I'll tell mamma if you carry on so!
Round and round whirled the tarnished horses and chariots with their one pathetic little rider; round and round trudged the pony—the little dusty, prosaic pony.
Master Nathaniel rubbed his eyes and looked round; he felt as if after a dive he were slowly rising to the surface of the water. The fair seemed to be coming alive—the silence had changed into a low murmur. And now it was swelling into the mingled din of chattering voices, lowing cows, grunting pigs, blasts from tin trumpets, hoarse voices of cheap-jacks praising their wares—all the noises, in short, that one connects with an ordinary fair.
He sauntered away from the merry-go-round and mingled with the crowd. All the stall-keepers were doing a brisk trade, but, above all, the market gardeners—their stalls were simply thronged.
But, lo and behold! the fruit that they were selling was of the kind he had seen in the mysterious room of the Guildhall, and concealed inside the case of his grandfather's clock—it was fairy fruit; but the knowledge brought no sense of moral condemnation.
Suddenly he realized that his throat was parched with thirst and that nothing would slake it but one of these translucent globes.
The wizened old woman who was selling them cried out to him coaxingly, "Three for a penny, sir! Or, for you, I'll make it four for a penny—for the sake of your hazel eyes, lovey! You'll find them as grateful as dew to the flowers—four for a penny, pretty master. Don't say no!"
But he had the curious feeling that one sometimes has in dreams, namely, that he himself was inventing what was happening to him, and could make it end as he chose.
"Yes," he said to himself, "I am telling myself one of Hempie's old stories, about a youngest son who has been warned against eating anything offered to him by strangers, so, of course, I shall not touch it."
So with a curt "No thank'ee, nothing doing today," he contemptuously turned his back on the old woman and her fruit.