The E. Nesbit Megapack: 26 Classic Novels and Stories

by E. Nesbit

  DEAR MR EDITOR,

  I want you to print my poetry and pay for it, and I am a friend of Mrs Leslie’s; she is a poet too.

  Your affectionate friend,

  NOEL BASTABLE.

  He licked the envelope a good deal, so that that boy shouldn’t read it going upstairs; and he wrote ‘Very private’ outside, and gave the letter to the boy. I thought it wasn’t any good; but in a minute the grinning boy came back, and he was quite respectful, and said—‘The Editor says, please will you step up?’

  We stepped up. There were a lot of stairs and passages, and a queer sort of humming, hammering sound and a very funny smell. The boy was now very polite, and said it was the ink we smelt, and the noise was the printing machines.

  After going through a lot of cold passages we came to a door; the boy opened it, and let us go in. There was a large room, with a big, soft, blue-and-red carpet, and a roaring fire, though it was only October; and a large table with drawers, and littered with papers, just like the one in Father’s study. A gentleman was sitting at one side of the table; he had a light moustache and light eyes, and he looked very young to be an editor—not nearly so old as Father. He looked very tired and sleepy, as if he had got up very early in the morning; but he was kind, and we liked him. Oswald thought he looked clever. Oswald is considered a judge of faces.

  ‘Well,’ said he, ‘so you are Mrs Leslie’s friends?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Noël; ‘at least she gave us each a shilling, and she wished us “good hunting!”’

  ‘Good hunting, eh? Well, what about this poetry of yours? Which is the poet?’

  I can’t think how he could have asked! Oswald is said to be a very manly-looking boy for his age. However, I thought it would look duffing to be offended, so I said—

  ‘This is my brother Noël. He is the poet.’ Noël had turned quite pale. He is disgustingly like a girl in some ways. The Editor told us to sit down, and he took the poems from Noël, and began to read them. Noël got paler and paler; I really thought he was going to faint, like he did when I held his hand under the cold-water tap, after I had accidentally cut him with my chisel. When the Editor had read the first poem—it was the one about the beetle—he got up and stood with his back to us. It was not manners; but Noël thinks he did it ‘to conceal his emotion,’ as they do in books. He read all the poems, and then he said—

  ‘I like your poetry very much, young man. I’ll give you—let me see; how much shall I give you for it?’

  ‘As much as ever you can,’ said Noël. ‘You see I want a good deal of money to restore the fallen fortunes of the house of Bastable.’

  The gentleman put on some eye-glasses and looked hard at us. Then he sat down.

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ said he. ‘Tell me how you came to think of it. And, I say, have you had any tea? They’ve just sent out for mine.’

  He rang a tingly bell, and the boy brought in a tray with a teapot and a thick cup and saucer and things, and he had to fetch another tray for us, when he was told to; and we had tea with the Editor of the Daily Recorder. I suppose it was a very proud moment for Noël, though I did not think of that till afterwards. The Editor asked us a lot of questions, and we told him a good deal, though of course I did not tell a stranger all our reasons for thinking that the family fortunes wanted restoring. We stayed about half an hour, and when we were going away he said again—

  ‘I shall print all your poems, my poet; and now what do you think they’re worth?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Noël said. ‘You see I didn’t write them to sell.’

  ‘Why did you write them then?’ he asked.

  Noël said he didn’t know; he supposed because he wanted to.

  ‘Art for Art’s sake, eh?’ said the Editor, and he seemed quite delighted, as though Noël had said something clever.

  ‘Well, would a guinea meet your views?’ he asked.

  I have read of people being at a loss for words, and dumb with emotion, and I’ve read of people being turned to stone with astonishment, or joy, or something, but I never knew how silly it looked till I saw Noël standing staring at the Editor with his mouth open. He went red and he went white, and then he got crimson, as if you were rubbing more and more crimson lake on a palette. But he didn’t say a word, so Oswald had to say—

  ‘I should jolly well think so.’

