girlie was greatly alarmed when she found herself in the dark, the more so that the noise, which had been going on all around her, suddenly ceased in a most mysterious manner. she called aloud once or twice, but received no reply, so she began to grope about in the dark, trying to find her way out. after knocking herself several times against the chairs and other furniture in her endeavours, she, at last, saw a faint light coming from underneath a door a short distance down the room. feeling her way carefully to it and pushing it open, she found that it led into a large conservatory. an old man who, she thought, must 94be the gardener, was potting some tall plants before a low bench at the further end of it, and, to girlie’s great surprise, she could see that the sun was shining brightly.
“now, that’s very curious,” she thought; “i certainly thought that it was night time. i’m sure that the gas was alight while we were having dinner. i’ll ask this old gentleman.” “could you please tell me what time it is?” she said aloud, walking over to the gardener.
“we haven’t got any here, miss,” he replied mournfully.
“any what?” asked girlie.
“any time, miss. haven’t you heard of people not having any time before?” said the gardener.
“yes,” said girlie, “people that are in a hurry sometimes say they haven’t any time, but you don’t seem to be in a hurry about anything.”
“oh, that isn’t the reason why we haven’t any time, miss; it’s because we’ve lost ours. you’ve heard of people losing time, haven’t you?”
“yes,” replied girlie, “i have.”
“well, if you’ll sit down here, miss,” said the gardener, turning a large flowerpot upside down for her to sit on, “i’ll tell you how we lost ours. it was like this here,” he continued, after girlie was seated. “we’d kept our 95time here for a long while, when one day the young man as they calls the king’s minstrel comes along, and he says, says he, ‘you don’t keep your time properly,’ he says. ‘what do you mean?’ we says. ‘well,’ he says, ‘you don’t beat him, do you?’ ‘no,’ we says. ‘what do we want to beat him for?’ we says. ‘oh,’ he says, ‘you have to be very strict with your time,’ he says, ‘and you ought to beat him to make him go quicker,’ he says. well, miss, some of us, we didn’t hold with these new-fangled notions at all, but some of the others wanted to try it, so, after a bit, we took to beating our time regular, we did, and, for a little while, miss, he did go quicker, so quick, in fact, that we couldn’t keep up to him at all, but were always behind him. you’ve heard of people being behind time, haven’t you, miss?”
“oh yes!” said girlie, “go on, please.”
“well, miss, after a bit our time he began to go slower again, and by-and-by he slowly passed away altogether.” the gardener paused and looked at girlie as though he expected her to say something.
“where did he go to?” she asked.
“we never knew, miss; we hunted high and low for him, but he never came back again, so now we haven’t any time at all worth speaking of. the king’s 96minstrel, he said as how he would teach us to make time, but bless you, miss, the time we gets nowadays ain’t no ways to be compared to the old time what we used to have, no more than string is like tobaccer, miss. why, our time is awful mixed; look at us now, for example, we’re in the middle of next week to-day, and to-morrow is as likely as not to be the day before yesterday. that’s why i’m cutting these plants down and putting them into smaller pots, you know, miss. then take the length of the days,” he went on, “some is that short as you don’t know how to get your clothes on before it’s time to go to bed again, and others is that long as you’re obliged to have eight or nine dinners a day, or you would starve. then the days of the week, too, there’s no depending on them; if you’ll believe me, miss, i’ve known no less than thirteen fridays in one week, which is most unlucky. and last year midsummer day was only two days before christmas, after which we had three new year’s days running. as for birthdays, miss, it’s quite impossible to tell how old you are. my son bill, for instance, has had ever so many more birthdays than me, owing to his having been born in march, and a little while ago it kept on being march over and over again, till i should think that poor boy is a hundred, if he’s 97a day. then, again, how are you to know what wages to expect when you can’t tell yourself from one day to another whether you’ll have been in a place three years and nine months or only two months and a day?”
“it certainly must be very puzzling,” said girlie, who had been listening most attentively.
“puzzling ain’t the word, miss,” said the gardener. “why, look at my poor daughter, now, she was to have been married on the 19th of june, and dash me if there’s been any 19th of june for these last twenty years or more, and now her husband that was to be, young spuffles, the miller’s son, has gone and failed through having put some mustard in with his flour by accident.”
