Part 7

The sparrow stopped his fluttering and wallowing and looked up through the water that ran down in big drops off his tousled head-feathers.

“Jiminy Crickets!” he exclaimed. “It’s the Doc himself!”

“How do you come to be in Paris?” asked John Dolittle.

“Oh, it’s all Becky’s doing,” grumbled Cheapside, hopping out of the puddle and fluttering his wings to dry them. “I’m satisfied to stay in London, goodness knows. But every Spring it’s the same way: ‘Let’s take a hop over to the Continong,’ says she. ‘The horse-chestnuts will just be budding.’ ‘We got horse-chestnut trees in Regent’s Park,’ I says to ’er. ‘Ah,’ says she, ‘but not like the ones in the Twiddle-didee Gardens. Oh, I love Paris in the Spring,’ she says.... It’s always the same way: every year she drags me over ’ere. Sentiment, I reckon it is. You see, Doc, me and Becky met one another first ’ere—right ’ere in the Twiddle-didee Gardens. I recognised ’er as a London Sparrow—you can tell ’em the world over—and we got talkin’. You know the way those things ’appen. She wanted to build our first nest up there in the Lufer Palace. But I says, ‘No,’ hemphatic. ‘Let’s go back to St. Paul’s,’ I says. ‘I know a place in St. Edmund’s left ear what ’as all the stonework in Paris beat ’ollow as a nestin’ place. Besides,’ I says, ‘we don’t want our children growing up talkin’ no foreign language! We’re Londoners,’ I says: ‘let’s go back to London.’”

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “Even I guessed you were a London sparrow, before I recognised you, because——”

“Because I was washin’,” Cheapside finished. “That’s true: these ’ere foreign birds don’t run to water much.”

“That’s a fine puddle you have there,” said the Doctor. “I’ve half a mind to ask you to lend it to me. You know, I’ve been trying to get a bath myself ever since I’ve been in Paris—without success so far. After all, even a puddle is better than nothing. When I asked them at the _pension_ where I’m staying could I have a bath, they seemed to think I was asking for the moon.”

“Oh, I can tell you where you can get a bath, Doctor, a good one,” said the sparrow. “Just the other side of that shrubbery over there there’s an elegant marble pond, with a fountain and statues in the middle. You can hang your bath-towel on the statue and use the fountain for a shampoo. Just helegant!—But of course you’d have to do it after dark. Anybody washin’ in Paris is liable to get arrested—not because you ’ad no clothes on, mind you. Oh no, the French is very sensible about that. Look at all these statues: they don’t wear no clothes—and in summertime it’s much cooler for ’em. But washin’? That’s another matter. Over ’ere they’re very suspicious of anybody washin’. Just the same you could manage a tub in the marble pond late at night, easy—because there’s hardly anybody in the gardens then.”

“My gracious! I’ve a good mind to try it, Cheapside,” said the Doctor. “I haven’t had a bath in over a week.”

“Well,” said the Cockney sparrow, “you meet me here at midnight and me and Becky will guide you to the pond and keep a look-out while you get a wash.”

* * * * *

There was a half moon that night. And when, a few minutes before twelve o’clock, John Dolittle came into the Tuileries Gardens with a bath-towel over his arm, the first person he saw was a French policeman. Not wishing to be taken for a suspicious character, he thrust the bath-towel beneath his coat and hurried past the shrubbery as though bent on important business.

But he had not gone very far before he was overtaken by Cheapside and his wife, Becky.

“Don’t get worried, Doc, don’t get worried,” said the sparrow. “That bobby only goes by about once every ’alf-hour. ’E won’t be back for a while. Come over ’ere and we’ll show you your dressing-room.”

John Dolittle was thereupon conducted to a snug retreat in the heart of a big shrubbery.

“Nobody can see you ’ere,” said Cheapside. “And as soon as you’re ready all you’ve got to do is to ’op round that privet-’edge, sprint across the little lawn and there’s your bath waitin’ for you. Me and Becky will keep a look-out. And if any danger comes along we’ll whistle.”

