Fairy Tale
Read books online » Fairy Tale » The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay (best classic books .txt) 📖

Book online «The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay (best classic books .txt) 📖». Author Norman Lindsay



1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Go to page:
the Puddin’ was poisoned at ten-thirty this morning.”

This news restored order at once. The Judge turned pale as lard, and the Usher, having a darker complexion, turned as pale as soap. The Puddin’ couldn’t turn pale, so he let out a howl of terror.

“Poisoned,” said the Usher, feebly. “How, how?”

“Poisoned,” said the Judge, feeling his stomach with trembling hands. “Until this moment I was under the delusion that a somewhat unpleasant sensation of being, as it were, distended, was merely due to having eaten seven slices. But if—”

“If,” said the Usher, in a quavering voice—

“If you take a poisoned Puddin’ And that poisoned Puddin’ chew, The sensations that you suffer I should rather say were due To the poison in the Puddin’ In the act of Poisoning You. And I think the fact suffices Through this dreadfulest of crimes, As you’ve eaten seven slices You’ve been poisoned seven times.”

“It was your idea having it up on the bench,” said the Judge, angrily, to the Usher. “Now,

“If what you say is true, That idea you’ll sadly rue, The poison I have eaten is entirely due to you. It’s by taking your advice That I’ve had my seventh slice, So I’ll tell you what I’ll do You unmitigated Jew, As a trifling satisfaction, Why, I’ll beat you black and blue,”

and with that he hit the Usher a smart crack on the head with a port bottle.

“Don’t strike a poisoned man,” shouted the Usher; but the Judge went on smacking and cracking him with the bottle, singing—

“The emotion of pity Need never be sought In a Judge who’s been poisoned By Puddin’ and Port.”

In desperation, the Usher leapt off the Bench, and landed head first in the dock, where he stuck like a sardine.

“Too bad, too bad,” shouted the puddin’-thieves. “Crowding in here where there’s only room for two.” Before they could get rid of the Usher, the Judge bounded over the bench and commenced whacking them with the bottle, singing—

“As I find great satisfaction Hitting anybody who Can offer that distraction, Why, I’ll have a go at you.”

and he went on bounding and whacking away with the bottle, while the puddin’-thieves kept roaring, and the Usher kept screaming. The uproar was deafening.

“Just listen to it,” said Bill, in despair. “I’d like to know how on earth we are going to finish the case with all this umptydoodle rumpus going on.”

“Why,” said Bunyip, “the simpler course is not to finish the case at all.”

“Solved, as usual,” said Bill and, seizing the Puddin’ from the bench, he dashed out of Court, followed by Sam, Ben and Bunyip Bluegum.

As they ran, they could hear the Judge still whacking away at everybody, including the Mayor, and the Constable, whose screams were piercing. “Indeed,” said Bunyip—

“I rather think they’ll rather rue The haste with which they sought to sue Us in the Court of Tooraloo. For, mark how just is Fate!

“The whole benighted, blooming crew, The Puddin’-thieves, the Usher too, Are being beaten black and blue With bottles on the pate.

“I rather think they will eschew, In future, Puddin’-owners who Pass through the simple rural view About the town of Tooraloo.”

“And now,” said Bill, when they had run a mile or two beyond the town, “and now for some brilliant plan, swiftly conceived, which will put a stop to this Puddin’-snatchin’ business for ever. For the point is,” continued Bill, lowering his voice, “here we are pretty close up to the end of the book, and something will have to be done in a Tremendous Hurry, or else we’ll be cut off short by the cover.”

“The solution is perfectly simple,” said Bunyip. “We have merely to stop wandering along the road, and the story will stop wandering through the book. This, too, will baffle the puddin’ thieves, for while we wander along the road, our Puddin’ is exposed to the covetous glances of every passing puddin’-snatcher. Let us, then, remove to some safe, secluded spot and settle down to a life of gaiety, dance and song, where no puddin’-thief will dare to show a sacrilegious head. Let us, in fact, build a house in a tree. For, mark the advantages of such a habitation—

“Up on high No neighbours pry In at the window, On the sly.