“oh, i heard the miller’s son had some mustard,” remarked girlie, remembering the schoolmistress’s question.
“where did you hear of it, miss? if i may be so bold,” asked the gardener.
“oh, it was one of the questions at the public meeting,” said girlie. “the schoolmistress asked ‘has the son of the miller the mustard of the daughter of the gardener?’”
“it’s like her imperence,” said the gardener; “but there, she always was a busy body, she was. drat the 98hat!” he continued, as a high hat dropped down with a loud crash on the top of the conservatory and then rolled off on to the lawn. “they’re having a hat hunt somewheres,” he went on, “and this here one has escaped them, i expect.”
“whatever is a hat hunt?” asked girlie curiously.
“oh, it’s a kind of game, miss, that they play hereabouts. it’s rare fun for them as can run quick.”
“how do they play it?” asked girlie.
“why, miss, it’s like this here; they wait till there’s a high wind a-blowin’, and then they throws a lot of high hats up into the air and try to catch ‘em as they’re flying about. it’s wonderful, miss, how them hats do dodge you, to be sure. i suppose now, miss, you’ve never tried to catch a hat when it’s a-blowin’ about, have you?”
“oh yes, i have,” said girlie. “my own blew off the other day, and i had to run a very long way before i could catch it. it would be very easy to catch this one, though,” she said, looking out on to the lawn where the hat was lying quite still just outside the door.
“not so easy as you think, miss,” said the gardener; “you just try.”
99girlie opened the door and stepped out, and was just going to pick up the hat, when it started rolling off again. “bother!” she said, running after it.
“you’d better take this rake with you, miss, if you want to catch it,” called out the gardener, who was watching her from the door.
“she could hear the old gardener laughing loudly at her.”
girlie ran back for the rake and then hurried after the hat, which had stopped under a rose bush. “i’ve got it this time,” she thought when she came up to it; but, just when she stretched out her hand to take hold of it, a sudden gust of wind blew it up into the air again, and it went sailing merrily off in a most provoking manner. girlie made two or three ineffectual dabs at it with the rake, but could not reach it—she could hear the old gardener laughing loudly at her while he watched her from the conservatory door, and it made her determined to catch the hat, if she possibly could. by-and-by it settled down on the top of a low yew hedge at the end of the lawn, and girlie hurried after it, grasping her rake firmly in her hand. when she reached the hedge she struck out at it rather crossly with the rake, only to see it go flying off into the meadow beyond, while a voice on the other side of the hedge called out in an indignant manner,—
100“i say there, pray be careful what you’re about; do you know that you very nearly had my head off?”
“i’m sure i’m very sorry,” said girlie, peeping through the hedge and trying to see who was speaking to her. she could see nobody, however, so she ran to a little gate which she could see in the hedge, and then walked slowly back on the other side to where the voice had proceeded from.
“why, he’s gone,” she said aloud, when she got there and found no one in sight.
“no, i’m not, i’m here,” said the voice plaintively; “can’t you see me?”
girlie looked about her but could see no one. “who are you, please?” she asked.
“i’m supposed to be a joke,” said the voice, “though i have my doubts about it; nobody has ever been able to see me yet.”
“that must be very awkward for you,” said girlie pityingly.
“yes,” said the joke, “it is. i’m afraid i shall turn into a paradox soon, if it goes on much longer.”
“gracious! what a long word,” exclaimed girlie. “whatever is a paradox?”
“when a thing is what it isn’t and yet isn’t what 101it is, it’s a paradox,” said the joke. “and since i am beginning to think it’s no joke to be a joke, i suppose i must be a kind of paradox,” he added wearily.
girlie couldn’t think of anything comforting to say, though she really felt very sorry for the poor joke, “for it must be so very uncomfortable to be invisible,” she thought, “and not even to know yourself what you really are.”
“here comes the royal microscopist,” said the joke a minute or two later. “you might ask him to try and see me with his microscope, will you please?”
girlie looked across the meadow and saw the royal microscopist and the doctor-in-law coming along arm-in-arm. the doctor-in-law was triumphantly carrying the hat, which he had evidently succeeded in capturing.
