The City Curious Part 9

And thus the forest advanced, new canes springing up ahead, and the old canes withering behind; but always surrounding the Prisoner, no matter how he shattered them.

Now these rings which the Flying-Fish wore in their noses had been fixed there by the Despoiler, and the rings worn by all the Wigs came from the same source and served the same purpose, that of stopping all growth.

This was how the Despoiler came by his name, for mere creature of insensate pasteboard as he was, he had the power from his magic ring to arrest all life--a blade of gra.s.s in the ground, or the pa.s.sage of a bird in the air.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PRISONER]

Suddenly the Prisoner paused in his frantic toil and fell asleep like a child. The rats also left off their work and wrapped themselves in their mackintoshes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PRISONER NEVER CEASED TO BREAK THE SUGAR-CANES]

Smaly and Redy wished to attract the attention of the Prisoner; but the strange man slept on, and they did not dare speak to him too loudly, for they were afraid that he might be quite mad, and also they did not know how the Wigs would take interference with their prisoner. Indeed, Papylick and the Young Stork had already noticed what they were trying to do, and since the kitchen had been destroyed by the pa.s.sing of the forest they now drew Smaly and Redy gently but firmly into one of the houses in the square.

"This is the house of the Historian," said Papylick, "and here you must stay until the setting of the sun."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VII

The Flying-Fish announces the hour of three, and the World falls asleep: The Hen makes six hard-boiled eggs: Smaly and Redy begin to read the ma.n.u.script of the Historian.

Smaly and Redy found themselves in a room that was rather dark in spite of the fact that the sun was still high in the heavens. There were only four windows, one placed so low down that the Wigs, even when seated, could observe what pa.s.sed. Another, very little higher, was for the Wigs to look out of when they were standing on their short legs. These two windows had already been in existence when the Government of the country offered the house to the Historian to enable him to write the chronicles of the inhabitants.

The Historian put in an indent asking for two more windows, and succeeded in obtaining them. The first of the new windows was put alongside the old one, which had been for the use of the Wigs standing; but this new window was for the Historian when he was sitting down, as he was twice the height of an ordinary Wig. The fourth window was set very high to allow of the Historian looking out on the market square as he walked about.

It will be seen what bright ideas this Historian had; but the result of one of his brightest was to be seen in the ceiling, where there were two circular holes, one much bigger than the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PET FLYING-FISH, WHICH EVERY WIG FAMILY POSSESSES AND CHERISHES]

The big hole had been there for a long time and had been made to allow of free exit and entry to the pet Flying-Fish, which every Wig family possesses and cherishes, much as you or I cherish a dog or a cat; but when some one made the Historian a present of another and much younger Flying-Fish, he at once caused a smaller hole to be made so that his new pet also could come in and out as it pleased.

Redy and Smaly found the Historian sitting in a corner of his room studying a piece of paper through a telescope, and taking notes as to what he saw. The little husband and wife shut the door gently behind them and remained very quiet. They were quite alone with this curious and enormous being, who took no more notice of them than if they had been a couple of mice.

It was the first time that Redy and Smaly had seen the interior of a Wig house, and they found it resembled nothing so much as the laboratory of an alchemist or astronomer. The thing Smaly and Redy admired most was a large globe upon which all the Wig possessions were painted in red.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE AMOUNT OF CAKE AND PUDDING EATEN ANNUALLY IN THE COUNTRY]

At first they were very astonished to see how big the Wigs' country appeared to be; but after a little study Smaly suggested that the areas covered in red must represent the importance morally and mentally of the country rather than its geographical area, and this Redy agreed with, for she had found ranged in a row beside the globe a lot of little painted cardboard figures of different sizes representing the amount of cake and pudding eaten annually in the countries represented by these little figures; which were the Wigs' country, Pa.r.s.eny's Land, England, France, Italy, and Belgium, and the Wigs' country was the biggest of the lot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Elder of the Fishes]

While the little husband and wife were discussing this in low voices so as not to disturb the Historian, the elder of the Fishes flew in. With great difficulty it sc.r.a.ped through the small hole instead of its own.

It flew to its perch, and announced in a clear voice:

"Three o'clock has struck."

It said these words to a Hen who was sitting upon a coal-scuttle, busily making little white and yellow pasties.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HEN]

Having made this announcement the Fish pulled down its eyelids with its left paw, buried its nose in a nightcap, wrapped its wings round its head, and went to sleep. The Hen seemed very agitated by the Fish's words, and began to work harder than ever.