Five minutes later the famous naturalist was wallowing luxuriously in the marble pond. The night was softly brilliant with moonlight, and the statues in the centre of the pool stood out palely against the dark mass of the trees behind.

John Dolittle had paused a moment with a cake of soap uplifted in his hand, utterly enchanted by the beauty of the scene, when he heard Cheapside hoarsely whispering to him from a branch overhead.

“Look out! Hide quick! Someone coming!”

Now the Doctor had left his bath-towel on the base of the statue. At Cheapside’s warning he splashed wildly out to get it before attempting a retreat to the shrubbery. Breathless, he finally reached the fountain. But just as he was about to grasp the towel Becky called from the other side of the pond:

“Cheapside! There is another party coming in at the other gate! The Doctor can never make it in time.”

John Dolittle, waist-deep in the water at the foot of the statue, looked about him in despair.

“Gracious! What shall I do then?” he cried drawing the bath-towel over his shoulders.

“You’ll have to be a statue,” hissed Cheapside the quick thinker. “Hop up on to the pedestal. They’ll never know the difference in this light. When they go by you can come down. Hurry! They’re quite close. I can see their heads over the top of the hedge.”

Swiftly winding his bath-towel about him, John Dolittle sprang up on to the pedestal and crouched in a statuesque pose. The marble group was of Neptune the sea-god and several attendant figures. John Dolittle, M.D., became one of the attendant figures. His hand raised to shade his eyes from an imaginary sun, he gazed seaward with a stony stare.

“Fine!” whispered Cheapside, flying on to the base of the statue. “No one could tell you from the real thing. Just keep still and you’ll be all right. They won’t stay, I don’t expect. Here they come. Don’t get nervous, now. Bless me, I believe they’re English too!—Tourists. Well, did you ever?”

A man and a woman, strolling through the gardens by one of the many crossing paths, had now paused at the edge of the pond and, to John Dolittle’s horror, were gazing up at the statue in the centre of it. They were both elderly; they both carried umbrellas; and they both wore spectacles.

“I’ll bet they’re short-sighted, Doc,” whispered Cheapside comfortingly. “Don’t worry.”

“Dear me, Sarah,” sighed the man. “What a beautiful night! The moon and the trees and the fountain. And such an imposing statue!—The sea-god Neptune with his mermaids and mermen.”

“Lancelot,” said the woman shortly, “let us hurry home. You’ll get your bronchitis worse in this damp air. I don’t like the statue at all. I never saw such fat creatures. Just look at that one on the corner there—the one with his hand up scanning the horizon. Why, he’s stouter than the butcher at home!”

“Humph!” muttered Cheapside beneath his breath. “It don’t seem to me as though _you_ ’ave any figure to write ’ome about, Mrs. Scarecrow.”

At this moment a large flying beetle landed on the Doctor’s neck and nearly spoiled everything.

“Good gracious, Sarah!” cried the man. “I thought I saw one of the figures move, the fat one.”

The tourist adjusted his spectacles and, coming a little closer to the edge of the pond, stared very hard. But Cheapside, to add a touch of convincing realism, flew up on to the merman’s shoulder, kicked the beetle into the pond with a secret flick of his foot and burst into a flood of carefree song.

“No, Sarah,” said the man. “I was mistaken. See, there is a bird sitting on his shoulder. How romantic! Must be a nightingale.”

“_Will_ you come home, Lancelot?” snapped the woman. “You won’t feel so romantic when your cough comes back. It must be after midnight.”

“But you know, Sarah,” said the man, as he was almost forcibly dragged away, “_I_ don’t think he’s too fat. They had to be stout, those marine people: they floated better that way. Dear me, Paris is a beautiful city!”

As the footsteps died away down the moonlit path, John Dolittle sighed a great sigh of relief and came to life.

“Cheapside,” said he, stretching his stiff arms, “you could never guess who those people were. My sister Sarah and her husband, the Reverend Lancelot Dingle. It’s funny, Cheapside, but whenever I am in an awkward or ridiculous situation Sarah seems bound to turn up. Of course she and her husband would just _have_ to come touring Paris at the exact hour when I was taking a bath in the Tuileries Gardens. Ah well, thank goodness the pond kept them off from getting any closer to me!”

