Shafto Justin Adair Fitz-Gerald

“ Then everything faded away again, and more shadows danced on the land and the sea, until nothing was to be seen but the galloping sprites and the Winny Weg, who was dancing in a corner all by herself. A pink light now burst through the haze, the goblins rode off, and a perfect fairy-land nursery
was unfolded before Maude and Willie, who were reclining peacefully on a golden couch with silver cushions. ”

“ To attempt to argue with the Zankiwank Maude knew was futile, so she merely enquired how the Jackarandajam felt after his attack of Inspiration, and what he took for it.
“Nothing,” was the simple rejoinder. “It comes and it goes, and there you are—at least most of the time.”
“What is Inspiration?” said Willie.
The Zankiwank and the Jackarandajam both shook their heads in a solemn manner, and looked as wise as the Sphinx. Then the former answered slowly and deliberately—
“Inspiration is the sort of thing that comes when you do not fish for it.” ”

“ Robin Goodfellow skipped in advance, while Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed attended on the lovely Queen.
“Indeed, indeed this must be a Midsummer Night’s Dream!”
“Indeed and indeed then it is,” mocked the impudent Robin Goodfellow. “The fairies are not dead yet; and they never will die while good little girls and boys, and poets with sweet imaginations, live. But quick, let not the Queen see you! Eat of these Fern Seeds and you will become invisible even to the fairies. They are special seeds of my own growing and warranted to last as long as I choose.” ”

“ Maude and Willie vowed they would not cross him for anything, let alone nothing, and so the Zankiwank was appeased and offered to give them the correct answer to his own unanswerable conundrum. Do you know what a conundrum is though? I will tell you while the Zankiwank is curling his whiskers:—
A conundrum is an impossible question with an improbable answer. Think it over the next time you read “Robinson Crusoe.”
“Nothing is better than a good little girl;
But a jam tart is better than nothing,
Therefore a jam tart is better than the best little girl alive.” ”

“ I have got five minutes to spare and I’ll devote them to you if you like, but I can’t give them to you as though they were a piece of toffee,” answered Maude with much perplexity, while Willie stood awe-struck, not comprehending Mr Swinglebinks in the least.
“Time is a tough customer, you know. He is here, he is there, he is gone! He is, he was, he will be. Yet you cannot trap Time, for he is like a sunbeam,” muttered the Zankiwank as though he never was short of Time. ”

“ Willie was silent too, like his sister, and seeing them deep in thought, King Æsop waved a little wand he had in his hand, and all the Birds and Beasts and Fishes joined hands and paws, and fins and wings, and danced in a circle singing to the music of a quantity of piping birds in the trees:—
If you want to be merry and wise,
You must all be as bright as you can,
You never must quarrel,
Or spoil a right moral,
But live on a regular plan. ”

“ Time, so my copy books told me, was meant for Slaves. I always felt sorry for the Slaves. They have no Time, you know, because it is meant for them. Lots of things are meant for you, only you won’t get them. Britons never will be Slaves, so they’ll never want for Time. However, as Time was meant for Slaves, I mean to let them have as much as I can. So every spare minute or two I can get, I of course send them over to them.”
“It is ridiculous. You cannot measure time and cut off a bit like that,” ventured Willie. ”

“ The Zankiwank was in deep distress, but Dr Pampleton was in high glee and laughed immoderately.
“Such a funny mistake to make!” he crowed hysterically to the hopping, hobbling, jumping crowd of monsters and dwarfs, who were glaring at each other in a very savage manner.
“I beg your pardon—my fault—all lie down again, and I will cut you up once more and put you together correctly this time,” said the Court Physician pleasantly.
“So!” they all bellowed in chorus, “it is you who have done all this mischief. Come on! ”

“ Why are you so peepy
When the twilight dies?
The slight mist that had descended went up just like a gauze curtain, bringing into view again the lovely garden reposing in the rear in a beautiful green bath of light.
Then the merry Winny Weg caught hold of the cupids and incited them to dance a slow gavotte, and as they danced they warbled lusciously:—
Cupid’s Garden. ”

“ So they went into the cook shop and had some Irish Stew, which did not agree with them. Consequently they sprang into the hash that was simmering on the fire, and were seen no more. Whereupon the Zankiwank looked gooseberrily out of his eyes and murmured as if nothing out of the way or in the way had happened, or the Phœnix or the Griffin had existed—“The Bletherwitch will send me a telegram to say that she will be ready for the ceremony in half-an-hour.” “But where is the Bletherwitch, and how do you know?” asked Maude, somewhat incredulously. ”

“ Knowing from past experience that the Zankiwank would have his own way, Maude and Willie, having no one else to think about, thought of Nobody, and to their amazement they heard these words sung as from a long way off, in a very hollow tone of voice:—
Nobody’s Nothing to Nobody. ”

“ The obliging Zankiwank was with them, and when they looked round they found themselves in a square field festooned with the misty curtains of the Elfin Dawn.
“Of course,” said the Zankiwank, “this is Midsummer Day, and very soon it will be Midsummer Night, and you will see some wonders that will outwonder all the wonders that wonderful people have ever wondered both before and afterwards. ”

“ Until all life is done.
The voices faded and died away; the scene changed and a purple curtain descended, hiding everything and everybody except the Winny Weg. An extraordinary commotion outside warned the half-dozing children that a fresh flight of goblins might be expected. And sure enough in stalked an army of giants from one side, who were met by an army of dwarfs from the other, the latter on stilts. ”

