"And you shan't go to bed!" cried Paul, for he too thought he heard some one. "Never mind nurse, finish the—the game."
—'Papa and Buzzy Dicky back again as—as they were before,' repeated Roly at last. "What a funny—ow, ow, it'h Papa! it'h Papa! and he told me it wath Dicky. I'm afwaid! Whereth Dicky gone to? I want Bab, take me to Bab!"
For the Stone had done its work once more, and this time with happier results; with a supreme relief and joy, which no one who has read this book can fail to understand, Mr. Bultitude felt that he actually was his old self again.
Just when all hope seemed cut off and relief was most unlikely, the magic spell that had caused him such intolerable misery for one hideous week was reversed by the hand of his innocent child.
He caught Roly up in his arms and kissed him as he had never been kissed in his whole life before, at least by his father, and comforting him as well as he could, for the poor child had naturally received rather a severe shock, he stepped airily down the staircase, which he had mounted with such different emotions five minutes before.
On his way he could not resist going into his dressing-room and assuring himself by a prolonged examination before the cheval-glass that the Stone had not played him some last piece of jugglery; but he found everything quite correct; he was the same formal, precise and portly person, wearing the same morning dress even as on that other Monday evening, and he went on with greater confidence.
He took care, however, to stop at the first window, when he managed, after some coaxing, to persuade Roly to give up the Garudâ Stone. As soon as he had it in his hands again, he opened the window wide and flung the dangerous talisman far out into the darkness. Not till then did he feel perfectly secure.
He passed the groups of little guests gathered about the conservatory, and lower down he met Boaler, the nurse, and one or two servants and waiters, rushing up in a state of great anxiety and flurry; even Boaler's usual composure seemed shaken. "Please, sir," he asked, "the schoolmaster gentleman, Master Dick—he've run upstairs, haven't you seen him?"