Five Children and It, E. Nesbit [good summer reads TXT] 📗

you see them by, were all packed away. A curtain⁠—it was an old red-and-black carpet really⁠—was run across the tent. Robert was concealed behind, and Bill was standing on a trestle-table outside the tent making a speech. It was rather a good speech. It began by saying that the giant it was his privilege to introduce to the public that day was the eldest son of the Emperor of San Francisco, compelled through an unfortunate love affair with the Duchess of the Fiji Islands to leave his own country and take refuge in England⁠—the land of liberty⁠—where freedom was the right of every man, no matter how big he was. It ended by the announcement that the first twenty who came to the tent door should see the giant for threepence apiece. “After that,” said Bill, “the price is riz, and I don’t undertake to say what it won’t be riz to. So now’s yer time.”

A young man squiring his sweetheart on her afternoon out was the first to come forward. For that occasion his was the princely attitude⁠—no expense spared⁠—money no object. His girl wished to see the giant? Well, she should see the giant, even though seeing the giant cost threepence each and the other entertainments were all penny ones.

The flap of the tent was raised⁠—the couple entered. Next moment a wild shriek from the girl thrilled through all present. Bill slapped his leg. “That’s done the trick!” he whispered to ’Becca. It was indeed a splendid advertisement of the charms of Robert. When the girl came out she was pale and trembling, and a crowd was round the tent.

“What was it like?” asked a bailiff.

“Oh!⁠—horrid!⁠—you wouldn’t believe,” she said. “It’s as big as a barn, and that fierce. It froze the blood in my bones. I wouldn’t ha’ missed seeing it for anything.”

The fierceness was only caused by Robert’s trying not to laugh. But the desire to do that soon left him, and before sunset he was more inclined to cry than to laugh, and more inclined to sleep than either. For, by ones and twos and threes, people kept coming in all the afternoon, and Robert had to shake hands with those who wished it, and to allow himself to be punched and pulled and patted and thumped, so that people might make sure he was really real.

The other children sat on a bench and watched and waited, and were very bored indeed. It seemed to them that this was the hardest way of earning money that could have been invented. And only fifteen shillings! Bill had taken four times that already, for the news of the giant had spread, and tradespeople in carts, and gentlepeople in carriages, came from far and near. One gentleman with an eyeglass, and a very large yellow rose in his buttonhole, offered Robert, in an obliging whisper, ten pounds a week to appear at the Crystal Palace. Robert had to say “No.”

“I can’t,” he said regretfully. “It’s no use promising what you can’t do.”

“Ah, poor fellow, bound for a term of years, I suppose! Well, here’s my card; when your time’s up come to me.”

“I will⁠—if I’m the same size then,” said Robert truthfully.

“If you grow a bit, so much the better,” said the gentleman.

When he had gone, Robert beckoned Cyril and said⁠—

“Tell them I must and will have an easy. And I want my tea.”

Tea was provided, and a paper hastily pinned on the tent. It said⁠—

Closed for half an hour
while the giant gets his tea

Then there was a hurried council.

“How am I to get away?” said Robert. “I’ve been thinking about it all the afternoon.”

“Why, walk out when the sun sets and you’re your right size. They can’t do anything to us.”

Robert opened his eyes. “Why, they’d nearly kill us,” he said, “when they saw me get my right size. No, we must think of some other way. We must be alone when the sun sets.”

“I know,” said Cyril briskly, and he went to the door, outside which Bill was smoking a clay pipe and talking in a low voice to ’Becca. Cyril heard him say⁠—“Good as havin’ a fortune left you.”

“Look here,” said Cyril, “you can let people come in again in a minute. He’s nearly finished his tea. But he must be left alone when the sun sets. He’s very queer at that time of day, and if he’s worried I won’t answer for the consequences.”

“Why⁠—what comes over him?” asked Bill.

“I don’t know; it’s⁠—it’s a sort of a change,” said Cyril candidly. “He isn’t at all like himself⁠—you’d hardly know him. He’s very queer indeed. Someone’ll get hurt if he’s not alone about sunset.” This was true.

“He’ll pull round for the evening, I s’pose?”

“Oh yes⁠—half an hour after sunset he’ll be quite himself again.”

“Best humour him,” said the woman.

And so, at what Cyril judged was about half an hour before sunset, the tent was again closed “whilst the giant gets his supper.”

The crowd was very merry about the giant’s meals and their coming so close together.

“Well, he can pick a bit,” Bill owned. “You see he has to eat hearty, being the size he is.”

Inside the tent the four children breathlessly arranged a plan of retreat.

“You go now,” said Cyril to the girls, “and get along home as fast as you can. Oh, never mind the beastly pony-cart; we’ll get that tomorrow. Robert and I are dressed the same. We’ll manage somehow, like Sydney Carton did. Only, you girls must get out, or it’s all no go. We can run, but you can’t⁠—whatever you may think. No, Jane, it’s no good Robert going out and knocking people down. The police would follow him till he turned his proper size, and then arrest him like a shot. Go you must! If you don’t, I’ll never speak to you again. It was you got us into this mess really, hanging round people’s legs the way you did this morning. Go, I tell you!”

And Jane and Anthea went.

“We’re going