“Well, listen, Doc,” said the London sparrow: “I think you had better be gettin’ along yourself now. It’s about time for that bobby to be coming round again.”

“Yes, you’re right,” said the Doctor. And he slid back into the water, waded to the edge and stepped out on to dry ground.

But John Dolittle’s troubles were not over yet. While he was still no more than half way to his “dressing-room” there came another warning shout from Cheapside:

“Look out!—Here he comes!”

This time flight seemed the only course. The policeman had seen the culprit disappear into the shrubbery. Breaking into a run, he gave chase.

“Don’t stop, Doc!” cried Cheapside. “Grab your clothes and get out the other side—Becky! Hey, Becky! Keep that policeman busy a minute.”

The Doctor did as he was told. Seizing his clothes in a pile as he rushed through the shrubbery, he came out at the other end like an express train emerging from a tunnel. Here Cheapside met him and led him across a lawn to another group of bushes. Behind this he hurriedly got into his clothes. Meanwhile Becky kept the policeman busy by furiously pecking him in the neck and making it necessary for him to stop and beat her off.

However, she could not of course keep this up for long. And if John Dolittle had not been an exceptionally quick dresser he could never have got away. In one minute and a quarter, collar and tie in one hand, soap and towel in the other, he left his second dressing-room on the run and sped for the gate and home.

The loyal Cheapside was still with him; but the sparrow was now so convulsed with laughter that he could scarcely keep up, even flying.

“I don’t see what you find so funny about it,” panted the Doctor peevishly as he slowed down at the gate and began putting on his collar. “I had a very narrow escape from getting arrested.”

“Yes, and you’d have gone to jail, too,” gasped Cheapside. “It’s no light offence, washing in this country. But that wasn’t what I was laughing at.”

“Well, what was it, then?” asked the Doctor, feeling for a stud in his pocket.

“The Reverend Dingle took me for a nightingale!” tittered the Cockney sparrow. “I must go back and tell Becky that. So long, Doc! You’ll be all right now. That bobby’s lost you altogether.... After all, you got your bath. See you in Puddleby next month.”

Vice-versa ANY FATHER TO ANY DAUGHTER

HENRY NEWBOLT

If buttercups were white and pink, And roses green and blue, Then you instead of me could think, And I instead of you.

Then I could daily give your doll Her early evening tub, While you in easy-chairs could loll At some or other Club.

Then I could spell p-i-g pidge, And learn to sew like Nurse; While you could take a hand at bridge, And murmur “Zooks!” or worse.

Oh, it would be as fresh a sight As ever yet was seen, If buttercups were pink and white And roses blue and green.

KITTEEN

BY

MARGARET KENNEDY

I sat beside the ingle-nook, The fire was glowing; The pot was bubbling on the hook, The wind was blowing. In the shadows of the room Ghosts were hiding; From the furthest, deepest gloom They came gliding. At the back of me I knew Crowds were creeping. Through the house the storm-wind blew, Flames went leaping, Awful shadows on the wall Set me screaming. Close at hand came Someone’s call: “Sure she’s dreaming! What have you seen? Kitteen! Tell us, what have you seen?”

In the brown bog by the lake There are stacks of drying peat; When by chance that way I take, Past I run with flying feet; For once when, wandering carelessly, I came into that lonely place, I watched a peat stack close to me And saw it had a wrinkled face! All old women sitting round, Each one in a long brown cloak; They gazed and gazed upon the ground With eyes like stones, and never spoke. Then I turned my back and fled Up our hill, with stumbling feet; In a doorway Someone said: “She’s as white as any sheet! What did you see? Kitteen machree! Tell us, what did you see?”

Gilbert

CLEMENCE DANE

I am the aunt of Annabel. Annabel is coming next Friday to the birthday party she ought to have had a month ago; but she had measles instead. I am anxious for Annabel to enjoy herself. Whom shall I ask to meet her?