  So the Editor gave Noël a sovereign and a shilling, and he shook hands with us both, but he thumped Noël on the back and said—

  ‘Buck up, old man! It’s your first guinea, but it won’t be your last. Now go along home, and in about ten years you can bring me some more poetry. Not before—see? I’m just taking this poetry of yours because I like it very much; but we don’t put poetry in this paper at all. I shall have to put it in another paper I know of.’

  ‘What do you put in your paper?’ I asked, for Father always takes the Daily Chronicle, and I didn’t know what the Recorder was like. We chose it because it has such a glorious office, and a clock outside lighted up.

  ‘Oh, news,’ said he, ‘and dull articles, and things about Celebrities. If you know any Celebrities, now?’

  Noël asked him what Celebrities were.

  ‘Oh, the Queen and the Princes, and people with titles, and people who write, or sing, or act—or do something clever or wicked.’

  ‘I don’t know anybody wicked,’ said Oswald, wishing he had known Dick Turpin, or Claude Duval, so as to be able to tell the Editor things about them. ‘But I know some one with a title—Lord Tottenham.’

  ‘The mad old Protectionist, eh? How did you come to know him?’

  ‘We don’t know him to speak to. But he goes over the Heath every day at three, and he strides along like a giant—with a black cloak like Lord Tennyson’s flying behind him, and he talks to himself like one o’clock.’

  ‘What does he say?’ The Editor had sat down again, and he was fiddling with a blue pencil.

  ‘We only heard him once, close enough to understand, and then he said, “The curse of the country, sir—ruin and desolation!” And then he went striding along again, hitting at the furze-bushes as if they were the heads of his enemies.’

  ‘Excellent descriptive touch,’ said the Editor. ‘Well, go on.’

  ‘That’s all I know about him, except that he stops in the middle of the Heath every day, and he looks all round to see if there’s any one about, and if there isn’t, he takes his collar off.’

  The Editor interrupted—which is considered rude—and said—

  ‘You’re not romancing?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Oswald. ‘Drawing the long bow, I mean,’ said the Editor.

  Oswald drew himself up, and said he wasn’t a liar.

  The Editor only laughed, and said romancing and lying were not at all the same; only it was important to know what you were playing at. So Oswald accepted his apology, and went on.

  ‘We were hiding among the furze-bushes one day, and we saw him do it. He took off his collar, and he put on a clean one, and he threw the other among the furze-bushes. We picked it up afterwards, and it was a beastly paper one!’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the Editor, and he got up and put his hand in his pocket. ‘That’s well worth five shillings, and there they are. Would you like to see round the printing offices before you go home?’

  I pocketed my five bob, and thanked him, and I said we should like it very much. He called another gentleman and said something we couldn’t hear. Then he said good-bye again; and all this time Noël hadn’t said a word. But now he said, ‘I’ve made a poem about you. It is called “Lines to a Noble Editor.” Shall I write it down?’

  The Editor gave him the blue pencil, and he sat down at the Editor’s table and wrote. It was this, he told me afterwards as well as he could remember—

&nb
sp; May Life’s choicest blessings be your lot

  I think you ought to be very blest

  For you are going to print my poems—

  And you may have this one as well as the rest.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the Editor. ‘I don’t think I ever had a poem addressed to me before. I shall treasure it, I assure you.’

  Then the other gentleman said something about Maecenas, and we went off to see the printing office with at least one pound seven in our pockets.

  It was good hunting, and no mistake!

  But he never put Noël’s poetry in the Daily Recorder. It was quite a long time afterwards we saw a sort of story thing in a magazine, on the station bookstall, and that kind, sleepy-looking Editor had written it, I suppose. It was not at all amusing. It said a lot about Noël and me, describing us all wrong, and saying how we had tea with the Editor; and all Noël’s poems were in the story thing. I think myself the Editor seemed to make game of them, but Noël was quite pleased to see them printed—so that’s all right. It wasn’t my poetry anyhow, I am glad to say.

