The Enchanted Castle, E. Nesbit [books to read fiction .txt] 📗

the trembling hand of Kathleen, Gerald was lurking⁠—there really is no other word for it⁠—on the staircase of Aldermanbury Buildings, Old Broad Street. On the floor below him was a door bearing the legend “Mr. U. W. Ugli, Stock and Share Broker (and at the Stock Exchange)” and on the floor above was another door, on which was the name of Gerald’s little brother, now grown suddenly rich in so magic and tragic a way. There were no explaining words under Jimmy’s name. Gerald could not guess what walk in life it was to which That (which had been Jimmy) owed its affluence. He had seen, when the door opened to admit his brother, a tangle of clerks and mahogany desks. Evidently That had a large business.

What was Gerald to do? What could he do?

It is almost impossible, especially for one so young as Gerald, to enter a large London office and explain that the elderly and respected head of it is not what he seems, but is really your little brother, who has been suddenly advanced to age and wealth by a tricky wishing ring. If you think it’s a possible thing, try it, that’s all. Nor could he knock at the door of Mr. U. W. Ugli, Stock and Share Broker (and at the Stock Exchange), and inform his clerks that their chief was really nothing but old clothes that had accidentally come alive, and by some magic, which he couldn’t attempt to explain, become real during a night spent at a really good hotel which had no existence.

The situation bristled, as you see, with difficulties. And it was so long past Gerald’s proper dinnertime that his increasing hunger was rapidly growing to seem the most important difficulty of all. It is quite possible to starve to death on the staircase of a London building if the people you are watching for only stay long enough in their offices. The truth of this came home to Gerald more and more painfully.

A boy with hair like a new front door mat came whistling up the stairs. He had a dark blue bag in his hands.

“I’ll give you a tanner for yourself if you’ll get me a tanner’s worth of buns,” said Gerald, with that prompt decision common to all great commanders.

“Show us yer tanners,” the boy rejoined with at least equal promptness. Gerald showed them. “All right; hand over.”

“Payment on delivery,” said Gerald, using words from the drapers which he had never thought to use.

The boy grinned admiringly.

“Knows ’is wy abaht,” he said; “ain’t no flies on ’im.”

“Not many,” Gerald owned with modest pride. “Cut along, there’s a good chap. I’ve got to wait here. I’ll take care of your bag if you like.”

“Nor yet there ain’t no flies on me neither,” remarked the boy, shouldering it. “I been up to the confidence trick for years⁠—ever since I was your age.”

With this parting shot he went, and returned in due course bun-laden. Gerald gave the sixpence and took the buns. When the boy, a minute later, emerged from the door of Mr. U. W. Ugli, Stock and Share Broker (and at the Stock Exchange), Gerald stopped him.

“What sort of chap’s that?” he asked, pointing the question with a jerk of an explaining thumb.

“Awful big pot,” said the boy; “up to his eyes in oof. Motor and all that.”

“Know anything about the one on the next landing?”

“He’s bigger than what this one is. Very old firm⁠—special cellar in the Bank of England to put his chink in⁠—all in bins like against the wall at the corn-chandler’s. Jimminy, I wouldn’t mind ’alf an hour in there, and the doors open and the police away at a beano. Not much! Neither. You’ll bust if you eat all them buns.”

“Have one?” Gerald responded, and held out the bag.

“They say in our office,” said the boy, paying for the bun honourably with unasked information, “as these two is all for cutting each other’s throats⁠—oh, only in the way of business⁠—been at it for years.”

Gerald wildly wondered what magic and how much had been needed to give history and a past to these two things of yesterday, the rich Jimmy and the Ugly-Wugly. If he could get them away would all memory of them fade⁠—in this boy’s mind, for instance, in the minds of all the people who did business with them in the City? Would the mahogany-and-clerk-furnished offices fade away? Were the clerks real? Was the mahogany? Was he himself real? Was the boy?

“Can you keep a secret?” he asked the other boy. “Are you on for a lark?”

“I ought to be getting back to the office,” said the boy.

“Get then!” said Gerald.

“Don’t you get stuffy,” said the boy. “I was just a-going to say it didn’t matter. I know how to make my nose bleed if I’m a bit late.”

Gerald congratulated him on this accomplishment, at once so useful and so graceful, and then said:

“Look here. I’ll give you five bob⁠—honest.”

“What for?” was the boy’s natural question.

“If you’ll help me.⁠—”

“Fire ahead.”

“I’m a private inquiry,” said Gerald.

“ ’Tec? You don’t look it.”

“What’s the good of being one if you look it?” Gerald asked impatiently, beginning on another bun. “That old chap on the floor above⁠—he’s wanted.”

“Police?” asked the boy with fine carelessness.

“No⁠—sorrowing relations.”

“ ‘Return to,’ ” said the boy; “ ‘all forgotten and forgiven.’ I see.”

“And I’ve got to get him to them, somehow. Now, if you could go in and give him a message from someone who wanted to meet him on business⁠—”

“Hold on!” said the boy. “I know a trick worth two of that. You go in and see old Ugli. He’d give his ears to have the old boy out of the way for a day or two. They were saying so in our office only this morning.”

“Let me think,” said Gerald, laying down the last bun on his knee expressly to hold his head in his hands.

“Don’t you forget to think about my five bob,” said the boy.

Then there was a silence on the