A ROYAL INTERVIEW.
"Someone to see you, Miss."
Thus Mary at about nine o'clock on an April evening at the door of my tiny sitting-room.
There was a strange little quiver in her voice.
Mary is so extremely well trained, and so accustomed, moreover, to queer visitors at the flat, that I looked up in surprise.
"Yes?" I said. "Is it a lady?"
Mary did not reply immediately; she seemed half-dazed.
"Is it a lady?" I repeated a little sharply. My usually imperturbable parlourmaid appeared to have taken leave of her senses.
"She said she was a queen, Miss," she gasped.
At that moment the visitor, evidently grown tired of waiting, calmly floated in through the half-open door and settled down gracefully in the centre of a large gold cushion lying on the end of the Chesterfield.
Fortunately I grasped the situation at once.
"Thank you, Mary," I said, with what I now feel to have been most commendable coolness in the entirely unprecedented circumstances; "I will ring if I want tea later."
When the door had closed upon the still gasping Mary I turned apologetically to my visitor.
"I'm so sorry, your Majesty," I said. "You see, my maid was not unnaturally a little surprised—"
"It's quite all right," said the Fairy Queen graciously; "I thought you wouldn't mind my coming in."
"Of course not," I said; "I am only too delighted. Won't you come nearer the fire?"
She looked down at the cushion on which she was sitting, then she looked up at me and smiled.
"I don't like to leave it," she said; "it's so pretty." And she stroked the soft gold stuff with her tiny hand.
"Yes," I said; "and your lovely frock goes with it so beautifully. But how would this be?"
I stooped, gently lifted the cushion with its delicate burden and put it down on the floor in front of the fire. "There—how is that?"
"That's delightful," said the Fairy Queen. "I'm so glad you like my frock," she went on. "Paris, of course. That is to say, the idea came from there. My own people did the actual making. After all, no one can touch the French when it comes to real chic. Don't you think so?"
I acquiesced. Oh, yes, Paris was certainly the best.
"But I didn't come here to discuss clothes," said my visitor. She made a quick movement and leaned suddenly forward on the cushion, her delicate golden head supported on her slender hand. "Do you know the Editor of Punch?" she asked abruptly.
I hesitated. "I can't exactly say that I know him," I said.
The Fairy Queen looked very disappointed.
"Oh, dear, then I'm afraid it's no good. I thought you'd be sure to know him."
"But although I don't know him personally I am in communication with him," I said. "Perhaps—"
She brightened up a little.
"I suppose you could write," she said; "though of course it would be far better to see him."
"It's about that cover," she went on. I looked at her blankly.
"The cover of Punch, you know."
Vague pictures of Mr. Punch surrounded by little dancing figures, an easel, Toby, a lion—surely there was a lion somewhere—flitted across my mind. What on earth had the cover of Punch got to do with the Fairy Queen?
I went over to the little table where lay the latest copy, and came back with it in my hand and knelt down on the floor near the cushion.
The Fairy Queen came close to me and peered over the edge of the paper.
"Look at the fairies," she said, pointing with a tiny indignant finger. "Look at them. They're most dreadfully old-fashioned. Nobody in fairyland looks in the least like that now."
I looked. Certainly the little figures had rather an early-Victorian air about them.
"Of course we should never dream of being tremendously fashionable or anything of that kind. I would not for one moment think of allowing any of my court-ladies to cut their hair short, for instance, or to wear one of those foolish hobble skirts; but nobody, nobody could accuse us of being dowdy. Now tell me, have you ever seen one of us looking like that, or like that?"
"But are you quite sure," I said, not without hesitation, for she was by way of being rather an autocratic and imperious little person and I was the least little bit afraid of her—"are you quite sure that they are fairies?"
"Of course they are," she replied quickly. "What else could they be? Naturally Mr. Punch would have fairies all round him. He loves us. You have no idea how much we have in common."
I didn't reply at once. I was engaged in staring at the familiar design.
"They haven't any wings," I said, still rather doubtfully, "except this one at the bottom."
But the Fairy Queen was very decided indeed. "All fairies don't have wings," she said; "and with regard to that particular one at the bottom," she glanced a little superciliously at the buxom lady with the trumpet, "as a matter of fact, she isn't a fairy at all. I don't quite know what she is, an angel perhaps, but not a fairy, certainly not a fairy. But the others are, of course." She glanced at me a little defiantly with her bright eyes. "Surely, my dear, I ought to know a fairy when I see one. At the time when these were done they were perfectly all right; they only want bringing up to date, like the pictures inside, that's all. Now you will see whether you can do anything, won't you?"
It was difficult to refuse, but I didn't feel very hopeful.
"I'll try," I said. "I'll write to the Editor; but I'm afraid it's not very likely that he will do anything in the matter. You see the cover's been like that for years and years. Almost ever since Punch began. It's—well, it's part of the Punch tradition. We all love it. Nobody would like to see it altered; it wouldn't seem the same thing."
The Fairy Queen was busy with her cloak and didn't pay much attention to what I was saying,
"Won't you stay a little longer and have some tea or something?" I begged.
She shook her head.
"A chocolate?"
She smiled. "I can't resist a chocolate," she said. She took a very little one and nibbled at it daintily, flitting about the room meanwhile and chattering away in the friendliest fashion in her tiny high voice.
"I must go," she said at last. "I have enjoyed it so much. May I come again some day? I should love to come again."...
I went out with her into the little lobby and down the stairs, and stood at the hall door to watch her go.
"Now don't forget," were her last words as she floated out into the night. "Tell him, tell him exactly what we really look like."
"I can't," I called after her desperately; "I can't."
But she had already disappeared in the soft haze. I went slowly up the stairs and back to my quiet room and the dying fire.
"I can't," I said again. "I only wish I could."
R. F.
"Bandsmen Wanted for Municipal Band. Solo Cornet and others. Work found for bricklayer, carpenter, painter and paperhanger."—Daily Paper.
With whose assistance we may expect some jazzling effects.