by E. Nesbit
CHAPTER V
ON THE CARPET
The Princess was just Lucy.
'It's too bad,' said Philip. 'I do think.' Then he stopped short andjust looked cross.
'The Princess and the Champion will now have their teas,' said Mr. Noah.'Right about face, everybody, please, and quick march.'
Philip and Lucy found themselves marching side by side through the nightmade yellow with continuous fireworks.
You must picture them marching across a great plain of grass where manycoloured flowers grew. You see a good many of Philip's buildings hadbeen made on the drawing-room carpet at home, which was green with pinkand blue and yellow and white flowers. And this carpet had turned intograss and growing flowers, following that strange law which causedthings to change into other things, like themselves, but larger andreally belonging to a living world.
No one spoke. Philip said nothing because he was in a bad temper. And ifyou are in a bad temper, nothing is a good thing to say. To circumvent adragon and then kill it, and to have such an adventure end in tea withLucy, was too much. And he had other reasons for silence too. And Lucywas silent because she had so much to say that she didn't know where tobegin; and besides, she could feel how cross Philip was. The crowd didnot talk because it was not etiquette to talk when taking part inprocessions. Mr. Noah did not talk because it made him out of breath towalk and talk at the same time, two things neither of which he had beendesigned to do.
So that it was quite a silent party which at last passed through thegateway of the town and up its streets.
Philip wondered where the tea would be--not in the prison of course. Itwas very late for tea, too, quite the middle of the night it seemed. Butall the streets were brilliantly lighted, and flags and festoons offlowers hung from all the windows and across all the streets.
It was in the front of a big building in one of the great squares of thecity that an extra display of coloured lamps disclosed open doors andred-carpeted steps. Mr. Noah hurried up them, and turned to receivePhilip and Lucy.
'The City of Polistopolis,' he said, 'whose unworthy representative Iam, greets in my person the most noble Sir Philip, Knight and Slayer ofthe Dragon. Also the Princess whom he has rescued. Be pleased to enter.'
They went up the red-cloth covered steps and into a hall, very splendidwith silver and ivory. Mr. Noah stooped to a confidential question.
'You'd like a wash, perhaps?' he said, 'and your Princess too. Andperhaps you'd like to dress up a little? Before the banquet, you know.'
'Banquet?' said Philip. 'I thought it was tea.'
'Business before pleasure,' said Mr. Noah; 'first the banquet, then thetea. This way to the dressing-rooms.'
There were two doors side by side. On one door was painted 'Knight'sdressing-room,' on the other 'Princess's dressing-room.'
'Look out,' said Mr. Noah; 'the paint is wet. You see there wasn't muchtime.'
Philip found his dressing-room very interesting. The walls were entirelyof looking-glass, and on tables in the middle of the room lay all sortsof clothes of beautiful colours and odd shapes. Shoes, stockings, hats,crowns, armour, swords, cloaks, breeches, waistcoats, jerkins, trunkhose. An open door showed a marble bath-room. The bath was sunk in thefloor as the baths of luxurious Roman Empresses used to be, and asnowadays baths sometimes are, in model dwellings. (Only I am told thatsome people keep their coals in the baths--which is quite uselessbecause coals are always black however much you wash them.)
Philip undressed and went into the warm clear water, greenish betweenthe air and the marble. Why is it so pleasant to have a bath, and sotiresome to wash your hands and face in a basin? He put on his shirt andknickerbockers again, and wandered round the room looking at the clotheslaid out there, and wondering which of the wonderful costumes would bereally suitable for a knight to wear at a banquet. After considerablehesitation he decided on a little soft shirt of chain-mail that madejust a double handful of tiny steel links as he held it. But adifficulty arose.
'I don't know how to put it on,' said Philip; 'and I expect the banquetis waiting. How cross it'll be.'
He stood undecided, holding the chain mail in his hands, when his eyesfell on a bell handle. Above it was an ivory plate, and on it in blackletters the word Valet. Philip rang the bell.
Instantly a soft tap at the door heralded the entrance of a person whomPhilip at the first glance supposed to be a sandwich man. But the secondglance showed that the oblong flat things which he wore were notsandwich-boards, but dominoes. The person between them bowed low.
'Oh!' said Philip, 'I rang for the valet.'
'I am not the valet,' said the domino-enclosed person, who seemed to bein skintight black clothes under his dominoes, 'I am the Master of theRobes. I only attend on really distinguished persons. Double-six, atyour service, Sir. Have you chosen your dress?'
