E. F. Benson

“ Up overhead the moon shone very brightly through what David knew was ice to the ordinary world, but which it was much more correct to call fish-glass, and it made the most lovely lights in it, just as if all the diamond tiaras and emerald and ruby necklaces had been mashed up in the fish-glass.
‘That’s something to know,’ he said to himself. ‘When there’s fish-glass on the lake, I shall make a hole in it and get underneath. What nonsense grown-up people talk! They all say it’s dangerous to get under the ice⁠—⁠fish-glass, but it was the only safe thing to do. ”

“ He was too polite to let his mother know how boring she had become, and so whenever the golden-haired little girl or the sweet fairy appeared, he would try to go on with Colonel Dumpling’s part of the story in his own mind, or watch the flame-cats getting tired as the fire burned low.
Nannie was not so good at stories, but she had flashes of sense, as when, one night, when David preferred to sit up in bed instead of lying down to go to sleep, she hinted that a black man might possibly come down the chimney, unless he put his head properly on the pillow. ”

“ The cork of the bottle that Mrs. Dose carried was continually coming out, and she kept murmuring to herself, ‘It’s a glass stopper, I want, it is!’ Miss Bones was sitting there too. She had nearly finished the sirloin of beef she had asked for, and only a few shreds of meat were left on it.
‘Then have I collected you?’ asked David. ‘I can ask for all the rest, can’t I? Is nobody else playing?’
Miss Bones was sitting on his thumb. Somehow she looked quite life-size, and yet David did not feel any bigger than she. ”

“ The trout opened its mouth two or three times, and each time David thought it was going to speak.
David and the trout
‘Yes,’ it said at length. ‘All.’
‘I should think you must get rather tired of each other’s company then,’ said David.
Again it seemed as if the trout was going to speak, and this time David counted that it opened and shut its mouth eleven times before it answered.
‘We are,’ it said. ‘We’re each of us tired of everybody else. But I’m most tired of you. I hate being interrupted when I’m busy, and I hate people running into my face. ”

“ Miss Bones shouted out:
‘Mr. Bradshaw, the Time-table,’ and instantly there was a Bradshaw on her knee. ‘There’s the 11.29,’ she said. ‘You might catch it, or again you mightn’t. It all depends how you feel. If you feel in a hurry, you’ll miss it; if you feel calm, you may catch it. Will you have one taxi or two?’
‘Why should I have two?’ said David. ‘It’s only me.’
‘One taxi goes ten miles an hour, and two go twenty,’ said she. ‘And ten go a hundred, and a hundred go a thousand. ”

“ Nannie clearly knew nothing about him really if she so quickly got sleepy and talked about fetching his mother. Nobody grown-up ever woke to the real world for more than a minute or two at a time, except perhaps his father, who spent so many hours in a big room called ‘The Laboratory.’ There he seemed to dabble in realities, for he could put a fragment of something on the water, and it began to blaze, or he could mix a powder out of certain bottles, and when it was lit it burned with so red a flame that his father looked as if he was illuminated inside like a turnip-ghost. ”

“ The giraffe began to cry.
‘I thought you had such a kind face,’ she whispered, ‘but you don’t seem to care for me. If you only built a storey or two on to your house, and took out the staircase, and grew a great deal, we might be quite happy. You must be patient and grow.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Miss Bones, seizing the water-bottle on the table. She drank out of the mouth of it in a very rude manner, and spilt a quantity of it. ‘He doesn’t want you, and you don’t want him, and you’re only shamming. But what’s the matter with me?’
David turned on her. ”

“ All this David thought that he and Nannie had made up, but now he knew that it was perfectly true. And he stood waiting to see what would happen next.
The hubbub increased.
‘If that great lamb would get off my chest,’ said the elegant elephant, ‘I should be able to get up. Why don’t they come and open the roof?’
‘Not time yet,’ said the cow. ‘The family are still dressing. But it’s a tight fit to-night. I’m glad the pin-partridge isn’t here scratching us all.’
‘Where’s it gone?’ said the elephant.
‘David took it to bed; more fool he,’ said the cow. ”

“ David did so, and found himself in a large room, with all the furniture covered up as if the family was away. The butler was still standing on his head, squinting horribly at David’s card, and muttering to himself, ‘He can’t be both, and he may be neither. He may be either, but he can’t be both.’ In the middle of the room was a big round seat, covered with ribands which were still blowing about in the wind, and on it was seated a little old lady with horn spectacles, eating curds and whey out of a bowl that she held on her knees. ”

