by E. Nesbit
CHAPTER 8. THE QUEEN IN LONDON
'Now tell us what happened to you,' said Cyril to Jane, when he and theothers had told her all about the Queen's talk and the banquet, and thevariety entertainment, carefully stopping short before the beginning ofthe dungeon part of the story.
'It wasn't much good going,' said Jane, 'if you didn't even try to getthe Amulet.'
'We found out it was no go,' said Cyril; 'it's not to be got in Babylon.It was lost before that. We'll go to some other jolly friendly place,where everyone is kind and pleasant, and look for it there. Now tell usabout your part.'
'Oh,' said Jane, 'the Queen's man with the smooth face--what was hisname?'
'Ritti-Marduk,' said Cyril.
'Yes,' said Jane, 'Ritti-Marduk, he came for me just after the Psammeadhad bitten the guard-of-the-gate's wife's little boy, and he took me tothe Palace. And we had supper with the new little Queen from Egypt. Sheis a dear--not much older than you. She told me heaps about Egypt. Andwe played ball after supper. And then the Babylon Queen sent for me. Ilike her too. And she talked to the Psammead and I went to sleep. Andthen you woke me up. That's all.'
The Psammead, roused from its sound sleep, told the same story.
'But,' it added, 'what possessed you to tell that Queen that I couldgive wishes? I sometimes think you were born without even the mostrudimentary imitation of brains.'
The children did not know the meaning of rudimentary, but it sounded arude, insulting word.
'I don't see that we did any harm,' said Cyril sulkily.
'Oh, no,' said the Psammead with withering irony, 'not at all! Of coursenot! Quite the contrary! Exactly so! Only she happened to wish that shemight soon find herself in your country. And soon may mean any moment.'
'Then it's your fault,' said Robert, 'because you might just as wellhave made "soon" mean some moment next year or next century.'
'That's where you, as so often happens, make the mistake,' rejoined theSand-fairy. '_I_ couldn't mean anything but what SHE meant by "soon". Itwasn't my wish. And what SHE meant was the next time the King happens togo out lion hunting. So she'll have a whole day, and perhaps two, todo as she wishes with. SHE doesn't know about time only being a mode ofthought.'
'Well,' said Cyril, with a sigh of resignation, 'we must do what we canto give her a good time. She was jolly decent to us. I say, suppose wewere to go to St James's Park after dinner and feed those ducks that wenever did feed. After all that Babylon and all those years ago, Ifeel as if I should like to see something REAL, and NOW. You'll come,Psammead?'
'Where's my priceless woven basket of sacred rushes?' asked the Psammeadmorosely. 'I can't go out with nothing on. And I won't, what's more.'
And then everybody remembered with pain that the bass bag had, in thehurry of departure from Babylon, not been remembered.
'But it's not so extra precious,' said Robert hastily. 'You can get themgiven to you for nothing if you buy fish in Farringdon Market.'
'Oh,' said the Psammead very crossly indeed, 'so you presume on mysublime indifference to the things of this disgusting modern world, tofob me off with a travelling equipage that costs you nothing. Very well,I shall go to sand. Please don't wake me.'
And it went then and there to sand, which, as you know, meant to bed.The boys went to St James's Park to feed the ducks, but they went alone.
Anthea and Jane sat sewing all the afternoon. They cut off half a yardfrom each of their best green Liberty sashes. A towel cut in two formeda lining; and they sat and sewed and sewed and sewed. What they weremaking was a bag for the Psammead. Each worked at a half of the bag.jane's half had four-leaved shamrocks embroidered on it. They were theonly things she could do (because she had been taught how at school,and, fortunately, some of the silk she had been taught with was leftover). And even so, Anthea had to draw the pattern for her. Anthea'sside of the bag had letters on it--worked hastily but affectionately inchain stitch. They were something like this:
PSAMS TRAVEL CAR
She would have put 'travelling carriage', but she made the letters toobig, so there was no room. The bag was made INTO a bag with old Nurse'ssewing machine, and the strings of it were Anthea's and Jane's bestred hair ribbons. At tea-time, when the boys had come home with a mostunfavourable report of the St james's Park ducks, Anthea ventured toawaken the Psammead, and to show it its new travelling bag.
'Humph,' it said, sniffing a little contemptuously, yet at the same timeaffectionately, 'it's not so dusty.'
