, and to their surprise the Lord Chancellor came into the room, followed by Mr. Emma.

The Lord Chancellor looked annoyed, and Mr. Emma looked frightened. Peggy guessed at once that this was because the Lord Chancellor had found out about Mr. Emma giving her his keys.

She was right. As they came into the room, the Lord Chancellor said, “I dare say the young lady did want to see your baby. Nobody knows better than I do, from long experience of the law, that young ladies like to see babies, and you have nothing to teach me about that. But you had no right whatever to lend her your keys, and allow her to go in and out of this room as she pleases.”

When he had said this he changed his expression of face completely, and smiled at Peggy and the four dolls. “Well, ladies,” he said, “I am glad to see you all looking so well, and I expect you are glad to see me looking well. I should say now that none of you have been in the least inconvenienced by your visit to this handsome building.”

He said this as if he were inviting them to agree with him, and added, “Why, for part of the time you haven’t even had the door locked, which must have taken away the idea of a prison from your minds altogether.”

Peggy thought this was rather cool, considering they had just heard him scolding Mr. Emma for letting them have the door unlocked. While the Lord Chancellor had been speaking, Mr. Emma had been making signs to her in a pathetic imploring sort of way, pointing up to the ceiling and at her and himself and the Lord Chancellor and the tea-tray on the table, and making words at her with his mouth, none of which she could understand. But suddenly she understood by his signs what he wanted to convey to her. He was begging her not to tell the Lord Chancellor that she had carried the tray up to the top story. So she nodded her head and put her finger on her mouth to assure him that she would keep his secret, for she did not want to get him into further trouble. He seemed a little soothed by this, but still very dejected, as he stood with his head on one side behind the Lord Chancellor.

“If I had not made it a rule of life never to take tea twice on the same day,” said the Lord Chancellor, “I should feel inclined to ask you for a cup. I assure you that this is better tea than I drank at my own house half an hour ago. Really, I feel inclined to wish that I could be sent to the House of Cards myself, for a short time. I doubt if there is a more comfortable place in the whole of Dolltown. Now, confess, ladies. Haven’t you found it so?”

“We have nothing to complain of in our treatment,” said Wooden, in a polite and simple but yet dignified way. “But nobody likes to be in prison, and I would rather go without my tea altogether than have it and be shut up.”

The Lord Chancellor seemed delighted with this speech. “Now, it is a most extraordinary thing,” he said, “that you should express those sentiments. I was half afraid, when I came in, that you would be so delighted with your present situation that you would not want to exchange it for another. In fact, I thought you might even refuse to do so. I am very glad indeed that I was mistaken. For I have come to tell you that his most gracious Majesty, moved by one or two things that I have said to him, has instructed me to release you and Peggy. Now, don’t tell me--_please_ don’t tell me--that you would rather stay where you are.”

“No, I shall not,” said Wooden. “I am very glad to be let out of prison. I ought never to have been sent here. None of us ought. Are my mother and aunt and Lady Grace still to be kept here?”

“If she and Peggy go, _I_ go,” said Wooden’s aunt. “That’s flat.”

“You will go by-and-by,” said the Lord Chancellor in a soothing voice. “Leave it to me, and I will arrange it all. But I’m afraid you three others will have to stay here a little longer. Lady Grace is Wax, you see, and the order for releasing Waxes has not yet been given. But it will be. You needn’t have the slightest doubt about that. Just have patience for a little; that’s all.”

“Well, I ain’t Wax,” said Wooden’s aunt. “I’m Wood, and proud of it. What’s the matter with me being let out?”

“Well,” said the Lord Chancellor, “the fact is that the King is still rather annoyed with you for thinking of such a thing as him marrying you.”

“I don’t think of it no more,” said Wooden’s aunt. “I don’t want to marry the old heathen image. You tell him that, Mr. Lawyer, with Wooden’s aunt’s comps.”

“Certainly, I will,” said the Lord Chancellor, with a polite bow. “It may make all the difference; there’s no telling.”

“Am I to stay in prison?” asked Wooden’s mother. “If so, I think it is very unfair. I’ve done nothing.”

“I hinted as much to his Majesty,” said the Lord Chancellor, “but he said two out at a time was enough. So I shouldn’t worry about it if I were you. You’ll be let out all in good time, and you are so comfortable here that it hardly makes any difference whether it’s sooner or later.”

