Читать книгу The Missing Prince - G. E. Farrow - Страница 10

The guests were principally dolls dressed in the most varied of costumes, from silks, brocades and satins, to black paint; some fastidious-looking young gentlemen with fair curled hair, and dressed in pale blue knitted suits, were leaning against the wall in affected attitudes, and a whole group of Dutch dolls were gathered around a military-looking person in a cocked hat lolling luxuriously on an ottoman at one end of the room. There was a Toy Band at the other end, which looked very imposing, but which Boy found out was only for show, the Musicians only pretending to perform, while the music was really supplied by a musical box hidden away at the back. A number of dolls were dancing a polka when Boy and One-and-Nine entered, so they sat down on a rout-seat near the door and watched them.

A supercilious-looking doll in evening dress sat next to Boy, fanning herself fussily.

“Very mixed lot of people here,” she began, without the slightest introduction. “I should not have come if I had known what to expect. Are you a friend of Mr. Waxxe-Doll’s?” she asked.

“No, I’ve never met him before,” replied Boy.

“Ah! vulgar person, very—plenty of money, though—likes to be thought grand. Of course he isn’t a Waxxe-Doll at all. His wife was a Waxxe and he took her name—it looks very well joined to his with a hyphen, you know. Mrs. Waxxe-Doll is of French descent, and gives herself airs in consequence. They’ve hired this Castle for the season at enormous expense, but bless you, they are nobodies! See that vulgar-looking old lady in the corner—with a pipe in her mouth—they call her Ancient Aunt Sarah; but she’s nothing of the sort. Everybody knows her; she’s just ‘Old Aunt Sally, three-shies-a-penny,’ so it’s no use their trying to disguise the fact. Look at those two,” she went on, as two dolls in very straight narrow dresses danced past, “what guys! But there, what can you expect? They came out of the ark, I believe.”

And Boy could see that they really did look like the figures out of Noah’s Ark.

The music stopped just then, and most of the dolls went out into the grounds to get cool; and Boy, who did not at all care for the spiteful little person who had been letting him into all the Waxxe-Doll’s family secrets, thought that he would follow their example.

One-and-Nine had wandered off by himself, so Boy had no one to talk to.

He found the grounds brilliantly illuminated with little wax vestas stuck in the sand, and the toy trees and rustic bridges looked quite pretty in the light. Three or four Gentlemen dolls were playing a kind of game by the pond, and asked Boy to join them. He found that it was called “Stock Brokers,” and he soon learned how to play it.

Each had a large sheet of blue paper which was called a “Stock,” and which when torn in half became a “Share.” These pieces of paper were thrown into the air, and the game consisted in blowing under these pieces of paper, or “raising the wind,” as it was called, in order to keep them floating: the one who kept his “Share” or “Stock” from falling longest won the game. Boy quite enjoyed playing it until one of his “Shares” fell to the ground, and then he was “broke,” as they called it, and so he lost the game.