It didn’t sound a likely sort of thing for anyone to have about him; however, they brought him one directly: curiously enough, there happened to be one standing in the gallery.
“Put it facing the opening of the door, and draw up the portcullis!” This was done in a moment.
“Blankets now!” cried the Professor. “This is a most interesting Experiment!”
There happened to be a pile of blankets close by: and the Professor had hardly said the word, when they were all unfolded and held up like curtains all around. The Professor rapidly arranged them in two rows, so as to make a dark passage, leading straight from the door to the mouth of the cage.
“Now fling the door open!” This did not need to be done: the three men had only to leap out of the way, and the fearful monster flung the door open for itself, and, with a yell like the whistle of a steam-engine, rushed into the cage.
“Down with the portcullis!” No sooner said than done: and all breathed freely once more, on seeing the Porcupine safely caged.
The Professor rubbed his hands in childish delight. “The Experiment has succeeded!” he proclaimed. “All that is needed now is to feed it three times a day, on chopped carrots and—.”
“Never mind about its food, just now!” the Emperor interrupted. “Let us return to the Banquet. Brother, will you lead the way?” And the old man, attended by his children, headed the procession downstairs. “See the fate of a loveless life!” he said to Bruno, as they returned to their places. To which Bruno made reply, “I always loved Sylvie, so I’ll never get prickly like that!”
“He is prickly, certainly,” said the Professor, who had caught the last words, “but we must remember that, however porcupiny, he is royal still! After this feast is over, I’m going to take a little present to Prince Uggug—just to soothe him, you know: it isn’t pleasant living in a cage.”
“What’ll you give him for a birthday-present?” Bruno enquired.
“A small saucer of chopped carrots,” replied the Professor. “In giving birthday-presents, my motto is—cheapness! I should think I save forty pounds a year by giving—oh, what a twinge of pain!”
“What is it?” said Sylvie anxiously.
“My old enemy!” groaned the Professor. “Lumbago—rheumatism—that sort of thing. I think I’ll go and lie down a bit.” And he hobbled out of the Saloon, watched by the pitying eyes of the two children.
“He’ll be better soon!” the Elfin-King said cheerily. “Brother!” turning to the Emperor, “I have some business to arrange with you tonight. The Empress will take care of the children.” And the two Brothers went away together, arm-in-arm.
The Empress found the children rather sad company. They could talk of nothing but “the dear Professor,” and “what a pity he’s so ill!”, till at last she made the welcome proposal “Let’s go and see him!”
The children eagerly grasped the hands she offered them: and we went off to the Professor’s study, and found him lying on the sofa, covered up with blankets, and reading a little manuscript-book. “Notes on Vol. Three!” he murmured, looking up at us. And there, on a table near him, lay the book he was seeking when first I saw him.
“And how are you now, Professor?” the Empress asked, bending over the invalid.
The Professor looked up, and smiled feebly. “As devoted to your Imperial Highness as ever!” he said in a weak voice. “All of me, that is not Lumbago, is Loyalty!”
“A sweet sentiment!” the Empress exclaimed with tears in her eyes. “You seldom hear anything so beautiful as that—even in a Valentine!”
“We must take you to stay at the seaside,” Sylvie said, tenderly. “It’ll do you ever so much good! And the Sea’s so grand!”
“But a Mountain’s grander!” said Bruno.
“What is there grand about the Sea?” said the Professor. “Why, you could put it all into a teacup!”
“Some of it,” Sylvie corrected him.
“Well, you’d only want a certain number of teacups to hold it all. And then where’s the grandeur? Then as to a Mountain—why, you could carry it all away in a wheelbarrow, in a certain number of years!”
“It wouldn’t look grand—the bits of it in the wheelbarrow,” Sylvie candidly admitted.
“But when oo put it together again—” Bruno began.
“When you’re older,” said the Professor, “you’ll know that you can’t put Mountains together again so easily! One lives and one learns, you know!”
“But it needn’t be the same one, need it?” said Bruno. “Won’t it do, if I live, and if Sylvie learns?”
“I can’t learn without living!” said Sylvie.
“But I can live without learning!” Bruno retorted. “Oo just try me!”
“What I meant, was—” the Professor began, looking much puzzled, “—was—that you don’t know everything, you know.”
“But I do know everything I know!” persisted the little fellow. “I know ever so many things! Everything, ’cept the things I don’t know. And Sylvie knows all the rest.”
The Professor sighed, and gave it up. “Do you know what a Boojum is?”
“I know!” cried Bruno. “It’s the thing what wrenches people out of their boots!”
“He means ‘bootjack,’ ” Sylvie explained in a whisper.
“You can’t wrench people out of boots,” the Professor mildly observed.
Bruno laughed saucily. “Oo can, though! Unless they’re welly tight in.”
“Once upon a time there was a Boojum—” the Professor began, but stopped suddenly. “I forget the rest of the Fable,” he said. “And there was a lesson to be learned from it. I’m afraid I forget that, too.”
“I’ll tell oo a Fable!” Bruno began in a great hurry. “Once there were a Locust, and a Magpie, and a Engine-driver. And the Lesson is, to learn to get up early—”
“It isn’t a bit interesting!” Sylvie said contemptuously. “You shouldn’t put the Lesson so soon.”
“When did you invent that Fable?” said the Professor. “Last week?”
“No!” said Bruno. “A deal shorter ago than that. Guess again!”
“I can’t guess,” said the Professor. “How long ago?”
“Why, it isn’t invented yet!” Bruno exclaimed triumphantly. “But I have invented a lovely one! Shall
