Part 6

The Collins letter is a fine art in which those who try the hardest often fall most heavily, and perhaps even m’ tutor or the Provost Himself, at his wit’s end how to put it neatly this time, will yet crave a 3_d._ worth. It may even be that readers grown grey in the country’s service, who quake at thought of the looming Collins, would like to have Tintinnabulum’s address. It is refused; but I mention, to fret them, that his every Collins is guaranteed different from all his other Collinses, and to be so like the purchaser that it is a photograph.

If you were his client you could accept Saturday to Monday invitations with a light heart. But don’t, when he is at your Collins, go near him and the babe lest he clutch it to his breast and growl. He has the great gift of growling, which will yet make him popular with another sex.

His concentration on the insides of others is of course very disturbing to me, but I should feel still more alarmed if I heard that he had abandoned the monetary charge and, for sheer love of the thing, was turning out Collinses gratis.

To-day there comes a ray of hope from a harassed tutor, who writes that Tintinnabulum has deserted the Collins for googly bowling, the secrets of which he is pursuing with the same terrific intensity. I can picture him getting inside the ball.

8. _He and I and Another_

You readers may smile when I tell you why I have indited these memories and fancies. It was not done for you but for me, being a foolish attempt to determine, by writing the things down (playing over by myself some of the past moves in the game), whether Tintinnabulum really does like me still. That he should do so is very important to me as he recedes farther from my ken down that road which hurries him from me. I cannot, however, after all, give myself a very definite answer. He no longer needs me of course, as Neil did, and he will go on needing me less. When I think of Neil I know that those were the last days in which I was alive.

Tintinnabulum’s opinion of himself, except when he is splashing, is lowlier than was Neil’s; some times in dark moods it is lowlier than makes for happiness. He has hardened a little since he was Neil, coarsened but strengthened. I comfort myself with the curious reflection that the best men I have known have had a touch of coarseness in them.

Perhaps I have made too much of the occasional yieldings of this boy whom I now know so superficially. The new life is building seven walls around him. Are such of his moves in the game as I can follow merely an expert’s kindness to an indifferent player?

On the other hand, I learn from a friendly source that he has spoken of me with approval, once at least, as “mad, quite mad,” and I know that my battered countenance, about which I am very “touchy” excites his pity as well as his private mirth. On the last night of the holidays he was specially gruff, but he slipped beneath my door a paper containing the words “I hereby solemnly promise never to give you cause for moral anxiety,” and signed his name across a postage stamp to give the document a special significance. Nevertheless, W. W. and he certainly do at times exchange disturbing glances of which I am the object, and these, I notice, occur when I think I am talking well. Again, if I set off to tell a humorous story in company nothing can exceed the agony on Tintinnabulum’s face. Yet I am uncertain that this is not a compliment, for if he felt indifferently toward me why should he worry about my fate?

During those holidays a master at his old preparatory sent me a letter he had received from Tintinnabulum (whom he called Neil), saying that as it was about me he considered I ought to read it. But I had not the courage to do so. Quite likely it was favourable, but suppose it hadn’t been. Besides, it was not meant for me to see, and I cling to his dew-drop about my being mad. On the whole, I think he is still partial to me. Corroboration, I consider, was provided at our parting, when he so skilfully turned what began as a tear into a wink and gazed at me from the disappearing train with what I swear was a loving scowl.

What will become of Tintinnabulum? There was a horror looking for him in his childhood. Waking dreams we called them, and they lured Neil out of bed in the night. It was always the same nameless enemy he was seeking, and he stole about in various parts of the house in search of it, probing fiercely for it in cupboards, or standing at the top of the stairs pouring out invective and shouting challenges to it to come up. I have known the small white figure defend the stair-head thus for an hour, blazing rather than afraid, concentrated on some dreadful matter in which, tragically, none could aid him. I stood or sat by him, like a man in an adjoining world, waiting till he returned to me, for I had been advised, warned, that I must not wake him abruptly. Gradually I soothed him back to bed, and though my presence there in the morning told him, in the light language we then adopted, that he had been “at it again” he could remember nothing of who the enemy was. It had something to do with the number 7; that was all we ever knew. Once I slipped from the room, thinking it best that he should wake to normal surroundings, but that was a mistake. He was violently agitated by my absence. In some vague way he seemed on the stairs to have known that I was with him and to have got comfort from it; he said he had gone back to bed only because he knew I should be there when he woke up. I found that he liked, “after he had been an ass,” to wake up seeing me “sitting there doing something frightfully ordinary, like reading the newspaper,” and you may be sure that thereafter that was what I was doing.