The Psammead seemed to pick up very easily the kind of things thatpeople said nowadays. For a creature that had in its time associatedwith Megatheriums and Pterodactyls, its quickness was really wonderful.
'It's more worthy of me,' it said, 'than the kind of bag that's givenaway with a pound of plaice. When do you propose to take me out in it?'
'I should like a rest from taking you or us anywhere,' said Cyril. ButJane said--
'I want to go to Egypt. I did like that Egyptian Princess that cameto marry the King in Babylon. She told me about the larks they have inEgypt. And the cats. Do let's go there. And I told her what the birdthings on the Amulet were like. And she said it was Egyptian writing.'
The others exchanged looks of silent rejoicing at the thought of theircleverness in having concealed from Jane the terrors they had sufferedin the dungeon below the Euphrates.
'Egypt's so nice too,' Jane went on, 'because of Doctor Brewer'sScripture History. I would like to go there when Joseph was dreamingthose curious dreams, or when Moses was doing wonderful things withsnakes and sticks.'
'I don't care about snakes,' said Anthea shuddering.
'Well, we needn't be in at that part, but Babylon was lovely! We hadcream and sweet, sticky stuff. And I expect Egypt's the same.'
There was a good deal of discussion, but it all ended in everybody'sagreeing to Jane's idea. And next morning directly after breakfast(which was kippers and very nice) the Psammead was invited to get intohis travelling carriage.
The moment after it had done so, with stiff, furry reluctance, like thatof a cat when you want to nurse it, and its ideas are not the same asyours, old Nurse came in.
'Well, chickies,' she said, 'are you feeling very dull?'
'Oh, no, Nurse dear,' said Anthea; 'we're having a lovely time. We'rejust going off to see some old ancient relics.'
'Ah,' said old Nurse, 'the Royal Academy, I suppose? Don't go wastingyour money too reckless, that's all.'
She cleared away the kipper bones and the tea-things, and when she hadswept up the crumbs and removed the cloth, the Amulet was held up andthe order given--just as Duchesses (and other people) give it to theircoachmen.
'To Egypt, please!' said Anthea, when Cyril had uttered the wonderfulName of Power.
'When Moses was there,' added Jane.
And there, in the dingy Fitzroy Street dining-room, the Amulet grewbig, and it was an arch, and through it they saw a blue, blue sky and arunning river.
'No, stop!' said Cyril, and pulled down jane's hand with the Amulet init.
'What silly cuckoos we all are,' he said. 'Of course we can't go. Wedaren't leave home for a single minute now, for fear that minute shouldbe THE minute.'
'What minute be WHAT minute?' asked Jane impatiently, trying to get herhand away from Cyril.
'The minute when the Queen of Babylon comes,' said Cyril. And theneveryone saw it.
For some days life flowed in a very slow, dusty, uneventful stream.
The children could never go out all at once, because they never knewwhen the King of Babylon would go out lion hunting and leave his Queenfree to pay them that surprise visit to which she was, without doubt,eagerly looking forward.
So they took it in turns, two and two, to go out and to stay in.
The stay-at-homes would have been much duller than they were but for thenew interest taken in them by the learned gentleman.
He called Anthea in one day to show her a beautiful necklace of purpleand gold beads.
'I saw one
like that,' she said, 'in--'
'In the British Museum, perhaps?'
'I like to call the place where I saw it Babylon,' said Antheacautiously.
'A pretty fancy,' said the learned gentleman, 'and quite correct too,because, as a matter of fact, these beads did come from Babylon.' Theother three were all out that day. The boys had been going to the Zoo,and Jane had said so plaintively, 'I'm sure I am fonder of rhinocerosesthan either of you are,' that Anthea had told her to run along then.And she had run, catching the boys before that part of the road whereFitzroy Street suddenly becomes Fitzroy Square.
'I think Babylon is most frightfully interesting,' said Anthea. 'I dohave such interesting dreams about it--at least, not dreams exactly, butquite as wonderful.'
'Do sit down and tell me,' said he. So she sat down and told. And heasked her a lot of questions, and she answered them as well as shecould.
'Wonderful--wonderful!' he said at last. 'One's heard ofthought-transference, but I never thought _I_ had any power of thatsort. Yet it must be that, and very bad for YOU, I should think. Doesn'tyour head ache very much?'
He suddenly put a cold, thin hand on her forehead.
'No thank you, not at all,' said she.