“they are called chimney-pot hats,” he was explaining, “because they blow about in windy weather just as chimney-pots do. that will be two and ninepence, please;” and he stopped and held out his hand while the royal microscopist fumbled about in his pocket for his purse. he had just handed the doctor-in-law half a sovereign and was waiting for the change, when he saw girlie. hastily putting on his spectacles, he hurried over to her while the doctor-in-law pocketed the money.
102“bless me!” he cried, staring at her curiously; “the human noun, i do declare! how very singular!”
“i don’t see why you should think it singular at all,” said girlie boldly.
“don’t you, my dear? well, you are singular, very singular—indeed, most singular—because, you see, there’s only one of you. now, if there had been two of you, you know, you might have been plural, if you wished. dear me! what have you done with your case?” he asked, peering at her over the top of his spectacles.
“my case! what do you mean?” asked girlie.
“every respectable noun is expected to carry a case,” said the doctor-in-law; “you ought to know that by this time, if you’ve ever been to school. what mood do you think she’s in?” he asked, turning to the royal microscopist.
the royal microscopist stared at her a minute or two over his glasses, and then said in a decided voice, “very disagreeable mood. but then, there’s some excuse for her, you know; she’s only a third person, and the third person is always disagreeable; that’s why ‘two’s company and three’s none.’”
“why should i be the third person, pray?” asked girlie, who did not at all approve the way in which they were talking about her.
103“i’m the first person, my friend here is the second person, and so you must be the third,” replied the royal microscopist.
“there’s only one thing wrong about that,” said the doctor-in-law; “i am the first person.”
“now, that’s too bad of you, doctor-in-law,” said the royal microscopist. “you know we agreed that we were to take it in turns to be the first person.”
“we didn’t do anything of the sort,” said the doctor-in-law angrily. “i’m always the first person.”
“oh! please don’t quarrel,” said girlie. “besides, i think i ought to be the first person, considering that i was here first.”
“ha-ha-ha! she’s got the best of you there,” laughed the joke.
the royal microscopist and the doctor-in-law both started and looked about nervously.
“what’s that?” whispered the royal microscopist in an alarmed voice.
“only a joke,” replied girlie. “he wants you to try and see him; he’s afraid he’s turning into a para—para——”
“parachute,” suggested the doctor-in-law.
“no, i don’t think that was it,” said girlie. “what 104did you say you were turning into?” she asked of the joke.
there was no answer.
“he seems to have gone away,” said the doctor-in-law.
“ha-ha-ha! then i can see it,” laughed the royal microscopist; “that is the joke. he waits till you want him, and then he goes away,—ha-ha-ha! very funny, very funny indeed.”
“i don’t think it’s at all a good joke,” said girlie.
“of course not, my dear,” said the royal microscopist; “it’s a very bad joke, a very bad joke indeed, to run away just when we wanted him. but it’s very funny that one should not be able to see him till after he had gone; that’s really funny, very funny indeed—ha-ha-ha! hee-hee!”
“don’t go on like that or you’ll have a fit,” remarked the doctor-in-law crossly.
“well, what if i do?” replied the royal microscopist. “i suppose i can have a fit, if i like. i’m not obliged to ask you, am i? i’ll have two, if i wish. i’ll have the measles, if i like, and i’ll have the scarlatina and the croup, if i want to—so there!” and the royal microscopist stamped his foot pettishly.
105“don’t be absurd,” said the doctor-in-law; “and come along and buy your excuse, or you will be too late.”
“bless me, yes! so i will,” cried the royal microscopist.
“the old gentleman hurried off.”
“i’m going to buy an excuse for not having found out what a goo is,” he hurriedly explained to girlie. “and this is thursday—early-closing day, you know; so, if i don’t hurry up, i shall be too late. good-bye. see you later;” and, taking the doctor-in-law’s arm again, the old gentleman hurried off, stopping half-way across the meadow to call out, “can you run?”
106“yes!” girlie shouted back, wondering what he wanted to know for.
“very well, then; we’ll arrange a human race for you by-and-by,” returned the royal microscopist, hurrying down the hill and out of sight.
