The Magic City | Page 6

tea awaited him--a
very little tray on a very big, dark table.
'He's not half a bad child,' said Susan at her tea in the servants' quarters.
'That nurse frightened him out of his little wits with her prim ways, you
may depend. He's civil enough if you speak him civil.'
'But Miss Lucy didn't frighten him, I suppose,' said the cook; 'and look
how he behaved to her.'
'Well, he's quiet enough, anyhow. You don't hear a breath of him from
morning till night,' said the upper housemaid; 'seems silly-like to me.'

'You slip in and look what he's been building, that's all,' Susan told
them. 'You won't call him silly then. India an' pagodas ain't in it.'
They did slip in, all of them, when Philip had gone to bed. The building
had progressed, though it was not finished.
'I shan't touch a thing,' said Susan. 'Let him have it to play with
to-morrow. We'll clear it all away before that nurse comes back with
her caps and her collars and her stuck-up cheek.'
So next day Philip went on with his building. He put everything you
can think of into it: the dominoes, and the domino-box; bricks and
books; cotton-reels that he begged from Susan, and a collar-box and
some cake-tins contributed by the cook. He made steps of the dominoes
and a terrace of the domino-box. He got bits of southernwood out of the
garden and stuck them in cotton-reels, which made beautiful pots, and
they looked like bay trees in tubs. Brass finger-bowls served for domes,
and the lids of brass kettles and coffee-pots from the oak dresser in the
hall made minarets of dazzling splendour. Chessmen were useful for
minarets, too.
'I must have paved paths and a fountain,' said Philip thoughtfully. The
paths were paved with mother-of-pearl card counters, and the fountain
was a silver and glass ash-tray, with a needlecase of filigree silver
rising up from the middle of it; and the falling water was made quite
nicely out of narrow bits of the silver paper off the chocolate Helen had
given him at parting. Palm trees were easily made--Helen had shown
him how to do that--with bits of larch fastened to elder stems with
plasticine. There was plenty of plasticine among Lucy's toys; there was
plenty of everything.
And the city grew, till it covered the table. Philip, unwearied, set about
to make another city on another table. This had for chief feature a great
water-tower, with a fountain round its base; and now he stopped at
nothing. He unhooked the crystal drops from the great chandeliers to
make his fountains. This city was grander than the first. It had a grand
tower made of a waste-paper basket and an astrologer's tower that was
a photograph-enlarging machine.

The cities were really very beautiful. I wish I could describe them
thoroughly to you. But it would take pages and pages. Besides all the
things I have told of alone there were towers and turrets and grand
staircases, pagodas and pavilions, canals made bright and water-like by
strips of silver paper, and a lake with a boat on it. Philip put into his
buildings all the things out of the doll's house that seemed suitable. The
wooden things-to-eat and dishes. The leaden tea-cups and goblets. He
peopled the place with dominoes and pawns. The handsome chessmen
were used for minarets. He made forts and garrisoned them with lead
soldiers.
He worked hard and he worked cleverly, and as the cities grew in
beauty and interestingness he loved them more and more. He was
happy now. There was no time to be unhappy in.
'I will keep it as it is till Helen comes. How she will love it!' he said.
The two cities were connected by a bridge which was a yard-stick he
had found in the servants' sewing-room and taken without hindrance,
for by this time all the servants were his friends. Susan had been the
first--that was all.
He had just laid his bridge in place, and put Mr. and Mrs. Noah in the
chief square to represent the inhabitants, and was standing rapt in
admiration of his work, when a hard hand on each of his shoulders
made him start and scream.
It was the nurse. She had come back a day sooner than any one
expected her. The brother had brought home a wife, and she and the
nurse had not liked each other; so she was very cross, and she took
Philip by the shoulders and shook him, a thing which had never
happened to him before.
'You naughty, wicked boy!' she said, still shaking.
'But I haven't hurt anything--I'll put everything back,' he said, trembling
and very pale.

'You'll not touch any of it again,' said the nurse. 'I'll see