Chapter I: Part 1

THE
FLYING CARPET

Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York

COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

Printed in the United States of America

]

LIST OF THOSE WHO HAVE WOVEN THIS
FLYING CARPET

PAGE
_THOMAS HARDY_
_A POPULAR PERSONAGE AT HOME_ 9

_ADELAIDE PHILLPOTTS_
_THOMAS HENRY TITT_ 11
_THEOPHANIA_ 160

_JOHN LEA_
_THE TWO SAILORS_ 108
_THE SIMPLE WAY_ 198

_ALFRED NOYES_
_INVITATION TO THE VOYAGE_ 16

_DESMOND MACCARTHY_
_I WISH I WERE A DOG_ 18

_A. A. MILNE_
_WHEN WE WERE VERY, VERY YOUNG_ 32

_DAVID CECIL_
_THE SHADOW LAND_ 35

_CYNTHIA ASQUITH_
_THE BARGAIN SHOP_ 38
_OLAF THE FAIR AND OLAF THE DARK_ 184

_HENRY NEWBOLT_
_THE JOYOUS BALLAD OF THE PARSON AND THE BADGER_ 54
_VICE-VERSA: ANY FATHER TO ANY DAUGHTER_ 118
_SERMON TIME_ 183
_FINIS_ 200

_A. PEMBURY_
_THE SPARK_ 158
_THE RHYME OF CAPTAIN GALE_ 182

_G. K. CHESTERTON_
_TO ENID_ 57

_CHARLES WHIBLEY_
_SCENES IN THE LIFE OF A PRINCESS_ 60

_J. M. BARRIE_
_NEIL AND TINTINNABULUM_ 65

_HERBERT ASQUITH_
_STORIES_ 15
_THE DREAM_ 96
_EGGS_ 107

_ELIZABETH LOWNDES_
_MR. SNOOGLES_ 99

_HUGH LOFTING_
_DR. DOLITTLE MEETS A LONDONER IN PARIS_ 110

_MARGARET KENNEDY_
_KITTEEN_ 120

_CLEMENCE DANE_
_GILBERT_ 122

_HILAIRE BELLOC_
_JACK AND HIS PONY, TOM_ 129
_TOM AND HIS PONY, JACK_ 131

_WALTER DE LA MARE_
_PIGTAILS, LTD._ 133

_SIR WALTER RALEIGH_
_THE PERFECT HOST_ 157

_EDWARD MARSH_
_THE WEASEL IN THE STOREROOM_ 167

_W. H. DAVIES_
_LOVE THE JEALOUS_ 168

_DENIS MACKAIL_
_THE MAGIC MEDICINE_ 170

List of those who have helped to adorn the
Flying Carpet

_MABEL LUCIE ATTWELL_
_J. R. C. BODLEY_
_L. R. BRIGHTWELL_
_H. M. BROCK_
_HAROLD EARNSHAW_
_DAPHNE JERROLD_
_E. BARNARD LINTOTT_
_HUGH LOFTING_
_GEORGE MORROW_
_SUSAN PEARSE_
_T. HEATH ROBINSON_
_ERNEST H. SHEPARD_
_DUDLEY TENNANT_
_A. H. WATSON_

A POPULAR PERSONAGE AT HOME

BY THOMAS HARDY

“I live here: ‘Wessex’ is my name,
I am a dog known rather well:
I guard the house; but how that came
To be my lot I cannot tell.

“With a leap and a heart elate I go,
At the end of an hour’s expectancy,
To take a walk of a mile or so,
With the folk who share the house with me.

“Along the path amid the grass
I sniff, and find out rarest smells
For rolling over as I pass
The open fields towards the dells.

“No doubt I shall always cross this sill,
And turn the corner, and stand steady,
Gazing back for my mistress till
She reaches where I have run already.

“And that this meadow with its brook,
And bulrush, just as it appears
As I plunge past with hasty look,
Will stay the same a thousand years.”

Thus “Wessex.” Yet a dubious ray
At times informs his steadfast eye,
Just for a trice, as though to say:
“Will these things, after all, go by?”

Thomas Henry Titt

ADELAIDE PHILLPOTTS

In the South West of London stands a cathedral, which, from outside, looks like a child’s castle of bricks. But when you go inside you see nothing at first but a large emptiness—a ceiling somewhere up in the clouds supported by huge marble columns. There is always a smell of incense in the air, and there is a little painted figure before which, night and day, burn three rows of candles. Sometimes, on Saints’ Days, other rows of candles are lighted before other painted figures—St. Andrew, St. Patrick, St. George—making centres of bright light in the dimness of the great interior.

Near this cathedral are blocks of tenement buildings where families dwell, one on top of the other, like books in a bookcase. These buildings are full of children: boys and girls and babies.

On the top floor of one of these blocks lived Thomas Henry Titt, aged twelve. Thomas Henry’s father kept a shop round the corner where you saw sausages and onions frying in the window. His mother was dead. He had an elder sister who mended his clothes and helped their father in the shop. Thomas was known as Tom-Tit; and he looked rather like a bird, for he had thin arms and legs, sharp little eyes, a crest of bright hair, and a pointed nose.

Like every imaginative child, Tom-Tit had a secret: a passion for the sea, which he had never seen. His ocean was in his mind’s eye, and he hoped as no one ever hoped before that one day he might behold the reality of his dream. In the darkness of night Tom-Tit, alone in his attic, lying awake on his mattress, gazed out upon a heaving cornflower-blue coloured ocean—as blue as the flowers which the woman sold at the end of his street. And this ocean was full of shining fishes. There was no land in sight—ever.

