William Bowen

“ It was Babadag.
“Not so fast, peddler,” said he; and then he saw my daughter, who was standing in the band of moonlight, most fairylike and beautiful. He brushed past me and stopped before her, gazing at her in astonishment and admiration.
“Beauty in tatters!” he said. “No wonder that even blind men are conquered. You make me forget the Shears. Surely there is no woman in Oogh so beautiful. Will you look on me kindly? I am powerful, and I offer you a share of my power. It is Babadag who speaks.” ”

“ To this mischance I owe all my misery; my happiness hangs on a button. Take the doublet, Solario, and find the thread which will withstand sorcery. Three months are allowed you. Here are the doublet and the button; guard them as you would your life; and may you return to receive my thanks and the fortune which awaits you.”
[15] With his left hand he placed the doublet and the button in my left hand. The perfume of the wine seemed to grow heavier; I was very drowsy; I tried to speak; I could not arouse myself; I was conscious of the eager smile of the Prince’s daughter, and I knew no more. ”

“ I couldn’t let you kill him! It can’t go on any longer! The eyebrows must be cut, father! It’s only to make you like the others! We’ll both be happier, oh, indeed we will! It’s only because I love you, father!”
“I didn’t think you would have done this, Figli, my son,” said the old man, gently. “You have put me in the power of my enemy. Ah, Figli, my son, my son!”
“I know it, I know it,” sobbed the boy, “but the lady will give the Shears to me, and I will cut the eyebrows myself, with my own hand. The peddler will do you no harm. You’ll be glad, father, afterward, indeed you will.” ”

“ The Magic Doublet Protects the Prince Against the Knitters of Eyebrows and Against Goolk the Spider
I laughed inwardly, for I was sure that, under the protection of my doublet, my eyebrows would reappear as fast as they could be plucked out. And indeed, from the snort of rage given by Babadag, I soon knew that my eyebrows were safe. I could hear the eight tailors whispering together, as if in dismay.
“Goolk!” said Babadag, in the same angry whisper, “sting me this false peddler!”
“No, no, father,” said Figli. “Not that, oh, please!” ”

“ The Princess Sees the Shadow of an Old Woman
Through the crack of her closed door at the right of her shadow, another shadow was oozing in and spreading itself out across the wall toward her own. It took shape, and paused for a moment; it was the shadow of a bent old woman, stooping under a heavy bag, and holding out in one hand a kind of poker with a hook at the end.
The Princess held her breath. The stooping shadow stole slowly along the wall, and touched the Princess’s shadow with its poker. Instantly the Princess’s shadow began to move toward the other, and the other began to back away. ”

“ The Blind Bowler sent a ball spinning up the alley, and all the ten pins fell down with a clatter.
“A strike!” cried Figli, joyfully.
“We’ll do it yet!” said the Bowler. “Only forty-six more! Never give up! Keep everlastingly at it, that’s my motto!” And he ran after the ball, set up the pins, and ran back, ready to throw again.
“If he has eyebrows,” said he, panting and wiping his forehead, “he must have a will of his own; and it must be a good will, or else he wouldn’t have been kind to you.” ”

“ On the ground beside the hole lay the panther, its head on its paws. It watched us with sleepy eyes as we fled by.
In a moment we had reached the city gate and passed out. The Guardian was standing there, his face clouded with a frown, and his scimitar raised.
“Why do you flee?” said he.
“From the wrath of the people!” I cried. “Let us pass!”
“You cannot pass,” said he. His scimitar glittered in the sun.
“But we repent! We repent!” cried my sister.
“Too late, too late!” said the Guardian. “See!”
He pointed upward, and afar off in the sky appeared a black speck, speeding toward us.
“The genie!” ”

“ And, Solario,” he said, bending toward me and pointing at me with his finger, “I believe you are the man.”
Visions of Solario the tailor as the richest man in Vernicroft flashed before my eyes, and left me dizzy.
“It is a matter of sewing on a button,” said the Prince. “I am allowed nine tailors for the trial, on the principle that nine tailors are the equivalent of one—ahem! I beg your pardon. Eight tailors have already essayed it, and failed. You are the ninth.” ”

