by E. Nesbit
CHAPTER VIII
IT was but too plain. The unfortunate bailiff must have opened the doorbefore the spell had faded, while yet the Ugly-Wuglies were somethingmore than mere coats and hats and sticks. They had rushed out upon him,and had done this. He lay there insensible--was it a golf-club or ahockey-stick that had made that horrible cut on his forehead? Geraldwondered. The girls had rushed to the sufferer; already his head was inMabel's lap. Kathleen had tried to get it on to hers, but Mabel was tooquick for her.
Jimmy and Gerald both knew what was the first thing needed by theunconscious, even before Mabel impatiently said: "Water! water!"
"What in?" Jimmy asked, looking doubtfully at his hands, and then downthe green slope to the marble-bordered pool where the water-lilies were.
"Your hat--anything," said Mabel.
The two boys turned away.
"Suppose they come after us," said Jimmy.
"_What_ come after us?" Gerald snapped rather than asked.
"The Ugly-Wuglies," Jimmy whispered.
"Who's afraid?" Gerald inquired.
But he looked to right and left very carefully, and chose the way thatdid not lead near the bushes. He scooped water up in his straw hat andreturned to Flora's Temple, carrying it carefully in both hands. When hesaw how quickly it ran through the straw he pulled his handkerchief fromhis breast pocket with his teeth and dropped it into the hat. It waswith this that the girls wiped the blood from the bailiff's brow.
"We ought to have smelling salts," said Kathleen, half in tears. "I knowwe ought."
"They would be good," Mabel owned.
"Hasn't your aunt any?"
"Yes, but----"
"Don't be a coward," said Gerald; "think of last night. _They_ wouldn'thurt you. He must have insulted them or something. Look here, you run.We'll see that nothing runs after you."
There was no choice but to relinquish the head of the interestinginvalid to Kathleen; so Mabel did it, cast one glaring glance round therhododendron bordered slope, and fled towards the castle.
The other three bent over the still unconscious bailiff.
"He's not dead, is he?" asked Jimmy anxiously.
"No," Kathleen reassured him, "his heart's beating. Mabel and I felt itin his wrist, where doctors do. How frightfully good-looking he is!"
"Not so dusty," Gerald admitted.
"I never know what you mean by good-looking," said Jimmy, and suddenly ashadow fell on the marble beside them and a fourth voice spoke--notMabel's; her hurrying figure, though still in sight, was far away.
"Quite a personable young man," it said.
The children looked up--into the face of the eldest of the Ugly-Wuglies,the respectable one. Jimmy and Kathleen screamed. I am sorry, but theydid.
"Hush!" said Gerald savagely: he was still wearing the ring. "Hold yourtongues! I'll get him away," he added in a whisper.
"Very sad affair this," said the respectable Ugly-Wugly. He spoke with acurious accent; there was something odd about his r's, and his m's andn's were those of a person labouring under an almost intolerable cold inthe head. But it was not the dreadful "oo" and "ah" voice of the nightbefore. Kathleen and Jimmy stooped over the bailiff. Even that prostrateform, being human, seemed some little protection. But Gerald, strong inthe fearlessness that the ring gave to its wearer, looked full into theface of the Ugly-Wugly--and started. For though the face was almost thesame as the face he had himself painted on the school drawing-paper, itwas not the same. For it was no longer paper. It was a real face, andthe hands, lean and almost transparent as they were, were real hands.As it moved a little to get a better view of the bailiff it was plainthat it had legs, arms--live legs and arms, and a self-supportingbackbone. It was alive indeed--with a vengeance.
"How did it happen?" Gerald asked with an effort at calmness--asuccessful effort.
"Most regrettable," said the Ugly-Wugly. "The others must have missedthe way last night in the passage. They never found the hotel."
"Did _you_?" asked Gerald blankly.
"Of course," said the Ugly-Wugly. "Most respectable, exactly as yousaid. Then when I came away--I didn't come the front way because Iwanted to revisit this sylvan scene by daylight, and the hotel peopledidn't seem to know how to direct me to it--I found the others all atthis door, very angry. They'd been here all night, trying to get out.Then the door opened--this gentleman must have opened it--and before Icould protect him, that underbred man in the high hat--you remember----"
Gerald remembered.
"Hit him on the head, and he fell where you see him. The othersdispersed, and I myself was just going for assistance when I saw you."
Here Jimmy was discovered to be in tears and Kathleen white as anydrawing-paper.
