Edith Nesbit

“ If we find the good hotel—well, a good hotel never hurt anyone yet."
"It's no good, you know," said Jimmy weakly; "you know jolly well you can't get out of that Temple of Flora door, even if you get to it."
"I don't know," said Gerald, still brisk and commander-like; "there's a secret spring inside that door most likely. We hadn't a lamp last time to look for it, remember."
"If there's one thing I do hate it’s undergroundness," said Mabel.
"You're not a coward," said Gerald, with what is known as diplomacy. "You're brave, Mabel. Don't I know it! You hold Jimmy's hand and I'll hold Cathy’s. ”

“ Gerald wildly wondered what magic and how much had been needed to give history and a past to these two things of yesterday, the rich Jimmy and the Ugly-Wugly. If he could get them away would all memory of them fade—in this boy's mind, for instance, in the minds of all the people who did business with them in the City? Would the mahogany-and-clerk-furnished offices fade away? Were the clerks real? Was the mahogany? Was he himself real? Was the boy?
"Can you keep a secret?" he asked the other boy. "Are you on for a lark?" ”

“ Mabel and Kathleen, nervously peering among the rhododendron bushes and the bracken and the fancy fir-trees, find six several heaps of coats, hats, skirts, gloves, golf-clubs, hockey-sticks, broom-handles. They carry them, panting and damp, for the mid-day sun is pitiless, up the hill to where the stone dinosaurus looms immense among a forest of larches. The dinosaurus has a hole in his stomach. ”

“ But no, the old moon shone alone, as she had always shone on them.
"There are seven moons," said Mabel blankly, and pointed, which is not manners.
"Of course," said Phœbus kindly; "everything in our world is seven times as much so as in yours."
"But there aren't seven of you," said Mabel.
"No, but I am seven times as much," said the Sun-god. "You see, there's numbers, and there's quantity, to say nothing of quality. You see that, I'm sure."
"Not quite," said Kathleen.
"Explanations always weary me," Phœbus interrupted. "Shall we join the ladies?" ”

“ A third showed a king on his throne, his courtiers obsequious about him; and yet a fourth showed a really good hotel, with the respectable Ugly-Wugly sunning himself on the front doorsteps. There was a mother, bending over a wooden cradle. There was an artist gazing entranced on the picture his wet brush seemed to have that moment completed, a general dying on a field where Victory had planted the standard he loved, and these things were not pictures, but the truest truths, alive, and, as anyone could see, immortal. ”

“ The dew lay thick on the grass and the brambles, and it was very cold.
"We ought to have gone with them," said Mabel with chattering teeth. "We can't swim now we’re not marble. And I suppose this is the island?"
It was—and they couldn't swim.
They knew it. One always knows those sort of things somehow without trying. For instance, you know perfectly that you can't fly. There are some things that there is no mistake about.
The dawn grew brighter and the outlook more black every moment.
"There isn't a boat, I suppose?" Jimmy asked. ”

“ Here Jimmy was discovered to be in tears and Kathleen white as any drawing-paper.
"What's the matter, my little man?" said the respectable Ugly-Wugly kindly. Jimmy passed instantly from tears to yells.
"Here, take the ring!" said Gerald in a furious whisper, and thrust it on to Jimmy's hot, damp, resisting finger. Jimmy's voice stopped short in the middle of a howl. And Gerald in a cold flash realized what it was that Mabel had gone through the night before. But it was daylight, and Gerald was not a coward.
"We must find the others," he said. ”

“ Everyone thought, but their brains were tired with anxiety and distress, and the thoughts they thought were, as Mabel said, not worth thinking, 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 Gerald urged her to shut up and let him think.
"I think I think best sitting down," he said, and sat; "and sometimes you can think best aloud. The Ugly-Wugly's real—don't make any mistake about that. ”

“ So now, leaving the growing goldness of the sunrise, the four went down the stone steps that led to the underground and underwater passage, and everything seemed to grow dark and then to grow into a poor pretence of light again, as the splendour of dawn gave place to the small dogged lighting of the bicycle lamp. ”