Thomas Henry Titt loved the candles that burned before the painted figure in the cathedral. In the winter, when he was small, he had often held his little frozen hands to the warmth of them, when nobody was looking. But as he grew older the candles began to have for him a deeper significance. During evening service he would creep into a corner by one of the pillars, listening to the organ and watching the kneeling people in the distance near the shining altar. Then, when the music stopped and the people were gone, he would steal out and patter along to the rows of candles. There his heart would light up, even as they, and he would thrill with a strange, unaccountable happiness.

Gradually Tom-Tit began to connect these candles with his desire for the sea. The two facts became one in his mind. It was as if, by the light of the former, he could see the blue waves of the other.

Underneath the rows of burning candles was a rack full of new ones. Tom often saw people drop a coin into a box, take one, fix it upon a spike among the rest, and light it. And a longing overcame him to possess for his own one of these new candles. Perhaps, at the bottom of his mind, was the idea that if he took it home and lighted it, it would bring him nearer to his ultimate ambition—to see the sea. He determined to realise his desire.

Then came a winter day when Tom-Tit’s head ached, shivers ran up and down his spine, and he felt very ill. Therefore his sister bade him stay in bed, and he did so until she had left the house with her father. But then, despite his fever, the craving to possess that candle overcame obedience. So, gripping a penny, he rose, staggered downstairs, and out into the road. The cold air cooled his body and numbed his pains. He slipped unnoticed into the cathedral and leaned for a moment against the wall, for his head was swimming and he could not see. Then he recovered, and his eyes sparkled as he beheld the candles flickering like golden flowers before the wooden figure at the end of the aisle. The surrounding air was a golden haze. The smell of incense was sweet.

He tottered to the box of new candles, dropped in his penny, and took one. Then he dragged himself home, feeling worse and worse at every step, but gloriously glad within, because of the candle in his pocket.

All day he lay on his bed, too ill to sit up, nursing his treasure. “I shall be well to-night,” he thought, “and when it’s dark I’ll light it.”

In the evening his father and sister returned, found him in a state of high fever, and sent for the doctor. He, when he saw Tom-Tit, said that he would come back in the morning and remove him to the hospital if he were not better.

He gave Tom a sleeping draught before he left.

When his father and sister had gone to bed, Thomas Henry, feeling drowsy and less hurt with pain, pulled out his candle half melted already by the heat of his hands, lit it, and set it on a chair by his side. Then he lay gazing at it, until the whole world was but a golden flame with a blue root.

Then a wonderful thing happened. He did not see the candle any more. His first idea was that the wind must have blown it out, for a great wind was blowing. Where could he be? He opened his eyes, which must have been closed, and lo! he was in a little wooden boat on a cornflower-blue sea! The boat was rocking from side to side like the baby’s cradle on the floor below—a mechanical rock, rock, rock, rock, from side to side. He scooped up a handful of the sea, and, just as he had expected, it was bright blue. He could see blue shining fishes swimming round the boat, so he caught them in his fingers where they wriggled about and made blue reflections until he threw them back again into the blue water.

And all the time, though he could not see it, the candle was burning at his side—burning lower, and lower, and lower.

From horizon to horizon the cobalt ocean stretched around him—not a speck of land anywhere. He was perfectly happy there staring down through the blue fathoms and feeling the wind blow. He had never been so happy in his life before.

Then the candle went out.

In the morning they found a little pool of grease on the chair—and Tom-Tit was dead.

But this is not really a sad story, because Thomas Henry did what many thousands of people never do, even though they live to be a hundred and three—he realised his ambition. He saw the sea. And he was not disillusioned; for the sea that he saw was just as beautiful as the sea which he imagined: the reality matched the dream.

Stories

HERBERT ASQUITH

When lights are out and Pat’s in bed,
He tells a story from his head
Of men who fight by sea and land
With cutlasses in either hand.
Who make their mouths into a sheath
And sharpen dirks upon their teeth;
And schooners heeling to the breeze
That blows across the coral seas,
With kegs of rum and bars of gold
And corpses rolling in the hold.
Then far below the dining-room
Pours out its voices: through the gloom
Borne on tobacco-laden air
The roar of talk comes up the stair,
But where are now the coral seas
And where is Pat? Lost on the breeze
With streaming flag the schooner fades
And takes her captain to the shades.

Invitation to the Voyage

(_A New Version_)

ALFRED NOYES

A rambling cherry-petalled stream;
A bridge of pale bamboo;
A path that seemed a twisted dream
Where everything came true;
A crimson-lanterned garden-house
With jutting eaves below the boughs;
The slant-eyed elves in blue
With soft slip-slapping heels and toes
Dancing before the Daimyōs:

“_And is it Old Japan_,” you cry
“That half-remembered place”—
I see beneath an English sky
A child with brooding face.
The curious realm he chose to build
And paint with any hues he willed
Is all I strive to trace,
Where odds and ends of memory smile
Like bits of heaven, through clouds awhile.

And some for charts and maps would call,
But here, beside the fire,
The kakemono on the wall
Is all that we require.
A chanty piped by bosun Lear
May float around us while we steer
Our hearts to their desire—
The Nonsense Land beyond the sun
Where West and East, at last, are one.

Then let the rigging hum the tales
That Tusitala[1] told
When first we spread our purple sails
In quest of pirate gold;
For, though he waved us all good-bye
Beneath the deep Samoan sky,
His heart was blithe and bold,
And hailed across a darker main
The shadowy hills of home again.