"What's the matter, my little man?" said the respectable Ugly-Wuglykindly. Jimmy passed instantly from tears to yells.
"Here, take the ring!" said Gerald in a furious whisper, and thrust iton to Jimmy's hot, damp, resisting finger. Jimmy's voice stopped shortin the middle of a howl. And Gerald in a cold flash realised what it wasthat Mabel had gone through the night before. But it was daylight, andGerald was not a coward.
"We must find the others," he said.
"I imagine," said the elderly Ugly-Wugly, "that they have gone to bathe.Their clothes are in the wood."
He pointed stiffly.
"You two go and see," said Gerald. "I'll go on dabbing this chap'shead."
In the wood Jimmy, now fearless as any lion, discovered four heaps ofclothing, with broomsticks, hockey-sticks, and masks complete, all thathad gone to make up the gentlemen Ugly-Wuglies of the night before. On astone seat well in the sun sat the two lady Ugly-Wuglies, and Kathleenapproached them gingerly. Valour is easier in the sunshine than atnight, as we all know. When she and Jimmy came close to the bench, theysaw that the Ugly-Wuglies were only Ugly-Wuglies such as they had oftenmade. There was no life in them. Jimmy shook them to pieces, and a sighof relief burst from Kathleen.
"The spell's broken, you see," she said; "and that old gentleman, he'sreal. He only happens to be like the Ugly-Wugly we made."
"He's got the coat that hung in the hall on, anyway," said Jimmy.
JIMMY SHOOK THEM TO PIECES.]
"No, it's only like it. Let's get back to the unconscious stranger."
They did, and Gerald begged the elderly Ugly-Wugly to retire among thebushes with Jimmy; "because," said he, "I think the poor bailiff'scoming round, and it might upset him to see strangers--and Jimmy'll keepyou company. He's the best one of us to go with you," he added hastily.
And this, since Jimmy had the ring, was certainly true.
So the two disappeared behind the rhododendrons. Mabel came back withthe salts just as the bailiff opened his eyes.
"It's just like life," she said; "I might just as well not have gone.However----" She knelt down at once and held the bottle under thesufferer's nose till he sneezed and feebly pushed her hand away with thefaint question:
"What's up now?"
"You've hurt your head," said Gerald. "Lie still."
"No--more--smelling-bottle," he said weakly, and lay.
Quite soon he sat up and looked round him. There was an anxious silence.Here was a grown-up who knew last night's secret, and none of thechildren were at all sure what the utmost rigour of the law might be ina case where people, no matter how young, made Ugly-Wuglies, and broughtthem to life--dangerous, fighting, angry life. What would he say--whatwould he do? He said: "What an odd thing! Have I been insensible long?"
"Hours," said Mabel earnestly.
"Not long," said Kathleen.
"We don't know. We found you like it," said Gerald.
"I'm all right now," said the bailiff, and his eye fell on theblood-stained handkerchief. "I say, I did give my head a bang. Andyou've been giving me first aid. Thank you most awfully. But it is rum."
"What's rum?" politeness obliged Gerald to ask.
"Well, I suppose it isn't really rum--I expect I saw you just before Ifainted, or wha
tever it was--but I've dreamed the most extraordinarydream while I've been insensible, and you were in it."
"Nothing but us?" asked Mabel breathlessly.
"Oh, lots of things--impossible things--but _you_ were real enough."
Every one breathed deeply in relief. It was indeed, as they agreedlater, a lucky let-off.
"Are you _sure_ you're all right?" they all asked, as he got on hisfeet.
"Perfectly, thank you." He glanced behind Flora's statue as he spoke."Do you know, I dreamed there was a door there, but of course thereisn't. I don't know how to thank you," he added, looking at them withwhat the girls called his beautiful, kind eyes; "it's lucky for me youcame along. You come here whenever you like, you know," he added. "Igive you the freedom of the place."
"You're the new bailiff, aren't you?" said Mabel.
"Yes. How did you know?" he asked quickly; but they did not tell him howthey knew. Instead, they found out which way he was going, and went theother way after warm hand-shakes and hopes on both sides that they wouldmeet again soon.
"I'll tell you what," said Gerald, as they watched the tall, broadfigure of the bailiff grow smaller across the hot green of the grassslope, "have you got any idea of how we're going to spend the day?Because I have."
The others hadn't.
"We'll get rid of that Ugly-Wugly--oh, we'll find a way rightenough--and directly we've done it we'll go home and seal up the ring inan envelope so that its teeth'll be drawn and it'll be powerless to haveunforeseen larks with us. Then we'll get out on the roof, and have aquiet day--books and apples. I'm about fed up with adventures, so I tellyou."