'I'd like to wear the armour,' said Philip, holding it out. 'It seemsthe right thing for a Knight,' he added.
'Quite so, sir. I confirm your opinion.'
He proceeded to dress Philip in a white tunic and to fasten the coat ofmail over this. 'I've had a great deal of experience,' he said; 'youcouldn't have chosen better. You see, I'm master of the subject ofdress. I am able to give my whole mind to it; my own dress being fixedby law and not subject to changes of fashion leaves me free to think forothers. And I think deeply. But I see that you can think for yourself.'
You have no idea how jolly Philip looked in the mail coat and mailedhood--just like a Crusader.
At the doorway of the dressing-room he met Lucy in a short white dressand a coronal of pearls round her head. 'I always wanted to be a fairy,'she said.
'Did you have any one to dress you?' he asked.
'Oh no!' said Lucy calmly. 'I always dress myself.'
'Ladies have the advantage there,' said Double-six, bowing and walkingbackwards. 'The banquet is spread.'
It turned out to be spread on three tables, one along each side of agreat room, and one across the top of the room, on a dais--such a tableas that high one at which dons and distinguished strangers sit in theHalls of colleges.
Mr. Noah was already in his place in the middle of the high table, andLucy and Philip now took their places at each side of him. The table wasspread with all sorts of nice-looking foods and plates of apink-and-white pattern very familiar to Philip. They were, in fact, ashe soon realised, the painted wooden plates from his sister's old dolls'house. There was no food just in front of the children, only a greatempty bowl of silver.
Philip fingered his knife and fork; the pattern of those also wasfamiliar to him. They were indeed the little leaden ones out of thedolls' house knife-basket of green and silver filagree. He hungrilywaited. Servants in straight yellow dresses and red masks and caps werebeginning to handle the dishes. A dish was handed to him. A beautifuljelly it looked like. He took up his spoon and was just about to helphimself, when Mr. Noah whispered ardently, 'Don't!' and as Philip lookedat him in astonishment he added, still in a whisper, 'Pretend, can'tyou? Have you never had a pretending banquet?' But before he had caughtthe whisper, Philip had tried to press the edge of the leaden spoon intothe shape of jelly. And he felt that the jelly was quite hard. He wentthrough the form of helping himself, but it was just nothing that he puton his plate. And he saw that Mr. Noah and Lucy and all the other guestsdid the same. Presently another dish was handed to him. There was nochanging of plates. 'They _needn't_,' Philip thought bitterly. This timeit was a fat goose, not carved, and now Philip saw that it was attachedto its dish with glue. Then he understood.
(You know the beautiful but uneatable feasts which are given you in awhite cardboard box with blue binding and fine shavings to pack thedishes and keep them from breaking? I myself, when I was little, hadsuch a banquet in a box. There were twelve dishes: a ham, brown andshapely; a pair of roast chickens, also brown and more anatomical thanthe ham; a glazed tongue, real tongue-shape, none of your tinned roundmysteries; a dish of sausages; two handsome fish, a little blue,perha
ps; a joint of beef, ribs I think, very red as to the lean and verywhite in the fat parts; a pork pie, delicately bronzed like a travellerin Central Africa. For sweets I had shapes, shapes of beauty, a jellyand a cream; a Swiss roll too, and a plum pudding; asparagus there wasalso and a cauliflower, and a dish of the greenest peas in all this greyworld. This was my banquet outfit. I remember that the woodenness of itall depressed us wonderfully; the oneness of dish and food baffled allmake-believe. With the point of nurse's scissors we prised the viandsfrom the platters. But their wooden nature was unconquerable. One couldnot pretend to eat a whole chicken any better when it was detached fromits dish, and the sausages were one solid block. And when you licked thejelly it only tasted of glue and paint. And when we tried to re-roastthe chickens at the nursery grate, they caught fire, and then they smeltof gasworks and india-rubber. But I am wandering. When you remember thethings that happened when you were a child, you could go on writingabout them for ever. I will put all this in brackets, and then you neednot read it if you don't want to.)
Mr. Noah whispered ardently, 'Don't!']
But those painted wooden foods adhering firmly to their dishes were thekind of food of which the banquet now offered to Philip and Lucy wascomposed. Only they had more dishes than I had. They had as well aturkey, eight raspberry jam tarts, a pine-apple, a melon, a dish ofoysters in the shell, a piece of boiled bacon and a leg of mutton. Butall were equally wooden and uneatable.