“You keep on saying that like a Poll-parrot,” said Wooden’s aunt. “I’ve no patience with you. You go back and tell your master that if I ain’t let out of this in an hour’s time I’ll yell the place down. So there now!”

“I will be sure to convey your message, madam,” said the Lord Chancellor, as politely as before. “Now, I think we might make a start, eh?” He turned towards Emma, and his face became severe once more. “As for you, sir,” he said, “I shall have you dismissed from your post. You have given your keys to a prisoner. That is the most serious offence you could have committed.”

Poor Mr. Emma threw himself on his knees and held up his hands in supplication. “Oh, don’t dismiss me, your Honour,” he cried, “I’ve got a wife and a dear little baby, and you wouldn’t want them to starve, now would you? You’ve got a kind face; and a kind heart goes with it--I know it do. Don’t turn me off; please don’t.”

The Lord Chancellor’s face became softer. “It is quite true that I have a kind face,” he said. “Many people have remarked the same thing before now, and some of them have even gone so far as to say that for my age it is a handsome face. Of course that was only said in compliment, I know; I don’t wish to make too much of it; but it does show that there is something in my face that strikes people, and I don’t wonder that it has struck you. Well, now, about dismissing you from your post--if I _could_ find a way out of it----!”

He looked at Peggy, as if he expected her to help him, but for the moment she couldn’t think of anything.

“Of course you have committed a serious fault,” he said to Mr. Emma, who had risen from his knees and was waiting to hear what was to be done to him, with a mournful expression on his face. “Prisoners are entrusted to you, and you are right in treating them as well as you can. But you have treated this young lady as if she weren’t a prisoner at all.”

“But I am not a prisoner,” said Peggy. “You have said yourself that I am not.”

The Lord Chancellor’s face lightened. “Now, why didn’t I think of that?” he said. “It makes all the difference. Mr. Emma, you have committed no fault whatever. In fact, by carrying out his Majesty’s wishes at the earliest possible moment, you have shown yourself a zealous servant of the Crown, and I shall have much pleasure in recommending you for a rise in wages.”

So that matter was settled in the most satisfactory fashion, and Peggy was pleased to see Mr. Emma cheer up and look proud of himself, as if he had done something particularly clever.

She and Wooden said good-bye to the others, who did not seem so disappointed at still being kept in prison as might have been expected. There are many advantages in being a doll, and one of them is that they have such a lot of time before them that they are a good deal more patient than we are when things are not going well for them. They know that the bad time will end, and are content to wait till it does. Peggy managed to whisper to Lady Grace that she would do all she could to set things right and get the Queen out of prison. Then, of course, she would come out, too, and be restored to her post as lady-in-waiting. Wooden’s aunt was still eating and drinking in great enjoyment, and Wooden’s mother, after kissing them farewell, said that she should have a little nap, and when she woke up perhaps she would be let out.

XII

PEGGY STAYS IN A REAL DOLLS’ HOUSE

Peggy had only stayed a very short time in prison, and had been so much interested in all that had happened there that she had hardly been able to think of herself in prison at all, but she was none the less pleased to be in the open street and free to go anywhere. They were going first of all to Wooden’s house, which was in the chief residential quarter of Dolltown, near the royal palace.

The news of the imprisonment of a human child, and of four dolls, two at least of whom were highly respected, must have spread; for as they walked along everybody seemed to recognize them, and they were followed by an ever increasing crowd of dolls, who seemed to be greatly excited by their reappearance. The Lord Chancellor was in a high state of delight at the attention they were receiving. If he had a fault, it was a slight but excusable vanity. By his own labours he had raised himself to his present proud position, and thought it only natural that everybody who saw him should be extremely interested in him. He was generally accompanied by his secretary when he walked about the streets of Dolltown, so that if he happened to go unrecognized the secretary could tell the people who he was. But this time he had left him behind, to write out the notes he had taken in the Hall of Audience, and walked alone with Peggy and Wooden.

He certainly received a great deal of attention, and was at first very pleased with it, as I have said. But by-and-by he became a good deal less pleased.

For the crowd was not so good-tempered as it had been when they had all walked to prison together. Most of the dolls that composed it made a lot of fuss over Peggy and Wooden, whom they were pleased to see let out of prison, but they did not seem at all pleased to see the Lord Chancellor, and he had to listen to some unpleasant remarks about himself for his share in what had happened.

