“Now, at this moment, I have nothing particular to do,” said Major Graham, “therefore I shall tell you a wonderful story, children, about liking to be idle or busy, and you must find out the moral for yourselves.”

“A story! a story!” cried Harry and Laura, in an ecstacy of delight, and as they each had a knee of uncle David’s, which belonged to themselves, they scrambled into their places, exclaiming, “Now let it be all about very bad boys, and giants, and fairies!”

[132]
]CHAPTER IX.
UNCLE DAVID’S NONSENSICAL STORY ABOUT GIANTS AND FAIRIES.

“Pie-crust and pastry-crust, that was the wall;

The windows were made of black-puddings and white,

And slated with pancakes—you ne’er saw the like!”

In the days of yore, children were not all such clever, good sensible people as they are now! Lessons were then considered rather a plague, sugar-plums were still in demand—holidays continued yet in fashion—and toys were not then made to teach mathematics, nor story-books to give instruction in chemistry and navigation. These were very strange times, and there existed at that period, a very idle, greedy, naughty boy, such as we never hear of in the present day. His papa and mama were——no matter who,——and he lived, no matter where. His name was Master No-book, and he seemed to think his eyes were made for nothing but to stare out of the windows, and his mouth for no other purpose but to eat. This young gentleman hated lessons like mustard, both of which brought tears into his eyes, and during school-hours, he sat gazing at his books, pretending to be busy, while his mind wandered away to wish impatiently for his dinner, and to consider where he could get the nicest pies, pastry, ices, and jellies, while he smacked his lips at the [133] ]very thoughts of them. I think he must have been first cousin to Peter Grey, but that is not perfectly certain.

Whenever Master No-book spoke, it was always to ask for something, and you might continually hear him say, in a whining tone of voice, “Papa! may I take this piece of cake? Aunt Sarah! will you give me an apple? Mama! do send me the whole of that plum-pudding!” Indeed, very frequently when he did not get permission to gormandize, this naughty glutton helped himself without leave. Even his dreams were like his waking hours, for he had often a horrible night-mare about lessons, thinking that he was smothered with Greek Lexicons, or pelted out of the school with a shower of English Grammars, while one night, he fancied himself sitting down to devour an enormous plum-cake, and that all on a sudden it became transformed into a Latin Dictionary!

One afternoon, Master No-book, having played truant all day from school, was lolling on his mama’s best sofa in the drawing-room, with his leather boots tucked up on the satin cushions, and nothing to do but to suck a few oranges, and nothing to think of but how much sugar to put upon them, when suddenly an event took place which filled him with astonishment.

A sound of soft music stole into the room, becoming louder and louder the longer he listened, till at length, in a few moments afterwards, a large hole burst open in the wall of his room, and there stepped into his presence, two magnificent fairies, just arrived from their castle in the air, to pay him a visit. They had travelled all the way on purpose to have some conversation with Master No-book, and immediately introduced themselves in a very ceremonious manner.