The Magic City | Page 9

gently but firmly between a very hard finger and
thumb.
'Leave go,' said Philip, 'I'm not going to run away.' And he stood up
feeling very brave.
The man shifted his hold from ear to shoulder and led Philip through
one of those doors which he had thought of exploring by daylight. It
was not daylight yet, and the room, large and bare, with an arch at each
end and narrow little windows at the sides, was lighted by horn lanterns
and tall tapers in pewter candlesticks. It seemed to Philip that the room
was full of soldiers.
Their captain, with a good deal of gold about him and a very smart
black moustache, got up from a bench.
'Look what I've caught, sir,' said the man who owned the hand on
Philip's shoulder.
'Humph,' said the captain, 'so it's really happened at last.'
[Illustration: 'Here--I say, wake up, can't you?']

'What has?' said Philip.
'Why, you have,' said the captain. 'Don't be frightened, little man.'
'I'm not frightened,' said Philip, and added politely, 'I should be so
much obliged if you'd tell me what you mean.' He added something
which he had heard people say when they asked the way to the market
or the public gardens, 'I'm quite a stranger here,' he said.
A jolly roar of laughter went up from the red-coats.
'It isn't manners to laugh at strangers,' said Philip.
'Mind your own manners,' said the captain sharply; 'in this country little
boys speak when they're spoken to. Stranger, eh? Well, we knew that,
you know!'
Philip, though he felt snubbed, yet felt grand too. Here he was in the
middle of an adventure with grown-up soldiers. He threw out his chest
and tried to look manly.
The captain sat down in a chair at the end of a long table, drew a black
book to him--a black book covered with dust--and began to rub a rusty
pen-nib on his sword, which was not rusty.
'Come now,' he said, opening the book, 'tell me how you came here.
And mind you speak the truth.'
'I always speak the truth,' said Philip proudly.
All the soldiers rose and saluted him with looks of deep surprise and
respect.
'Well, nearly always,' said Philip, hot to the ears, and the soldiers
clattered stiffly down again on to the benches, laughing once more.
Philip had imagined there to be more discipline in the army.
'How did you come here?' said the captain.

'Up the great bridge staircase,' said Philip.
The captain wrote busily in the book.
'What did you come for?'
'I didn't know what else to do. There was nothing but illimitable
prairie--and so I came up.'
'You are a very bold boy,' said the captain.
'Thank you,' said Philip. 'I do want to be.'
'What was your purpose in coming?'
'I didn't do it on purpose--I just happened to come.'
The captain wrote that down too. And then he and Philip and the
soldiers looked at each other in silence.
'Well?' said the boy.
'Well?' said the captain.
'I do wish,' said the boy, 'you'd tell me what you meant by my really
happening after all. And then I wish you'd tell me the way home.'
'Where do you want to get to?' asked the captain.
'The address,' said Philip, 'is The Grange, Ravelsham, Sussex.'
'Don't know it,' said the captain briefly, 'and anyhow you can't go back
there now. Didn't you read the notice at the top of the ladder?
Trespassers will be prosecuted. You've got to be prosecuted before you
can go back anywhere.'
'I'd rather be persecuted than go down that ladder again,' he said. 'I
suppose it won't be very bad--being persecuted, I mean?'

His idea of persecution was derived from books. He thought it to be
something vaguely unpleasant from which one escaped in
disguise--adventurous and always successful.
'That's for the judges to decide,' said the captain, 'it's a serious thing
trespassing in our city. This guard is put here expressly to prevent it.'
'Do you have many trespassers?' Philip asked. The captain seemed kind,
and Philip had a great-uncle who was a judge, so the word judges made
him think of tips and good advice, rather than of justice and
punishment.
'Many trespassers indeed!' the captain almost snorted his answer.
'That's just it. There's never been one before. You're the first. For years
and years and years there's been a guard here, because when the town
was first built the astrologers foretold that some day there would be a
trespasser who would do untold mischief. So it's our privilege--we're
the Polistopolitan guards--to keep watch over the only way by which a
trespasser could come in.'
'May I sit down?' said Philip suddenly, and the soldiers made room for
him on the bench.
'My father and