'I assure you it is not done intentionally,' he went on. 'Of course Iknow a good deal about Babylon, and I unconsciously communicate it toyou; you've heard of thought-reading, but some of the things you say,I don't understand; they never enter my head, and yet they're soastoundingly probable.'
'It's all right,' said Anthea reassuringly. '_I_ understand. And don'tworry. It's all quite simple really.'
It was not quite so simple when Anthea, having heard the others comein, went down, and before she had had time to ask how they had liked theZoo, heard a noise outside, compared to which the wild beasts' noiseswere gentle as singing birds.
'Good gracious!' cried Anthea, 'what's that?'
The loud hum of many voices came through the open window. Words could bedistinguished.
''Ere's a guy!'
'This ain't November. That ain't no guy. It's a ballet lady, that's whatit is.'
'Not it--it's a bloomin' looney, I tell you.'
Then came a clear voice that they knew.
'Retire, slaves!' it said.
'What's she a saying of?' cried a dozen voices. 'Some blamed foreignlingo,' one voice replied.
The children rushed to the door. A crowd was on the road and pavement.
In the middle of the crowd, plainly to be seen from the top of thesteps, were the beautiful face and bright veil of the Babylonian Queen.
'Jimminy!' cried Robert, and ran down the steps, 'here she is!'
'Here!' he cried, 'look out--let the lady pass. She's a friend of ours,coming to see us.'
'Nice friend for a respectable house,' snorted a fat woman with marrowson a handcart.
All the same the crowd made way a little. The Queen met Robert on thepavement, and Cyril joined them, the Psammead bag still on his arm.
'Here,' he whispered; 'here's the Psammead; you can get wishes.'
'_I_ wish you'd come in a different dress, if you HAD to come,' saidRobert; 'but it's no use my wishing anything.'
'No,' said the Queen. 'I wish I was dressed--no, I don't--I wish THEYwere dressed properly, then they wouldn't be so silly.'
The Psammead blew itself out till the bag was a very tight fit for it;and suddenly every man, woman, and child in that crowd felt that it hadnot enough clothes on. For, of course, the Queen's idea of proper dresswas the dress that had been proper for the working-classes 3,000 yearsago in Babylon--and there was not much of it.
'Lawky me!' said the marrow-selling woman, 'whatever could a-took meto come out this figure?' and she wheeled her cart away very quicklyindeed.
'Someone's made a pretty guy of you--talk of guys,' said a man who soldbootlaces.
'Well, don't you talk,' said the man next to him. 'Look at your ownsilly legs; and where's your boots?'
'I never come out like this, I'll take my sacred,' said thebootlace-seller. 'I wasn't quite myself last night, I'll own, but not todress up like a circus.'
The crowd was all talking at once, and getting rather angry. But no oneseemed to think of blaming the Queen.
Anthea bounded down the steps and pulled her up; the others followed,and the door was shut. 'Blowed if I can make it out!' they heard. 'I'moff home, I am.'
And the crowd, coming slowly to the same mind, dispersed, followed byanother crowd of persons who were not dressed in what the Queen thoughtwas the proper way.
'We shall have the police here directly,' said Anthea in the tones ofdespair. 'Oh, why did you come dressed like that?'
The Queen leaned against the arm of the horse-hair sofa.
'How else can a queen dress I should like to know?' she questioned.
'Our Queen wears things like other people,' said Cyril.
'Well, I don't. And I must say,' she remarked in an injured tone, 'thatyou don't seem very glad to see me now I HAVE come. But perhaps it's thesurprise that makes you behave like this. Yet you ought to be used tosurprises. The way you vanished! I shall never forget it. The best magicI've ever seen. How did you do it?'
'Oh, never mind about that now,' said Robert. 'You see you've gone andupset all those people, and I expect they'll fetch the police. And wedon't want to see you collared and put in prison.'
'You can't put queens in prison,' she said loftily. 'Oh, can't you?'said Cyril. 'We cut off a king's head here once.'
'In this miserable room? How frightfully interesting.'
'No, no, not in this room; in history.'
'Oh, in THAT,' said the Queen disparagingly. 'I thought you'd done itwith your own hands.'
The girls shuddered.
'What a hideous city yours is,' the Queen went on pleasantly, 'and whathorrid, ignorant people. Do you know they actually can't understand asingle word I say.'
'Can you understand them?' asked Jane.