“ I want to be poor! I want to be like the others! Oh, the wicked Eyebrow! Why can’t he be good like the others? Oh, if I could only cut off the Eyebrow and make him poor and good like the others!”
My daughter took his hand and begged him to tell her his trouble, but all he would say was, “He’s wicked, and I want him to be good like the others! And to-night he’s going to give the Blind Bowler to Goolk the Spider, and I can’t stop him, I can’t stop him!” And he broke into a fresh storm of sobbing.
My daughter shook her head at me pityingly. ”

“ What shall I do?”
“My son, my son,” said Babadag, quietly, never taking his eyes from the burning city.
I recalled now the spark of fire I had seen through the window as we had left the tailor’s shop that night.
The flames of the furnace below us shot higher and higher, and spread wider and wider in every direction.
“The Book of the Shavian Magic,” said Babadag, as if to himself. “That must be saved.”
He ran down the steps and started across the park.
“Father! father! where are you going?” cried Figli, but his father paid no attention. The boy sped after him, and we others followed. ”

“ Master as I was of such a key to power as lay secure within my vest, I could marry whom I chose. Why should I marry the ugliest creature I had ever seen, when the most beautiful might be mine for the asking? The more I thought of it, the more indignant I became at the manner in which my easy good nature had been imposed on at every hand; I had been grossly overreached; the bargain was beyond measure unconscionable; the exquisite face of the Prince’s daughter haunted me day and night— And in short, when we arrived at Vernicroft, my mind was made up ”

“ I leave you in the care of a blind man and a child! A sound heart and a cheerful mind, my friends, are better than an army. Farewell!”
The multitude shouted back farewell, and my friend Urban and myself each kissed Figli on the cheek; but my daughter kissed him on both cheeks and hugged him to her heart; and then we went down the steps, leaving the pale and beautiful boy and the blind man alone, and passed out across the park through a lane opened in the crowd, down into the city toward the city gate. ”

“ THE CITY OF DEAD LEAVES SOLARIO was sitting cross-legged on his worktable, and before him, in a row, sat the Executioner, Bodkin, Bojohn, Prince Bilbo, the Princess Dorobel, and the Queen.
“This time,” said Bojohn, “we want to hear the story of Montesango’s Cave.”
Solario shook his head. “The story is too dreadful altogether,” said he. “I fear you would lie awake all night if—”
“Then tell us about the Roving Griffin,” said Bodkin.
“Or the Blind Giant,” said Bojohn.
“I am very curious myself,” said the Princess Dorobel, “to hear the story of the seal and his sister. What do you say, mother?” ”

“ A vast, treeless plain stretched away beyond the beach, far as the eye could see; there was no human habitation anywhere. Not an ounce of food nor a copper coin did we have between us,—nothing but my Perfection Cream and my sister’s blue mirror. We were at our wits’ end.
“Let us sit down and think what we had better do,” said I, and I led my sister to a brown rock embedded in the sand at no great distance. It was a large rock, round and smooth, and we sat down with our backs against it, gazing mournfully [176] at the Great Sea, where it sparkled in the sunlight. ”

“ I set fire to the shop, our shop, before I left,—to burn up all the black secrets in my father’s house, and to kill Goolk the Spider, to kill him, kill him, so that he would never get the Blind Bowler, nor any one else! So that all the old riches and wickedness might be burned up forever! ”

“ I wonder how it ends!”
“Go on!” cried Bojohn, and Solario proceeded.
The Princess lingered, hoping to hear the voice again, but it came no more. She turned back into her room and lit the lamp which hung from the center of the ceiling. She stood before her mirror, with the lamp at her back, and as she raised her hand to unfasten the pearl necklace which she wore, she glanced at the wall beside the mirror. Her shadow, thrown by the lamp, stood upright against the wall. And at that moment she saw something which caused her to stiffen with terror. ”