The others told him the same thing.
"Now, _think_," said he--"think as you never thought before--how to getrid of that Ugly-Wugly."
Every one thought, but their brains were tired with anxiety anddistress, and the thoughts they thought were, as Mabel said, not worththinking, let alone saying.
"I suppose Jimmy's all right," said Kathleen anxiously.
"Oh, _he's_ all right: he's got the ring," said Gerald.
"I hope he won't go wishing anything rotten," said Mabel, but Geraldurged her to shut up and let him think.
"I think I think best sitting down," he said, and sat; "and sometimesyou can think best aloud. The Ugly-Wugly's _real_--don't make anymistake about that. And he got made real inside that passage. If wecould get him back there he might get changed again, and then we couldtake the coats and things back."
"Isn't there any other way?" Kathleen asked; and Mabel, more candid,said bluntly: "I'm not going into that passage, so there!"
"Afraid! In broad daylight," Gerald sneered.
"It wouldn't be broad daylight in there," said Mabel, and Kathleenshivered.
"If we went to him and suddenly tore his coat off," said she--"he _is_only coats--he couldn't go on being real then."
"_Couldn't_ he!" said Gerald. "You don't know what he's like under thecoat."
Kathleen shivered again. And all this time the sun was shining gaily andthe white statues and the green trees and the fountains and terraceslooked as cheerfully romantic as a scene in a play.
"Any way," said Gerald, "we'll try to get him back, and shut the door.That's the most we can hope for. And then apples, and 'Robinson Crusoe'or the 'Swiss Family,' or any book you like that's got no magic in it.Now, we've just got to do it. And he's not horrid now; _really_ heisn't. He's real, you see."
"I suppose that makes all the difference," said Mabel, and tried to feelthat perhaps it did.
"And it's broad daylight--just look at the sun," Gerald insisted. "Comeon!"
He took a hand of each, and they walked resolutely towards the bank ofrhododendrons behind which Jimmy and the Ugly-Wugly had been told towait, and as they went Gerald said: "He's real"--"The sun'sshining"--"It'll all be over in a minute." And he said these thingsagain and again, so that there should be no mistake about them.
As they neared the bushes the shining leaves rustled, shivered, andparted, and before the girls had time to begin to hang back Jimmy cameblinking out into the sunlight. The boughs closed behind him, and theydid not stir or rustle for the appearance of any one else. Jimmy wasalone.
"Where is it?" asked the girls in one breath.
"Walking up and down in a fir-walk," said Jimmy, "doing sums in a book.He says he's most frightfully rich, and he's got to get up to town tothe Stocks or something--where they change papers into gold if you'reclever, he says. I should like to go to the Stocks-change, wouldn'tyou?"
"I don't seem to care very much about changes," said Gerald. "I've hadenough. Show us where he is--we must get rid of him."
"He's got a motor-car," Jimmy went on, parting the warmvarnished-looking rhododendron leaves, "and a garden with a tennis-courtand a lake and a carriage and pair, and he goes to Athens for hisholiday sometimes, just like other people go to Margate."
"The best thing," said Gerald, following through the bushes, "will be totell him the shortest way out is through that hotel that he thinks hefound last night. Then we get him into the passage, give him a push, flyback, and shut the door."
"He'll starve to death in there," said Kathleen, "if he's really real."
"I expect it doesn't last long, the ring magics don't--anyway, it's theonly thing I can think of."
"He's frightfully rich," Jimmy went on unheeding amid the cracking ofthe bushes; "he's building a public library for the people where helives, and having his portrait painted to put in it. He thinks they'lllike that."