These remarks caused him a good deal of pain, and, when he understood that he was not sharing in the popularity that Peggy and Wooden enjoyed, he began to explain to everybody who would listen to him that he had been against sending anybody to prison from the first, and that it was entirely owing to him that Peggy and Wooden had been let out. But nobody did listen to him very carefully, and one rather rude Dutch doll actually said to him, “Oh, dry up, you silly old fool, and don’t talk so much.” This distressed him very much. He had never in his life been called a silly old fool before, and the phrase rankled. He did not try to excuse himself any more, but kept on repeating “silly old fool” under his breath, so as to see if it was really as bad as it sounded.

Wooden’s house was situated in a handsome terrace, which had a gate and a little wooden lodge at each end of it, to keep the houses private. This was a good thing, for the crowd had to stay outside the gates. It was nice to have them so enthusiastic, but they might have made themselves a nuisance if they had swarmed about the house itself, and looked in at the windows, and dirtied the front door steps.

Wooden had told Peggy what a nice house she had, and was pleased to be able to show it to her. It was a handsome, rather old-fashioned, wooden dolls’ house of three stories and six rooms, with a staircase running up the middle. It was nicely furnished, too, with beautifully-made dolls’ furniture and ornaments. Any little girl would have been overjoyed at having such a dolls’ house given to her to play with. To Peggy it was even more delightful than if she had had it as a toy, because it was of a size that made it possible for her to use it as a real house. Instead of putting her hand inside the rooms with great care, so as not to disturb the arrangements, she could go into all the rooms herself and use the things in them.

I know that it is not customary in stories to talk about the rooms and furniture of a house before your characters have entered it; but in this case it is all right, because the front of the house stood open, and Peggy saw nearly everything inside it before they went in.

The rooms were a good deal larger than those in most dolls’ houses. I mean not only larger because the house had grown up, so to speak, but because they would hold more dolls and more furniture. In a dolls’ house it is sometimes awkward to have a doll or a piece of furniture that takes up nearly the whole of a room, and even in good ones it does not often happen that the rooms are big enough to accommodate many dolls, or more than a few pieces of furniture. But there was quite a lot of furniture in the rooms of Wooden’s house, and although they were all square, and of the same size, which gave them a certain lack of variety, they would comfortably hold quite a large number of dolls.

On the ground floor were a kitchen and a dining-room, on the first floor a drawing-room and the best bedroom, and on the top floor a servants’ room and a spare room. Wooden pointed them out as they walked up the terrace, and said that as long as Peggy stayed with her she should give her the best bedroom, because it had the best furniture in it, and use the spare room for herself.

It was just like Wooden to offer to do this, but Peggy said no, she wouldn’t hear of it. She could not see the furniture of the spare room from where they were, as it was too high up, but she was sure it was good enough for her.

It may seem a little odd that Wooden should have spoken as if they were going to stay in Toyland, if not for ever, at least for some time. For Peggy had understood that the dolls who were still played with by children only went to Toyland when it was night--“over there,” as they would have said. But it did not seem odd to her, and in fact she never thought about it. Once in Toyland, the dolls who inhabited that pleasant country behaved as if they always lived there. It seemed to come from the air of the place; and that explains why Peggy never once thought of going home again as long as she was there, any more than Wooden or any of the other dolls did.

The weather was fine and warm, which would have made it nice to have the front of the house open, although a little wanting in privacy. But Wooden said, “I should like you to go in through the front door, dear. It is a beautiful door, and it seems a pity not to use it. So I think I will have the front of the house shut.”

Two wooden servant dolls, a cook and a housemaid, dressed one in a blue, the other in a black frock, with snowy white caps and aprons, had been standing in front of the kitchen looking out for them. Wooden told them to shut the front of the house, and they came out and did so, pushing it back quite easily. For they were good servants and devoted to their mistress, and kept the hinges well oiled.

When the front of the house was shut it looked very handsome indeed. The door that Wooden was so proud of was inside a fine porch, and had a brass knocker on it. All the windows had little panes of glass, kept beautifully clean, and white curtains looped up inside them. And each of them had a neat iron railing in front of it to hold flowers. It was like a real house, and yet it was like a dolls’ house, too, which made it all the more fascinating.