So we, who now adventure far
Beyond the singing foam,
May see, in every dipping star,
The harbour lights of home;
And, finding still, as all have found,
That every ship is homeward bound,
(For none could ever roam
A sea too wide for heaven to span)
Sail on—sail on—to Old Japan.

Footnote 1:

Robert Louis Stevenson.

I Wish I Were a Dog

DESMOND MACCARTHY

There were five in the family and Dicky, nearly nine, was the youngest but one. Dicky’s father was a country doctor, and, like many country doctors, he led rather a hard life. The sick people he visited lived miles apart, and many were too poor to pay him properly.

Dr. Brook was a tall, pale man with grizzled hair turning to grey. He was clever, and he had a quick, short way of talking. He seemed to make up his mind about everything in a moment, and if you asked him a question, he answered as though it ought not to have been necessary to explain.

Dicky would have been surprised to hear that his father was a kind man, but kind he was. He hated attending upon well-to-do people who had nothing much the matter with them, though he knew he must visit them to make enough money to bring up his own children properly.

He would remember this while he was driving miles out of his way to see some poor cottager, and so, when he arrived at the cottage, he was usually in a bad temper. On the other hand, when he was calling on old Mrs. Varden at The Grange, who was sound as a bell and would probably live to be ninety, he was always thinking of those who really wanted looking after. Then, instead of smiling sympathetically, while she told him how queer she had felt in the middle of the night three weeks ago, or how well her nephews were doing, he would stand in front of the fire in her cosy sitting-room, look up at the ceiling with a stern expression, and rattle the keys in his pocket in a manner which said plainly, “How much longer shall I have to listen to this stuff?” So, although everybody thought Dr. Brook “a very clever doctor,” few people were fond of him.

All day he went bumping and rushing along the country lanes and roads in his shabby, muddy car, which he never had time to clean properly; and when he got home his day’s work was not over. In the evening he turned schoolmaster and taught his children.

Dicky’s mother had died when his brother Peregrin was born. Ella, the eldest of the children, a grown-up girl, kept house and taught Dicky and Peregrin in the morning. She was very like her father in many ways, only her cleverness had turned to music. She played the violin beautifully, and she was dying to get away from home and become a famous musician. Dr. Brook knew this and was very sorry for her; but he could not let her go till Dicky and Peregrin went to school. She had to be a governess till then. The other two boys had done very well. They had both got scholarships, and little Peregrin was as sharp as a needle.

Altogether the doctor had to admit he was very blessed in his children. But there was Dicky! Dicky was a dunce, there was no doubt about it—at least, so Ella reported. And when Dicky showed his smudgy exercise-books to his father in the evenings, his father thought it only too true.

Dicky dreaded the evening every day. He did not much mind his sister Ella’s crossness. He was used to it. But there was something awful about the weary quiet way his father used to ask, “Do you understand _now_?” Dicky had then to say “Yes,” and presently his father would find out he hadn’t understood at all. There would be a still longer pause, and at last his father would sigh, “Unhappy boy, what will become of you!”

This was far worse than being slapped by Ella, though her ring sometimes really did hurt. His father would then repeat what he had said before, twice, very slowly, as though he were dropping the words drop by drop into a medicine glass, looking at Dicky all the time, till Dicky’s lips began to quiver and his eyes to fill, when his father would say hastily, pulling out his watch, “There, there. It’s time for bed. Run along. Kiss me.” Then Dicky’s one desire was to get out of the room before bursting into tears. He did not mind if it happened outside the door or upstairs. Indeed, it was rather a comfort to cry, especially if he could only get hold of Jasper, the black spaniel, to hug and talk to while he was crying. But he was terrified at breaking down before his father. He somehow felt if he did, he might never stop sobbing, or that something else dreadful would happen. One evening it did happen.

The day had been altogether a bad day. Dicky had got up that morning feeling as if his head was rather smaller and lighter than usual. It felt about the size of an apple. Ella had had a fat letter that morning from her bosom friend, at the Royal College of Music in London. Lessons were always worse on the days she heard from her, and that morning it was true also, for once in a way, that Dicky had really _not_ been “trying.” He had begun by making thirty-four mistakes in his French dictation—and he was rather glad. During arithmetic he had amused himself by imagining that the numbers had different characters, and that some of them were very pleased to find themselves side by side in the sums. The result was that all his sums were wrong, and he had exasperated Ella by telling her that it was the fault of number 8, who was a quarrelsome widow and wore spectacles.

When left alone to do his Latin Prose, while Ella went to her bedroom to practise furiously on the fiddle, he had spent the time in teasing a beetle by hemming it in between canals of ink on the schoolroom table. He liked the beetle, but he enjoyed imagining its disgust and perplexity, and he enjoyed feeling that he could, but wouldn’t, drown it. When Ella came back and found that he had only written one Latin word, “Jam” (already), on the paper, she tore the exercise book from him and said that he could do what he liked: she would tell his father and never teach him again—never, never, never.

