Oswald Bastable and Others

'Have you told anyone?'

'Oh no! My butler says if you tell anyone grown-up that you've got the lamp it will vanish away. I can't remember whether it's like that in the "Arabian Nights"; perhaps it's a new rule.'

The two little girls talked all the afternoon about the wonderful things they would make their slaves do for them, and they were so contented with each other's company that they never once called on their slaves for anything.

But when Fina began to feel the inside feeling that means teatime, she rubbed the ring for her slave to take her back to the farm.

'I'll get my slave to take me to see you home,' said Ella. 'He can carry me quite without hurting me.'

So she rubbed the lamp, and the stately butler instantly appeared.

'Please – ' Ella began; but the glorious butler interrupted.

'James,' he said to the footman, 'what are you doing here?'

'I'm in service with this young lady, Mr. Lamp, sir.'

'Give me the ring, James.'

And instantly the footman took the ring, very gently but quite irresistibly, from Fina's finger, and handed it to the butler.

'Oh no!' Fina cried, 'you've no right to take my ring. And he's no right to obey you. He's my slave.'

'Excuse me, madam,' said the butler, looking more and more perfect, and more and more the sort of person who is sure to know best, 'he is not your slave. He is the Slave of the Ring. But then, you see, he is a footman, and footmen have to obey butlers all the world over.'

'That's so, miss,' said the footman; 'but the lamp's stronger than the ring.' He snatched up the lamp. 'Now, then,' he said, turning fiercely to the butler, 'we'll see if you're going to begin a-orderin' of me about!'

The butler so far forgot himself as to scratch his head thoughtfully.

'Yes,' he said, after a pause; 'I've got to own that you've got the better of me there, James Rings. But why dispute – which is beneath the dignity of a six-foot footman like yourself, to say nothing of the dignity of a butler, which is a thing words can't do justice to? You're my slave because I've got the ring and because I'm a butler and you're a footman. And I'm your slave because you've got the lamp. It's half a dozen of one and six and a half of the other. Can't we come to some agreement between ourselves, James?'

'Oh,' cried Ella, 'what about us?'

'We are excessively sorry to cause any inconvenience, madam,' said the butler, 'but we give you five minutes' notice. We are leaving service for good.'

'Oh, Lamps!' cried Ella. 'And you were always such a beautiful butler. I thought you enjoyed being it.'

'Don't you make any mistake, miss,' the footman put in. 'Nobody enjoys being in service, though they has to put up with it. Me and Mr. Lamps is retiring from service. Perhaps we may take a little business and go into partnership, and always wishing you well, young ladies both.'

'But,' said Fina, 'you can't go and leave me here! Why, I should never get home. I don't so much as know what county I'm in.'

'You're in Auckland, miss,' said James.

'There isn't such a country.'

'Pardon me, madam,' said the butler, 'there is. In New Zealand.'

'Don't cry, miss,' said James. 'If Mr. Lamps 'll only give the word, I'll take you home.'

'And then I shall never see Ella again.'

'Oh, tell Lamps to rub the ring and tell you to arrange for me to come and live near her in England,' cried Ella; 'if he'll do that I don't care. I'd rather have a friend than twenty slaves.'

'A very proper sentiment, ma'am,' said the butler approvingly. 'Is there any other little thing we could do to oblige you?'

'The pagoda,' said Fina. 'If you could only get it back to Miss Patty, so that she won't lose the things she sold it for, and won't know about the ring having been in it.'

'Consider it done, madam,' said the Slave of the Lamp, stroking his respectable butlerial whisker. 'Now, if you're ready, your footman shall see you home.'

'Good-bye, oh, good-bye,' said the little girls, kissing each other very much.

Then Fina shut her eyes, and there she was in the wood in Sussex – alone.

'Now, have I dreamed it all?' she said, and went slowly home to tea.

The first thing she saw on the tea-table was the pagoda! And the next was a brown-faced sailor eating hot buttered toast in the Windsor armchair.

'Well may you look!' said Miss Patty; 'this is my brother Bob, newly arrived from foreign parts. And he met that pedlar and bought the pagoda off him for two pounds and a highly-coloured cockatoo he was bringing home. And these ten sovereigns the wicked old man gave me are bad ones. But the dresses and the cloth are good. It's a wonderful world!'