They went up two steps under the porch, and Wooden knocked with the knocker, to show that it was a real knocker. The doll housemaid opened the door, and they went in. For the first time in her life, naturally, Peggy was inside a real dolls’ house, with the front shut and even the door shut. Hitherto she had only been able to see what it was like by peeping in through the windows; for of course you know that a dolls’ house can never be quite the same with its front open. It takes away from the make-believe. She felt frightfully pleased; and it really was nice, and not a bit like a real house, although everything in it was of an ordinary real size.

The Lord Chancellor had come in with them. He had told Wooden that he had had a lot of running about and should like to rest a little. But, of course, what he really wanted was to get away from the crowd, and go home later on when it should have dispersed. But Wooden said that it was an honour to entertain him in her own house, which pleased him, and by the time they had got inside he had recovered some of his spirits, and seemed ready to be as talkative as ever.

Wooden led the way up to the drawing-room, which had a carpet of a very large pattern and a wall paper with enormous roses on it. The furniture was beautifully made, but Peggy felt that she was really sitting on a dolls’ sofa and not on an ordinary one, although it was comfortable, and of an ordinary size. Nothing was quite the same. The mirrors had tin frames, the books on the tables were evidently toy books, with thick leaves and bindings that did not keep quite flat; and there were some packs of cards and some dominoes on another table looking exactly like those very tiny ones which you can buy in shops, but are so small that you do not want to play with them more than once.

They had hardly sat down, Peggy and Wooden on the sofa and the Lord Chancellor on a large chair, before the doll housemaid opened the door and announced a visitor, by the name of Mrs. Winifred.

Mrs. Winifred was a mature-looking Dutch doll. Most of the wooden dolls in Toyland were of Dutch extraction, even Wooden herself, just like many of the old families of New York, but they were no more Dutch than the New Yorkers are. She came forward and kissed Wooden, and said she was very glad she had come out of prison, and she felt that she must come round at once and tell her so.

Mrs. Winifred had hardly been accommodated with a seat before Mrs. Hilda was announced, and when Mrs. Hilda had said the same as Mrs. Winifred, Captain and Mrs. Louisa were announced. Captain Louisa was an officer in a regiment of wooden soldiers, and wore his uniform. His wife and Mrs. Hilda were wooden dolls like Mrs. Winifred. These were followed by Mr. and Mrs. Joyce, Mr. and Mrs. Ida, Mrs. Mollie, Mrs. Jane, and one or two more, all of the best wooden families of Dolltown, and it was evidently a source of great pride to Wooden that they should show such a nice feeling towards her.

She introduced them all to Peggy, and those who did not know him to the Lord Chancellor. There were so many of them that it was like a sort of party. The dolls sat rather stiffly in their chairs, and there were other little points about them, such as their knees showing rather prominently through their skirts and trousers, which made it seem like a dolls’ party, and as if they were all playing at something. This pleased Peggy. She felt as if she had set them all down herself on their chairs and on the sofas, exactly where she wanted them to be, as she did sometimes with her smaller dolls in her dolls’ house at home, and pretended that they were talking politely to each other.

XIII

THE DOLLS TALK IT ALL OVER

The late imprisonment of Peggy and Wooden, and especially of Wooden, naturally formed the chief subject of conversation.

“I must say,” said Mrs. Winifred, “that I was surprised to hear that _you_ had been sent to prison, Mrs. Wooden. We had all heard that such a _very_ different lot had been prepared for you.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Hilda. “What we heard was that you were to be made Queen and live in the palace.”

“And we were very _glad_ to hear it,” said Mrs. Joyce, a thin, rather vinegary-looking doll, whom Peggy did not very much take to. “We knew that if _you_ were made Queen there would be no more high-and-mightiness at the palace, and you wouldn’t give yourself airs with _us_.”

“It would be the beginning of a new era,” said Mr. Joyce, who was a members of the Dolls’ Parliament. “The Woodens would be no longer oppressed by the Waxes, and peace and contentment would reign, where before there had been strife and inequality.”

“I’m not sure,” said the Lord Chancellor, “that I quite agree with that observation. As Woods, all this extremely intelligent and entertaining company is naturally pleased at having a Wooden King to reign over Toyland. But under our late lamented Queen Rosebud, as far as my memory carries me back, there was no oppression. And personally I boast intimate friends amongst dolls of all varieties, from Wax to Rag.”

