Zuzu and Lulu bowed very low Page 50
"Certainly we do. How could the King order such gold and diamonds as he may need, if he were not able to telephone for them to the Fairies? You see, we get these things only through the Fairies, who live far toward the interior of the Island, in a place which not even I myself have ever seen."
"Well, I would like to know how any one can telephone to a Fairy," said Zuzu, who had never heard of such a thing before.
"It is the simplest thing in the world," replied the Private Secretary. "The morning is the best time for the use of the Fairy Telephone. You will notice that then the dew lies heavy upon all the world. All the leaves and blades of grass are wet with it, and it shines in the early sunlight, to my mind far more beautifully than any diamond. Now, over this dewy world of leaves and grass and boughs and ferns, which touch each other quite across the Island, you will see many little fine lines, finer than hairs, woven in and out. Sometimes you will see long floating films and sometimes braided nets. These are the webs of the spiders, which spin all the time without any one asking them to work. Now, these webs of the spiders are the lines of the Fairy Telephone, and they run from this Island quite over into the valley where the Fairies live."
"But how can you hear?" asked Lulu. "I have had spider webs in my hands, but I heard nothing at all."
"That was because you did not have a Cricket to put to your ear at the same time," said the Private Secretary. "If you have a good Cricket and place it at your ear, it will say things to you. Have you not heard Crickets chirping, chirping away, hour after hour?"
"Of course! of course!" cried both the Twins, "we have heard that."