Annabel is five—a gracious-mannered five, with a smooth bobbed head of red hair, eyes like lilacs, and a generously curved mouth. She is a darling. She is also a devil. She never allows me or anyone else a quiet moment with her mother when she is in the room: indeed, she owns her parents and regards all visitors as her perquisites. She owns also, and can use with disastrous effect on my borders, a scooter and a tricycle. She can adjust the wireless set and listen in at her pleasure to Bournemouth, Cardiff or London. She swears at the dog in broad Devon, and has her ideas about her frocks. But she cannot read or tie her own shoes or tell the time.

Annabel is coming to tea on Friday. How am I to keep her amused? Shall I invite Philip Collins, that hard-working child, proprietor of stickle-backs, my particular friend? Will there be anything left of Philip if I do—or of Annabel? Philip is seven. With only a year or so between them they ought to get on. And yet, how did I feel towards seven when I was five? Across the white magic-lantern circle of my memory a shadow flits, a leggy, olive-green shadow, with fur at its neck and wrists, and I recognise Gilbert, and pause.

Annabel is so much more sophisticated and so much more of a baby than we were ever allowed to be, that the Gilbert adventure could hardly happen to her. She would say she didn’t like him and be done with it. And yet—suppose she didn’t! Suppose she suffered him in silence like her aunt before her! I do want Annabel to enjoy herself.

You must not think that there was any harm in Gilbert. He was, I see now, a nice, polite little boy. My Aunt Angela said so. He was as nice a boy, I daresay, as Philip, who is—perhaps—to make Annabel’s acquaintance next Friday. But he was long and, as it was a fancy-dress ball, his mother had dressed him in greenery-yallery tights, and a doublet with moleskin at the neck and wrists. Now, when you are no older than Annabel and own a live mole which you keep in the ring-dove’s cage, you do not feel friendly to people who wear moleskin. (No, I don’t know what happened to the ring-dove, though I remember that she lived for some time in the kitchen in a straw-coloured wicker-work cage, and was incessantly laying eggs that wouldn’t hatch and croo-rooing over them in a lamentable voice which made the nursery feel that the whole bitter business was the nursery’s fault.)

It is not too much to say that from the moment I set eyes upon Gilbert I felt for him that unreasoning sick dislike of which only a child is capable, and which it never attempts to explain. I never said a word to my Aunt Angela about Gilbert, though I noted him with a prophetic shudder as I followed her across the shining, slippery floor. Indeed, nobody could help noticing Gilbert. It was not only that he was so much longer than anybody else, so prominent among the Joan of Arcs and Pierrots and Geishas, but that he was such a pervasive dancer: he seemed to be behaving beautifully with everybody at once. There was a horrible fascination in his smiling efficiency: he wasn’t shy like everyone else: he didn’t mind what he did: and he did it well. He was a handsome boy too, for my Aunt Angela said so. Indeed, I can best fix him for you by recalling the fact that when I saw Lewis Waller come upon the stage as Robin Hood I instantly, and for the first time in fifteen years, remembered Gilbert.

Before I could pull on my white silk mittens, my aunt (I knew she would) had caught Gilbert and introduced him to me, and he wrote his name on my programme and his own, and his moleskin wrist—his mole must have been an older and oilier mole than mine—rubbed against my bare hand. In the frantic subsequent attempts to scrub off the feel, I spilled water down my new frock, my fancy-dress of yellow satin petals over a green satin skirt, with three green satin leaves dangling from the neck; for I, in that hour, was a primrose.

But washing my hands and drying my frock only took up a dance and a half: Gilbert and his Berlin Polka were still to be faced.

I had an idea. I would anticipate Gilbert: I would have a partner of my own. I marked one down, a rosy, bewildered little girl in sparkles: a Snow-white—a Fairy queen—what did I care? I gave her her orders; for she was only four. She was to look out for me when number seven began. She was to refuse to dance with anyone else. She was dancing the Berlin polka with me—did she understand?—with me: and if a green boy with moleskin on his wrists asked her where I was, well—there I wasn’t! Did she quite understand?