“ You are harmless. Go! and as you have chosen to darken your skin with juices, let it be darker still. Go! and be you henceforth as black as night. I will lead you to the palace gate, and speed you, with your daughter and your friend, on your journey away from Oogh. Return no more, peddler, for the web awaits you, and Goolk the Spider longs for a brother. ”

“ A Tattered Old Beggar Comes to the Goldsmith’s Shop
It was an old man, evidently a beggar, a huge man, fat and heavy, his face covered by a gray beard which hung to his waist, and his eyes, which were very bright, almost hidden by shaggy eyebrows,—the longest eyebrows I had ever seen on any human being. A ragged tunic of brown, belted around the middle, hung scantily to his knees; a battered felt hat flapped over his forehead; and in his hand he carried, for a staff, what seemed to be a yardstick, such as tailors use. From his belt hung a pair of large shears, also of the sort used by tailors. ”

“ We’ll bring you to your heart’s desire! We laugh at rain and snow and mire! We never lag and never tire! We thread our way through ice and fire! Good mules for hire! Good mules for hire!”
“Thread!” What did he mean by that word? I stared at him, and as he was passing me he looked at me long and hard, and gave me a slow wink.
A little while later, as I was ironing a piece of goods within doors, the mule driver himself appeared in the shop.
“At your service, master Solario!” he cried, gayly. “For a long journey or a short one! If you’re thinking of going a journey, I’m your man! ”

“ That night we dined sumptuously and slept in gorgeous apartments in the palace. In the morning, being once more conducted by Buffo to the King, we found him in a transport [193] of happiness. The cure was perfect. He kissed my sister’s hand, and threw his arms about me, and cried:
“It’s yours! Half of my dead leaves, and I’ll make a Prince out of you! Not a word! What do you say? Never woke up once last night! Get to work and cure all my people. Where’s that confounded chamberlain? Get to work, get to work!” ”

“ My heart almost stopped beating, for fear that my daughter should be there.
“Vile rascals,” said Babadag, “you have deceived me! There is no woman here.”
“Astonishing!” said one of the ballad singers. “Not here! Who would have thought it?”
“I doubt that she was ever here,” said Babadag. “Wait!”
I saw him go off down the alley of cypress trees toward the Cobweb Room, no doubt to assure himself that his prisoner was safe, or else to seek the woman there. As soon as he was gone, I felt a hand on my arm, and the voice of Figli whispered in my ear, “Are you awake?” ”

“ He went to the forge, and blowing up the coals with a pair of bellows, he held the point of the quill for a moment in the fire.
“Now,” said he, “it is as hard as a pin.”
The One-Armed Sorcerer plucked a feather from the stork
[157] “Sir,” said I, “will you tell me what this is for?”
“To save the Ragpicker from herself,” said the sorcerer.
“But it’s the Princess I have come to save,” said I.
“It is the same thing,” said the old man. “If the Ragpicker is saved from herself, everybody else is saved too. And this drop of blood from the Princess’s heart will do it, and nothing else.” ”

“ I had drawn my head back into the doorway for a moment, and when I looked again the Ragpicker was standing at the street crossing with her back toward me, gazing in the direction of the stork which stood before the sorcerer’s door. On her back was her bag, and in her left hand she carried a knife. The people in the street stopped to watch her, muttering together.
“Skag!” said she, “come in!” And she turned sidewise to her shadow, which lay at a great length on the ground before her. It began to shorten toward her, and kept shortening until it was no longer than herself. “Stand up!” ”

“ You’ve only to view our reliable faces
And gaze on our truly superlative graces,
To note that the suitors by whom you’re attended
Come really remarkably well recommended,—
Buy it’s all in the point of view! How true!
It’s all in the point of view!
Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la,—”
“Silence, rogues!” I cried, out of all patience at their impudence, but my daughter burst out laughing. It was ever her way to be amused rather than annoyed.
“Master Eyebrows!” shouted the first ballad singer. “Choose one of us for the tattered damsel! What will you take for her? Speak.”
“You shall have the Shears!” ”