“ 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 door opened 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 enter a large London office explain that the elderly and respected head of it is not what he seems, but is really your little brother, who has been suddenly advanced to age and wealth by a tricky wishing ring. ”

“ It is quite possible to starve to death on the staircase of a London building if the people you are watching for only stay long enough in their offices. 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 worth of buns," said Gerald, with that prompt decision common to all great commanders.
"Show us yer tanners," the boy rejoined with at least equal promptness. Gerald showed them. "All right; hand over." ”

“ Not—not that passage?"
"Never!" said Mabel firmly; "we'll hide them inside the great stone dinosaurus. He's hollow."
"He comes alive—in his stone," said Kathleen.
"Not in the sunshine he doesn't," Mabel told her confidently, "and not without 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't really any magic."
"It'll have to be a very strong tea party, then," said Kathleen doubtfully. ”

“ Downheartedly, and quite sure that there wasn't and couldn't be any boat, the four children started to explore the island. How often each one of them had dreamed of islands, how often wished to be stranded on one! Well, now they were. Reality is sometimes quite different from dreams, and not half so nice. It was worst of all for Mabel, whose shoes and stockings were far away on the mainland. The coarse grass and brambles were very cruel to bare legs and feet. ”

“ They fear that you have perished, and they would weep if they did not know that tears do not become a man, however youthful." Kathleen stood up and brushed the crumbs of ambrosia from her marble lap.
"Thank you all very much, she said. "It was very kind of you to have us, and we've enjoyed ourselves very much, but I think we ought to go now, please.
"If it is anxiety about your brothers," said Phœbus obligingly, "it is the easiest thing in the world for them to join you. Lend me your ring a moment." ”

“ If it's any comfort to you, I don't believe any of it's real: it can't be; it's too thick. Tell Mademoiselle Jimmy and I will be back to tea. If we don't happen to be I can't help it. I can't help anything, except perhaps Jimmy." He started 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 used to want to be a heroine. It's different when it really comes to being, isn't it?"
"Yes, very," said Kathleen. ”

“ CHAPTER X
"If," said Kathleen, sitting disconsolate in her marble, "if I am really a statue come alive, I wonder you're not afraid of me."
"I've got the ring," said Mabel with decision. "Cheer up, dear! you will soon be better. ”

“ Jimmy shook them to pieces, and a sigh of relief burst from Kathleen.
"The spell's broken, you see," she said; "and that old gentleman, he's real. 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 the bushes with Jimmy; "because, said he, "I think the poor bailiff's coming round, and it might upset him to see strangers—and Jimmy'll keep you company. ”

“ In place of the light there was darkness; in place of the sounds there was silence; and in place of the scent of beef, pork, mutton, fish, veal, cabbage, onions, carrots, beer, and tobacco there was the musty, damp scent of a place underground that has been long shut up. ”

“ Kathleen and Jimmy stooped over the bailiff. Even that prostrate form, being human, seemed some little protection. But Gerald, strong in the fearlessness that the ring gave to its wearer, looked full into the face of the Ugly-Wugly—and started. ”

“ It's that beastly ring again. I had to wish us here, to get you back at all out of your dream."
"Wish us where?" Jimmy held on to the hand in a way that in the daylight of 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 dare say it's all right," Jimmy answered through the dark, with an irritation not strong enough to make him loosen his hold of his brother's hand. "But how are we going to get out?" ”

“ And this, since Jimmy had the ring, was certainly true.
So the two disappeared behind the rhododendrons. Mabel came back with the 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 the sufferer's nose till he sneezed and feebly pushed her hand away with the faint question:
"What's up now?"
"You've hurt your head," said Gerald. "Lie still." ”

“ And almost directly Hebe came down the steps, her round arms hung thick with rose-wreaths. There was one for each marble head.
Every one now looked seven times more beautiful than before, which, in the case of the gods and goddesses, is saying a good deal. The children remembered how at the raspberry vinegar feast Mademoiselle had said that gods and goddesses always wore wreaths for meals. ”

“ He spoke with a curious accent; there was something odd about his r's, and his m's and n's were those of a person labouring under an almost intolerable cold in the head. But it was not the dreadful "oo" and "ah" voice of the night before. ”