But the evening was a long way off, and Dicky walked into the garden, in a gloomy sort of way rather proud of himself. He found, however, he could not amuse himself, so he devoted himself to amusing Jasper, chasing him in circles about the lawn and throwing sticks for him to fetch. When the dog had had enough, and lay down on the grass with his paws out in front of him like a lion, Dicky did not know what to do next. He went down himself on all fours and kissed Jasper, who responded, between quick pants, with a hasty slobber of his pink quivering tongue, as though he were snapping at a fly. Ah, if only he were as happy as Jasper! Dicky suddenly remembered that an old gentleman had once given him a sort of blessing, saying, “May you be as happy as a good dog.” What an easy time Jasper had! Of course he got into trouble if he rolled in things, but if Dicky were in his shoes—or perhaps he ought to say on his paws—_he_ wouldn’t want to. (Jasper certainly had a very odd taste in scent.) Examinations, scholarships—those awful things meant nothing to him. Dicky thought he could have easily managed to be a good dog. And since he wanted to stop thinking about himself, he began to play a favourite game of imagining what Jasper said to other dogs about his home and the family. How he would boast to them of the excellent rabbit-hunting in the copse near by, of the good bones he had and the warm fires; and how he would tell them about jumping on Dick’s bed in the morning and how perfectly Dick and he understood each other. But the worst of it was that unless one were tired and a little sleepy, one could not go on with that game very long. It soon began to seem silly. It was not a good morning game.

Ella was very grim at lunch and only spoke to Peregrin. After luncheon Dicky felt very inclined to work—anything to stop thinking. He said something about learning grammar, but Ella took all the books away and locked them up. She said he could do _whatever he liked_. This had never happened before and it frightened him.

He went for a walk by himself. The sky was grey and the hedges were dripping and his feet felt heavy. He actually tried to remember what cases the different prepositions governed in Latin, as he walked along, in the hope of surprising his father in the evening; but the fear that he might be repeating them to himself all wrong made him hopeless. It was never safe to learn without the book. Only once, when a red stoat ambled with arched back across the lane, did he forget himself. A stoat, too, must have a jolly life, he thought, even if it ended by being nailed up on a door by a keeper. He stayed out till it was dark and past tea time.

His father’s hat and coat were not in the hall when he returned, so Dicky knew he had not yet come back. Upstairs he could hear the wailing of Ella’s violin. He went up and knocked at her door. She did not say “Come in,” or stop bowing away or frowning at the music on the stand in front of her. “If you’re hungry get milk in the kitchen,” she said, her chin still on the fiddle, “and—shut the door.”

Dicky did so, and stood for a minute outside it. Then he went slowly to the schoolroom and sat down at the table. Peregrin was already in bed, and there was nothing to do but to wait.

Time passed very slowly, and if Dicky had not known that he was dreading something, he would have thought he must be ill. He did, indeed, feel very queer. At last he heard the front door slam and the tramp of his father’s stride in the hall. The same instant the sound of the violin stopped and Ella walked rapidly along the passage; and before Dicky knew what he was doing he had started to run after her. At the head of the stairs he stopped himself, and peeping over the bannisters he saw that his father had hesitated in the middle of pulling off his coat, and was staring at Ella, who was talking vehemently in front of him. Dicky heard her raised voice saying, “It is hopeless. Father, I won’t; I really can’t. He....” His father finished getting out of his coat without a word; then they both went into the study. The door closed behind them, and Dicky crept back to the schoolroom.

Presently, he heard Ella calling him to come down. A few minutes before, his legs had carried him to the top of the stairs without his wanting it, now they refused to move. “Father wants you in the study at once,” she shouted, and she continued to call, “Dick, Dick, Dick, Dick.” There was a long pause and Ella herself stood in the doorway.

“Father is coming to whip you,” she said, and walked off to her room.

But he did not come. Dicky waited with beating heart, but he did not come. He waited till he almost forgot he was waiting, and yet his father did not come. And when at last he heard soft shuffling steps coming along the passage, his heart almost stopped. To his astonishment he saw in the darkness beyond the door two small round orange lamps shining about a foot from the ground. It was only Jasper, who padded quietly into the room and lay down on the hearthrug with a quiet sigh of satisfaction. Having settled himself in the shape of a large foot-stool, Jasper did not lift his nose again, but he turned up his eyes at Dicky—they were brown eyes now, exquisitely humble and kind—and wagged his stumpy tail. Dicky had flung himself on the floor beside the dog and embraced him. Were these the terrible sobs which would never leave off? No, presently they did stop; and gradually Dicky even forgot that he was waiting for something awful. The occasional dab of the dog’s cold nose on his hot cheeks was comforting, and so it was to curl all round him. Dicky felt almost as though he were a dog himself when he was curled up like that.

“Do you know, Jasper, if I were a dog, I should be a very clever dog? Much, much cleverer than you,” he whispered with his face buried in the black fur. His head felt swollen and confused. “A re-markable dog,” he repeated, “I should be a very re-markable dog.”

Downstairs Dr. Brook was sitting close up to the fire and staring gloomily into it. He had forgotten that he held a short switch in his hand, and that it still hung down between his knees. He was thinking in pictures and the pictures were not of Dicky. He had forgotten Dicky; he had even forgotten himself. They say the whole of life passes before a drowning man’s eyes. The doctor ever since he sat down had felt like a man drowning in a sea of troubles. If not the whole of his own life, still, much of it, had passed before his eyes. Only when at last he was eating his cold solitary dinner in the dining-room, did he remember again that Dicky had been naughty that morning, and that Dicky was probably incurably stupid. But even if he were it did not seem now to matter much, or to matter in a different way. Ella, too, he thought, must go to her College of Music; things could somehow be managed. The doctor sat a very long time over his dinner.

