The play we were rehearsing was eventually given up. For various reasons the little puppets about to be presented to you never displayed themselves before the public. Undeniable facts, but for my story quite irrelevant and inconsequential.
It was late and everyone else in the house had retired. I sat up all alone, diligently sewing. Alone? Grouped around me in various stages of completion sat the miniature members of the cast. I worked quietly, much absorbed. Off in the corner there was a clock, ticking.
The Chief Prophet of the Stars lay in my hands, impressive by virtue of his flowing white beard, even without the high purple hat. I rested a moment, straightening a weary back. One long white arm of his was pointing at me. He said: “Do not pity yourself. Despite your backache you are having a lovely time.” I am sure he said this. I did not answer. How could I? It was true. Near by was the black-robed Priest with the auburn beard. “Even so,” he agreed, “her fingers are happy: her tongue may not complain!”
“It is an honor to be permitted to dress us,” pompously proclaimed the Chamberlain. He was perched upon the mantel. His queer, stiff beard having been but recently shellacked was now in the process of drying. He was a balloon shaped, striking fellow arrayed in orange.
“She must finish my high hat to-night,” said the Chief Prophet of the Stars, “and see that my whiskers are decently trimmed. Then she may retire.”
“No,” whimpered one of the spotty Spies from the floor, “she promised to brighten my spots for tomorrow.” Then, in a loud aside, “She will probably get my strings twisted while painting the spots. Serve her right. She was too impatient to show me off yesterday. One should finish the spots first, say I.” Ungrateful wretch, to be grumbling! But he crawled and crept along the stage so wonderfully I hadn’t the heart to chide him.
I sat the Chief Prophet upon my knee, crossly. His long arm protested stiffly. I pulled the high hat down over his ominous brows. “It isn’t right,” he said. It wasn’t. I took it off. How trying it must be for him to have so clumsy a handmaiden. “Don’t pin it!” he commanded. “Rip it and sew it neatly.” I picked up the scissors and ripped. Then I sewed on in silence.
The marionettes, however, had many things to say.
“She is not as thorough as might be desired,” stated the Chamberlain. “Indeed, I fear that in the manipulating also she is only an amateur with no profound knowledge of the craft. Here am I, still dissatisfied with the bow I make to His Majesty. I know just how I should bow. Who would question my knowledge of etiquette? I shall not be content with anything but the correct bow, dignified and, in its way, imposing as the nod of a King. It must be just so and not otherwise but how will she do it? She has tried front strings and back strings and innumerable petty expedients. She calls herself a puppeteer: let her devise a way and that shortly! I scorn to display vexation but it perturbs me not a little as the moment approaches for me to bow and the bow, ahem ... refuses to function fittingly.”
“Try on the hat and do not be diverted by such details!” commands the Chief Prophet. I sit him up seriously. “It will do,” he states; “trim my whiskers.” I trim them, oh, very carefully. They hang augustly down over his black stole. I gaze at him, entranced, and at his portrait painted by a young artist. “I think you have caught the spirit of the ideal,” he admitted. “Put me on the mantel.” I obey him.[1]