'Of course not; they speak some vulgar, Northern dialect. I canunderstand YOU quite well.'
I really am not going to explain AGAIN how it was that the childrencould understand other languages than their own so thoroughly, and talkthem, too, so that it felt and sounded (to them) just as though theywere talking English.
'Well,' said Cyril bluntly, 'now you've seen just how horrid it is,don't you think you might as well go home again?' 'Why, I've seen simplynothing yet,' said the Queen, arranging her starry veil. 'I wished to beat your door, and I was. Now I must go and see your King and Queen.'
'Nobody's allowed to,' said Anthea in haste; 'but look here, we'll takeyou and show you anything you'd like to see--anything you CAN see,' sheadded kindly, because she remembered how nice the Queen had been to themin Babylon, even if she had been a little deceitful in the matter ofJane and Psammead.
'There's the Museum,' said Cyril hopefully; 'there are lots of thingsfrom your country there. If only we could disguise you a little.'
'I know,' said Anthea suddenly. 'Mother's old theatre cloak, and thereare a lot of her old hats in the big box.'
The blue silk, lace-trimmed cloak did indeed hide some of the Queen'sstartling splendours, but the hat fitted very badly. It had pink rosesin it; and there was something about the coat or the hat or the Queen,that made her look somehow not very respectable.
'Oh, never mind,' said Anthea, when Cyril whispered this. 'The thing isto get her out before Nurse has finished her forty winks. I should thinkshe's about got to the thirty-ninth wink by now.'
'Come on then,' said Robert. 'You know how dangerous it is. Let's makehaste into the Museum. If any of those people you made guys of do fetchthe police, they won't think of looking for you there.'
The blue silk coat and the pink-rosed hat attracted almost as muchattention as the royal costume had done; and the children wereuncommonly glad to get out of the noisy streets into the grey quiet ofthe Museum.
'Parcels and umbrellas to be left here,' said a man at the counter.
The par
ty had no umbrellas, and the only parcel was the bag containingthe Psammead, which the Queen had insisted should be brought.
'I'M not going to be left,' said the Psammead softly, 'so don't youthink it.'
'I'll wait outside with you,' said Anthea hastily, and went to sit onthe seat near the drinking fountain.
'Don't sit so near that nasty fountain,' said the creature crossly; 'Imight get splashed.'
Anthea obediently moved to another seat and waited. Indeed she waited,and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. The Psammead droppedinto an uneasy slumber. Anthea had long ceased to watch the swing-doorthat always let out the wrong person, and she was herself almost asleep,and still the others did not come back.
It was quite a start when Anthea suddenly realized that they HAD comeback, and that they were not alone. Behind them was quite a crowd ofmen in uniform, and several gentlemen were there. Everyone seemed veryangry.
'Now go,' said the nicest of the angry gentlemen. 'Take the poor,demented thing home and tell your parents she ought to be properlylooked after.'
'If you can't get her to go we must send for the police,' said thenastiest gentleman.
'But we don't wish to use harsh measures,' added the nice one, who wasreally very nice indeed, and seemed to be over all the others.
'May I speak to my sister a moment first?' asked Robert.
The nicest gentleman nodded, and the officials stood round the Queen,the others forming a sort of guard while Robert crossed over to Anthea.
'Everything you can think of,' he replied to Anthea's glance of inquiry.'Kicked up the most frightful shine in there. Said those necklaces andearrings and things in the glass cases were all hers--would have themout of the cases. Tried to break the glass--she did break one bit!Everybody in the place has been at her. No good. I only got her out bytelling her that was the place where they cut queens' heads off.'
'Oh, Bobs, what a whacker!'
'You'd have told a whackinger one to get her out. Besides, it wasn't. Imeant MUMMY queens. How do you know they don't cut off mummies' heads tosee how the embalming is done? What I want to say is, can't you get herto go with you quietly?'
'I'll try,' said Anthea, and went up to the Queen.
'Do come home,' she said; 'the learned gentleman in our house has a muchnicer necklace than anything they've got here. Come and see it.'
The Queen nodded.
'You see,' said the nastiest gentleman, 'she does understand English.'
'I was talking Babylonian, I think,' said Anthea bashfully.
'My good child,' said the nice gentleman, 'what you're talking isnot Babylonian, but nonsense. You just go home at once, and tell yourparents exactly what has happened.'
