Oswald Bastable and Others

Now, Fina was an obedient little girl. She did not slip into the parlour to have a look round just because the door was open and no one was about. But she had not been forbidden to look in, if she got the chance, so she stood at the door and looked at the stuffed parrot, and the junk, and the rest of the things; and as she looked she started, and said:

'Oh! it will tumble down – I know it will – if a door banged even!'

And just then the front-door did bang, and the pagoda trembled; for it was standing at the very edge of the chiffonnier, and one of the little black, carved claw-feet of its stand was actually overhanging the chiffonnier edge.

'I must stand it steady,' said Fina. 'If I go and tell Miss Patty it may tumble off before I get back.'

So she went quickly in and took the glass case and stand and pagoda very carefully in her hands to move them back to a safe place.

It was this very moment that the foxhound puppy chose for rushing in – all wriggle and bark and clumsy paws – and plunging between Fina's feet. She reeled, staggered, and she, the puppy, the stand, the glass case, and the precious pagoda, all went down together in a crushing heap.

When Fina picked herself up the puppy's tail was just disappearing round the door, and at her feet lay a scattered heap of splintered ivory and glass, the hopeless ruins of the beautiful pagoda.

Her heart seemed to stand still, and then began to beat so hard and fast that she felt as though she had a steam-engine in her chest.

Her hands trembled so much that she could hardly pick up the pieces; but she did begin to pick them up.

'Perhaps it could be mended,' she said, 'with glue or white of egg, like nurse did the china basin; only the pieces are so small and chippety, some of them, that I don't see how you could ever fit them together. And Miss Patty will be in in a minute! Oh, I wish I was somebody else and not me! Oh, whatever will she say?'

Among the shivered splinters of ivory the little gold bells were scattered.

'But what's that?' said Fina. 'It's not a bell or – '

She picked whatever it was up from among the shattered ivory and glass. It was a gold ring, thick and beautiful, with a strange design on it like on the sides of tea-caddies. She slipped it on her hand to keep it safe while she went on with the dismal work of picking up the pieces. And then, suddenly, the dreadfulness of the deed she had done – though quite the puppy's fault, and not hers at all – came over her. She began to breathe quickly and then to make faces, and in a moment she was sobbing and sniffing, and rubbing her wet eyes with her knuckles, still dirty from her politeness in letting the puppy choose what game she and it should play at.

She was roused from her crying by a voice, and it was not Miss Patty's voice. It said:

'Your servant, miss. What can I have the pleasure of doing for you?'

She took her knuckles out of her eyes, and saw, from between her very dirty eyelids, a tall footman who was bowing respectfully before her. He was dressed wonderfully in green satin – his large and lovely legs wore white silk stockings, and his hair was powdered till it was as white as the inside of a newly-sheared fleece.

'Thank you,' said Fina, sobbing, but polite; 'no one can do anything for me, unless they can mend all this, and of course nobody can.'

'Your servant, miss,' said the footman. 'Do I understand that you order me to mend this?'

'If you can,' said Fina, a ray of hope lighting her blighted existence; 'but, of course – What?'

The pagoda stood on the table mended! Indeed, it seemed as though there had never been any breaking. It was there, safe and sound as it had always been, on its ebony stand, with the shining bubble of its glass case rising dome-like over it.

The footman had vanished.

'Well!' said Fina, 'I suppose it was all a waking dream. How horrible! I've read of waking dreams, but I didn't know there were ever waking nightmares. Perhaps I better had wash my hands – and my face,' she added, when she saw it, round, red, and streaked with mud (made of dust and tears), in the glass of the chiffonnier.

She dipped her face in fresh water in the willow-patterned basin in her big attic bedroom. Then she washed her hands. And as she began to rub the soap on she heard a noise.

'Your servant, miss. What can I have the pleasure of doing for you?'

And there was that footman again.

'Who are you?' said Fina. 'Why do you follow me about?'

'I am the Slave of the Ring, please, miss,' replied the footman, with another bow. 'And, of course, when you rubs it I appears.'

'The Slave of the Ring?' said Fina, letting the soapsuds drip from her hands to the carpet. 'Do you mean Aladdin's ring?'

'The ring belonged to the gentleman you mentions at one time, miss.'

'But I thought the Slave of the Ring was a genie – a great, foaming, fierce, black slave in a turban.'

'Times is changed, miss,' said the footman. 'In this here civilised country there aren't no slaves, only servants. You have to keep up with the times, even if you're a – '

'But I thought the Slave of the Ring spoke Chinese?'

'So I does, miss, when in that country. But whatever'd be the use of talking Chinese to you?'

'But tell me – oh, there's the dinner-bell! Look here, I wish you'd not keep appearing so suddenly. It does startle me so.'

'Then don't you go on rubbing the ring sudden, miss. It's that as does it. Nothing I can do for you, miss?'

'Not now,' said Fina, and he vanished as she spoke.

When Fina sat down to dinner in the farm kitchen – a very nice dinner it was, boiled pork and beans, and a treacle-tart to follow – she picked up her horn-handled knife and fork and clutched them hard. They felt real enough. But the footman – she must have dreamed him, and the ring. She had left the ring in the dressing-table drawer upstairs, for fear she should rub it accidentally. She knew what a start it would give Miss Patty and the farmer if a genie footman suddenly appeared from nowhere and stood behind their chairs at dinner.

Miss Patty seemed very cheerful.

'It was a piece of luck, father, wasn't it, that pedlar wanting Chinese things? He gave me two pieces of broadcloth that'll cut into three or four coats for you, and a length of black silk that rich it'll stand alone, and ten pounds in gold, and half a dozen silk neck-squares.'

'Yes,' said the farmer, 'it was a good bargain for you; and Bob give you the pagoda, and you've a right to do as you like with your own.'

'Oh, Miss Patty,' said Fina, 'you've never been and sold the pagoda – the beautiful, darling pagoda?'

'Yes, I have, dear; but never mind, I'll buy you a new doll out of the money I got for it.'

'Thank you,' said Fina; but the pork and beans did not taste so nice now she knew that the pretty pagoda was sold. Also she was rather worried about the ring. Ought she to keep it? She had found it, of course, but someone must have lost it. Yet she couldn't bear to give it up, when she hadn't made the slave of it do a single thing for her, except to mend the pagoda.

After dinner Fina went and got the ring. She was very careful not to rub it till she was safe and alone in a quiet green nook in the little wood at the end of the garden, where the hazels and sweet chestnuts and hornbeams grew so closely that she was quite hidden.

Then she rubbed the ring, and instantly the footman was there. But there was no room for him to stand up under the thicket, so he appeared kneeling, and trying to bow in that position.

'Then it's not a dream?' said she.

'How often I have heard them very words!' said the Slave of the Ring.

'I want you to tell me things,' said Fina. 'Do sit down; you look so uncomfortable like that.'

'Thank you, miss,' said the footman; 'you're very thoughtful for a child of your age, and of this age, too! Service ain't what it was.'

'Now, tell me,' she said, 'where did the ring come from?'