But upstairs still stranger things were happening to Dick. First he felt hot and large, then cold and small. He kept on shivering. Was this silky hair his own or Jasper’s? And where was he? He was apparently in a wet, grey place. What he touched with his hands and feet felt rough and gritty. Suddenly he saw a brown stoat with an arched back ambling rapidly in front of him—it was as big as a fox. Yes, he was on a road—the very road he had walked along that very afternoon, only now the wet hedges were ever so much higher. And before Dicky knew what he was doing he was dashing after the stoat, right into the quickset hedge after it. What was he doing? He smelt a queer strong smell which excited him; and he pushed and struggled through the roots and thorns, following the smell. He seemed, too, to be wearing a very odd cap with long flaps, which kept catching in the brambles and dragging him back. This did not hurt, but it was a nuisance, and he had constantly to shake his head. He traced the smell of stoat to a rabbit hole and thrust his head down it. Hullo! Dicky had no idea rabbits smelt so deliciously, as nice as pineapples or peaches! Dicky had wanted to kill the stoat, but he would have liked to eat the rabbit. He tried to make the hole larger, by tearing away the earth with his hands, but, although he got on much faster than he expected, he soon saw that was no use; and dragging himself violently backwards out of the hedge, he found himself in the road again with nothing to do.

Yes, there was nothing, absolutely nothing to do. The sensation was a strange one, for he couldn’t even think of anything. He just stood there snuffing the wet wind. Then suddenly he found himself trotting towards home. He had not gone very far when he was aware of another smell which he somehow recognised instantly as “The Sacred Smell.” He knew what it was, though he had never smelt it properly before. It reminded him of a feeling he had sometimes had in church—how long ago that seemed!—and partly of a feeling he had had when once an old general in scarlet and covered with medals had patted him on the head. Only this time The Sacred Smell was mixed with other smells; with smells of horse, leather, onions and smoke. This, Dicky knew, was not as it should be, and he was distinctly alarmed. However, he thought he had better stand still. It was always better, something whispered to him, not to run away from The Sacred Smell—unless the danger was terrific.

Of course, having smelt The Sacred Smell, he was not at all surprised to see next a huge pair of muddy boots coming towards him, and a pair of huge knees in dirty trousers moving up and down. When they were a short distance off, they stopped; and Dicky, looking up, saw what he had expected; an unshaven, dark-skinned Man in a cap, with a spotted handkerchief knotted round his neck. The Man made a squeaking noise with his pursed-up lips, such as rats make, and slapped his thigh once or twice. Dicky knew what this meant, but even when the Man called in a croaking voice, “E-e-e-’ere good boy,” Dicky still thought it was best not to move. He stood and turned his face instead to the hedge, looking, no doubt, as absent-minded and miserable as he felt. (It was odd, but _now_ when Dicky felt wretched and miserable that feeling was strongest, not just under the middle of his ribs, but at the end of his spine where his legs began; there now was the seat of anguish.) The Man took a step or two nearer, then another step. Still Dicky did not stir. Suddenly the Man dashed forward and made a grab at him. Dicky ducked, started aside and bumped right into the road-bank. He saw the Man’s hand outstretched above him, and he knew there was now only one thing to do: to roll right over on to his back, in order to show he wouldn’t resist and hoped for mercy. The Man stroked Dicky’s head and made soothing noises; and then, suddenly, put an arm under him, lifting him up and holding him tight to his side.

Dicky felt perfectly miserable, but what could he do? He knew it would be folly to try to escape, and that it would be wiser to wait for an opportunity. The Man tucked him with a jerk still more firmly under his arm, and started to walk slowly on. He walked on for more than an hour, till they came to a gorse common, where a caravan was standing with empty shafts and a pair of steps behind. Gripping Dicky tighter than ever the Man gave a whistle, and a Woman came out of the caravan.

“Where did you find him, Joe?” said the Woman, looking at Dicky.

“’Long road,” said the Man, jerking his head backwards.

“You ain’t been and thrown away his collar, ’ave you, Joe?”

“’Adn’t any,” said the Man. Dicky was very dazed, but he did think they were talking about him in an odd way.

“Better take ’im where he belongs,” said the Woman. “The cops won’t believe as such as ’e is ours. He looks well cared for. Might get five bob.”

Dicky did not try to tell them where he lived; he felt somehow it would be no use to try.

Instead of answering the Man just threw him into the caravan and shut the door. Although it was nearly dark, Dicky found he could see surprisingly well. Presently a tin bowl full of scraps of meat and bones was thrust in. Dicky would have been revolted by such a mess a short time ago, but now, though he was too scared to feel hungry, he could not resist putting his face close to it and giving a sniff. It really smelt uncommonly good. He put out the tip of his tongue and touched a brown-looking, ragged bit of gristle. Yes, it was good. Then all of a sudden he understood what must have happened. He had changed into a dog! Into a black spaniel!

He dashed at the door, shouting at the top of his voice, “Let me out! Let me out!” Alas, the only word which sounded at all like what he wanted to say was, “Out.” “Out, out, out, out,” he kept barking, hoping that the Man and Woman would understand. They took no notice; but he could not stop. “Out, out, out,” he barked. He shook the door by jumping at it; he tore at the wood with his nails. There was a latch just within his reach when he sprang up, but his paws—yes, it was only too true, his hands were round, black and feathery—could not lift it. “Out, out, out.” No answer. At last he gave it up, and lay down on the floor, feeling very tired. It occurred to him presently that he might think better while gnawing a bone. So he went to the bowl and pulled out the largest. It was a slight comfort to him. With his head on one side and his teeth sliding along the bone, he found he could think a little more calmly. How was he to let them know that he was not a real dog, but a boy called Dicky Brook? He tried again to talk. After a lot of practice he succeeded in making a sound rather like “Brrr-ook,” but it was also too sadly like the noise Jasper made when he was too lazy to bark or had been told to stop barking. Dicky was afraid they would never understand. But surely a very clever dog could make people understand somehow?