  CHAPTER 6

  NOEL’S PRINCESS

  She happened quite accidentally. We were not looking for a Princess at all just then; but Noël had said he was going to find a Princess all by himself; and marry her—and he really did. Which was rather odd, because when people say things are going to befall, very often they don’t. It was different, of course, with the prophets of old.

  We did not get any treasure by it, except twelve chocolate drops; but we might have done, and it was an adventure, anyhow.

  Greenwich Park is a jolly good place to play in, especially the parts that aren’t near Greenwich. The parts near the Heath are first-rate. I often wish the Park was nearer our house; but I suppose a Park is a difficult thing to move.

  Sometimes we get Eliza to put lunch in a basket, and we go up to the Park. She likes that—it saves cooking dinner for us; and sometimes she says of her own accord, ‘I’ve made some pasties for you, and you might as well go into the Park as not. It’s a lovely day.’

  She always tells us to rinse out the cup at the drinking-fountain, and the girls do; but I always put my head under the tap and drink. Then you are an intrepid hunter at a mountain stream—and besides, you’re sure it’s clean. Dicky does the same, and so does H. O. But Noël always drinks out of the cup. He says it is a golden goblet wrought by enchanted gnomes.

  The day the Princess happened was a fine, hot day, last October, and we were quite tired with the walk up to the Park.

  We always go in by the little gate at the top of Croom’s Hill. It is the postern gate that things always happen at in stories. It was dusty walking, but when we got in the Park it was ripping, so we rested a bit, and lay on our backs, and looked up at the trees, and wished we could play monkeys. I have done it before now, but the Park-keeper makes a row if he catches you.

  When we’d rested a little, Alice said—

  ‘It was a long way to the enchanted wood, but it is very nice now we are there. I wonder what we shall find in it?’

  ‘We shall find deer,’ said Dicky, ‘if we go to look; but they go on the other side of the Park because of the people with buns.’

  Saying buns made us think of lunch, so we had it; and when we had done we scratched a hole under a tree and buried the papers, because we know it spoils pretty places to leave beastly, greasy papers lying about. I remember Mother teaching me and Dora that, when we were quite little. I wish everybody’s parents would teach them this useful lesson, and the same about orange peel.

  When we’d eaten everything there was, Alice whispered—

  ‘I see the white witch bear yonder among the trees! Let’s track it and slay it in its lair.’

  ‘I am the bear,’ said Noël; so he crept away, and we followed him among the trees. Often the witch bear was out of sight, and then you didn’t know where it would jump out from; but sometimes we saw it, and just followed.

  ‘When we catch it there’ll be a great fight,’ said Oswald; ‘and I shall be Count Folko of Mont Faucon.’

  ‘I’ll be Gabrielle,’ said Dora. She is the only one of us who likes doing girl’s parts.

  ‘I’ll be Sintram,’ said Alice; ‘and H. O. can be the Little Master.’

  ‘What about Dicky?’

  ‘Oh, I can be the Pilgrim with the bones.’

  ‘Hist!’ whispered Alice. ‘See his white fairy fur gleaming amid yonder covert!’

  And I saw a bit of white too. It was Noël’s collar, and it had come undone at the back.

  We hunted the bear in and out of the trees, and then we lost him altogether; and suddenly we found the wall of the Park—in a place where I’m sure there wasn’t a wall before. Noël wasn’t anywhere about, and there was a door in the wall. And it was open; so we went through.

  ‘The bear has hidden himself in these mountain fastnesses,’ Oswald said. ‘I will draw my good sword and after him.’

  So I drew the umbrella, which Dora always will bring in case it rains, because Noël gets a cold on the chest at the least thing—and we went on.

  The other side of the wall it was a stable yard, all cobble-stones.

  There was nobody about—but we could hear a man rubbing down a horse and hissing in the stable; so we crept very quietly past, and Alice whispered—

  ‘’Tis the lair of the Monster Serpent; I hear his deadly hiss! Beware! Courage and despatch!’