“What I think,” said Mrs. Mollie, a severe-looking doll with a long upper lip, “is that we were a good deal better off under Queen Rosebud than we are likely to be under King Selim. I don’t hold with these foreigners.”

The other dolls seemed to be rather taken aback by this plainness of speech, and the Lord Chancellor said, “Tut, tut! You mustn’t say things like that, my dear lady. It isn’t respectful to the Crown.”

“But it’s what a good many of us are feeling,” said Mrs. Winifred. “At first it was very nice to feel we were considered as good as the Waxes. In this company there’s no harm in saying that Waxes do give themselves airs, and it isn’t nice to feel you are considered common, when you know you are nothing of the sort, but quite the opposite.”

“But _all_ Waxes don’t give themselves airs,” said Wooden, speaking for the first time. “There’s Lady Grace, now. Both of us live with this dear little girl when we’re over there, and we are real friends, and there’s never a word awry between us. And it’s the same here.”

“I’m sure,” said Mrs. Ida, a young-looking doll who was dressed more fashionably than the rest, “that I have always got on as well as possible with the Waxes. In fact, most of my friends were Wax before they were all sent to prison.”

“I should think you must feel a bit lonely, then,” said Mrs. Jane. “I’ve always associated with Woods myself, and prefer their company.”

“The best company in Toyland,” said Mrs. Winifred, “is to be found amongst the higher classes of Woods. Still, I’m against this sending to prison of all Waxes, whether they give themselves airs or not.”

“It isn’t so much the shutting up of Waxes that I object to,” said Mrs. Louisa. “It’s the shutting up of Woods. How did it come about, Wooden, that instead of marrying the King you were sent to prison?”

Captain Louisa cleared his throat behind his hand. “Manners, my dear, manners!” he whispered to his wife.

“We don’t want to go into all that,” said the Lord Chancellor. “Perhaps a slight mistake was made; but it has now been put right, chiefly owing to representations made to his Majesty by myself.”

“It hasn’t been put right, and we do want to talk about it,” said Mrs. Mollie. “There are two Wooden dolls still locked up in the House of Cards, to say nothing of a Wax one. What were they locked up for, and when are they going to be let out?”

She addressed her question directly to the Lord Chancellor, and there seemed to be a general opinion amongst the other dolls that it was right to ask it, and that it wanted an answer.

The Lord Chancellor gave one. He gave it at great length, but there was not much in it. It seemed that all they had to do was to trust to him, and everything would come right in the end.

“That doesn’t satisfy _me_,” said Mrs. Mollie, when he had quite finished. “And it isn’t only Woods either that have been sent to prison, and are being kept there for nothing at all. What about this human child? What was _she_ sent to prison for? I’m against sending human children to prison when they are allowed to come over and visit us. It’s likely to make bad feeling over there.”

There were murmurs of approval at this, and all the dolls looked sympathetically at Peggy, who felt rather shy.

“You are quite right, Mrs. Mollie,” said Captain Louisa. “And I may tell you in strict confidence that the army feels with you about it. It is the best army to be found anywhere. Leads and Woods alike are devoted to their duty, and quite ready for a war, if a war is forced on us. But we don’t want a war with the people over there. We should win, of course, in the long run, but it would leave bad blood behind it, and while it was going on our women and children wouldn’t be safe.”

“It’s a prospect I don’t like at all,” said Mrs. Winifred. “I have received nothing but kindness from Humans, myself, and I believe the same may be said by most of us here. I say that Peggy ought not to have been locked up, and I hope she will remember that I said that when she goes back. Mrs. Winifred, 4 Prospect Place, Dolltown, are my name and address, and over there I may be found at any time at Top Drawer, Day Nursery Chest, 43 Hamilton Square, London, S.W.”

All the other dolls hastened to give Peggy their names and addresses, except Mr. Joyce, who said, “My peace-loving sentiments are well known, and nobody over there is likely to make any mistake about them. I agree with the opinion of this assembly to this extent: I believe that a Wood King is the best kind of King we could have for Toyland, but I’m not at all sure that King Selim is the right doll in the right place, or that this reign is likely to be an improvement on the last. Wax or no Wax, Queen Rosebud would never have made the mistakes in foreign policy that have already been made in this reign. If we are not very careful, this young lady, and others who may come over to visit us, will carry back a report that may bring serious trouble. King Selim ought to be told that.”