Anthea took the Queen's hand and gently pulled her away. The otherchildren followed, and the black crowd of angry gentlemen stood on thesteps watching them. It was when the little party of disgraced children,with the Queen who had disgraced them, had reached the middle of thecourtyard that her eyes fell on the bag where the Psammead was. Shestopped short.
'I wish,' she said, very loud and clear, 'that all those Babylonianthings would come out to me here--slowly, so that those dogs and slavescan see the working of the great Queen's magic.'
'Oh, you ARE a tiresome woman,' said the Psammead in its bag, but itpuffed itself out.
Next moment there was a crash. The glass swing doors and all theirframework were smashed suddenly and completely. The crowd of angrygentlemen sprang aside when they saw what had done this.
But the nastiest of them was not quick enough, and he was roughly pushedout of the way by an enormous stone bull that was floating steadilythrough the door. It came and stood beside the Queen in the middle ofthe courtyard.
It was followed by more stone images, by great slabs of carved stone,bricks, helmets, tools, weapons, fetters, wine-jars, bowls, bottles,vases, jugs, saucers, seals, and the round long things, something likerolling pins with marks on them like the print of little bird-feet,necklaces, collars, rings, armlets, earrings--heaps and heaps andheaps of things, far more than anyone had time to count, or even to seedistinctly.
All the angry gentlemen had abruptly sat down on the Museum steps exceptthe nice one. He stood with his hands in his pockets just as thoughhe was quite used to seeing great stone bulls and all sorts of smallBabylonish objects float out into the Museum yard.
But he sent a man to close the big iron gates.
A journalist, who was just leaving the museum, spoke to Robert as hepassed.
'Theosophy, I suppose?' he said. 'Is she Mrs Besant?'
'YES,' said Robert recklessly.
The journalist passed through the gates just before they were shut.
He rushed off to Fleet Street, and his paper got out a new editionwithin half an hour.
MRS BESANT AND THEOSOPHY
IMPERTINENT MIRACLE AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
People saw it in fat, black letters on the boards carried by the sellersof newspapers. Some few people who had nothing better to do went downto the Museum on the tops of omnibuses. But by the time they got therethere was nothing to be seen. For the Babylonian Queen had suddenly seenthe closed gates, had felt the threat of them, and had said--
'I wish we were in your house.'
And, of course, instantly they were.
The Psammead was furious.
'Look here,' it said, 'they'll come after you, and they'll find ME.There'll be a National Cage built for me at Westminster, and I shallhave to work at politics. Why wouldn't you leave the things in theirplaces?'
'What a temper you have, haven't you?' said the Queen serenely. 'I wishall the things were back in their places. Will THAT do for you?'
The Psammead swelled and shrank and spoke very angrily.
'I can't refuse to give your wishes,' it said, 'but I can Bite. And Iwill if this goes on. Now then.'
'Ah, don't,' whispered Anthea close to its bristling ear; 'it's dreadfulfor us too. Don't YOU desert us. Perhaps she'll wish herself at homeagain soon.'
'Not she,' said the Psammead a little less crossly.
'Take me to see your City,' said the Queen.
The children looked at each other.
'If we had some money we could take her about in a cab. People wouldn'tnotice her so much then. But we haven't.'
'Sell this,' said the Queen, taking a ring from her finger.
'They'd only think we'd stolen it,' said Cyril bitterly, 'and put us inprison.'
'All roads lead to prison with you, it seems,' said the Queen.
'The learned gentleman!' said Anthea, and ran up to him with the ring inher hand.
'Look here,' she said, 'will you buy this for a pound?'
'Oh!' he said in tones of joy and amazement, and took the ring into hishand. 'It's my very own,' said Anthea; 'it was given to me to sell.'
'I'll lend you a pound,' said the learned gentleman, 'with pleasure; andI'll take care of the ring for you. Who did you say gave it to you?'
'We call her,' said Anthea carefully, 'the Queen of Babylon.'
'Is it a game?' he asked hopefully.
'It'll be a pretty game if I don't get the money to pay for cabs forher,' said Anthea.
'I sometimes think,' he said slowly, 'that I am becoming insane, orthat--'
'Or that I am; but I'm not, and you're not, and she's not.'
'Does she SAY that she's the Queen of Babylon?' he uneasily asked.
'Yes,' said Anthea recklessly.
