The Story of the Amulet, E. Nesbit [free ebook reader for iphone txt] 📗

“All roads lead to prison with you, it seems,” said the Queen.

“The learned gentleman!” said Anthea, and ran up to him with the ring in her hand.

“Look here,” she said, “will you buy this for a pound?”

“Oh!” he said in tones of joy and amazement, and took the ring into his hand.

“It’s my very own,” said Anthea; “it was given to me to sell.”

“I’ll lend you a pound,” said the learned gentleman, “with pleasure; and I’ll take care of the ring for you. Who did you say gave it to you?”

“We call her,” said Anthea carefully, “the Queen of Babylon.”

“Is it a game?” he asked hopefully.

“It’ll be a pretty game if I don’t get the money to pay for cabs for her,” said Anthea.

“I sometimes think,” he said slowly, “that I am becoming insane, or that⁠—”

“Or that I am; but I’m not, and you’re not, and she’s not.”

“Does she say that she’s the Queen of Babylon?” he uneasily asked.

“Yes,” said Anthea recklessly.

“This thought-transference is more far-reaching than I imagined,” he said. “I suppose I have unconsciously influenced her, too. I never thought my Babylonish studies would bear fruit like this. Horrible! There are more things in heaven and earth⁠—”

“Yes,” said Anthea, “heaps more. And the pound is the thing I want more than anything on earth.”

He ran his fingers through his thin hair.

“This thought-transference!” he said. “It’s undoubtedly a Babylonian ring⁠—or it seems so to me. But perhaps I have hypnotized myself. I will see a doctor the moment I have corrected the last proofs of my book.”

“Yes, do!” said Anthea, “and thank you so very much.”

She took the sovereign and ran down to the others.

And now from the window of a four-wheeled cab the Queen of Babylon beheld the wonders of London. Buckingham Palace she thought uninteresting; Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament little better. But she liked the Tower, and the River, and the ships filled her with wonder and delight.

“But how badly you keep your slaves. How wretched and poor and neglected they seem,” she said, as the cab rattled along the Mile End Road.

“They aren’t slaves; they’re working-people,” said Jane.

“Of course they’re working. That’s what slaves are. Don’t you tell me. Do you suppose I don’t know a slave’s face when I see it? Why don’t their masters see that they’re better fed and better clothed? Tell me in three words.”

No one answered. The wage-system of modern England is a little difficult to explain in three words even if you understand it⁠—which the children didn’t.

“You’ll have a revolt of your slaves if you’re not careful,” said the Queen.

“Oh, no,” said Cyril; “you see they have votes⁠—that makes them safe not to revolt. It makes all the difference. Father told me so.”

“What is this vote?” asked the Queen. “Is it a charm? What do they do with it?”

“I don’t know,” said the harassed Cyril; “it’s just a vote, that’s all! They don’t do anything particular with it.”

“I see,” said the Queen; “a sort of plaything. Well, I wish that all these slaves may have in their hands this moment their fill of their favourite meat and drink.”

Instantly all the people in the Mile End Road, and in all the other streets where poor people live, found their hands full of things to eat and drink. From the cab window could be seen persons carrying every kind of food, and bottles and cans as well. Roast meat, fowls, red lobsters, great yellowy crabs, fried fish, boiled pork, beefsteak puddings, baked onions, mutton pies; most of the young people had oranges and sweets and cake. It made an enormous change in the look of the Mile End Road⁠—brightened it up, so to speak, and brightened up, more than you can possibly imagine, the faces of the people.

“Makes a difference, doesn’t it?” said the Queen.

“That’s the best wish you’ve had yet,” said Jane with cordial approval.

Just by the Bank the cabman stopped.

“I ain’t agoin’ to drive you no further,” he said. “Out you gets.”

They got out rather unwillingly.

“I wants my tea,” he said; and they saw that on the box of the cab was a mound of cabbage, with pork chops and apple sauce, a duck, and a spotted currant pudding. Also a large can.

“You pay me my fare,” he said threateningly, and looked down at the mound, muttering again about his tea.

“We’ll take another cab,” said Cyril with dignity. “Give me change for a sovereign, if you please.”

But the cabman, as it turned out, was not at all a nice character. He took the sovereign, whipped up his horse, and disappeared in the stream of cabs and omnibuses and wagons, without giving them any change at all.

Already a little crowd was collecting round the party.

“Come on,” said Robert, leading the wrong way.

The crowd round them thickened. They were in a narrow street where many gentlemen in black coats and without hats were standing about on the pavement talking very loudly.

“How ugly their clothes are,” said the Queen of Babylon. “They’d be rather fine men, some of them, if they were dressed decently, especially the ones with the beautiful long, curved noses. I wish they were dressed like the Babylonians of my court.”

And of course, it was so.

The moment the almost fainting Psammead had blown itself out every man in Throgmorton Street appeared abruptly in Babylonian full dress.

All were carefully powdered, their hair and beards were scented and curled, their garments richly embroidered. They wore rings and armlets, flat gold collars and swords, and impossible-looking headdresses.

A stupefied silence fell on them.

“I say,” a youth who had always been fair-haired broke that silence, “it’s only fancy of course⁠—something wrong with my eyes⁠—but you chaps do look so rum.”

“Rum,” said his friend. “Look at you. You in a sash! My hat! And your hair’s gone black and you’ve got a beard. It’s my belief we’ve been poisoned. You do look a jackape.”

“Old Levinstein don’t look so bad. But how was it done⁠—that’s what I want to know.