The belt of rhododendrons was passed, and the children had reached asmooth grass walk bordered by tall pines and firs of strange differentkinds. "He's just round that corner," said Jimmy. "He's simply rollingin money. He doesn't know what to do with it. He's been building ahorse-trough and drinking fountain with a bust of himself on top. Whydoesn't he build a private swimming-bath close to his bed, so that hecan just roll off into it of a morning? I wish _I_ was rich; I'd soonshow him----"
"That's a sensible wish," said Gerald. "I wonder we didn't think ofdoing that. Oh, criky!" he added, and with reason. For there, in thegreen shadows of the pine-walk, in the woodland silence, broken only byrustling leaves and the agitated breathing of the three unhappy others,Jimmy got his wish. By quick but perfectly plain-to-be-seen degreesJimmy became rich. And the horrible thing was that though they could seeit happening they did not know what was happening, and could not havestopped it if they had. All they could see was Jimmy, their own Jimmy,whom they had larked with and quarrelled with and made it up with eversince they could remember, Jimmy continuously and horribly growing old.The whole thing was over in a few seconds. Yet in those few seconds theysaw him grow to a youth, a young man, a middle-aged man; and then, witha sort of shivering shock, unspeakably horrible and definite, he seemedto settle down into an elderly gentleman, handsomely but rather dowdilydressed, who was looking down at them through spectacles and asking themthe nearest way to the railway-station. If they had not seen the changetake place, in all its awful details, they would never have guessed thatthis stout, prosperous, elderly gentleman with the high hat, thefrock-coat, and the large red seal dangling from the curve of a portlywaistcoat, was their own Jimmy. But, as they _had_ seen it, they knewthe dreadful truth.
"Oh, Jimmy, _don't_!" cried Mabel desperately.
Gerald said: "This is perfectly beastly," and Kathleen broke into wildweeping.
"Don't cry, little girl!" said That-which-had-been-Jimmy; "and you, boy,can't you give a civil answer to a civil question?"
"He doesn't know us!" wailed Kathleen.
"Who doesn't know you?" said That-which-had-been impatiently.
"Y--y--_you_ don't!" Kathleen sobbed.
"I certainly don't," returned That-which----"but surely that need notdistress you so deeply."
"Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy!" Kathleen sobbed louder than before.
"He _doesn't_ know us," Gerald owned, "or--look here, Jimmy, y--youaren't kidding, are you? Because if you are it's simply abject rot----"
> "My name is Mr. ----," said That-which-had-been-Jimmy, and gave the namecorrectly. By the way, it will perhaps be shorter to call this elderlystout person who was Jimmy grown rich by some simpler name than I havejust used. Let us call him "That"--short for "That-which-had-been-Jimmy."
"What _are_ we to do?" whispered Mabel, awestruck; and aloud she said:"Oh, Mr. James, or whatever you call yourself, _do_ give me the ring."For on That's finger the fatal ring showed plain.
"Certainly not," said That firmly. "You appear to be a very graspingchild."
"But what are you going to _do_?" Gerald asked in the flat tones ofcomplete hopelessness.
"Your interest is very flattering," said That. "Will you tell me, orwon't you, the way to the nearest railway-station?"
"No," said Gerald, "we won't."
"Then," said That, still politely, though quite plainly furious,"perhaps you'll tell me the way to the nearest lunatic asylum?"
"Oh, no, no, no!" cried Kathleen. "You're not so bad as that."
"Perhaps not. But _you_ are," That retorted; "if you're not lunaticsyou're idiots. However, I see a gentleman ahead who is perhaps sane. Infact, I seem to recognise him." A gentleman, indeed, was now to be seenapproaching. It was the elderly Ugly-Wugly.
"Oh! don't you remember Jerry?" Kathleen cried, "and Cathy, your ownCathy Puss Cat? Dear, dear Jimmy, _don't_ be so silly!"
"Little girl," said That, looking at her crossly through his spectacles,"I am sorry you have not been better brought up." And he walked stifflytowards the Ugly-Wugly. Two hats were raised, a few words wereexchanged, and two elderly figures walked side by side down the greenpine-walk, followed by three miserable children, horrified, bewildered,alarmed, and, what is really worse than anything, quite at their wits'end.
"He wished to be rich, so of course he is," said Gerald; "he'll havemoney for tickets and everything."
TWO HATS WERE RAISED.]
"And when the spell breaks--it's sure to break, isn't it?--he'll findhimself somewhere awful--perhaps in a really good hotel--and not knowhow he got there."
"I wonder how long the Ugly-Wuglies lasted," said Mabel.
"Yes," Gerald answered, "that reminds me. You two _must_ collect thecoats and things. Hide them, anywhere you like, and we'll carry themhome to-morrow--if there _is_ any to-morrow," he added darkly.
"Oh, don't!" said Kathleen, once more breathing heavily on the verge oftears: "you wouldn't think everything _could_ be so awful, and the sunshining like it does."
"Look here," said Gerald, "of course I must stick to Jimmy. You two mustgo home to Mademoiselle and tell her Jimmy and I have gone off in thetrain with a gentleman--say he looked like an uncle. He does--some kindsof uncle. There'll be a beastly row afterwards, but it's got to bedone."