'This thought-transference is more far-reaching than I imagined,' hesaid. 'I suppose I have unconsciously influenced HER, too. I neverthought my Babylonish studies would bear fruit like this. Horrible!There are more things in heaven and earth--'
'Yes,' said Anthea, 'heaps more. And the pound is the thing _I_ wantmore than anything on earth.'
He ran his fingers through his thin hair.
'This thought-transference!' he said. 'It's undoubtedly a Babylonianring--or it seems so to me. But perhaps I have hypnotized myself. I willsee a docto
r the moment I have corrected the last proofs of my book.'
'Yes, do!' said Anthea, 'and thank you so very much.'
She took the sovereign and ran down to the others.
And now from the window of a four-wheeled cab the Queen of Babylonbeheld the wonders of London. Buckingham Palace she thoughtuninteresting; Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament littlebetter. But she liked the Tower, and the River, and the ships filled herwith wonder and delight.
'But how badly you keep your slaves. How wretched and poor and neglectedthey seem,' she said, as the cab rattled along the Mile End Road.
'They aren't slaves; they're working-people,' said Jane.
'Of course they're working. That's what slaves are. Don't you tell me.Do you suppose I don't know a slave's face when I see it?
Why don't their masters see that they're better fed and better clothed?Tell me in three words.'
No one answered. The wage-system of modern England is a little difficultto explain in three words even if you understand it--which the childrendidn't.
'You'll have a revolt of your slaves if you're not careful,' said theQueen.
'Oh, no,' said Cyril; 'you see they have votes--that makes them safe notto revolt. It makes all the difference. Father told me so.'
'What is this vote?' asked the Queen. 'Is it a charm? What do they dowith it?'
'I don't know,' said the harassed Cyril; 'it's just a vote, that's all!They don't do anything particular with it.'
'I see,' said the Queen; 'a sort of plaything. Well, I wish that allthese slaves may have in their hands this moment their fill of theirfavourite meat and drink.'
Instantly all the people in the Mile End Road, and in all the otherstreets where poor people live, found their hands full of things to eatand drink. From the cab window could be seen persons carrying every kindof food, and bottles and cans as well. Roast meat, fowls, red lobsters,great yellowy crabs, fried fish, boiled pork, beef-steak puddings, bakedonions, mutton pies; most of the young people had oranges and sweetsand cake. It made an enormous change in the look of the Mile EndRoad--brightened it up, so to speak, and brightened up, more than youcan possibly imagine, the faces of the people.
'Makes a difference, doesn't it?' said the Queen.
'That's the best wish you've had yet,' said Jane with cordial approval.
just by the Bank the cabman stopped.
'I ain't agoin' to drive you no further,' he said. 'Out you gets.'
They got out rather unwillingly.
'I wants my tea,' he said; and they saw that on the box of the cab was amound of cabbage, with pork chops and apple sauce, a duck, and a spottedcurrant pudding. Also a large can.
'You pay me my fare,' he said threateningly, and looked down at themound, muttering again about his tea.
'We'll take another cab,' said Cyril with dignity. 'Give me change for asovereign, if you please.'
But the cabman, as it turned out, was not at all a nice character. Hetook the sovereign, whipped up his horse, and disappeared in the streamof cabs and omnibuses and wagons, without giving them any change at all.
Already a little crowd was collecting round the party.
'Come on,' said Robert, leading the wrong way.
The crowd round them thickened. They were in a narrow street where manygentlemen in black coats and without hats were standing about on thepavement talking very loudly.
'How ugly their clothes are,' said the Queen of Babylon. 'They'd berather fine men, some of them, if they were dressed decently, especiallythe ones with the beautiful long, curved noses. I wish they were dressedlike the Babylonians of my court.'
And of course, it was so.
The moment the almost fainting Psammead had blown itself out every manin Throgmorton Street appeared abruptly in Babylonian full dress.
All were carefully powdered, their hair and beards were scented andcurled, their garments richly embroidered. They wore rings and armlets,flat gold collars and swords, and impossible-looking head-dresses.
A stupefied silence fell on them.
'I say,' a youth who had always been fair-haired broke that silence,'it's only fancy of course--something wrong with my eyes--but you chapsdo look so rum.'
'Rum,' said his friend. 'Look at YOU. You in a sash! My hat! And yourhair's gone black and you've got a beard. It's my belief we've beenpoisoned. You do look a jackape.'
'Old Levinstein don't look so bad. But how was it DONE--that's what Iwant to know. How was it done? Is it conjuring, or what?'
'I think it is chust a ver' bad tream,' said old Levinstein to hisclerk; 'all along Bishopsgate I haf seen the gommon people have theirhants full of food--GOOT food. Oh yes, without doubt a very bad tream!'
'Then I'm dreaming too, Sir,' said the clerk, looking down at his legswith an expression of loathing. 'I see my feet in beastly sandals asplain as plain.'
'All that goot food wasted,' said old Mr Levinstein. A bad tream--a badtream.'
The Members of the Stock Exchange are said to be at all times a noisylot. But the noise they made now to express their disgust at thecostumes of ancient Babylon was far louder than their ordinary row. Onehad to shout before one could hear oneself speak.
'I only wish,' said the clerk who thought it was conjuring--he was quiteclose to the children and they trembled, because they knew that whateverhe wished would come true. 'I only wish we knew who'd done it.'
And, of course, instantly they did know, and they pressed round theQueen.
'Scandalous! Shameful! Ought to be put down by law. Give her in charge.Fetch the police,' two or three voices shouted at once.
The Queen recoiled.
'What is it?' she asked. 'They sound like caged lions--lions by thethousand. What is it that they say?'
'They say "Police!",' said Cyril briefly. 'I knew they would sooner orlater. And I don't blame them, mind you.'
'I wish my guards were here!' cried the Queen. The exhausted Psammeadwas panting and trembling, but the Queen's guards in red and greengarments, and brass and iron gear, choked Throgmorton Street, and baredweapons flashed round the Queen.
'I'm mad,' said a Mr Rosenbaum; 'dat's what it is--mad!'
'It's a judgement on you, Rosy,' said his partner. 'I always said youwere too hard in that matter of Flowerdew. It's a judgement, and I'm init too.'
The members of the Stock Exchange had edged carefully away from thegleaming blades, the mailed figures, the hard, cruel Eastern faces.
But Throgmorton Street is narrow, and the crowd was too thick for themto get away as quickly as they wished.
'Kill them,' cried the Queen. 'Kill the dogs!'
The guards obeyed.
'It IS all a dream,' cried Mr Levinstein, cowering in a doorway behindhis clerk.
'It isn't,' said the clerk. 'It isn't. Oh, my good gracious! thoseforeign brutes are killing everybody. Henry Hirsh is down now, andPrentice is cut in two--oh, Lord! and Huth, and there goes Lionel Cohenwith his head off, and Guy Nickalls has lost his head now. A dream? Iwish to goodness it was all a dream.'
And, of course, instantly it was! The entire Stock Exchange rubbed itseyes and went back to close, to over, and either side of seven-eights,and Trunks, and Kaffirs, and Steel Common, and Contangoes, andBackwardations, Double Options, and all the interesting subjectsconcerning which they talk in the Street without ceasing.
No one said a word about it to anyone else. I think I have explainedbefore that business men do not like it to be known that they havebeen dreaming in business hours. Especially mad dreams including suchdreadful things as hungry people getting dinners, and the destruction ofthe Stock Exchange.
The children were in the dining-room at 300, Fitzroy Street, pale andtrembling. The Psammead crawled out of the embroidered bag, and lay flaton the table, its leg stretched out, looking more like a dead hare thananything else.
'Thank Goodness that's over,' said Anthea, drawing a deep breath.
'She won't come back, will she?' asked Jane tremulously.
'No,' sa
id Cyril. 'She's thousands of years ago. But we spent a wholeprecious pound on her. It'll take all our pocket-money for ages to paythat back.'
'Not if it was ALL a dream,' said Robert.
'The wish said ALL a dream, you know, Panther; you cut up and ask if helent you anything.'
'I beg your pardon,' said Anthea politely, following the sound of herknock into the presence of the learned gentleman, 'I'm so sorry totrouble you, but DID you lend me a pound today?'
'No,' said he, looking kindly at her through his spectacles. 'But it'sextraordinary that you should ask me, for I dozed for a few moments thisafternoon, a thing I very rarely do, and I dreamed quite distinctly thatyou brought me a ring that you said belonged to the Queen of Babylon,and that I lent you a sovereign and that you left one of the Queen'srings here. The ring was a magnificent specimen.' He sighed. 'I wish ithadn't been a dream,' he said smiling. He was really learning to smilequite nicely.
Anthea could not be too thankful that the Psammead was not there togrant his wish.