The City Curious

FRITILLA AND THE RED FLYING-FISH Frontispiece
ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR AND RETOLD IN ENGLISH BY F. TENNYSON JESSE NEW YORK: DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1920 Printed in Great Britain


Smaly and his wife Redy set forth in search of three little girls: They are bewitched so that their noses turn into beaks: Smaly eats the latch of a door and Redy eats the hinge: Redy's fingers weep tears: They meet with a Confectioner who resembles a Kangaroo.
Smaly and Redy were husband and wife, and they lived together in a little white house. This house had three rooms upstairs and three rooms downstairs; and each room was so pretty that it gave one joy to see it. Smaly and Redy were very proud of their house, and were never so happy as when they were putting it to rights. Every day they did something to one or other of the rooms, changing the position of the furniture or the pictures.
One day, while Smaly was walking in the town he saw three mirrors in a shop window, and he thought they would be just the thing to hang up in the three bedrooms; so he bought the mirrors and went home with them in high glee.
In the meantime, Redy, his little wife, also had an idea to beautify the bedrooms, so she went out into the garden to pick some flowers.
Smaly hung a looking-glass in each of the three little bedrooms, then he carefully closed all three doors and, going downstairs, sat himself by the hearth. A fire was burning there, for the spring was still young in the land.
While he sat there, smoking, lost in the most delicious daydreams, his pleasant little wife Redy came in with her arms full of flowers. She took three vases from the dresser, and began to arrange the flowers in them, holding her head on one side like a bird.
Redy