Philip and Lucy, growing hungrier and hungrier, pretended with sinkinghearts to eat and enjoy the wooden feast. Wine was served in thoselittle goblets which they knew so well, where the double glassesrestrained and contained a red fluid which _looked_ like wine. They didnot want wine, but they were thirsty as well as hungry.
Philip wondered what the waiters were. He had plenty of time to wonderwhile the long banquet went on. It was not till he saw a group of themstanding stiffly together at the end of the hall that he knew they mustbe the matches with which he had once peopled a city, no otherinhabitants being at hand.
When all the dishes had been handed, speeches happened.
'Friends and fellow-citizens,' Mr. Noah began, and went on to say howbrave and clever Sir Philip was, and how likely it was that he wouldturn out to be the Deliverer. Philip did not hear all this speech. Hewas thinking of things to eat.
Then every one in the hall stood and shouted, and Philip found that hewas expected to take his turn at speech-making. He stood up tremblingand wretched.
'Friends and fellow-citizens,' he said, 'thank you very much. I want tobe the Deliverer, but I don't know if I can,' and sat down again amidroars of applause.
Then there was music, from a grated gallery. And then--I cannot begin totell you how glad Lucy and Philip were--Mr. Noah said, once more in awhisper, 'Cheer up! the banquet is over. _Now_ we'll have tea.'
'Tea' turned out to be bread and milk in a very cosy, blue-silk-linedroom opening out of the banqueting-hall. Only Lucy, Philip and Mr. Noahwere present. Bread and milk is very good even when you have to eat itwith the leaden spoons out of the dolls'-house basket. When it was muchlater Mr. Noah suddenly said 'good-night,' and in a maze of sleepyrepletion (look that up in the dicker, will you?) the children went tobed. Philip's bed was of gold with yellow satin curtains, and Lucy's wasmade of silver, with curtains of silk that were white. But the metalsand colours made no difference to their deep and dreamless sleep.
And in the morning there was bread and milk again, and the two of themhad it in the blue room without Mr. Noah.
'Well,' said Lucy, looking up from the bowl of white floating cubes, 'doyou think you're getting to like me any better?'
'_No_,' said Philip, brief and stern like the skipper in the song.
'I wish you would,' said Lucy.
'Well, I can't,' said Philip; 'but I do want to say one thing. I'm sorryI bunked and left you. And I did come back.'
'I know you did,' said Lucy.
'I came back to fetch you,' said Philip, 'and now we'd better get alonghome.'
'You've got to do seven deeds of power before you can get home,' saidLucy.
'Oh! I remember, Perrin told me,' said he.
'Well,' Lucy went on, 'that'll take ages. No one can go out of thisplace _twice_ unless he's a King-Deliverer. You've gone out_once_--without _me_. Before you can go again you've got to do sevennoble deeds.'
'I killed the dragon,' said Philip, modestly proud.
'That's only one,' she said; 'there are six more.' And she ate bread andmilk with firmness.
'Do you like this adventure?' he asked abruptly.
'It's more interesting than anything that ever happened to me,' shesaid. 'If you were nice I should like it awfully. But as it is----'
'I'm sorry you don't think I'm nice,' said he.
'Well, what do _you_ think?' she said.
Philip reflected. He did not want not to be nice. None of us do. Thoughyou might not think it to see how some of us behave. True politeness, heremembered having been told, consists in showing an interest in otherpeople's affairs.
'Tell me,' he said, very much wishing to be polite and nice. 'Tell mewhat happened after I--after I--after you didn't come down the ladderwith me.'
'Alone and deserted,' Lucy answered promptly, 'my sworn friend havinghooked it and left me, I fell down, and both my hands were full ofgravel, and the fierce soldiery surrounded me.'
'I thought you were coming just behind me,' said Philip, frowning.
'Well, I wasn't.'
'And then.'
'Well, then---- You _were_ silly not to stay. They surrounded me--thesoldiers, I mean--and the captain said, "Tell me the truth. Are you aDestroyer or a Deliverer?" So, of course, I said I wasn't a destroyer,whatever I was; and then they took me to the palace and said I could bea Princess till the Deliverer King turned up. They said,' she giggledgaily, 'that my hair was the hair of a Deliverer and not of a Destroyer,and I've been most awfully happy ever since. Have you?'