“For my part, I’ve no patience with King Selim,” said Mrs. Mollie. “I heartily wish Queen Rosebud wasn’t dead.”

“But Queen Rosebud _isn’t_ dead,” said Wooden. “She is locked up in the House of Cards. Peggy took her tea up to her this very afternoon.”

She spoke in a tone of surprise, as if everybody ought to know that Queen Rosebud was alive. Peggy had been wondering whether it would be a good thing to tell the dolls what she had discovered, and now that Wooden had let it out, she was rather glad. She didn’t much like keeping such a secret to herself, and, of course, a doll is hardly capable of keeping any secret, and Wooden had only not spoken before because she had got used to the idea of Queen Rosebud being alive, and had not thought much about it since.

“Oh, my dear lady!” said the Lord Chancellor, before anybody could speak. “You mustn’t say a thing like that, you know. King Selim has said that Queen Rosebud is dead and of course she must be dead.”

“But she isn’t,” Wooden persisted. “Peggy has seen her.”

“Yes, I did,” said Peggy. “She is in the top story of the House of Cards. Selim and Rose had her locked up there, and they said that if she told anybody who she was they would put her in a dark dungeon. They are both very wicked.”

“Well, that’s beyond everything!” said Mrs. Winifred. “And I should like to know who Rose is, to go locking up the Queen.”

“If Waxes like to give themselves airs, that’s one thing,” said Mrs. Ida. “But for a Composition----! That’s what nobody can stand.”

“There are Compositions and Compositions,” said Mrs. Mollie. “But Rose would be a disgrace to _any_ class. She ought to be locked up herself.”

“And I think you ought to see to it, Lord Norval,” said Mrs. Jane. “According to Peggy, she has told a deliberate falsehood, and that is punishable by law, as I’ve always understood.”

They seemed to be in danger of forgetting all about Queen Rosebud in their disgust for Rose. But this brought them back to the subject.

“I quite agree with you,” said the Lord Chancellor. “It is a most disgraceful affair altogether. I shall inform his Majesty about it at once, and request him to see that Rose is properly punished. What I shall suggest is that she shall take Queen Rosebud’s place in prison. I fancy that would be rather neat, eh? I shall press the point on his Majesty.”

“But Selim is just as bad as she is,” exclaimed Peggy. “_He_ ought to be sent to prison, too. Why do you call him ‘His Majesty’? He isn’t a King at all.”

“Hush, hush, my dear young lady!” said the Lord Chancellor, much shocked. “I know you are human, and to be excused on that account, but if one of _us_ had said that, it would be punishable, you know. Selim is a King. He wears a crown. We have all seen it.”

“He is only a chess king,” said Peggy. “I meant that he isn’t King of Toyland. He can’t be, if Queen Rosebud is still alive.”

“That’s one way of looking at it, certainly,” said the Lord Chancellor, in a puzzled kind of way. “I shall have to think about it very carefully when I go home. He _says_ he’s King of Toyland. I shall get at it better when I’ve slept over it.”

“But aren’t you going to do anything now?” asked Peggy. “There’s Queen Rosebud still locked up in the House of Cards. _I_ think Captain Louisa ought to take his soldiers at once, and let her out.”

All the dolls had sat with puzzled faces, looking at Peggy and the Lord Chancellor. They had all been ready to talk a great deal, but when it came to doing something they seemed quite at a loss.

Captain Louisa started when his name was mentioned. “If it was my duty, I should do it,” he said. “I should do it very well--nobody better.”

“Well, I think it is your duty,” said Peggy. “Don’t you, Wooden?”

“Well, dear,” said Wooden, “if we all did our duty as well as Captain Louisa, we might be very proud of ourselves.”

Captain Louisa looked proudly at Peggy. “You see what she thinks of me,” he said. “And it isn’t only me either. My men would follow me anywhere.”

Mrs. Winifred rose from her seat. “I’m afraid I must say good-bye, dear Mrs. Wooden,” she said. “I am so glad you have been let out of prison. And I’m so glad that Queen Rosebud isn’t dead. Somehow, I could never feel that she was.”

