Lemuel walked the whole way home, and more than once said, "Dash!"
CHAPTER X
THE IMPORTANCE OF BIM
It was some few weeks before Emmanuel Oldstein was able to fulfil his good intention of visiting Paradise Court. Sally was the last on his list, and not till June's name-month was half-way through could he come to her.
Meanwhile things had been happening. The newspaper crusade was going well, and the two from Fairyland were using their efforts to help it forward.
The gnome was becoming influential in Paradise Court. It was in especial his province. June, with her wings and magic, could visit a wide area; but he, with his poor inches and limitations, was necessarily stay-at-home. Partly through accident he began a revolution which was fated to have important effect in the recovery of London. This is how it happened.
The old flower-box whence he had taken the mould for their flourishing roof-garden was a faded, decrepit affair; otherwise its meagre quantity of wood would surely, long ago, have been broken and used as fuel. For years it had stood in a dank corner, barren and forgotten. Then, in a fit of prankishness, Bim carried down a violet, the only one gathered in the Mansion House posy, and planted it. June had given it power of life; with the tenacity of its kind it had struggled, flourished and come to bloom.
It was the gnome's treasure. He was proud of its being, and looked after it in a spoilt parental way, exaggerating its few qualities, blessedly blind to its defects.
For some days it bluely blushed unseen; and then came into a prominence which half pleased, half frightened it.
Poll Skinner cast her husband-blacked eyes upon it.