After he had been a year or two at his preparatory, Neil did a nice thing for me; one of a thousand. I had shaken my head over his standing so low in Maths, though he was already a promising classic, and had said that it was “great fun to be good at what one was bad at.” A term or two later when he came home he thrust the Maths prize into my hand. “But it wasn’t fun,” he growled. (It was Neil’s growl before it was Tintinnabulum’s.) He came back to blurt out, “I did it because in those bad times you were always sitting there with the newspaper when I woke.”

By becoming Tintinnabulum he is not done with his unknown foe, though I think they have met but once. On this occasion his dame had remained with him all night, as he had been slightly unwell, and she was amused, but nothing more, to see him, without observing her, rise and search the room in a fury of words for something that was not there. The only word she caught was “seven.” He asked them not to tell me of this incident, as he knew it would trouble me. I was told, and, indeed, almost expected the news, for I had sprung out of bed that night thinking I heard Neil once again defending the stair. By the time I reached Tintinnabulum it had ceased to worry him. “But when I woke I missed the newspaper,” he said with his adorable smile, and again putting his hand on my shoulder. How I wished “the newspaper” could have been there. There are times when a boy can be as lonely as God.

What is the danger? What is it that he knows in the times during which he is shut away and that he cannot remember to tell to himself or to me when he wakes? I am often disturbed when thinking of him (which is the real business of my life), regretting that, in spite of advice and warnings, I did not long ago risk waking him abruptly, when, before it could hide, he might have clapped seeing eyes upon it, and thus been able to warn me. Then, knowing the danger, I would for ever after be on the watch myself, so that when the moment came, I could envelop him as with wings. These are, of course, only foolish fears of the dark, and with morning they all fly away. Tintinnabulum makes very merry over them. I have a new thought that, when he is inside me, he may leave them there deliberately to play upon my weakness for him and so increase his sock allowance. Is the baffling creature capable of this enormity? With bowed head I must admit he is. I make a note, to be more severe with him this half.

The Dream

HERBERT ASQUITH

My dream? Can I remember my dream? I was floating down the nursery stair, And my little terrier ran in front With his feet treading on the air; And when we came to the dining-room, The King and the Queen were there: And father and mother, two and two; And a baby elephant from the Zoo, Each on a golden chair; And three soldiers, and Mary Rose Riding an ostrich that pecked her toes, And Uncle Jim Looking very trim, Eating a kipper. And, when they had sung to the King, They all sat down in a ring, And played at hunt the slipper.

Then I saw a curling stream And yellow flow’rs in a meadow, And six little green frogs Dancing a jig in the shadow: And the tune came from a bough, “Tweet, tweet, quiver,” Sung by a little brown bird That swayed above the river.

Then we all started to dance, And Aunt Rebecca too; Uncle Jim began to prance, And the baby elephant blew A curl of smoke from his cigar, As he sat and watched the evening star. And the little brown bird sang on, Swaying above the river: But a wind came whispering down, And the leaves began to shiver.

Then with a crackly sound Uncle Jim went flat: He turned into a cricket-bat; But Aunt Rebecca grew very round And floated up like a black balloon, Higher and higher, into the Moon. The stars fell out of the sky; The baby elephant whined: “Time to get up” said nurse: And “Flap” went the blind.

Mr. Snoogles

By Elizabeth Lowndes

Veronica lay very still in bed, then she stretched out as far as she could. Her feet travelled down to that cold region near where the sheets and blankets disappear under the mattress. She was certainly still awake, for one doesn’t stretch in dreams, and if one did one would certainly wake up.

Then she cautiously raised herself upon one elbow and looked round, slowly, at the fire. Ever since Teddy had said that Mr. Snoogles lived up the chimney she had regarded the fire with much greater interest, not to say dread. Not that Mr. Snoogles was real. He was just fun. And yet, though Veronica knew he was only fun, she often wondered how he managed to fit in the inside of the chimney—if, that is, he was at all like father, or even Dr. Blackie (who wasn’t at all big for a man). But then Teddy was the only person who claimed to have ever seen this person who had taken refuge in their chimneys, and he couldn’t be made to describe him.

In the morning and in the afternoon Mr. Snoogles was much more amusing than any shop-bought game. Veronica would laugh over him, and invent long conversations in which he said such silly things! But when the evening crept on, and the fire crackled in the grate, and flickered on the walls, it made it all so different. Why do things which aren’t true make you think they are true, at night?

Veronica remembered uneasily a curious dream. She was no longer a big girl with short hair and long thin legs; she was a green velvet pin-cushion, and pins of various sizes and colours were just about to be stuck into her before she was sent off to a village bazaar. Though that was only a dream, for a long time she never saw a pin-cushion without thinking of herself as one....

And now, to-night, she at last lay back in bed out of sight of the fire, and tried to plan adventures for the next day. Why did real adventures always pass her by?

Suddenly she heard a curious low rumbling sound. For a moment she hoped and yet dreaded that it came from the direction of the chimney, but when the sound got louder, as it did very soon, she burst out laughing, for it was only Teddy snoring. The door between their rooms was open, so no wonder she heard him. How funny, and how disappointing!