'No,' said Philip, remembering the miserable feeling of having been acoward and a sneak that had come upon him when he found that he hadsaved his own skin and left Lucy alone in an unknown and dangerousworld; 'not exactly happy, I shouldn't call it.'
'It's beautiful being a Princess,' said Lucy. 'I wonder what your nextnoble deed will be. I wonder whether I could help you with it?' Shelooked wistfully at him.
'If I'm going to do noble deeds I'll do them. I don't want any help,thank you, especially from girls,' he answered.
'I wish you did,' said Lucy, and finished her bread and milk.
Philip's bowl also was empty. He stretched arms and legs and neck.
'It is rum,' he said; 'before this began I never thought a thing likethis _could_ begin, did you?'
'I don't know,' she said, 'everything's very wonderful. I've always beenexpecting things to be more wonderful than they ever have been. You getsort of hints and nudges, you know. Fairy tales--yes, and dreams, youcan't help feeling they must mean _something_. And your sister and mydaddy; the two of them being such friends when they were little, andthen parted and then getting friends again;--_that's_ like a story in adream, isn't it? And your building the city and me helping. And my daddybeing such a dear darling and your sister being such a darling dear. Itdid make me think beautiful things were sort of likely. Didn't it you?'
'No,' said Philip; 'I mean yes,' he said, and he was in that momentnearer to liking Lucy than he had ever been before; 'everything's verywonderful, isn't it?'
'Ahem!' said a respectful cough behind them.
They turned to meet the calm gaze of Double-six.
'If you've quite finished breakfast, Sir Philip,' he said, 'Mr. Noahwould be pleased to see you in his office.'
'Me too?' said Lucy, before Philip could say, 'Only me, I suppose?'
'You may come too, if you wish it, your Highness,' said Double-six,bowing stiffly.
They found Mr. Noah very busy in a little room littered with papers; hewas sitting at a table writing.
'Good-mo
rning, Princess,' he said, 'good-morning, Sir Philip. You see mevery busy. I am trying to arrange for your next labour.'
'Do you mean my next deed of valour?' Philip asked.
'We have decided that all your deeds need not be deeds of valour,' saidMr. Noah, fiddling with a pen. 'The strange labours of Hercules, youremember, were some of them dangerous and some merely difficult. I havedecided that difficult things shall count. There are several things thatreally _need_ doing,' he went on half to himself. 'There's the fruitsupply, and the Dwellers by the sea, and---- But that must wait. We tryto give you as much variety as possible. Yesterday's was an out-dooradventure. To-day's shall be an indoor amusement. I say to-day's but Iconfess that I think it not unlikely that the task I am now about to setthe candidate for the post of King-Deliverer, the task, I say, which Iam now about to set you, may, quite possibly, occupy some days, if notweeks of your valuable time.'
'But our people at home,' said Philip. 'It isn't that I'm afraid, reallyand truly it isn't, but they'll go out of their minds, not knowingwhat's become of us. Oh, Mr. Noah! do let us go back.'
'It's all right,' said Mr. Noah. 'However long you stay here time won'tmove with them. I thought I'd explained that to you.'
'But you said----'
'I said you'd set our clocks to the time of _your_ world when youdeserted your little friend. But when you had come back for her, andrescued her from the dragon, the clocks went their own time again.There's only just that time missing that happened between your cominghere the second time and your killing the dragon.'
'I see,' said Philip. But he didn't. I only hope _you_ do.
'You can take your time about this new job,' said Mr. Noah, 'and you mayget any help you like. I shan't consider you've failed till you've beenat it three months. After that the Pretenderette would be entitled to_her_ chance.'
'If you're quite sure that the time here doesn't count at home,' saidPhilip, 'what is it, please, that we've got to do?'
'The greatest intellects of our country have for many ages occupiedthemselves with the problem which you are now asked to solve,' said Mr.Noah. 'Your late gaoler, Mr. Bacon-Shakespeare, has written no less thantwenty-seven volumes, all in cypher, on this very subject. But as he hasforgotten what cypher he used, and no one else ever knew it, his volumesare of but little use to us.'
'I see,' said Philip. And again he didn't.
Mr. Noah rose to his full height, and when he stood up the childrenlooked very small beside him.
