He went on working and Peter sat on the bed and watched him.
Suddenly the man said: “Did you have a dog in here when the window broke?”
“No. Why?”
“There was animal hair on some of the broken glass in the window-frame. Rough old hair. Dark and a bit smelly.” He glanced at Peter and grinned. “O.K., if you sneaked a dog in here against parental rules and managed to smuggle him out again, not to worry—I won’t tell on you, lad. I used to do that sort of thing myself.”
“Thank you,” said Peter, bugging himself with sudden delight. It had happened. Meaty had been real, had suffered cruelly through landing in the wrong world; but now there was hope for him and he, Peter, had had a share in it.
He didn’t mean to talk about this, but when bed-time came and his mother was saying good night to him, he couldn’t resist it. When you’ve been proved right, there’s an irresistible temptation to let people know. So he said:
“My monster was real. The glass man found his hairs.”
“Oh, Peter!” His mother burst out laughing. “You and your fantasies! First it’s a great big hairy monster, and now it’s a glass man. You could see through him, I presume?” Still laughing, she gave him a kiss and left him alone.
Oh, what was the use? He must learn to keep his big mouth shut!
A few months later, a newspaper paragraph caught his attention:
“The next Sky-lab, that ‘box of tricks’ to be sent by rocket to the moon, will carry a strange passenger: a unique type of monkey which, apparently, came out of a meteorite. Scientists are reticent about the reasons why it cannot make its home on earth, but hope that it will settle down to a new life on the moon. It will be the first moon immigrant to take up permanent residence there—unless, of course, it came from there in the first place, in which case its journey will be a homecoming. Its name is Meaty.”
Peter cut out the paragraph and, without a word, set it on the breakfast table before his parents. They read it. They looked at him speechlessly.
He bestowed on them a kindly and forgiving smile.
PRINCE PRIGIO AND THE FIREDRAKE
By Andrew Lang
Prince Prigio did not go to bed. It was now bright daylight, and he had promised to bring the horns and tail of a Firedrake as a present to a pretty lady. He said it was easy to do this; but now, as he sat and thought over it, he did not feel so victorious.
“First,” he said, “where is the Firedrake?”
He reflected for a little, and then ran upstairs to the garret.
“There should be a spy-glass here!” he cried tossing the fairies’ gifts about; “and, by George, here it is!”
Indeed, he had found the spy-glass of carved ivory which Prince Ali, in the Arabian Nights, bought in the bazaar in Schiraz. Now this glass was made so that looking through it you could see anybody or anything you wished, however far away . . .
The Prince clapped the glass to his eye, stared out of the window, and there, sure enough, he saw the Firedrake. He was floating about in a sea of molten lava on the top of a volcano. There he was, swimming and diving for pleasure, tossing up the flaming waves, and blowing fountains of fire out of his nostrils, like a wave spouting!
The Prince did not like the look of him.
“With all my cap of darkness, and my shoes of swiftness, and my sword of sharpness, I never could get near that beast,” he said; “and if I did stalk him, I could not hurt him . . . And now, what am I to do?”
What was he to do indeed? And what would you have done? Bring the horns and tail he must, or perish in the adventure. Otherwise, how could he meet his lady?—why, she would think him a mere braggart.
The Prince sat down and thought and thought; and the day went on, and it was now high noon.
At last he jumped up and rushed into the library. There he turned the books upside down, in his haste, till he found an old one by a French gentleman, Monsieur Cyrano de Bergerac. It was an account of a voyage to the moon, in which there is a great deal of information about matters not generally known; for few travellers have been to the moon. In that book Prince Prigio fancied he would find something he half remembered, and that would be of use to him. And he did! . . . For here the Prince learned that there is a very rare beast called a Remora, which is at least as cold as the Firedrake is hot!
“Now,” thought he, “if I can only make these two fight, why, the Remora may kill the Firedrake, or take the heat out of him at least, so that I may have a chance.”
Then he seized the ivory glass, clapped it to his eye, and looked for the Remora. Just the tip of his nose, as white as snow and as smooth as ice, was sticking out of a chink in a frozen mountain, not far from the burning mountain of the Firedrake.
“Hooray!” said the Prince softly to himself; and he jumped like mad into the winged shoes of swiftness, stuck on the cap of darkness, girdled himself with the sword of sharpness, and put a good slice of bread, with some cold tongue, in a wallet, which he slung on his back. Never you fight, if you can help it, except with plenty of food to keep you going and in good heart. Then off he flew, and soon he reached the volcano of the Firedrake.
It was dreadfully hot, even high up in the air, where the Prince hung invisible. Great burning stones were tossed up by the volcano, and nearly hit him several times. Moreover, the steam and smoke, and the flames which the Firedrake spouted like foam from his nostrils, would have daunted even the bravest man. The sides of the hill, too, were covered with the blackened ashes of his victims, whom he had roasted when they came out to kill him. But the Firedrake, as happy as a wild duck on a lonely loch, was rolling and diving in the liquid flame, all red-hot and full of frolic.
“Hi!” shouted the Prince.
The Firedrake rose to the surface, his horns as red as a red crescent moon, only bigger, and lashing the fire with his hoofs and his blazing tail.
“Who’s there?” he said in a hoarse, angry voice. “Just let me get at you!”
“It’s me,” answered the Prince. It was the first time he had forgotten his grammar, but he was terribly excited.
“What do you want?” grunted the beast. “I wish I could see you;” and, horrible to relate, he rose on a pair of wide, flaming wings, and came right at the Prince, guided by the sound of his voice.
Now the Prince had never heard that Firedrakes could fly . . . For a moment he was numb with terror; then he flew down like a stone to the very bottom of the hill, and shouted:
“Hi!”
“Well,” grunted the Firedrake, “what’s the matter? Why can’t you give a civil answer to a civil question?”
“Will you go back to your hole and swear, on your honour as a Firedrake, to listen quietly?”
“On my sacred word of honour,” said the beast, casually scorching an eagle that flew by into ashes. The cinders fell, jingling and crackling, round the Prince in a little shower.
Then the Firedrake dived back, with an awful splash of flame, and the mountain roared round him.
The Prince now flew high above him, and cried:
“A message from the Remora. He says you are afraid to fight him.”
“Don’t know him,” grunted the Firedrake.
“He sends you his glove,” said Prince Prigio, “as a challenge to mortal combat, till death do you part!”