David Blaize and the Blue Door

Noah came out of the cupboard. He had got a wig on, and some false whiskers and a lawyer’s gown. He seemed to have taken off his stand, for instead of sliding he stalked along with a very important air.

‘Oh, is it charades?’ said David. ‘Have I got to guess? I bet you I guess. It’s – ’

‘Silence!’ said Noah very severely.

He came and sat down at the table, and began turning over the leaves of the book called ‘Female Register.’ Then he took a sip of water and spoke:

‘David Blaize, I believe,’ he said, ‘charged with trespass in the marriage-meadow. Speak up.’

‘I haven’t spoken at all yet,’ said David.

‘Then you’ve got nothing to say for yourself, I suppose?’ said Noah.

A brilliant idea struck David.

‘I’m not in the marriage-meadow now,’ he said. ‘How do you intend to prove I was there at all? It was only you who say you saw me, and you are only a person out of my own ark.’

Noah got up, and opened the door into the meadow. David could hear the pike still calling ‘Coward!’ He was coughing violently, having been so long in the air.

‘Pike!’ shouted Noah. ‘Come in, pike!’

David’s legs began to want to run somewhere.

‘No! shut the door,’ he said. ‘I was in the marriage-meadow, but I didn’t know.’

‘Go away, pike,’ said Noah, and shut the door. ‘Very well, then, that’s proved,’ he said. ‘The next thing to do is to see who’s on the books.’

He turned over the leaves.

‘Very small selection to-day,’ he said to David, ‘but some very pleasant clients among them. The names are as follows:

‘Number one, giraffe.’

‘Here,’ said a silly whisper from the top storey.

‘You’ve got to come in,’ said Noah.

The pillars at the corners of the room stirred uneasily, and David saw what they really were. Then there came a sound from upstairs as if banisters were breaking, and the mild surprised-looking face came down the chimney, upside-down, and covered with soot.

‘That’s all I can do at present unless I begin to walk,’ she whispered. ‘Why, it’s that boy again. I am surprised. May I jump?’

‘No, certainly not,’ said Noah. ‘Stop quite still, or you shan’t be married.’

The giraffe winked at David, and extended her neck a little, till her mouth was close to his ear.

‘Can you grow again?’ she asked. ‘If you can’t, it’s all rather ridiculous. You would always be in the cellar, and I in the attic. We should never meet, which would be so sad for you.’

‘Silence,’ said Noah. ‘Number two, Miss Bones, the butcher’s daughter.’

‘Here,’ said Miss Bones, coming out of the cupboard.

She had got something that looked like an ox-tail, and was munching it. She sat down on one of the chairs by the wall, and pointed with the end of the ox-tail at David.

‘Is that it?’ she said in a tone of disgust. ‘Why, he’s a mere upstart. None of us know him.’

David felt furious at this.

‘If you don’t take care, I shall collect you,’ he said.

‘Silence,’ said Noah. ‘Number three, Miss Muffet.’

There was a rustling in the cupboard, and out came Miss Muffet.

‘Well, I never!’ she said. ‘If it isn’t the cheeky little rascal who tried to keep my kind good spider from me last night, thinking he was a pike. But as I’m on the books, I suppose there’s no help for it.’

‘That’s all,’ said Noah, closing the book with such a bang that Miss Bones dropped her ox-tail. ‘Now, David Blaize, it’s for you to choose.’

‘But I don’t choose any of them,’ said David, in a sort of agony. ‘I’m sure they’re all delightful, but I don’t want to be married. I didn’t come here for that; nobody understands. My house wouldn’t hold a giraffe to begin with – ’

‘Build another storey,’ whispered the giraffe in his ear, ‘and you can probably grow. You did before. I don’t mind marrying you.’

‘But I mind marrying you very much,’ said David. ‘You can’t do anything but whisper and waltz.’

‘No, but I can learn,’ whispered the giraffe. ‘I was always considered the cleverest of the family.’

‘Then they must have been a very stupid family,’ said David.

‘Hush!’ said Noah severely.

‘I shan’t hush,’ said David.

The giraffe began to cry.

‘I thought you had such a kind face,’ she whispered, ‘but you don’t seem to care for me. If you only built a storey or two on to your house, and took out the staircase, and grew a great deal, we might be quite happy. You must be patient and grow.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ said Miss Bones, seizing the water-bottle on the table. She drank out of the mouth of it in a very rude manner, and spilt a quantity of it. ‘He doesn’t want you, and you don’t want him, and you’re only shamming. But what’s the matter with me?’

David turned on her.

‘The matter with you is,’ he said, ‘that you’re always eating raw meat. I’d sooner be eaten by the pike than see you eat all day and night.’

Miss Bones put the ox-tail into her mouth again.

‘So that’s that,’ she mumbled. ‘There’s no accounting for tastes.’

Miss Muffet cleared her throat and coughed, holding her hand up to her mouth in the most genteel way.

‘That leaves me,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be married, as I told you before. But if you’ll beg my dear spider’s pardon, and he says there’s room for you on the tuffet, I’ll forgive you, and you may sleep in the bathing-machine. There! And you can ride the stuffed horse whenever you like.’