Tales of Three Hemispheres eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 94 pages of information about Tales of Three Hemispheres.

Tales of Three Hemispheres eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 94 pages of information about Tales of Three Hemispheres.
that it had only been invented a week ago and was quite new and was made of real silver and was being very much bought.  But all the while I was straying towards the back of the shop.  When I enquired about the idols there he said that they were some of the season’s novelties and were a choice selection of mascots; and while I made a pretence of selecting one I suddenly saw the wonderful old door.  I was through it at once and the young shop-keeper after me.  No one was more surprised than he when he saw the street of grass and the purple flowers on it; he ran across in his frock-coat on to the opposite pavement and only just stopped in time, for the world ended there.  Looking downward over the pavement’s edge he saw, instead of accustomed kitchen-windows, white clouds and a wide, blue sky.  I led him to the old back door of the shop, looking pale and in need of air, and pushed him lightly and he went limply through, for I thought the air was better for him on the side of the street that he knew.  As soon as the door was shut on that astonished man I turned to the right and went along the street till I saw the gardens and the cottages, and a little red patch moving in a garden, which I knew to be the old witch wearing her shawl.

“Come for a change of illusion again?” she said.

“I have come from London,” I said.  “And I want to see Singanee.  I want to go to his ivory palace over the elfin mountains where the amethyst precipice is.”

“Nothing like changing your illusions,” she said, “or you grow tired.  London’s a fine place but one wants to see the elfin mountains sometimes.”

“Then you know London?” I said.

“Of course I do,” she said.  “I can dream as well as you.  You are not the only person that can imagine London.”  Men were toiling dreadfully in her garden; it was in the heat of the day and they were digging with spades; she suddenly turned from me to beat one of them over the back with a long black stick that she carried.  “Even my poets go to London sometimes,” she said to me.

“Why did you beat that man?” I said.

“To make him work,” she answered.

“But he is tired,” I said.

“Of course he is,” said she.

And I looked and saw that the earth was difficult and dry and that every spadeful that the tired men lifted was full of pearls; but some men sat quite still and watched the butterflies that flitted about the garden and the old witch did not beat them with her stick.  And when I asked her who the diggers were she said, “These are my poets, they are digging for pearls.”  And when I asked her what so many pearls were for she said to me:  “To feed the pigs of course.”

“But do the pigs like pearls?” I said to her.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Tales of Three Hemispheres from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.