In time Veronica’s eyes closed without her noticing it, and lying there, so comfortable and so warm in bed, just on that borderland of the ordinary world of lessons and rice pudding (when one expected something else with jam on it) and that other delicious world of dreams and vague sensations.

But all at once Veronica heard a great clatter. She sat up in bed and opened her eyes wide to see in the firelight a most curious little person. He had leapt out of the chimney and dropped all the fire-irons in a heap at his feet. She could see them lying there on the white woolly mat, all at sixes and sevens.

He was very small, about as high as the poker. He had large round eyes, nearly as round as two pennies. And on his head, perched on the very top, was the lid of the nursery kettle! It was a copper kettle, and was always kept very bright.

The stranger was dressed in black and his clothes fitted him quite tight, like a well-drawn-up stocking or a glove.

Veronica gazed at him, her eyes growing almost as round as his own.

Then he stamped his foot, and raising his arms over his head, he made a low bow.

“Madam, your wish to see me, though it is only prompted by idle curiosity, has brought me down from my kingdom among the chimney pots. I have a request to make to you. Will you take my place for a few hours? I am called away on urgent private affairs, but I cannot leave my work up there unless you will give me your help.”

His voice was high and sharp. It was rather like listening to a sparrow.

He went straight on, without waiting for an answer. “It is a mistake to suppose that I live in the chimney. It would be most disagreeable to do so, as I should have thought you, who have imagination, would realize. But I am talking too much. I wait respectfully, Madam, for your answer. Will you help me?”

Veronica wriggled uncomfortably under the warm bedclothes.

“I will help you if I can.” She was a cautious, as well as a truthful, child, so she added hastily, “I don’t want to say I will, if I can’t. And are you—_are_ you Mr. Snoogles?”

The strange little man standing on the mat threw back his head so suddenly that the lid of the kettle fell off and bounced away behind the coal scuttle.

“Oh, how funny!” he laughed. “I shall add that to my collection. No, I’m _not_ Mr. Snoogles; but I am the person whom your brother calls Mr. Snoogles.”

“So Teddy _has_ seen you after all. Sometimes I thought Mr. Snoogles was only a game.”

“Indeed, I’m not a game. What a horrid thing to be! Imagine being a football?”

“Or a pin-cushion,” said Veronica hastily. “I know because I believed I was one once, but only for a short time,” she added, because she was truthful, but also in case Mr. Snoogles found a stray pin on the floor and, remembering what she had said, might stick it into her. He looked such a tidy man.

“I can assure you, Madam, that I will not request you to do anything at all difficult. I shall only require your services for a short period—say about ten years.”

“_Ten years?_ But in ten years I shall be quite old—that is, quite grown up. I shall be twenty-one.”

“Well, what of that? My work is much more amusing than what you do all day—lessons, walks, quarrels.”

Veronica felt a little taken aback.

“But I don’t quarrel—that is to say, not much, not nearly as much as do our cousins in the country or as the long-haired family we see in the park. Would you like to hear my names? I am not madam yet. You see, I am not married. And won’t you sit down?”

“No, I never sit down. It’s lazy. Proceed with your names. Though I know what I call you to myself.”

“I was christened Elizabeth Veronica Sybella—now, what do _you_ call me?”

“Never mind. Don’t ask questions. It’s bad manners.”

Veronica felt annoyed, but she put her pride in her pocket and asked: “If I do what you want me to do—will you tell me then?”

“I shall if you deserve it.”

What a horrid thing to say! How like a holiday governess!—the sort that Veronica and her brother had had last summer.

“We must be gone. You have been wasting _our_ time. Not that time is money to me.”

“Isn’t it? It is to father, though how he makes it into money I don’t know. I have so much time I could make such a lot of money if only I knew how to do it.”

“Money is silly stuff. Look how easily it burns. Only yesterday I saw the kitchenmaid at No. 5 throw a five-pound note on to the fire. She didn’t know what it was, poor silly girl, though she is very clever at washing cups and saucers. Come on now!”

Veronica jumped out of bed, and ran over to the fireplace.

“Do we go up there?” she said, looking at the chimney and then at the dying fire. “Won’t it burn?”

“Not when you are with me. Fire is my servant. I am fire’s lord and master. But if you feel at all nervous I will command it to die.”

With these dramatic words Mr. Snoogles clapped his hands together and cried out: “Servant, hide thyself! Let thy light burn dim while we pass over you.”

Instantly the coals grew grey and dusty.

Mr. Snoogles put out his hand, and taking Veronica’s fingers firmly in his, he pulled her up, and soon she found herself being drawn up higher and higher.

“When we get to the top I will explain what you have to do.”