At last the door opened and the Man appeared, black against the starry sky. He stumbled over Dicky, swore and lit a stinking lamp-flame the size of the blade of a pocket knife. He was followed by the Woman. Outside Dicky could see the red glow of the fire which had cooked their dinner. Now was his chance. What should he do to astonish them? That was the first thing to do, to astonish them till they began to understand. But all Dicky could think of was a doggy thing after all: he sat up and begged. The Woman grinned at him, but the Man, who was pulling off his great boots, flung one at him, which Dicky dodged. He at once sat up on his hind-legs again, this time joining his paws and holding them up high in front of him.

“Bli’my Joe, look at the dawg!” exclaimed the Woman. “It’s saying its prayers!”

The Man, too, stared in astonishment.

“I don’t like it,” said the Woman.

Dicky felt greatly encouraged. At home he was fond of turning somersaults. Now, down went his head and over went his hind-legs. It was not a good somersault (he was too short in the legs for somersaults now) but it was one. The Man gave a shout of laughter, and his face lit up with joy and cunning.

“S’truth, it’s a performing dawg! I ain’t taking ’im back, no fear. He’ll make our fortunes.”

At these words Dicky saw he had made a terrible mistake. If he was a dog, he had better not be a re-markable dog.

The door was still open, and through it he dashed, taking the steps at a leap. Now he was falling, falling, falling. What a height! Oh, would he never reach the bottom? Stars were flying above him like bees. The awful thing was that he was beginning to fall slowly, while a huge arm with a hand at the end of it was stretching out, longer and longer, after him. He was not even falling slowly now; he was floating. He tried to force himself down through the air, but though there was nothing to keep him up he could not fall any further. Suddenly the arm gripped him. In an agony of terror he yelled: “I’m not a dog.” He heard his own voice, and, to his amazement, he saw his father’s face close to his; it was his father’s arm lifting him from the hearthrug. He felt a hand cool on his forehead. “Dick, you’re feverish. My little Dick.” His father’s voice had never sounded like that before, and he felt himself being carried—deliciously safe—to bed.

“After all,” he said to himself, as he snuggled down, “I’m glad I’m not a dog.”

When We Were Very, Very Young

A. A. MILNE

I think I am a Muffin Man. I haven’t got a bell,
I haven’t got the muffin things that muffin-people sell.
Perhaps I am a Postman. No, I think I am a Tram.
I’m feeling rather funny and I don’t know _what_ I am—

BUT

_Round_ about
And _round_ about
And _round_ about I go—
All round the table,
The table in the nursery—
_Round_ about
And _round_ about
And _round_ about I go:

I think I am a Traveller Escaping from a Bear;
I think I am an Elephant
Behind another Elephant
Behind _another_ Elephant who isn’t really there....

SO

_Round_ about
And _round_ about
And _round_ about and _round_ about
And _round_ about
And _round_ about
I go.

I think I am a Ticket Man, who’s selling tickets-please,
I think I am a Doctor who is visiting a Sneeze;
Perhaps I’m just a Nanny who is walking with a pram.
I’m feeling rather funny and I don’t know _what_ I am—

BUT

_Round_ about
And _round_ about
And _round_ about I go—
All round the table
The table in the nursery—

_Round_ about
And _round_ about
And _round_ about I go:
I think I am a Puppy, so I’m hanging out my tongue:
I think I am a Camel Who
Is looking for a Camel Who
Is looking for a Camel who is Looking for its Young....

SO

_Round_ about
And _round_ about
And _round_ about and _round_ about
And _round_ about
And _round_ about
I go.

THE SHADOW LAND

DAVID CECIL

Night falls upon a day of storm,
Of mist and gust and rain,
And still wind howls along the sands,
And sleet with myriad tiny hands,
Slaps at the window pane.

Awake in bed lay Jack and Jane,
They watched the shadows play;
Their eyes roved round from wall to floor
And then they stopped and roved no more.
A lady standing by the door
Looked at them as they lay.

Her skin was smooth as ivory,
Her hair was like pale silk
All spells and secrets seemed to lie
Beneath each slanting emerald eye,
And eyelid white as milk.

Her stiff skirts gleamed in the firelight
And the ceaseless hurrying shadows.
Her voice was high and far away
Like distant voice at close of day,
Calling across the meadows.

“Come!” she said, “Come!”; the children came,
They had nor voice nor will.
Round her the hurrying shadows skim,
She struck one with her knuckles slim,
It fluttered and stood still.

Wilder yet the shadows whirl.
As nailed to wall and floor,
Stood firm this one; she whispered “Follow.”
Then swiftly swooping like a swallow,
Slipt through as through a door.

And she led them to far shadowland,
Where the shadows stand upright;
And walk and talk, while on the ground,
The live men trail without a sound,
Solid and pink and white.

Where the echo is heard before the song,
And in the pools you see
Reflected houses steady stand,
While real ones built upon the land
Tremble continually.

All night long stayed Jack and Jane,
But when the dawn grew red,
They crept back through the shadow door,
Across the firelight-chequered floor,
And scrambled back to bed.

THE BARGAIN SHOP

BY CYNTHIA ASQUITH.

