Bud laughed until the tears stood in his eyes; but Aunt Rivette, after bumping both her own head and that of the chief counselor against the ceiling several times, finally managed to control the action of her wings and to descend to the floor again.
As soon as he was released, old Tullydub fled from the room; and Aunt Rivette, vowing she would dance no more, seated herself beside Bud and watched the revel until nearly midnight, when the couriers and their ladies dispersed to their own homes declaring that they had never enjoyed a more delightful evening.
“JIKKI HAD TO DESCEND THE STAIRS CAUTIOUSLY.”
Chapter IX.
JIKKI HAS A WISH GRANTED.
Next morning Aunt Rivette summoned Jikki to her room, and said:
“Take these shoes and clean and polish them; and carry down this tray of breakfast dishes; and send this hat to the milliner to have the feathers curled; and return this cloak to the Princess Fluff, with my compliments, and say I’m much obliged for the loan of it.”
Poor Jikki hardly knew how to manage so many orders. He took the shoes in his left hand, and the tray of dishes he balanced upon the other upraised palm. But the hat and cloak were too many for him. So Aunt Rivette, calling him “a stupid idiot,”—probably because he had no more hands,—set the plumed hat upon Jikki’s head and spread the cloak over his shoulders, and ordered him to make haste away.
Jikki was glad enough to go, for the fluttering of Aunt Rivette’s wings made him nervous; but he had to descend the stairs cautiously, for the hat was tipped nearly over his eyes, and if he stumbled he would be sure to spill the tray of dishes.
He reached the first landing of the broad stairs in safety, but at the second landing the hat joggled forward so that he could see nothing at all, and one of the shoes dropped from his hand.