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

a sandy-coloured double-lop in the basement of the house in Fitzroy Street.

“I don’t suppose old Nurse would mind very much,” said Jane. “Rabbits are most awfully tame sometimes. I expect it would know her voice and follow her all about.”

“She’d tumble over it twenty times a day,” said Cyril; “now a snake⁠—”

“There aren’t any snakes,” said Robert hastily, “and besides, I never could cotton to snakes somehow⁠—I wonder why.”

“Worms are as bad,” said Anthea, “and eels and slugs⁠—I think it’s because we don’t like things that haven’t got legs.”

“Father says snakes have got legs hidden away inside of them,” said Robert.

“Yes⁠—and he says we’ve got tails hidden away inside us⁠—but it doesn’t either of it come to anything really,” said Anthea. “I hate things that haven’t any legs.”

“It’s worse when they have too many,” said Jane with a shudder, “think of centipedes!”

They stood there on the pavement, a cause of some inconvenience to the passersby, and thus beguiled the time with conversation. Cyril was leaning his elbow on the top of a hutch that had seemed empty when they had inspected the whole edifice of hutches one by one, and he was trying to reawaken the interest of a hedgehog that had curled itself into a ball earlier in the interview, when a small, soft voice just below his elbow said, quietly, plainly and quite unmistakably⁠—not in any squeak or whine that had to be translated⁠—but in downright common English⁠—

“Buy me⁠—do⁠—please buy me!”

Cyril started as though he had been pinched, and jumped a yard away from the hutch.

“Come back⁠—oh, come back!” said the voice, rather louder but still softly; “stoop down and pretend to be tying up your bootlace⁠—I see it’s undone, as usual.”

Cyril mechanically obeyed. He knelt on one knee on the dry, hot dusty pavement, peered into the darkness of the hutch and found himself face to face with⁠—the Psammead!

It seemed much thinner than when he had last seen it. It was dusty and dirty, and its fur was untidy and ragged. It had hunched itself up into a miserable lump, and its long snail’s eyes were drawn in quite tight so that they hardly showed at all.

“Listen,” said the Psammead, in a voice that sounded as though it would begin to cry in a minute, “I don’t think the creature who keeps this shop will ask a very high price for me. I’ve bitten him more than once, and I’ve made myself look as common as I can. He’s never had a glance from my beautiful, beautiful eyes. Tell the others I’m here⁠—but tell them to look at some of those low, common beasts while I’m talking to you. The creature inside mustn’t think you care much about me, or he’ll put a price upon me far, far beyond your means. I remember in the dear old days last summer you never had much money. Oh⁠—I never thought I should be so glad to see you⁠—I never did.” It sniffed, and shot out its long snail’s eyes expressly to drop a tear well away from its fur. “Tell the others I’m here, and then I’ll tell you exactly what to do about buying me.”

Cyril tied his bootlace into a hard knot, stood up and addressed the others in firm tones⁠—

“Look here,” he said, “I’m not kidding⁠—and I appeal to your honour,” an appeal which in this family was never made in vain. “Don’t look at that hutch⁠—look at the white rat. Now you are not to look at that hutch whatever I say.”

He stood in front of it to prevent mistakes.

“Now get yourselves ready for a great surprise. In that hutch there’s an old friend of ours⁠—don’t look!⁠—Yes; it’s the Psammead, the good old Psammead! it wants us to buy it. It says you’re not to look at it. Look at the white rat and count your money! On your honour don’t look!”

The others responded nobly. They looked at the white rat till they quite stared him out of countenance, so that he went and sat up on his hind legs in a far corner and hid his eyes with his front paws, and pretended he was washing his face.

Cyril stooped again, busying himself with the other bootlace and listened for the Psammead’s further instructions.

“Go in,” said the Psammead, “and ask the price of lots of other things. Then say, ‘What do you want for that monkey that’s lost its tail⁠—the mangy old thing in the third hutch from the end.’ Oh⁠—don’t mind my feelings⁠—call me a mangy monkey⁠—I’ve tried hard enough to look like one! I don’t think he’ll put a high price on me⁠—I’ve bitten him eleven times since I came here the day before yesterday. If he names a bigger price than you can afford, say you wish you had the money.”

“But you can’t give us wishes. I’ve promised never to have another wish from you,” said the bewildered Cyril.

“Don’t be a silly little idiot,” said the Sand-fairy in trembling but affectionate tones, “but find out how much money you’ve got between you, and do exactly what I tell you.”

Cyril, pointing a stiff and unmeaning finger at the white rat, so as to pretend that its charms alone employed his tongue, explained matters to the others, while the Psammead hunched itself, and bunched itself, and did its very best to make itself look uninteresting.

Then the four children filed into the shop.

“How much do you want for that white rat?” asked Cyril.

“Eightpence,” was the answer.

“And the guinea-pigs?”

“Eighteenpence to five bob, according to the breed.”

“And the lizards?”

“Ninepence each.”

“And toads?”

“Fourpence. Now look here,” said the greasy owner of all this caged life with a sudden ferocity which made the whole party back hurriedly on to the wainscoting of hutches with which the shop was lined. “Lookee here. I ain’t agoin’ to have you a comin’ in here a turnin’ the whole place outer winder, an’ prizing every animile in the stock just for your larks, so don’t think it! If you’re a buyer, be a buyer⁠—but I