"It all seems thick with lies," said Kathleen; "you don't seem to beable to get a word of truth in edgewise hardly."
"Don't you worry," said her brother; "they aren't lies--they're as trueas anything else in this magic rot we've got mixed up in. It's liketelling lies in a dream; you can't help it."
"Well, all I know is I wish it would stop."
"Lot of use your wishing _that_ is," said Gerald, exasperated. "So long.I've _got_ to go, and you've _got_ to stay. If it's any comfort to you,I don't believe _any_ of it's real: it can't be; it's too thick. TellMademoiselle Jimmy and I will be back to tea. If we don't happen to be Ican't help it. I can't help _anything_, except perhaps Jimmy." Hestarted to run, for the girls had lagged, and the Ugly-Wugly and That(late Jimmy) had quickened their pace.
The girls were left looking after them.
"We've _got_ to find these clothes," said Mabel, "simply got to. I usedto want to be a heroine. It's different when it really comes to being,isn't it?"
"Yes, very," said Kathleen. "Where shall we hide the clothes when we'vegot them? Not--not that passage?"
"Never!" said Mabel firmly: "we'll hide them inside the great stonedinosaurus. He's hollow."
"He comes alive--in his stone," said Kathleen.
"Not in the sunshine he doesn't," Mabel told her confidently, "and notwithout the ring."
"There won't be any apples and books to-day," said Kathleen.
"No, but we'll do the babiest thing we _can_ do the minute we get home.We'll have a dolls' tea-party. That'll make us feel as if there wasn'treally any magic."
"It'll have to be a very strong tea party, then," said Kathleendoubtfully.
* * * * *
And now we see Gerald, a small but quite determined figure, paddlingalong in the soft white dust of the sunny road, in the wake of twoelderly gentlemen. His hand, in his trousers pocket, buries itself witha feeling of satisfaction in the heavy mixed coinage that is his shareof the profits of his conjuring at the fair. His noiseless tennis-shoesbear him to the station, where, unobserved, he listens at the ticketoffice to the voice of That-which-was-James. "One first London," itsays; and Gerald, waiting till That and the Ugly-Wugly have strolled onto the platform, politely conversing of politics and the Kaffir market,takes a third return to London. The train strides in, squeaking andpuffing. The watched take their seats in a carriage blue-lined. Thewatcher springs into a yellow wooden compartment. A whistle sounds, aflag is waved. The train pulls itself together, strains, jerks, andstarts.
MABEL HANDS UP THE CLOTHES AND THE STICKS.]
"I don't understand," says Gerald, alone in his third-class carriage,"how railway trains and magic _can_ go on at the same time."
And yet they do.
* * * * *
Mabel and Kathleen, nervously peering among the rhododendron bushes andthe bracken and the fancy fir-trees, find six several heaps of coats,hats, skirts, gloves, golf-clubs, hockey-sticks, broom-handles. Theycarry them, panting and damp, for the mid-day sun is pitiless, up thehill to where the stone dinosaurus looms immense among a forest oflarches. The dinosaurus has a hole in his stomach. Kathleen shows Mabelhow to "make a back" and climbs up on it into the cold, stony insideof the monster. Mabel hands up the clothes and the sticks.
"There's lots of room," says Kathleen; "its tail goes down into theground. It's like a secret passage."
"Suppose something comes out of it and jumps out at you," says Mabel,and Kathleen hurriedly descends.
The explanations to Mademoiselle promise to be difficult, but, asKathleen said afterwards, any little thing is enough to take agrown-up's attention off. A figure passes the window just as they areexplaining that it really did look exactly like an uncle that the boyshave gone to London with.
"Who's that?" says Mademoiselle suddenly, pointing, too, which every oneknows is not manners.
It is the bailiff coming back from the doctor's with antiseptic plasteron that nasty cut that took so long a-bathing this morning. They tellher it is the bailiff at Yalding Towers, and she says, "Sky!" (_Ciel!_)and asks no more awkward questions about the boys. Lunch--very late--isa silent meal. After lunch Mademoiselle goes out, in a hat with manypink roses, carrying a rose-lined parasol. The girls, in dead silence,organise a dolls' tea-party, with real tea. At the second cup Kathleenbursts into tears. Mabel, also weeping, embraces her.
"I wish," sobs Kathleen, "oh, I _do_ wish I knew where the boys were!It _would_ be such a comfort."
