“No, I won’t,” said the King. “It is enough to say that I gave orders that if there was any trouble among the dolls landing from over there, a gun was to be fired. The gun was fired, and I ordered the Waxes to be locked up at once.”
“The gun was fired by mistake,” said Wooden’s mother sensibly. “I saw the soldier’s ears boxed for firing it with my own eyes.”
“Did she say she fired it with her own eyes?” asked the secretary. “She does mumble so.”
“Mistake or no mistake,” said the King, “the gun was fired, and the Waxes were locked up. And now we’ve finished all that, I should like to know what this lady is doing here, when she ought to be in prison.”
He frowned terrifically at Lady Grace, who was sitting between Peggy and Wooden. Peggy took hold of her hand. Although Lady Grace was grown up, and she was only a little girl, she felt that she must protect her. For after all she was her own dearly loved doll, and Peggy was not going to have her bullied by a chess king, if she could help it.
It was Wooden who answered, in her calm, kind voice. “Lady Grace was a favourite lady-in-waiting of dear Queen Rosebud,” she said. “I think it would be a great pity to send her to prison, and I hope you won’t do it, your Majesty.”
King Selim’s face grew softer as Wooden spoke. Her voice was evidently music in his ears. Perhaps he would have given way at once, but before he could say anything, Rose, who was still standing by the side of the throne, spoke. “It isn’t safe to leave any wax dolls free to go about,” she said. “They will only stir up trouble. Compositions are quite as good as Waxes, and anything that Waxes could do, such as acting as ladies-in-waiting to royalty, Compositions can do.”
“You’re not even Composition,” broke in Wooden’s aunt, who had been glowering at Rose all along, and seemed to have forgotten her own fright. “You’re Composition down to the neck, and your hands and feet and the rest of you is stuffed rag. Yes, stuffed rag! So there, Sawdust!”
The Lord Chancellor held up his hand. “That is a very serious accusation to bring against a lady,” he said. “I understood the lady to claim that she was Composition. Do you mean to accuse her of telling a lie, madam?”
“I’ve seen her held upside down by the leg,” said Wooden’s aunt. “Composition below, sawdust above. Deny it if you can.”