I

Once upon a time there lived a man called Anselm, who used several times an hour to stamp his foot and cry out: “I _must_ be rich! I _must_ be rich!” He was married to the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and, since he had enough to eat and a weatherproof house, and had neither aches nor pains, he should have been happy for 365 days in each year. But his unceasing longing for great wealth spoilt everything, and even on fine days he went about looking as discontented as though he were hungry.

As for his wife, Jasmine, she had long red-gold hair and great green eyes set wide apart in her flower-like face, and she possessed a mirror in which she could see her shimmering loveliness. So she ought to have been very happy and very grateful. She was so beautiful that when she walked abroad, men would lean far out of their windows to watch her pass and then wonder why their own wives and daughters should look so much like suet puddings.

But, though you will scarcely believe it, Jasmine was quite as discontented as her husband, and pouted and sighed through the days.

For she, too, was consumed by this perpetual craving for riches. Whether she had caught this uncomfortable sort of illness from her husband, or whether she had given it to him, I do not know, but there they were both wasting their youth, their beauty, and their love for one another, in foolish, petulant longing.

Whenever Jasmine saw other women clad in rich raiment and adorned with jewels, envy would blight her loveliness as frost blights a flower.

“Of what use is my beauty if I cannot adorn it?” she cried. “I _must_ have pearls—ropes of pearls, crowns of glittering diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires!”

“Yes,” said Anselm, “and I must have a hundred horses, a thousand slaves, and fountains that spout forth wines!”

One day, as Jasmine walked sadly through a deep, dark forest she suddenly saw a very strange looking house moving slowly towards her. The roof of the house was most beautifully thatched with brightly-coloured feathers, and across its face in rainbow letters ran the queer inscription:

THE BARGAIN HOUSE

MONEY FOR SALE. ENQUIRE WITHIN.

“Money for sale?” read the wondering Jasmine. “What can this mean? Some foolish jest, no doubt.”

Three times the house sped round her; then it quivered and stood still. She stared at the glass door that held a myriad reflections of herself. As though her gaze had power to push, it slowly opened. She now saw into a vast hall, and heard a gentle but compelling voice say: “Come in.” Trembling, Jasmine walked through the door. The light was dim and flickering as though from a fire, but no fireplace could be seen. Across the whole length of the hall ran a counter, such as you see in large shops, and behind this counter there rose up a wall made of rows of boxes piled high the one upon the other, and on these boxes were rainbow letters and figures. Between the boxes and the counter there stood a tall, sweetly-smiling woman, whose face, though unrecognisable, seemed somehow familiar to Jasmine.

“I was expecting you, beautiful Jasmine,” spoke the stranger in a voice that was soft but decided, like the fall of snow. “You would buy money, would you not?”

“Can one buy money?” faltered Jasmine. “Save _with_ money, and, alas! I have none.”

“Though you were penniless, yet from me you could purchase boundless wealth,” replied the stranger. “Behold, a purse,” she continued, holding up a red-tasselled bag, “which, spend as you may, will always contain one thousand golden guineas. This purse is yours if in exchange you will give me one part of yourself.”

“A part of myself?” gasped the astonished Jasmine. “What would you have? My hair?”

“No,” smiled the woman. “Lovely as are your tresses, in time they would grow again, and no one may own unlimited wealth and pay no price therefor. Your beauty shall remain untouched. It is your Sense of Humour that I require.”

“My Sense of Humour?” laughed Jasmine. “Is that all? Just that part of me which makes me laugh? Humour? What was it my mother used to call Humour? I remember—she said it was Man’s consolation sent to him by God in sign of peace. God’s rainbow in our minds. But with boundless wealth what need of consolation shall I have? Besides, I have often been told I had but little Sense of Humour. The more gladly will I give it to you. The purse, I pray,” and Jasmine held out both her trembling hands.

“Stay a while,” said the solemn, smiling woman. “I must warn you of two conditions. First, I would have you know, the money this purse yields can be spent only upon yourself. Would you still have it?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” clamoured Jasmine.

“I must also tell you that should you ever repent of your bargain and wish to buy back the precious sense you sell, it will, alas, not be in my power to help you. I can never buy back from the person to whom I have sold. The only chance of recovering your Sense of Humour is, that another customer, unasked by you, should buy it back with a similar purse, and I warn you that it may be hard to find anyone willing to give up boundless wealth for the sake of your laughter.”

“What matter?” exclaimed Jasmine. “Never, never shall I wish to return my purse.”

“You are determined?” asked the strange saleswoman.

“Yes, yes, yes!”

“Hold out your arms, then.”

Eagerly Jasmine stretched out her arms.

The smiling woman touched her on both her funny-bones, drew forth her Sense of Humour, laid it away in a box, on which she wrote Jasmine’s name, and the date, and then placed it on a shelf between two other boxes.

“Now it is mine, until redeemed by the return of a purse, fellow to this that I give thee,” said the woman, handing the tasselled red bag to Jasmine. “And while it is in my careful keeping, this despised sense of yours will grow and grow. Farewell, Jasmine. Leave me now and go forth into a bleak world.”

Clasping the marvellous purse to her heart, Jasmine fled from the house and hastened through the deep, dark forest till she reached the city. At once she went to the great jewel-merchants, against whose windows she had often pressed her face in wistful longing.

“I want the biggest pearl necklace you have got,” she cried, breathlessly bursting into the gorgeous showroom.

“I’m afraid goods of such value can only be supplied in exchange for ready money,” said the merchant with an uncivil smile.

“How much?” asked Jasmine.