* * * * *
Gerald knew where the boys were, and it was no comfort to him at all. Ifyou come to think of it, he was the only person who could know wherethey were, because Jimmy didn't know that he was a boy--and indeed hewasn't really--and the Ugly-Wugly couldn't be expected to know anythingreal, such as where boys were. At the moment when the second cup ofdolls' tea--very strong, but not strong enough to drown care in--wasbeing poured out by the trembling hand of Kathleen, Gerald waslurking--there really is no other word for it--on the staircase ofAldermanbury Buildings, Old Broad Street. On the floor below him was adoor bearing the legend "Mr. U. W. Ugli, Stock and Share Broker. And atthe Stock Exchange," and on the floor above was another door, on
whichwas the name of Gerald's little brother, now grown suddenly rich in somagic and tragic a way. There were no explaining words under Jimmy'sname. Gerald could not guess what walk in life it was to which That(which had been Jimmy) owed its affluence. He had seen, when the dooropened to admit his brother, a tangle of clerks and mahogany desks.Evidently That had a large business.
What was Gerald to do? What _could_ he do?
It is almost impossible, especially for one so young as Gerald, to entera large London office and explain that the elderly and respected headof it is not what he seems, but is really your little brother, who hasbeen suddenly advanced to age and wealth by a tricky wishing ring. Ifyou think it's a possible thing, try it, that's all. Nor could he knockat the door of Mr. U. W. Ugli, Stock and Share Broker (and at the StockExchange), and inform _his_ clerks that their chief was really nothingbut old clothes that had accidentally come alive, and by some magic,which he couldn't attempt to explain, become real during a night spentat a really good hotel which had no existence.
The situation bristled, as you see, with difficulties. And it was solong past Gerald's proper dinner-time that his increasing hunger wasrapidly growing to seem the most important difficulty of all. It isquite possible to starve to death on the staircase of a London buildingif the people you are watching for only stay long enough in theiroffices. The truth of this came home to Gerald more and more painfully.
A boy with hair like a new front door mat came whistling up the stairs.He had a dark blue bag in his hands.
"I'll give you a tanner for yourself if you'll get me a tanner's worthof buns," said Gerald, with that prompt decision common to all greatcommanders.
"Show us yer tanners," the boy rejoined with at least equal promptness.Gerald showed them. "All right; hand over."
"Payment on delivery," said Gerald, using words from the drapers whichhe had never thought to use.
The boy grinned admiringly.
"Knows 'is wy abaht," he said; "ain't no flies on 'im."
"Not many," Gerald owned with modest pride. "Cut along, there's a goodchap. I've _got_ to wait here. I'll take care of your bag if you like."
"Nor yet there ain't no flies on me neither," remarked the boy,shouldering it. "I been up to the confidence trick for years--ever sinceI was your age."
With this parting shot he went, and returned in due course bun-laden.Gerald gave the sixpence and took the buns. When the boy, a minutelater, emerged from the door of Mr. U. W. Ugli, Stock and Share Broker(and at the Stock Exchange), Gerald stopped him.
"What sort of chap's that?" he asked, pointing the question with a jerkof an explaining thumb.
"Awful big pot," said the boy; "up to his eyes in oof. Motor and allthat."
"Know anything about the one on the next landing?"
"He's bigger than what this one is. Very old firm--special cellar in theBank of England to put his chink in--all in bins like against the wallat the corn-chandler's. Jimminy, I wouldn't mind 'alf an hour in there,and the doors open and the police away at a beano. Not much! Neither.You'll bust if you eat all them buns."
"Have one?" Gerald responded, and held out the bag.
"They say in our office," said the boy, paying for the bun honourablywith unasked information, "as these two is all for cutting each other'sthroats--oh, only in the way of business--been at it for years."
Gerald wildly wondered what magic and how much had been needed togive history and a past to these two things of yesterday, the richJimmy and the Ugly-Wugly. If he could get them away would all memoryof them fade--in this boy's mind, for instance, in the minds of allthe people who did business with them in the City? Would themahogany-and-clerk-furnished offices fade away? Were the clerksreal? Was the mahogany? Was he himself real? Was the boy?
"Can you keep a secret?" he asked the other boy. "Are you on for alark?"
"I ought to be getting back to the office," said the boy.
"Get then!" said Gerald.
"Don't you get stuffy," said the boy. "I was just agoing to say itdidn't matter. I know how to make my nose bleed if I'm a bit late."
Gerald congratulated him on this accomplishment, at once so useful andso graceful, and then said:--
"Look here. I'll give you five bob--honest."