She wore a peruke like all the Wigs, and an infinite number of skirts made of b.u.t.ter muslin. She looked at the clock, for the big hand had stopped at two, whereas the little hand was at the hour of three. While she gazed at it the left foot of the Historian shot out and brought the little hand round to six o'clock.

At once the Hen started rolling out six yellow b.a.l.l.s upon her pasteboard. These she wrapped up in a white crust and then hid them in the pockets of her skirts and sat upon them, while she made fourteen more eggs out of the white and yellow paste.

"The little hand must be to ask for six hard-boiled eggs," whispered Redy to Smaly.

At that moment Smaly, who was staring out of the window, nudged Redy, and looking out together they saw that the Wigs, who had been busily rebuilding the kitchen, had all fallen asleep in the market square because three o'clock was the hour of the afternoon's rest. The Confectioner, his hair streaming in the wind, was running hard towards his own house. He held by the hand Fritilla, the youngest of the Prisoner's daughters, whose big eyes were looking all about her as she ran. The Confectioner pushed her rapidly into his house and shut the door upon her, then he, too, fell asleep in the square like the other Wigs. This care which the Confectioner took of Fritilla was by no means unnecessary, as for several days she had been pursued by an enormous red Flying-Fish which declared that she had stolen from it its seven hundred and eighty-secondth feather. It declared that it had seen the plume actually in her hands, and that when it had gone home and counted its feathers over before going to sleep that night it only possessed seven hundred and eighty-one.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THIS CARE WHICH THE CONFECTIONER TOOK OF FRITILLA WAS BY NO MEANS UNNECESSARY]

The smaller Flying-Fish now flew into the Historian's room, using its own little hole. It hated using this; but it seemed an even greater humiliation to use the big one, for that made the poor little Fish feel smaller than ever. Thus it came about that neither the big nor the little Flying-Fish ever used the larger hole, which had become all overgrown with delicate mosses and stonecrop, and even by a fine yellow wallflower. The windows in this country, if people did not look through them often enough, became almost opaque.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Smaller Flying-Fish]

The little Flying-Fish seated itself on its perch, and called out:

"It's nearly half-past three. We must rest. Everybody must rest. Let's go to sleep." And it, too, pulled down its eyelids with its left paw, buried its nose in a nightcap, and wrapped its wings round its head.

The Historian stretched out a hand, took the six hard-boiled eggs from the Hen, dropped them through a hole in his beak, put the hand of the clock back to zero, then he, too, shut his eyes.

"He sleeps," murmured Smaly and Redy.

Smaly tiptoed across to the Historian.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DROPPED THEM THROUGH A HOLE IN HIS BEAK]

He was a curious sort of man, extremely thin, his face dominated rather than adorned by an immense beak, which apparently he could not open; and he had little twinkling eyes like an elephant's, which twinkled even more when they were shut than when they were open. He wore a sort of wrapper, trimmed with fur round the neck, sleeves, and legs. Neither Redy nor Smaly could quite decide what the Historian was made of, whether of Manchester pudding, of pie-crust, or gingerbread, and they did not dare try and taste him for fear of waking him up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WAS SITTING WITH ONE ANKLE ACROSS THE KNEE OF HIS OTHER LEG]

The Historian was sitting with one ankle across the knee of his other leg, and had rolled round his thin calf the ma.n.u.script upon which he had been working. This ma.n.u.script was trained to roll itself up slowly round his leg whilst he wrote it.

Smaly looked carefully all round him. The Hen was sleeping, the two Fish slept also, the Historian slept profoundly without snoring. He had always wanted to be able to snore; but he could never succeed because of his beak, and therefore he had invented a sort of little suction-pump run by a motor, which he kept beside him, and which snored quite as well as a man.

Except Smaly and Redy every one was sleeping in the house of the Historian. Outside in the sun-baked square the Chief Contractor, the Confectioner, Mistigris, the Young Stork, and the Crow slept also, heaped one upon the other in a casual manner, only the Despoiler, who was always afraid that some one would find out that he was only made of cardboard, never slept in public. He always retired to rest in a little room under the roof of his house.

When Smaly had made quite sure that there was no one to see them, he took Redy by the hand and began gently to unroll the Historian's ma.n.u.script. Smaly and Redy began to read it to each other in low voices, word by word, like children who go upstairs one leg at a time. This is what they read: