His stories

prepared the soil in them at any rate. They felt him digging all round

them.

He began forthwith:

“Once, very long ago—”

“How long?”

“So long ago that the chalk cliffs of England still lay beneath the

sea—”

“Was Aunt Emily alive then?”

“Or Weeden?”

“Oh, much longer ago than that,” he comforted them; “so long, in

fact, that neither your Aunt Emily nor Weeden were even thought

of—there lived a man who—”

“Where? What country, please?”

“There lived a man in England—”

“But you said England was beneath the sea with the chalk cliffs.”

“There lived a man in a very small, queer little island called

Ingland, spelt ‘Ing,’ not ‘Eng,’ who—”

“It wasn’t our England, then?”

“On a tiny little island called Ingland, who was very lonely

because he was the only human being on it—”

“Weren’t there animals and things too?”

“And the only animals who lived on it with him were a squirrel who

lived in the only tree, a rabbit who lived in the only hole, and a

small grey mouse who made its nest in the pocket of his other coat.”

“Were they friendly? Did he love them awfully?”

“At first he was very polite to them only, because he was a civil

servant of his Government; but after a bit they became so friendly

that he loved them even better than himself, and went to tea with the

rabbit in its hole, and climbed the tree to share a nut-breakfast with

the squirrel, and—and—”

“He doesn’t know what to do with the mouse,” a loud whisper, meant

to be inaudible, broke in upon the fatal hesitation.

“And went out for walks with the mouse when the ground was damp and

the mouse complained of chilly feet. In the pocket of his coat, all

snug and warm, it stood on its hind legs and peered out upon the world

with its pointed nose just above the pocket flap—”

“Then he liked the mouse best?”

“What sort of coat was it? An overcoat or just an ordinary one that

smelt? Was that the only pocket in it?”

“It was made of the best leaves from the squirrel’s tree, and from

the rabbit’s last year’s fur, and the mouse had fastened the edges

together neatly with the sharpest of its own discarded whiskers. And

so they walked about the tiny island and enjoyed the view together—”

“The mouse couldn’t have seen much!”

“Until, one day, the mouse declared the ground was ALWAYS wet and

was getting wetter and wetter. And the man got frightened.”

“Ugh! It’s going to get awful in a minute!” And the children

nestled closer. The voice sank lower. It became mysterious.

“And the wetter it got the more the man got frightened; for the

island was dreadfully tiny and—”

“Why, please, did it get wetter and wetter?”

“THAT,” continued the man who earned his living in His Majesty’s

Stationery Office by day, and by night justified his existence

offering the raw material of epics unto little children, “that was the

extraordinary part of it. For no one could discover. The man stroked

his beard and looked about him, the squirrel shook its bushy tail, the

rabbit lifted its upper lip and thrust its teeth out, and the mouse

jerked its head from side to side until its whiskers grew longer and

sharper than ever—but none of them could discover why the island got

wetter and wetter and wetter—”

“Perhaps it just rained like here.”

“For the sky was always blue, it never rained, and there was so

little dew at night that no one even mentioned it. Yet the tiny island

got wetter every day, till it finally got so wet that the very floor

of the man’s hut turned spongy and splashed every time the man went to

look out of the window at the view. And at last he got so frightened

that he stayed indoors altogether, put on both his coats at once, and

told stories to the mouse and squirrel about a country that was always

dry—”

“Didn’t the rabbit know anything?”

“For all this time the rabbit was too terrified to come out of its

hole at all. The increasing size of its front teeth added to its

uneasiness, for they thrust out so far that they hid the view and made

the island seem even smaller than it was—”

“I like rabbits, though.”

“Till one fine day—”

“They were all fine, you said.”

“One finer day than usual the rabbit made a horrible discovery. The

way it made the discovery was curious—may seem curious to us, at

least—but the fact is, it suddenly noticed that the size of its front

teeth had grown out of all proportion to the size of the island.

Looking over its shoulder this fine day, it realised how absurdly

small the island was in comparison with its teeth—and grasped the

horrid truth. In a flash it understood what was happening. The island

was getting wetter because it was also getting—smaller!”

“Ugh! How beastly!”

“Did it tell the others?”

“It retired halfway down its hole and shouted out the news to the

others in the hut.”

“Did they hear it?”

“It warned them solemnly. But its teeth obstructed the sound, and

the windings of its hole made it difficult to hear. The man, besides,

was busy telling a story to the mouse, and the mouse, anyhow, was

sound asleep at the bottom of his pocket, with the result that the

only one who caught the words of warning was—the squirrel. For a

squirrel’s ears are so sharp that it can even hear the grub whistling

to itself inside a rotten nut; and it instantly took action.”

“Ah! IT saved them, then?”

“The squirrel flew from the man’s shoulder where it was perched,

balanced for a second on the top of his head, then clung to the

ceiling and darted out of the window without a moment’s delay. It

crossed the island in a single leap, scuttled to the top of the tree,

peered about over the diminishing landscape, and—”

“Didn’t it see the rabbit?”

“And returned as quickly as it went. It bustled back into the hut,

hopping nervously, and jerking its head with excitement. In a moment

it was perched again on the man’s shoulder. It carefully kept its

bushy tail out of the way of his nose and eyes. And then it whispered

what it had seen into his left ear.”

“Why into his left ear?”

“Because it was the right one, and the other had cotton wool in

it.”

“Like Aunt Emily!”

“What did it whisper?”

“The squirrel had made a discovery, too,” continued the teller,

solemnly.

“Goodness! That’s two discoveries!”

“But what did it whisper?”

In the hush that followed, a coal was heard falling softly into the

grate; the night-wind moaned against the outside walls; Judy scraped

her stockinged foot slowly along the iron fender, making a faint

twanging sound. Breathing was distinctly audible. For several moments

the room was still as death.