“ Anyhow I would much rather be a little girl than a jam tart—because a jam tart must be sour because it’s tart, and a little girl is always sweet,” promptly replied Willie, kissing his sister Maude on the nose—but that was an accident, because she moved at the wrong moment. ”

“ If you have the ability to write a story you won’t want a Magic Pen. These pens are only for every-day use. For example: if you want to write to your charwoman to tell her you have got the toothache, and you haven’t got the toothache, the Magic Pen refuses to lend itself to telling a—a——”
“Crammer,” suggested Willie.
“Crammer. Thank you. I don’t know what it means, but crammer is the correct word. The Magic Pen will simplify the truth whether you wish to tell it or not.”
“I do not understand,” whispered Maude. ”

“ Not a bit like happy girls and boys, as they would have been had they possessed their own heads instead of over-grown and over-developed minds and brains. Old heads never do look well on young shoulders, and it is very foolish of people to think they do. It makes them children of a larger growth before their time, and is just as bad as having young heads on old shoulders. The moral of which is, that you should never be older than you are nor younger than you are not.
“But what are they doing with those bellows?” enquired Willie and Mande together. ”

“ Why do not they become a Firm and mix the two together?” responded Maude.
“You horrify me! Mix the Good and the Bad together? That would never do. The Best Resolutions in the world would be contaminated if they were all warehoused under one roof. Besides, the Wimble is himself full of Good Resolutions, so that he can mingle with the Bad without suffering any evil, while the Wamble is differently constituted!”
The children did not understand the Zankiwank’s argument a bit—it all seemed so ridiculous. A sudden thought occurred to Willie. ”

“ If Time is money you can exchange Time for money and money for Time. Is not that feasible?”
Did anybody ever hear of such queer notions? Maude and Willie were quite tired through trying to think the matter out.
Time was meant for slaves.—Time is money.—Time and Tide wait for no man.—Take Time when Time is.—Take Time by the forelock.—Procrastination is the thief of Time.—Killing Time is no murder.—Saving Time is no crime. As quick as thought Mr Swinglebinks exhibited these statements on his swinging sign, one after the other, and then he came to them once again. ”

“ He was believed by all the others—you shall know who all the others were presently—to know more things than the Man-in-the-Moon, because he nearly always said something that nobody else ever thought of. And the Man-in-the-Moon knows more things than the Old Woman of Mars. You have naturally heard all about Mars—at least, if you have not heard all about her, you all have heard about her, which is just the same thing, only reversed. ”

“ When the Bletherwitch arrives I will introduce you, and you shall both be bridesmaids!” “But I can’t be a bridesmaid, you know,” corrected Willie.
“Oh yes, you can. You can be anything here you like. You only have to eat some Fern seeds and you become invisible, and nobody would know you. It is so simple, and saves a lot of argument. And you should never argue about anything unless you know nothing about it, then you are sure to win.”
“But,” interrupted Maude, “how can you know nothing about anything?” ”

“ Neither Willie nor Maude could understand how it could be Midsummer Night, because Midsummer Day was such a long way off—quite six weeks, for this was only yet the month of May. But they did not say anything, because Robin Goodfellow was looking at them, and they knew they were invisible, because they could not even feel themselves—which is a curious sensation, when you come to think of it.
Now, this is the song that Peaseblossom and Mustard Seed sang together in unison—the fairies, led by Robin Goodfellow, joining in the chorus:—
Will you walk into the Garden. ”

“ It lives not with the false and vain,
But in the tender heart.
As mysteriously as they had appeared, the fairies vanished again, and only the rustling of the leaves and the twittering of the birds making melody all around, reminded the children that they were on enchanted ground. Now and then the bull-frogs would set up a croaking chorus in some marshy land far behind, but as no one could distinguish what they said it did not matter. ”

“ So Maude said promptly, “It is not Night-mare or Dreams or Anything. We don’t know what it is, but we must not go to sleep, Willie, in case anything should happen.”
Willie replied that he did not want to go to sleep any more. “I believe it’s a show,” he added, “and somebody’s run away with us. How lovely! I’m glad we are lost. Let us go and ask that tall gentleman, who looks like the parlour-tongs in a bathing-suit, to give us some more buns.” For, being a boy, he could always eat buns, or an abundance of them, only I hope you won’t tell the nursery governess I told you. ”

“ After merrily joining in this very original song, with dancing accompaniment, Maude and Willie thanked King Æsop for permitting his animals to entertain them.
“Always glad to please good little boys and girls, you know,” he replied pleasantly, “even in their play they furnish us with a new fable and a moral.”
“And that is?”
“All play and no work makes the world stand still.”
Before they could ask for an explanation, their attention was once more drawn to the animals,
who had commenced playing all kinds of games just the same as they themselves played in the play-ground at school. ”

“ The shadows danced all through the place, which seemed like a large plateau or table-land, near a magnificent stretch of ocean which they could see before them with ships passing to and fro incessantly. And all the time, goblins, hob, nob and otherwise, red, blue, and green, kept rushing backwards and forwards, sometimes with a whole school of children following madly in their wake. ”

“ The next shop at which they stopped was kept by
Jornumgander the Younger, Dealer in Magic and Mystery.
“Jorumgander the Younger is not of much use now,” said the Zankiwank sorrowfully. He chiefly aims at making a mystery of everything, but so many people not engaged in trade make a mystery of nothing every day, that he is sadly handicapped. And most sensible people hate a mystery of any kind, unless it belongs to themselves, so that he finds customers very shy. ”