I was still passionately explaining the situation when the music of number six struck up, and her partner, a Father Christmas smaller than herself, jogged her away. I can still see so clearly the bunchy little figure—we were not so particular about the cut of our clothes as is Annabel’s generation—and the alarmed dark eyes and hot cheeks as she looked back at me over her winged shoulder. As for me, I had to put in the perilous time somehow. I hid.

I found a beautiful place to hide in, a room with cane chairs and palms, and one or two screened recesses with two chairs and a table in each. I sat me down in the only empty recess and listened to the music, and wondered whether Gilbert had begun to look for me yet. Soon a young lady with bare shoulders and a young gentleman with an eye-glass arrived, looked in, departed, and shortly returned again. It was quite evident that they wanted my refuge. I wasn’t going to let them have it. I was terrified of them both, but I was still more terrified of Gilbert.

Said the young gentleman:

“What are you doing here?” and he called me “little girl!”

Said I, firmly, but I was on the edge of tears:

“I am waiting for my partner,” and felt that I lied, for I was not exactly waiting for Gilbert.

“Oh, indeed!” said the young gentleman, and stared again, and whispered to the young lady with the white shoulders, and the young lady whispered back. You cannot think how miserable I felt. They went away at last; but they, and my lie—a lie was a lie in those days—had ruined my haven. I slipped out as the music stopped, and instantly the young gentleman and the young lady got up from two chairs under a palm and sat down behind my screen, while—oh horror!—Gilbert’s green and questing length crossed and re-crossed the lighted swirling space on the other side of the draped doorway. I knew—who better?—whom he sought. I backed into the dark corner formed by the wall and the other side of the screen, too much occupied with Gilbert’s next move to attend to the murmurs on the other side of it. But the sitters-out were sensitive; or I, effacing myself as much as possible, must have pushed against the screen. Slowly, over the top, rose the head of the young gentleman. He stared down at me reproachfully and I, in a paralysis of embarrassment, stared up at him. You cannot think how tall the screen seemed, and how terrible the face of the young gentleman to the eyes of five. Nothing was said. How long he was prepared to stare at me I do not know, for his eye-glass was more than I could bear: at that moment even Gilbert was easier to face. I sidled back into the ballroom, worming my way as self-effacingly as possible in and out between mothers and empty chairs, till a familiar glitter caught my eye. It was my partner, my illegal partner, so soft, so rosy, so cosy, so blessedly harmless, so very much smaller than I. She was not pleased to see me (I realise now that I must have been as awful to her as Gilbert to me) but what did that matter? I grasped her hurriedly by a hand and a wing:

“One, two, three,” I prompted: and we put our feet into the second position. But fate was looking after the little girl in sparkles, not after me.

“My dance, I think.” Gilbert, cool, easy, adequate, even remembered to bow. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” he said and he put out mole-skinny hands.

“I’m dancing with _her_,” I muttered. It was my last throw. But at that a new voice interposed:

“Oh, Mary, you mustn’t take the little girl away from her partner!” And the fairy queen, inexpressible relief in her eyes, pulled her hand out of mine and retired upon her mother.

I danced with Gilbert.

The last straw was hearing my Aunt Angela telling my mother, in the cab coming home, that it was pretty to see how the child had enjoyed herself.

Now I wonder how Annabel would have dealt with Gilbert? Her childhood is not my childhood. I read _Pickwick_ at five, while Annabel is satisfied with _Teddy Tail_: that fancy-dress ball was my first party, while Annabel goes to dances twice a week. Annabel’s emotions could never have been in the least like mine. And yet, five years old in the eighteen-nineties is nearer five years old in the nineteen-twenties than five years old will ever be to a contemporary aunt. If I ask my nice Philip Collins to tea—such a handsome boy!—such good manners!—how am I to be certain that I am not inflicting a Gilbert upon Annabel? On the other hand, Annabel might have liked Gilbert. He was a popular person that evening: and Annabel has never kept moles.

Annabel does not think me young. She asked me yesterday if I had ever spoken to Queen Elizabeth; but she likes to hear what I did in that Palæolithic age when I was little. I will tell her about Gilbert when I tuck her up to-night, and see what she says.

Jack and His Pony, Tom

H. BELLOC