"What for?" was the boy's natural question.
"If you'll help me."
"Fire ahead."
"I'm a private inquiry," said Gerald.
"'Tec? You don't look it."
"What's the good of being one if you look it?" Gerald asked impatiently,beginning on another bun. "That old chap on the floor above--he's_wanted_."
"Police?" asked the boy with fine carelessness.
"No--sorrowing relations."
"'Return to,'" said the boy; "'all forgotten and forgiven.' I see."
"And I've got to get him to them, somehow. Now, if you could go in andgive him a message from some one who wanted to meet him on business----"
"Hold on!" said the boy. "I know a trick worth two of that. You go inand see old Ugli. He'd give his ears to have the old boy out of the wayfor a day or two. They were saying so in our office only this morning."
"Let me think," said Gerald, laying down the last bun on his kneeexpressly to hold his head in his hands.
"Don't you forget to think about my five bob," said the boy.
Then there was a silence on the stairs, broken only by the cough of aclerk in That's office, and the clickety-clack of a typewriter in theoffice of Mr. U. W. Ugli.
Then Gerald rose up and finished the bun.
"You're right," he said. "I'll chance it. Here's your five bob."
He brushed the bun crumbs from his front, cleared his throat, andknocked at the door of Mr. U. W. Ugli. It opened and he entered.
The door-mat boy lingered, secure in his power to account for his longabsence by means of his well-trained nose, and his waiting was rewarded.He went down a few steps, round the bend of the stairs, and heard thevoice of Mr. U. W. Ugli, so well known on that staircase (and on theStock Exchange) say in soft, cautious accents:--
"Then I'll ask him to let me look at the ring--and I'll drop it. Youpick it up. But remember, it's a pure accident, and you don't know me. Ican't have my name mixed up in a thing like this. You're _sure_ he'sreally unhinged?"
"Quite," said Gerald; "he's quite mad about that ring. He'll follow itanywhere. I know he will. And think of his sorrowing relations."
"I do--I do," said Mr. Ugli kindly; "that's all I _do_ think of, ofcourse."
He went up the stairs to the other office, and Gerald heard the voice ofThat telling his clerks that he was going out to lunch. Then thehorrible Ugly-Wugly and Jimmy, hardly less horrible in the eyes ofGerald, passed down the stairs where, in the dusk of the lower landing,two boys were making themselves as undistinguishable as possible, and soout into the street, talking of stocks and shares, bears and bulls. Thetwo boys followed.
"I say," the door-mat-headed boy whispered admiringly, "whatever are youup to?"
"You'll see," said Gerald recklessly. "Come on!"
"You tell me. I must be getting back."
"Well, I'll tell you, but you won't believe me. That old gentleman's notreally old at all--he's my young brother suddenly turned into what yousee. The other's not real at all. He's only just old clothes and nothinginside."
"He looks it, I must say," the boy admitted; "but I say--you do stick iton, don't you?"
"Well, my brother was turned like that by a magic ring."
"There ain't no such thing as magic," said the boy. "I learnt that atschool."
"All right," said Gerald. "Goodbye."
"Oh, go ahead!" said the boy; "you do stick it on, though."
"Well, that magic ring. If I can get hold of it I shall just wish wewere all in a certain place. And we shall be. And then I can deal withboth of them."
"Deal?"
"Yes, the ring won't _unwish_ anything you've wished. That undoes itselfwith time, like a spring uncoiling. But it'll give you a brand-newwish--I'm a
lmost certain of it. Anyhow, I'm going to chance it."
"You are a rotter, aren't you?" said the boy respectfully.
"You wait and see," Gerald repeated.
"I say, you aren't going into this swell place! you _can't_?"
The boy paused, appalled at the majesty of Pym's.
"Yes, I am--they can't turn us out as long as we behave. You come along,too. I'll stand lunch."
I don't know why Gerald clung so to this boy. He wasn't a very nice boy.Perhaps it was because he was the only person Gerald knew in London, tospeak to--except That-which-had-been-Jimmy and the Ugly-Wugly; and hedid not want to talk to either of them.
What happened next happened so quickly that, as Gerald said later, itwas "just like magic." The restaurant was crowded--busy men were hastilybolting the food hurriedly brought by busy waitresses. There was a clinkof forks and plates, the gurgle of beer from bottles, the hum of talk,and the smell of many good things to eat.