'Now,' he said, 'I will tell you what it is that you must do. I shouldlike to decree that your second labour should be the tidying up of thisroom--_all_ these papers are prophecies relating to the Deliverer--butit is one of our laws that the judge must not use any public matter forhis own personal benefit. So I have decided that the next labour shallbe the disentangling of the Mazy Carpet. It is in the Pillared Hall ofPublic Amusements. I will get my hat and we will go there at once. Ican tell you about it as we go.'
And as they went down streets and past houses and palaces all of whichPhilip could now dimly remember to have built at some time or other, Mr.Noah went on:
'It is a very beautiful hall, but we have never been able to use it forpublic amusement or anything else. The giant who originally built thiscity placed in this hall a carpet so thick that it rises to your knees,and so intricately woven that none can disentangle it. It is far toothick to pass through any of the doors. It is your task to remove it.'
'Why that's as easy as easy,' said Philip. 'I'll cut it in bits andbring out a bit at a time.'
'That would be most unfortunate for you,' said Mr. Noah. 'I filed onlythis morning a very ancient prophecy:
'He who shall the carpet sever, By fire or flint or steel, Shall be fed on orange pips for ever, And dressed in orange peel.
You wouldn't like that, you know.'
'No,' said Philip grimly, 'I certainly shouldn't.'
'The carpet must be _unravelled_, unwoven, so that not a thread isbroken. Here is the hall.'
They went up steps--Philip sometimes wished he had not been so fond ofbuilding steps--and through a dark vestibule to an arched door. Lookingthrough it they saw a great hall and at its end a raised space, moresteps, and two enormous pillars of bronze wrought in relief with figuresof flying birds.
'Father's Japanese vases,' Lucy whispered.
The floor of the room was covered by the carpet. It was loosely butdifficultly woven of very thick soft rope of a red colour. When I saydifficultly, I mean that it wasn't just straight-forward in the weaving,but the threads went over and under and round about in such a determinedand bewildering way that Philip felt--and said--that he would ratheruntie the string of a hundred of the most difficult parcels than tacklethis.
'Well,' said Mr. Noah, 'I leave you to it. Board and lodging will beprovided at the Provisional Palace where you slept last night. Allcitizens are bound to assist when called upon. Dinner is at one._Good_-morning!'
Philip sat down in the dark archway and gazed helplessly at the twistedstrands of the carpet. After a moment of hesitation Lucy sat down too,clasped her arms round her knees, and she also gazed at the carpet. Theyhad all the appearance of shipwrecked mariners looking out over a greatsea and longing for a sail.
'Ha ha--tee hee!' said a laugh close behind them. They turned. And itwas the motor-veiled lady, the hateful Pretenderette, who had crept upclose behind them, and was looking down at them through her veil.
'What do you want?' said Philip severely.
'I want to laugh,' said the motor lady. 'I want to laugh at _you_. AndI'm going to.'
'Well go and laugh somewhere else then,' Philip suggested.
'Ah! but this is where I want to laugh. You and your carpet! You'llnever do it. You don't know how. But _I_ do.'
'Come away,' whispered Lucy, and they went. The Pretenderette followedslowly. Outside, a couple of Dutch dolls in check suits were passing,arm in arm.
'Help!' cried Lucy suddenly, and the Dutch dolls paused and took theirhats off.
'What is it?' the taller doll asked, stroking his black paintedmoustache.
'Mr. Noah said all citizens were bound to help us,' said Lucy a littlebreathlessly.
'But of course,' said the shorter doll, bowing with stiff courtesy.
'Then,' said Lucy, 'will you _please_ take that motor person away andput her somewhere where she can't bother till we've done the carpet?'
'Delighted,' exclaimed the agreeable Dutch strangers, darted up thesteps and next moment emerged with the form of the Pretenderette betweenthem, struggling indeed, but struggling vainly.
'You need not have the slightest further anxiety,' the taller Dutchmansaid; 'dismiss the incident from your mind. We will take her to the hallof justice. Her offence is bothering people in pursuit of their duty.The sentence is imprisonment for as long as the botheree chooses.Good-morning.'
'Oh, _thank you_!' said both the children together.
When they were alone, Philip said--and it was not easy to say it:
'That was jolly clever of you, Lucy. I should never have thought of it.'
'Oh, that's nothing,' said Lucy, looking down. 'I could do more thanthat.'
'What?' he asked.
'I could unravel the carpet,' said Lucy, with deep solemnity.