All the dolls rose one after the other to say good-bye. They all said they were glad that Queen Rosebud was alive, and some of them said that she ought not to stay in prison a moment longer. But none of them seemed interested in how she was to be got out, or in what should happen afterwards, except that Mrs. Mollie said she hoped Rose would get her deserts, and Mrs. Ida said that they saw now what came of Compositions giving themselves airs. However much they seemed to be different from one another in their way of talking and looking at things, they all seemed alike in having no idea of acting for themselves. They were very nice, but Peggy thought that if she had been the Queen in prison she would hardly have felt so confident as Queen Rosebud had been of her doll subjects getting her out again.

However, the Lord Chancellor, who stayed behind, did seem to think that _something_ ought to be done, though he seemed disinclined to do it himself. “When the people get to know of this,” he said, “I’m afraid there will be trouble. The question is, how to act so as to save trouble.”

“_I_ should think the question was how to get poor Queen Rosebud out of prison as soon as possible,” said Peggy.

“Well, certainly there is that side of it,” he said. “The only thing is that if she comes out of prison and goes back to the palace, there will be two of them--a King and a Queen--and that is something that it is very difficult to know how to deal with, without a great deal of careful thought. If King Selim could marry Queen Rosebud, now! How does that strike you as a way of getting over the difficulty?”

“It doesn’t strike me at all,” said Peggy. “Selim has done a very wicked and horrible thing. Queen Rosebud was ill, and she _might_ have died, and if she had it would have been all his fault. He has told heaps of stories about her. She never told him that he was to be King after her at all. That’s one story. And he told the people she was dead. That’s another. And he has sent a lot of dolls to prison for nothing at all. He has done very wrong, and he ought to be punished.”

“That is a very eloquent speech,” said the Lord Chancellor. “Very eloquent indeed. I wish I could make one like it. But you see the trouble is that the King can do no wrong; so of course you can’t punish him.”

“But he _has_ done wrong,” said Peggy. “And he _isn’t_ the King. You keep on talking about him as if Queen Rosebud wasn’t alive. _She_ is the Queen. Selim is only a usurper.”

“I’m beginning to see it,” said the Lord Chancellor. “It’s a very subtle point, but I’m beginning to see it, or at least some of it.”

Whether he would have seen all of it in time cannot be known, for just at that moment the door was opened by the housemaid doll, and in came Colonel Jim and Teddy.

XIV

THE ESCAPE

The moment Teddy came into the room, Peggy felt that the time for action had come. And she had never felt more pleased with him than when he addressed himself straight to the Lord Chancellor, and said, “Now, then, old man, you come along with us to the House of Cards. We’re going to get the Queen out of prison, and we want you with us.”

“I’m sure I’m very glad that you propose to adopt that course,” said the Lord Chancellor, speaking quickly and nervously. “It is exactly what I should have recommended myself. But why do you want me with you? I should have thought--”

“Never mind what you would have thought,” said Teddy. “We want you with us because, now the people have found out that old Selim’s a rascal, and the Queen isn’t dead, they’ve got their dander up. They’ll have some questions to ask, and you can answer them. Colonel Jim and me will be too busy.”

This did not seem to suit the Lord Chancellor at all. He began to protest vigorously that he had had no more to do with the fraud that Selim had practised than anybody else. But Teddy cut him short. “If you won’t come of your own accord,” he said, “Colonel Jim has a couple of troopers outside who will make you. You’d like to come, too, Peggy and Wooden. We’ve brought gees for everybody. Come along quick. We don’t want to waste any time.”

He led the way downstairs, and the others followed him, Colonel Jim bringing up the rear, and keeping an eye on the Lord Chancellor to see that he did not escape.

Waiting outside the house were several horses. There was Colonel Jim’s black charger, and those of his two troopers. These were of lead. There were also some composition horses, and a couple of shaggy ponies, made of wood and covered with hair, and a beautiful cream-coloured one, with a bridle and saddle-cloth sewn with gold embroidery. They were all toy horses and ponies, but they looked splendidly alive, and Peggy was quite delighted to see that the two shaggy ponies had side-saddles, for she knew at once that one must be meant for her and one for Wooden. She loved riding, and thought it would be great fun to ride through the streets of Dolltown on a toy pony.