“Seven thousand guineas.”

Jasmine opened the purse and holding it upside down, shook it. Glittering guineas poured out in a golden stream, but the purse remained just as full as before.

As the clinking coins bounded and rolled the merchant’s eyes grew rounder and rounder, and he had to shout for six small black slaves to come to help him to count the money, now lying scattered all over his shop. With the lowest bow he had ever bowed he handed the long rope of glistening pearls to Jasmine. Feverishly she clasped them round her throat, where they scarcely showed against the whiteness of her skin. They reached down to her knees.

“Now some emerald ear-rings, a crown of diamonds, ten ruby bracelets for each arm, and all the opals you possess!” ordered Jasmine, scattering guineas as she spoke, and putting on all the jewels as fast as they were produced.

At last she went away, hung with jewels as a Christmas tree is hung with ornaments. Proud as a peacock she strutted through the streets, and everyone laughed at the absurd sight of so many gaudy ornaments crowded on to one ordinary-sized woman. She heard titters and wondered what might be the cause of the laughter.

She now went to the grandest Fashion House in the city, ordered one thousand costly garments, and came out wearing the richest raiment she had found in stock. Next she bought a most magnificent coach, made of mother o’ pearl, and sixteen piebald horses to draw it; and then she engaged an enormous coachman with a face gilt to match his golden livery.

On her way home she stopped at seven merchants to buy all manner of rare and costly foods, and before long the great coach was crammed with dainties. In it were piled every fruit and vegetable that happened to be then out of season, bottles of wonderful wine, jars of caviare, pots of roseleaf jam, tiny birds in aspic, and sugar plums of every colour. Last of all—because it looked so grand and expensive—she bought an immense wedding-cake, sixteen stories high. The confectioners laughed. They seemed to think it funny that she should buy the wedding-cake. She wondered why they were amused.

When Anselm saw his wife stagger into the room, swaying beneath the weight of so many gaudy jewels, thinking them to be all sham and worn in jest, he burst into a great roar of laughter.

Annoyed at his merriment, Jasmine told him breathlessly of the marvellous purse. Her husband laughed and laughed, partly at her story, partly at her absurd appearance. He laughed until he got hiccoughs.

“Oh, how funny! How funny! What has come over you?” he cried, rolling on the floor.

“This is no jest, Anselm, I swear; it is the solemn truth. Just look inside and you will see all the golden coins.”

Incredulously Anselm peered into the bulging purse. He rubbed his eyes. Slowly his unbelief gave way to amazed joy.

“Praise be to God!” he cried at last. “We’re rich, rich, rich beyond the dreams of man. Give it to me that I may go and buy gorgeous apparel, fine horses, and rarest wines.” Feverishly he snatched the purse from his wife’s hand.

“What’s this?” he cried. “I knew it was some trickery. Your precious purse is as empty as an egg that has been eaten.” And in truth, the tasselled bag now dangled from his hand flat and light as a leaf.

“Oh!” screamed Jasmine, in dismay, “give it back to me!” No sooner had she touched the purse than once more it became rounded and heavy with the weight of a thousand guineas.

“Praise be to God!” she sighed. “I remember now. The woman from whom I bought it warned me that the guineas were only for my own use.”

“Tut, tut, that’s very troublesome,” said Anselm ruefully. “But what matter? You will be able to buy gifts for me. It will come to the same thing. But, wife, what mean you when you say you _bought_ the purse? With what can one buy money?”

Jasmine told him of the weird house, the mysterious saleswoman and the strange bargain she had driven.

“Your Sense of Humour?” cried Anselm. “_Your_ Sense of Humour! Well, she didn’t get much for her money, did she? Ha! ha! ha!”

With grave eyes Jasmine stared at her husband, offended at his display of merriment.

Then she said: “You little guess what a banquet I have prepared for you. Come now and I will show you how I have ransacked the city for its choicest dainties. Let us now feast.” Together they entered the dining-hall and at sight of the gorgeous banquet spread before them Anselm smacked his lips and promised himself great delight.

But bitter disappointment awaited him. For, no sooner did he touch the iced grape-fruit with which he intended to begin his feast, than, behold, it shrivelled in his hand, and became an empty rind. With an oath he stretched out his hand to grasp a goblet of purple wine. It broke in his hand, and of the rich vintage nothing remained but a stain on the damask tablecloth.

“Alas!” cried Jasmine. “It seems that with the magic gold I may buy nothing for your use!”

In truth, everything that poor Anselm touched, before it reached his eager lips, disappeared like a bubble that has burst. In nothing that had been purchased with the magic gold could he share. For him, all the rich viands were spread in vain, and finally, he was obliged to fall back on their accustomed fare of bread and cheese and last Friday’s mutton.

“’Tis funny to watch one’s wife quaffing the wines one dreams of and to be on prison-fare oneself,” laughed Anselm, trying to make the best of things.

“Funny?” asked his wife. “Why is it funny? I think it is very sad. These humming birds and this sparkling juice of the grape are most delicious.”

To keep up his spirits Anselm, who was famed for his wit, cracked many jokes, but no smile ever lifted the corners of Jasmine’s perfect mouth; no twinkle appeared in the depth of her great green eyes. Discouraged at last, Anselm fell into silent sulks, whilst his wife continued to eat and drink, until a stitch came in both her sides.

Days passed. Every evening, Jasmine, clad in new raiment and gorgeous jewels, regaled herself with rich dainties.

“Alas, husband!” she cried one night, “I have no pleasure in feasting that you cannot share.”