'But it's me that's got to do it,' Philip urged.
'Every citizen is bound to help, if called in,' Lucy reminded him. 'AndI suppose a princess _is_ a citizen.'
'Perhaps I can do it by myself,' said Philip.
'Try,' said Lucy, and sat down on the steps, her fairy skirts spreadingout round her like a white double hollyhock.
He tried. He went back and looked at the great coarse cables of thecarpet. He could see no end to the cables, no beginning to his task. AndLucy just went on sitting there like a white hollyhock. And time wenton, and presently became, rather urgently, dinner-time.
So he went back to Lucy and said:
'All right, you can show me how to
do it, if you like.'
But Lucy replied:
'Not much! If you want me to help you with _this_, you'll have topromise to let me help in all the other things. And you'll have to _ask_me to help--ask me politely too.'
'I shan't then,' said Philip. But in the end he had to--politely also.
'With pleasure,' said Lucy, the moment he asked her, and he could seeshe had been making up what she should answer, while he was making uphis mind to ask. 'I shall be delighted to help you in this and all theother tasks. Say yes.'
'Yes,' said Philip, who was very hungry.
'"In this and all the other tasks" say.'
'In this and all the other tasks,' he said. 'Go on. How can we do it?'
'It's _crochet_,' Lucy giggled. 'It's a little crochet mat I'd made ofred wool; and I put it in the hall that night. You've just got to findthe end and pull, and it all comes undone. You just want to find the endand pull.'
'It's too heavy for us to pull.'
'Well,' said Lucy, who had certainly had time to think everything out,'you get one of those twisty round things they pull boats out of the seawith, and I'll find the end while you're getting it.'
She ran up the steps and Philip looked round the buildings on the otherthree sides of the square, to see if any one of them looked like acapstan shop, for he understood, as of course you also have done, that acapstan was what Lucy meant.
On a building almost opposite he read, 'Naval Necessaries SupplyCompany,' and he ran across to it.
'Rather,' said the secretary of the company, a plump sailor-doll, whenPhilip had explained his needs. 'I'll send a dozen men over at once.Only too proud to help, Sir Philip. The navy is always keen on helpingvalour and beauty.'
'I want to be brave,' said Philip, 'but I'd rather not be beautiful.'
'Of course not,' said the secretary; and added surprisingly, 'I meantthe Lady Lucy.'
'Oh!' said Philip.
So twelve bluejackets and a capstan outside the Hall of PublicAmusements were soon the centre of a cheering crowd. Lucy had found theend of the rope, and two sailors dragged it out and attached it to thecapstan, and then--round and round with a will and a breathlesschanty--the carpet was swiftly unravelled. Dozens of eager helpers stoodon the parts of the carpet which were not being unravelled, to keep itsteady while the pulling went on.
The news of Philip's success spread like wild-fire through the city, andthe crowds gathered thicker and thicker. The great doors beyond thepillars with the birds on them were thrown open, and Mr. Noah and theprincipal citizens stood there to see the end of the unravelling.
'Bravo!' said every one in tremendous enthusiasm. 'Bravo! Sir Philip.'
'It wasn't me,' said Philip difficultly, when the crowd paused forbreath; 'it was Lucy thought of it.'
'Bravo! Bravo!' shouted the crowd louder than ever. 'Bravo, for the LadyLucy! Bravo for Sir Philip, the modest truth-teller!'
So, all down the wide clear floor, Lucy danced.]
'Bravo, my dear,' said Mr. Noah, waving his hat and thumping Lucy on theback.
'I'm awfully glad I thought of it,' she said; 'that makes two deeds SirPhilip's done, doesn't it? Two out of the seven.'
'Yes, indeed,' said Mr. Noah enthusiastically. 'I must make him abaronet now. His title will grow grander with each deed. There's an oldprophecy that the person who finds out how to unravel the carpet must bethe first to dance in the Hall of Public Amusements.
'The clever one, the noble one, Who makes the carpet come undone, Shall be the first to dance a measure Within the Hall of public pleasure.
I suppose public _amusement_ was too difficult a rhyme even for thesehighly-skilled poets, our astrologers. You, my child, seem to have beenwell inspired in your choice of a costume. Dance, then, my Lady Lucy,and let the prophecy be fulfilled.'
So, all down the wide clear floor of the Hall of Public Amusement, Lucydanced. And the people of the city looked on and applauded, Philip withthe rest.