Wooden was not used to riding, although Peggy had sometimes put her on her rocking-horse at home, so she was not altogether without practice. But Teddy assured her that he had chosen her a very quiet pony, and she was so nice, in the way that she always did what people wanted her to, that she made no trouble about it, and got on very well when she was once helped into the saddle. Peggy felt quite at home on her pony, and patted its nice shaggy neck. She would have liked to have a gallop on it, but that would not be possible in the streets of the town. Colonel Jim and his troopers mounted their chargers, the Lord Chancellor got on to one of the composition horses, and Teddy leapt on to another straight from the ground, without using the stirrup. A royal servant-doll, dressed in scarlet and gold, led the beautiful cream-coloured pony, which was evidently meant for Queen Rosebud. It was a good idea to have a sort of little procession on horseback to take her from her prison to her royal palace again, and no doubt Teddy had thought of it, for he seemed to be the only one who really did things, while the other dolls only talked about them.

What Teddy said about the inhabitants of Dolltown being excited over what had happened was quite true. The crowd outside the gates of the terrace was larger than ever, and when Peggy and the dolls appeared amongst them on horseback there was quite a commotion. They cheered them all except the Lord Chancellor, and they were so angry with him that they would probably have pulled him off his horse if he had not been riding between the two troopers, who protected him. They seemed to have taken the affair much more seriously than the dolls who had come to visit Wooden, but then a crowd always is more excited about things than a few people, because they work each other up. Very likely, if this crowd of dolls had had to do something of their own accord, instead of shouting at those who were doing it, they would not have been very good at it. And if they _had_ pulled the Lord Chancellor off his horse, it is doubtful if they would have known what to do next.

The poor Lord Chancellor was terribly upset at the way the crowd hissed and booed at him. Peggy heard him explaining to the troopers who rode on either side of him that nobody was more surprised than he was, or more glad either, that Queen Rosebud was alive. But they took no notice of him, and the crowd went on booing and hissing all the same.

When they arrived at the market-place, there was a square of lead life guardsmen all round the door of the House of Cards, to keep the crowd off. The market-place was packed full of dolls, shouting and singing, and looking up to the top story, where they had heard that the Queen was imprisoned. Peggy could see the open window at which she had sat; but she did not appear at it.

What seemed more remarkable still was that there was nobody on the balcony of the first floor, either. It might have been thought that Wooden’s aunt, at least, would have been there, watching what was going on. But there was nobody to be seen.

They rode into the empty space kept by the soldiers. Teddy whispered something to Colonel Jim, who got off his charger and went up the steps and knocked at the door. As he waited for a minute before it was opened, all the dolls on that side of the market-place were quite silent.

The door was opened by Mr. Emma. Peggy could not hear what passed between him and Colonel Jim, but presently Colonel Jim turned sharp round and came down the steps again. “The Queen’s gone,” he said. “So are the other prisoners. Selim and Rose came and fetched them half an hour ago.”

Here was a piece of news! Mr. Emma was summoned, and made to tell exactly what had happened. The Lord Chancellor asked most of the questions, for he was out of reach of the crowd and had somewhat recovered from his fright. Besides, he was used to asking questions, and liked doing it.

It seemed that Selim had come to the prison in a closed carriage, accompanied by Rose; and another empty carriage had come with them. He had seemed to Mr. Emma to be in a very nervous state, but he had not seen much of him, because he had sat in the carriage all the time, while Rose had gone in to the House of Cards, and fetched the Queen down. Mr. Emma had not known it was the Queen until this moment, for he had kept himself shut up in the House of Cards, with Mrs. Emma and the baby, and had not tried to find out what the crowd outside was so excited about.

The Lord Chancellor asked him what the Queen had said when she had come downstairs.

“She didn’t say nothing, your Honour,” said Mr. Emma. “She looked kind of proud-like, and held her head high. If she’d had her crown on I should have knowed it was the Queen by the way she behaved.”

Well, the Queen had got into the carriage where Selim was, and then Rose had gone upstairs and fetched down Lady Grace, and Wooden’s mother and aunt. Wooden’s aunt had seemed very pleased with herself, according to Mr. Emma. She had imitated a grand lady mincing down the steps, and said to him, “Out of the way, Bobby, we’re going to the palace. Haw! Haw!” This had offended Mr. Emma, for he had left the police force some time before.

Rose had got into the first carriage, with the Queen and Selim, and the other three had got into the second carriage. Then they had all driven away.