Veronica said nothing. Adventure had come at last—the real thing, better than any story-book she had ever read, because it was happening to her—actually to her.

They suddenly came out into the night air. To the right, to the left, in fact, wherever she looked, were chimney pots. Some had strange things on them like hats.

Then it was that Veronica noticed she had become about the same size as Mr. Snoogles. She did not feel cold, either, which was stranger still. But she sat down as she had been told, and gazed about her. High above, the stars were twinkling and the young moon was shining.

Mr. Snoogles coughed.

“Have you finished thinking your thoughts, and will you now think of mine?” he said crossly.

“I am so sorry. Please tell me yours.”

“My business—and soon it will be _your_ business, don’t forget—is to be the Watchman of Fire and Smoke. Smoke is used for punishment because it is unpleasant. But Fire brings warmth and happiness. You will have power over them both, but you must keep Fire in his proper place. When you see things not going well in a house then send down Smoke. If they bear it well, and cease to think of themselves, call it back and ask Fire to burn brightly to warm them, and to make them feel happy and cheerful. If a live coal flies out on the mat, you must be there to make it go out. A house on fire is a terrible thing, and means you have not been doing your work properly.” He waited a moment, then exclaimed: “I must be going soon, so do your best!”

“But how shall I——?” Veronica looked round, but Mr. Snoogles had vanished, and she found herself alone on the roof.

“I can’t do it, it’s too difficult,” she said to herself, “much more difficult than learning a long speech out of Shakespeare. One can always do that if one really tries, but this——?”

* * * * *

“Veronica, Veronica, I have been screaming at you for ages. There is a big fire outside! That empty house is burning down, I can see it from my window——”

Teddy was jumping about in his pyjamas. “Come along! Hurry up!” he shouted.

Veronica got out of bed as if she was dreaming. Then she cried in great distress, “It’s my fault—that fire. Mr. Snoogles said I must not allow it to happen.”

“Don’t be so silly. Mr. Snoogles isn’t real. Come along!”

The two children ran to the window, and in the excitement of watching the fire engines arrive, and the water pouring out of the great hose pipes Veronica forgot her part in this tragedy.

Later in the morning, as they were coming in from a walk, Veronica said, “Teddy, what was Mr. Snoogles really like when you saw him? Do tell me and I will tell you a great secret.”

“Mr. Snoogles? I will show him to you.”

Teddy took off his coat and hat, and running halfway up the stairs, he threw his coat round a pillar which marked the half landing. Then he put his cap on the round knot at the top.

“Veronica! Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Snoogles!”

“Teddy! D’you mean you never saw him really? I have.”

“Of course I didn’t. And you haven’t either!”

Veronica said nothing to that. She knew better.

Eggs

HERBERT ASQUITH

Bob has blown a hundred eggs, Blue and olive, white and grey; Warbler, nightingale, and thrush, Bob has blown their songs away!

Low in spotless wool they rest, Purest blue and clouded white, Streaked with cinnamon and red, Flecked with purples of the night;

Mute and gleaming, row on row, Lie the tombstones of the spring! What a chorus would there be If those eggs began to sing!

The Two Sailors

JOHN LEA

_This was one_

There once was a sailor who never could bear To rub any oil on the top of his hair, And no one who loved him at sea or at home Would offer the use of a brush and a comb. He said (and what reason for doubting the tale?) The very best brush is the breath of a gale, While as to the comb—seek a better, in vain, Than jolly good torrents of tropical rain. So all round the world (and no cruise did he miss) That singular sailor looked something like _this_.

_This was the other one_

There once was a sailor who lavished with care Whole buckets of oil on the top of his hair, And no one who loved him omitted to speak In rapture of tresses so splendidly sleek. He said (and who questions what mariners say?) He brushed them and combed them each hour of the day. For, up on the mast in the wildest of seas, He never neglected such duties as these. And so, as no chance he would lazily miss, That singular sailor looked something like _this_.

Doctor Dolittle meets a Londoner in Paris

HUGH LOFTING

One day John Dolittle was walking alone in the Tuileries Gardens. He had been asked to come to France by some French naturalists who wished to consult him on certain new features to be added to the zoo in the Jardin des Plantes. The Doctor knew Paris well and loved it. To his way of thinking it was the perfect city—or would be, if it were not so difficult to get a bath there.

It had been raining all day, but now the sun was shining, and the gardens, fresh and wet, looked very beautiful. As the Doctor passed one of the many shrubberies he came upon a sparrow wallowing in a puddle in the middle of the gravel path.

“Why, I declare!” he muttered to himself, hurrying forward. “It’s Cheapside!”

The small bird, evidently quite accustomed to human traffic, was far too busy with his bathing to notice anyone’s approach.

“How do you do, Cheapside?” said the Doctor in sparrow language. “Who on earth would ever have thought of finding you here?”