The Tale of Lal Part 9

"What _can_ it be for?" simpered the Griffin; "and will it help to show me off to advantage?" he anxiously inquired.

"Rather," said Carry-on-Merry. "Listen! Put this dinner napkin over your face, sit in a corner and go to sleep. Now the _most_ remarkable thing you could do in an a.s.sembly like this to attract attention, would be to go to sleep."

The Griffin for a moment looked dubious. "Then," said Carry-on-Merry with a still more wicked gleam in his mischievous eyes, "I will tell every one that you are 'The Sleeping Beauty' and everybody will immediately want to see you."

"How lovely," sighed the Griffin, "and I shall look the part and be the part; in fact," added the Griffin, "I shall be _the_ thing of the evening."

"_You will_," rejoined Carry-on-Merry enigmatically, "but that is not all. When I wake you up at last, of course all the children will laugh."

"What at?" inquired the Griffin suspiciously.

"Why, for joy at the discovery."

"Humph!" debated the Griffin, "only joy--not admiration?"

"Oh, yes," glibly replied Carry-on-Merry, "admiration, of course, and the sheer beauty of the thing. Ha! ha! ha!"

"Yes, yes," eagerly interrupted the Griffin, "sheer beauty sounds better, sounds more like me."

"Of course it does," laughed Carry-on-Merry. "Then perhaps I shall ask you to sing."

"Oh! Carry-on-Merry," faltered the Griffin in a broken voice, "you have touched my heart--that is the very thing I was waiting for somebody to ask me to do. To sing," rhapsodised the Griffin--"to be like one of those great singers out of the opera, to pour out one's heart tones, to be gazed at by every eye, to be listened to by every ear, to be the adored of all. How can I thank you? How can I repay you?"

"Don't, please," implored Carry-on-Merry, who appeared to be choking inwardly, "don't thank me any more now, I can't bear it--some other time."

"Yet stay," cried the Griffin, with unexpected and dramatic suddenness, "who is going to kiss me?"

"Kiss you?" echoed Carry-on-Merry blankly, "kiss you? Good gracious!

I give it up."

"Yet," pondered the Griffin, "somebody had to kiss the Sleeping Beauty!"

"You won't find anybody to do it," said Carry-on-Merry decisively.

"Why not?" asked the Griffin sharply.

"I mean," amended Carry-on-Merry, "n.o.body could be found for the moment of sufficient importance."

"Oh, I see," replied the Griffin, "yet perhaps Boadicea would oblige."

"Out of the question," said Carry-on-Merry. "Besides you know she never takes part in any--any--er--_festivities_ at all."

"True," lamented the Griffin, "and yet a.s.suredly I must be kissed for the thing to be natural."

Carry-on-Merry turned away his head, for Carry-on-Merry almost felt that he could not trust himself to speak at that moment. Then one of his many bright ideas occurred to him. "I know," rapidly explained Carry-on-Merry, "I have it; I will find some important personage present to give you a rap."

"Where?" moaned the Griffin, "not on my knuckles. You know I cannot stand anything of that nature on my knuckles."

"No--no----" grinned Carry-on-Merry. "I mean a tap, just a little tap."

"I see," agreed the Griffin. "Very well, one little tap, a tap as dainty as if a feather had brushed me in my sleep."

"Or a floating piece of thistledown," laughed Carry-on-Merry.

"Oh yes," said the Griffin. "Thistledown sounds more romantic, and then I shall wake from my dream."

"I don't think myself you ever will," observed Carry-on-Merry, quite as if he were thinking of something else.

"What!" said the Griffin. "Never wake?"

"Yes, yes," interrupted Carry-on-Merry hastily, "but you have to go to sleep first, you know, and you had better hurry up whilst the children are eating, then you won't be observed."

"But I want to be observed," objected the Griffin.

"Of course you do," insisted Carry-on-Merry, "but that comes later on.

Go at once."

The amiable Griffin departed accordingly to carry out his part of the programme, and forthwith lumped himself in a distant corner, with the grace of a camel who had found sudden and unexpected opportunities of benefiting his health through sleep. From this slumber the Griffin found it necessary to rouse himself after a little while, upon hearing the children all shouting his name. The entire party having partaken of the delightful refreshments provided according to the various requirements of their const.i.tutions, were watching a moving series of cinematograph pictures of London.

One of the great golden s.p.a.ces of the walls formed the screen, Gamble, Grin and Grub, full of laughter, manipulated the cinematograph machine, whilst Carry-on-Merry gaily pointed out the pictures with a big golden wand.

All the children loved the pictures, for they were faithful portraits of themselves as they appeared every day in the London streets, when they were not arrayed in gorgeous robes for a Princely Party.

The streets they knew only too well but yet they loved them. Were they not always in the streets--were they not pa.s.sing every day of their lives the very scenes they were now watching flung upon the screen?

The picture being shown at the moment the Griffin heard his name called, was a Royal Procession pa.s.sing Temple Bar.

Instantly the children recognised the Griffin and called him by name.

The Griffin awoke, saw himself being shown upon the moving picture film, and gave a shriek of delight.

"Stop! oh, stop!" shrieked the Griffin, as he ambled across to Carry-on-Merry and seized the Gold Wand. "Please don't hurry past this beautiful picture. Of course," cried the Griffin with a silly laugh, "of course it's me, _ME_ with Royalty pa.s.sing me. Is it not beautiful?--you can all see for yourselves. I am sitting higher up than Royalty itself. Notice the way the Royal personages bow and laugh as they pa.s.s me."

"They laugh right enough," agreed Carry-on-Merry.

"Eh?" said the Griffin suspiciously.

"The Griffin ought to have been a showman," observed the Pleasant-Faced Lion.

"Now we pa.s.s on to the next picture," called Carry-on-Merry.

"Oh, _don't_ hurry," implored the Griffin. "Don't pa.s.s the most beautiful of all the pictures in such haste."

"_Next_ picture," laughed Carry-on-Merry.

The Griffin, after bestowing a hurt look upon Carry-on-Merry, retired, and again composed himself for sleep.

His slumber this time was not destined to be of long duration.