  We went over the stones on tiptoe, and we found another wall with another door in it on the other side. We went through that too, on tiptoe. It really was an adventure. And there we were in a shrubbery, and we saw something white through the trees. Dora said it was the white bear. That is so like Dora. She always begins to take part in a play just when the rest of us are getting tired of it. I don’t mean this unkindly, because I am very fond of Dora. I cannot forget how kind she was when I had bronchitis; and ingratitude is a dreadful vice. But it is quite true.

  ‘It is not a bear,’ said Oswald; and we all went on, still on tiptoe, round a twisty path and on to a lawn, and there was Noël. His collar had come undone, as I said, and he had an inky mark on his face that he made just before we left the house, and he wouldn’t let Dora wash it off, and one of his bootlaces was coming down. He was standing looking at a little girl; she was the funniest little girl you ever saw.

  She was like a china doll—the sixpenny kind; she had a white face, and long yellow hair, done up very tight in two pigtails; her forehead was very big and lumpy, and her cheeks came high up, like little shelves under her eyes. Her eyes were small and blue. She had on a funny black frock, with curly braid on it, and button boots that went almost up to her knees. Her legs were very thin. She was sitting in a hammock chair nursing a blue kitten—not a sky-blue one, of course, but the colour of a new slate pencil. As we came up we heard her say to Noël—‘Who are you?’

  Noël had forgotten about the bear, and he was taking his favourite part, so he said—‘I’m Prince Camaralzaman.’

  The funny little girl looked pleased—

  ‘I thought at first you were a common boy,’ she said. Then she saw the rest of us and said—

  ‘Are you all Princesses and Princes too?’

  Of course we said ‘Yes,’ and she said—

  ‘I am a Princess also.’ She said it very well too, exactly as if it were true. We were very glad, because it is so seldom you meet any children who can begin to play right off without having everything explained to them. And even then they will say they are going to ‘pretend to be’ a lion, or a witch, or a king. Now this little girl just said ‘I am a Princess.’ Then she looked at Oswald and said, ‘I fancy I’ve seen you at Baden.’

  Of course Oswald said, ‘Very likely.’

  The little girl had a funny voice, and all her words were quite plain, eac
h word by itself; she didn’t talk at all like we do.

  H. O. asked her what the cat’s name was, and she said ‘Katinka.’ Then Dicky said—

  ‘Let’s get away from the windows; if you play near windows some one inside generally knocks at them and says “Don’t.”’

  The Princess put down the cat very carefully and said—

  ‘I am forbidden to walk off the grass.’

  ‘That’s a pity,’ said Dora.

  ‘But I will if you like,’ said the Princess.

  ‘You mustn’t do things you are forbidden to do,’ Dora said; but Dicky showed us that there was some more grass beyond the shrubs with only a gravel path between. So I lifted the Princess over the gravel, so that she should be able to say she hadn’t walked off the grass. When we got to the other grass we all sat down, and the Princess asked us if we liked ‘dragees’ (I know that’s how you spell it, for I asked Albert-next-door’s uncle).

  We said we thought not, but she pulled a real silver box out of her pocket and showed us; they were just flat, round chocolates. We had two each. Then we asked her her name, and she began, and when she began she went on, and on, and on, till I thought she was never going to stop. H. O. said she had fifty names, but Dicky is very good at figures, and he says there were only eighteen. The first were Pauline, Alexandra, Alice, and Mary was one, and Victoria, for we all heard that, and it ended up with Hildegarde Cunigonde something or other, Princess of something else.

  When she’d done, H. O. said, ‘That’s jolly good! Say it again!’ and she did, but even then we couldn’t remember it. We told her our names, but she thought they were too short, so when it was Noël’s turn he said he was Prince Noël Camaralzaman Ivan Constantine Charlemagne James John Edward Biggs Maximilian Bastable Prince of Lewisham, but when she asked him to say it again of course he could only get the first two names right, because he’d made it up as he went on.

  So the Princess said, ‘You are quite old enough to know your own name.’ She was very grave and serious.