“ David hadn’t the slightest idea. He was only sure that the bottle had something to do with the electric light, and he took it up and began shaking it, as Nannie did to his medicine bottle. To his great delight, he saw that, as he shook it, the cats grew fainter and fainter, and the passage lighter and lighter.
The tabby spoke to him in a tremulous voice.
‘You’re shocking us frightfully,’ she said. ‘Please, don’t. You may have all the mouse-marmalade as soon as the cook comes back with her whiskers. She’s been gone a long time. And if you don’t like it, you really know where everything else is. ”

“ She gave one more wild shriek as the spider leaped on to the tuffet, and began running about the room with the most amazing speed, the spider cantering after her. They upset the bathing-machine, and knocked the stuffed horse down, they dodged behind the butler, and sent the beehive spinning, and splashed through the curds and whey, which formed a puddle on the floor. Then the door through which David had entered flew open, and out darted Miss Muffet with the spider in hot pursuit. ”

“ The moment it left the ark it became ordinary crow-size again, and at the same moment David suddenly saw his one hand still holding up the lid of the ark, and knew that he had become visible. That was a great relief, but he had no time to think about it now, for so many interesting things began happening all at once. The Noah family jumped from the edge of the ark, and the moment their stands touched the ground, they shot up into full-sized human beings, with hats and ulsters on, and large flat faces with two dots for eyes, one dot for a nose, and a line for a mouth. ”

“ David felt rather frightened when the test for the birds’ flying certificate was explained to him, for, of course, that is a much stiffer examination than anything that happens to the young gentlemen in the flying corps. Not only had he got to do all the clumsy man-tricks which they perform with their aeroplanes, in which they don’t really fly, and are only flown with, but some bird-tricks as well, and to get his certificate he had to satisfy every single one of the committee, which now consisted of several thousand people. ”

“ Occasionally one stopped whistling, on which all the doors slammed, and next moment there wasn’t any train there at all. There were a tremendous lot of people travelling; now and then in the crowd he got a glimpse of some one he knew like Miss Muffet, or the shoemaker, or members of the happy families, but for the most part they were all strangers. The cow’s head, wreathed in luggage, seemed miles away, but very soon David found there was a sort of telephone in her tail, and he talked to the end of it, asking whatever he wanted to know, and then put it to his ear. ”

“ The tent smelled strongly of sausages, and no wonder, for one of the two tables was covered with them. The other was covered with maps. The rest of the furniture consisted of a small camp-bed, and a dressing-table, on which swords and tooth-brushes and medals and soap and bootlaces and cocked hats were lying about in the utmost confusion. A fire was burning brightly against the wall of the tent, which looked rather dangerous to David. ”

“ He had been wanting to talk sense all the time, and learn something about the real world, in which the fish put a glass roof on their house for the winter as soon as they had collected enough red fire-leaves to keep them warm until the hot weather came round again. That might not be the precise way in which it happened, but it was something of that sort. Instead of pinching herself awake, poor sleepy Nannie went babbling on about ice and glass and sap and spring, in a way that was truly tedious and quite beside the real point. ”

“ One foreleg of the giraffe and his own arm stuck out of the window, and they kept slowly revolving to the sound of the piano. They were getting fearfully tangled up with the banisters of the stairs, and presently they began to reverse, and unwound themselves again.
‘You dear creature,’ said the giraffe, ‘I thought you’d grow, though I wasn’t sure about it.’
David dances with the giraffe
‘I don’t feel very comfortable,’ said David. ‘And I’m so afraid we’re treading on all the animals below.’
‘I shouldn’t be a bit surprised,’ said the giraffe. ”

“ It flew on to the roof of the ark, and began pecking at it.
‘Let me in,’ it shouted. ‘I believe it’s the first of September. What cads you fellows are not to let me in!’
‘You always think it’s the first of September,’ said the cow. ‘Now look at me; I’m milked every day, which must hurt me much more than being shot once.’
‘Not if it’s properly done,’ said the partridge. ‘I know lots of cows who like it.’
‘But it’s improperly done,’ said the cow. ‘David knows less about milking than anybody since the flood. ”

“ David waved himself, and ran into the trout’s tail.
‘Don’t do that,’ said the trout, not the least angrily, but in the same bored manner. ‘It’s bad manners to hit anybody’s tail. You’re a very ill-bred sort of creature.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ said David. ”

“ David had no longer the slightest doubt that he was the enemy, and was now completely cut off in the middle of the camp of his foes. But then it puzzled him to know why they had made him their own Field-Marshal. Perhaps they didn’t know he was the enemy, or perhaps they had made him their Field-Marshal in order to lure him into this tent in the very middle of the camp. That seemed far the most likely explanation, and accounted for the guard of honour being so weird a collection of people. ”