Quentin’s father is well now, and he has left the army, and father and mother and Quentin live in a jolly, little, old house in Salisbury, and Quentin is a ‘day boy’ at that very same school. He and Smithson minor are the greatest of friends. But he has never told Smithson minor about the accidental magic. He has learned now, and learned very thoroughly, that it is not always wise to tell all you know. If he had not owned that he knew that it was the Stonehenge altar stone!
* * * * *
[p95]
You may think that the accidental magic was all a dream, and that Quentin dreamed it because his mother had told him so much about Atlantis. But then, how do you account for his dreaming so much that his mother had never told him? You think that that part wasn’t true, well, it may have been true for anything I know. And I am sure you don’t know more about it than I do.
[p96]
IV
THE PRINCESS AND THE HEDGE-PIG
‘But I don’t see what we’re to do’ said the Queen for the twentieth time.
‘Whatever we do will end in misfortune,’ said the King gloomily; ‘you’ll see it
will.’
They were sitting in the honeysuckle arbour talking things over, while the nurse walked up and down the terrace with the new baby in her arms.
‘Yes, dear,’ said the poor Queen; ‘I’ve not the slightest doubt I shall.’
Misfortune comes in many ways, and you can’t always know beforehand that a certain way is the way misfortune will come by: but there are things misfortune comes after as surely as night comes after day. For instance, if you let all the water boil away, the kettle will have a hole burnt in it. If you leave the bath taps running and the waste-pipe closed, [p97 the stairs of your house will, sooner or later, resemble Niagara. If you leave your purse at home, you won’t have it with you when you want to pay your tram-fare. And if you throw lighted wax matches at your muslin curtains, your parent will most likely have to pay five pounds to the fire engines for coming round and blowing the fire out with a wet hose. Also if you are a king and do not invite the wicked fairy to your christening parties, she will come all the same. And if you do ask the wicked fairy, she will come, and in either case it will be the worse for the new princess. So what is a poor monarch to do? Of course there is one way out of the difficulty, and that is not to have a christening party at all. But this offends all the good fairies, and then where are you?