"Two chops, please," Gerald had just said, playing with a plainly shownhandful of money, so as to leave no doubt of his honourable intentions.Then at the next table he heard the words, "Ah, yes, curious old familyheirloom," the ring was drawn off the finger of That, and Mr. U. W.Ugli, murmuring something about a unique curio, reached his impossiblehand out for it. The door-mat-headed boy was watching breathlessly.
"There's a ring right enough," he owned. And then the ring slipped fromthe hand of Mr. U. W. Ugli and skidded along the floor. Gerald pouncedon it like a greyhound on a hare. He thrust the dull circlet on hisfinger and cried out aloud in that crowded place:--
"I wish Jimmy and I were inside that door behind the statue of Flora."
It was the only safe place he could think of.
The lights and sounds and scents of the restaurant died away as awax-drop dies in fire--a rain-drop in water. I don't know, and Geraldnever knew, what happened in that restaurant. There was nothing about itin the papers, though Gerald looked anxiously for "ExtraordinaryDisappearance of well-known City Man." What the door-mat-headed boy didor thought I don't know either. No more does Gerald. But he would liketo know, whereas I don't care tuppence. The world went on all right,anyhow, whatever he thought or did. The lights and the sounds and thescents of Pym's died out. In place of the light there was darkness; inplace of the sounds there was silence; and in place of the scent ofbeef, pork, mutton, fish, veal, cabbage, onions, carrots, beer, andtobacco there was the musty, damp scent of a place underground that hasbeen long shut up.
HE CRIED OUT ALOUD IN THAT CROWDED PLACE: "I WISH JIMMYAND I WERE INSIDE THAT DOOR BEHIND THE STATUE OF FLORA."]
Gerald felt sick and giddy, and there was something at the back of hismind that he knew would make him feel sicker and giddier as soon as heshould have the sense to remember what it was. Meantime it was importantto think of proper words to soothe the City man that had once beenJimmy--to keep him quiet till Time, like a spring uncoiling, shouldbring the reversal of the spell--make all things as they were and asthey ought to be. But he fought in vain for words. There were none. Norwere they needed. For through the deep darkness came a voice--and it wasnot the voice of that City man who had been Jimmy, but the voice of thatvery Jimmy who was Gerald's little brother, and who had wished thatunlucky wish for riches that could only be answered by changing all thatwas Jimmy, young and poor, to all that Jimmy, rich and old, would havebeen. Another voice said: "Jerry, Jerry! Are you awake?--I've had such arum dream."
And then there was a moment when nothing was said or done.
Gerald felt through the thick darkness, and the thick silence, and thethick scent of old earth shut up, and he got hold of Jimmy's hand.
"It's all right, Jimmy, old chap," he said; "it's not a dream now. It'sthat beastly ring again. I had to wish us here, to get you back at allout of your dream."
"Wish us where?" Jimmy held on to the hand in a way that in the daylightof life he would have been the first to call babyish.
"Inside the passage--behind the Flora statue," said Gerald, adding,"it's all right, really."
"Oh, I daresay it's all right," Jimmy answered through the dark, with anirritation not strong enough to make him loosen his hold of hisbrother's hand. "_But how are we going to get out?_"
Then Gerald knew what it was that was waiting to make him feel moregiddy than the lightning flight from Cheapside to Yalding Towers hadbeen able to make him. But he said stoutly:
"I'll wish us out, of course." Though all the time he knew that the ringwould not undo its given wishes.
It didn't.
Gerald wished. He handed the ring carefully to Jimmy, through the thickdarkness. And Jimmy wished.
And there they still were, in that black passage behind Flora, that hadled--in the case of one Ugly-Wugly at least--to "a good hotel." And thestone door was shut. And they did not know even which way to turn to it.
"If I only had some matches!" said Gerald.
"Why didn't you leave me in the dream?" Jimmy almost whimpered. "It waslight there, and I was just going to have salmon and cucumber."
"I," rejoined Gerald in gloom, "was just going to have steak and friedpotatoes."
The silence, and the darkness, and the earthy scent were all they hadnow.
"I always wondered what it would be like," said Jimmy in low, eventones, "to be buried alive. And now I know! Oh!" his voice suddenly roseto a shriek, "it isn't true, it isn't! It's a dream--that's what itis!"
There was a pause while you could have counted ten. Then--
"Yes," said Gerald bravely, through the scent and the silence and thedarkness, "it's just a dream, Jimmy, old chap. We'll just hold on, andcall out now and then just for the lark of the thing. But it's reallyonly a dream, of course."
"Of course," said Jimmy in the silence and the darkness and the scent ofold earth.