Fina thought so too.

Now, the oddest thing about all this is that six months later some new people came to live in the house next door to the house where Fina lived in Tooting. And those new people came from New Zealand. And one of them was called Ella!

Fina knew her at once, but Ella had forgotten her, and forgotten the beautiful perfect butler and the perfect footman, and the lamp and the ring, and everything. Perhaps a long sea-voyage is bad for the memory. Anyway, the two little girls are close friends, and Ella loves to hear Fina tell the story of the two slaves, though she doesn't believe a word of it.

Fina's father and Ella's father have left Tooting now. They live in lovely houses at Haslemere. And Fina has a white pony and Ella has a brown one. Their fathers are very rich now. They both got situations as managers to branch houses of Messrs. Lamps, Rings, and Co., Electrical Engineers. Mr. Lamps attends to the lighting department, and Mr. Rings is at the head of the bells, which always ring beautifully. And I hear that Ella's father and Fina's father are likely to be taken into partnership. Mr. Bodlett has bought the pagoda, at Fina's earnest request, and it stands on a sideboard in his handsome drawing-room. Fina sometimes asks it whether she really did dream the whole story or not. But it never says a word.

Of course, you and I know that every word of the story is true.

THE CHARMED LIFE; OR, THE PRINCESS AND THE LIFT-MAN

There was once a Prince whose father failed in business and lost everything he had in the world – crown, kingdom, money, jewels, and friends. This was because he was so fond of machinery that he was always making working models of things he invented, and so had no time to attend to the duties that Kings are engaged for. So he lost his situation. There is a King in French history who was fond of machinery, particularly clock-work, and he lost everything too, even his head. The King in this story kept his head, however, and when he wasn't allowed to make laws any more, he was quite contented to go on making machines. And as his machines were a great deal better than his laws had ever been, he soon got a nice little business together, and was able to buy a house in another kingdom, and settle down comfortably with his wife and son. The house was one of those delightful villas called after Queen Anne (the one whose death is still so often mentioned and so justly deplored), with stained glass to the front-door, and coloured tiles on the front-garden path, and gables where there was never need of gables, and nice geraniums and calceolarias in the front-garden, and pretty red brick on the front of the house. The back of the house was yellow brick, because that did not show so much.

Here the King and the Queen and the Prince lived very pleasantly. The Queen snipped the dead geraniums off with a pair of gold scissors, and did fancy-work for bazaars. The Prince went to the Red-Coat School, and the King worked up his business. In due time the Prince was apprenticed to his father's trade; and a very industrious apprentice he was, and never had anything to do with the idle apprentices who play pitch and toss on tombstones, as you see in Mr. Hogarth's picture.

When the Prince was twenty-one his mother called him to her. She put down the blotting-book she was embroidering for the School Bazaar in tasteful pattern of stocks and nasturtiums, and said:

'My dear son, you have had the usual coming-of-age presents – silver cigar-case and match-box; a handsome set of brushes, with your initials on the back; a Gladstone bag, also richly initialled; the complete works of Dickens and Thackeray; a Swan fountain-pen mounted in gold; and the heartfelt blessing of your father and mother. But there is still one more present for you.'

'You are too good, mamma,' said the Prince, fingering the nasturtium-coloured silks.

'Don't fidget,' said the Queen, 'and listen to me. When you were a baby a fairy, who was your godmother, gave you a most valuable present – a Charmed Life. As long as you keep it safely, nothing can harm you.'

'How delightful!' said the Prince. 'Why, mamma, you might have let me go to sea when I wanted to. It would have been quite safe.'

'Yes, my dear,' said the Queen, 'but it's best to be careful. I have taken care of your life all these years, but now you are old enough to take care of it for yourself. Let me advise you to keep it in a safe place. You should never carry valuables about on your person.'

And then she handed the Charmed Life over to him, and he took it and kissed her, and thanked her for the pretty present, and went away and hid it. He took a brick out of the wall of the villa, and hid his Life behind it. The bricks in the walls of these Queen Anne villas generally come out quite easily.