Then she cautiously raised herself upon one elbow and looked round, slowly, at the fire. Ever since Teddy had said that Mr. Snoogles lived up the chimney she had regarded the fire with much greater interest, not to say dread. Not that Mr. Snoogles was real. He was just fun. And yet, though Veronica knew he was only fun, she often wondered how he managed to fit in the inside of the chimney—if, that is, he was at all like father, or even Dr. Blackie (who wasn’t at all big for a man). But then Teddy was the only person who claimed to have ever seen this person who had taken refuge in their chimneys, and he couldn’t be made to describe him.
In the morning and in the afternoon Mr. Snoogles was much more amusing than any shop-bought game. Veronica would laugh over him, and invent long conversations in which he said such silly things! But when the evening crept on, and the fire crackled in the grate, and flickered on the walls, it made it all so different. Why do things which aren’t true make you think they are true, at night?
Veronica remembered uneasily a curious dream. She was no longer a big girl with short hair and long thin legs; she was a green velvet pin-cushion, and pins of various sizes and colours were just about to be stuck into her before she was sent off to a village bazaar. Though that was only a dream, for a long time she never saw a pin-cushion without thinking of herself as one....
And now, to-night, she at last lay back in bed out of sight of the fire, and tried to plan adventures for the next day. Why did real adventures always pass her by?
Suddenly she heard a curious low rumbling sound. For a moment she hoped and yet dreaded that it came from the direction of the chimney, but when the sound got louder, as it did very soon, she burst out laughing, for it was only Teddy snoring. The door between their rooms was open, so no wonder she heard him. How funny, and how disappointing!
In time Veronica’s eyes closed without her noticing it, and lying there, so comfortable and so warm in bed, just on that borderland of the ordinary world of lessons and rice pudding (when one expected something else with jam on it) and that other delicious world of dreams and vague sensations.
But all at once Veronica heard a great clatter. She sat up in bed and opened her eyes wide to see in the firelight a most curious little person. He had leapt out of the chimney and dropped all the fire-irons in a heap at his feet. She could see them lying there on the white woolly mat, all at sixes and sevens.
He was very small, about as high as the poker. He had large round eyes, nearly as round as two pennies. And on his head, perched on the very top, was the lid of the nursery kettle! It was a copper kettle, and was always kept very bright.
The stranger was dressed in black and his clothes fitted him quite tight, like a well-drawn-up stocking or a glove.
Veronica gazed at him, her eyes growing almost as round as his own.