“Up on high Bricks you shy At bores and bailiffs Passing by.

“Up in a tree You’re always free From bores and bailiffs, You’ll agree.

“Up in the leaves One never grieves Over the pranks Of puddin’-thieves.

“If you would be Gay and free, Take my tip and Live in a tree.”

“We will, we will,” shouted the Puddin’-owners; but the Puddin’ said sourly: “This is all very well, all this high falutin’. But what about the dreadful news of me being poisoned at ten-thirty this morning?”

“You ain’t poisoned, Albert,” said Bill. “That was only a mere ruse de guerre, as they say in the noosepapers.”

A what?” demanded the Puddin’, suspiciously.

“Let words be sufficient, without explanation,” said Bill, severely. “And as we haven’t time to waste talkin’ philosophy to a Puddin’, why, into the bag he goes, or we’ll never get the story finished.”

So Puddin’ was bundled into the bag, and Bill said, hurriedly “Brilliant as our friend Bunyip has proved himself with his ready wit, it remains for old Bill to suggest the brightest idea of all. Here is our friend Ben, a market gardener of the finest description. Very well. Why not build our house in his market garden. The advantages are obvious. Vegetables free of charge the whole year round, and fruit in season. Eggs to be had for the askin’, and a fine, simple, honest feller like Ben, to chat to of an evening. What could be more delightful?”

Ben looked very grave at this proposal, and began: “I very much doubt whether there will be enough bed clothes for four people, let alone the carrots are very nervous of strangers—” when Bill cut him short with a hearty clap on the back.

“Say no more,” said Bill, handsomely. “Rough, good-humoured fellers like us don’t need apologies, or any social fal-lals at all. We’ll take you as we find you. Without more ado, we shall build a house in your market garden.”

And, without more ado, they did.

The picture opposite saves the trouble of explaining how they built it, and what a splendid house it is. In order that the Puddin’ might have plenty of exercise, they made him a little Puddin’ paddock, whence he can shout rude remarks to the people passing by; a habit, I grieve to state, he is very prone to.

Of course, at night they pull up the ladder in case a stray puddin’-thief happens to be prowling around. If a friend calls to have a quiet chat, or to join in a sing-song round the fire, they let the ladder down for him.

And a very pleasant life they lead, sitting of a summer evening on the balcony while Ben does his little market-garden jobs below, and the Puddin’ throws bits of bark at the cabbages, and pulls faces at the little pickle onions, in order to make them squeak with terror.

On winter nights there is always Puddin’ and hot coffee for supper, and many’s the good go-in I’ve had up there, a-sitting round the fire. I didn’t mean to let on that I knew their address, on account of so many people wanting to have a go at the Puddin’. However, it’s out now.

When the wind blows and the rain comes down, it’s jolly sitting up aloft in the snug tree-house, especially when old Bill is in good form and gives us “The Salt Junk Sarah”, with all hands joining in the chorus.

“Oh, rolling round the ocean, From a far and foreign land, May suit the common notion That a sailor’s life is grand.

“But as for me, I’d sooner be A roaring here at home About the rolling, roaring life Of them that sails the foam.

“For the homeward-bounder’s chorus, Which he roars across the foam, Is all about chucking a sailor’s life, And settling down at home.

“Home, home, home, That’s the song of them that roam, The song of the roaring, rolling sea Is all about rolling home.”

 

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE MAGIC PUDDING ***

This file should be named mpudd10.txt or mpudd10.zip Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, mpudd11.txt VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mpudd10a.txt

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, even years after the official publication date.

Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment and editing by those who wish to do so.

Most people start at our Web sites at: http://gutenberg.net or http://promo.net/pg

These Web sites include award-winning information about Project Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).

 

Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03

Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, as it appears in our Newsletters.

 

Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 If they reach just 1-2% of the world’s population then the total will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year’s end.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.

Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):

eBooks Year Month

1 1971 July 10 1991 January 100 1994 January 1000 1997 August 1500 1998 October 2000 1999 December 2500 2000 December 3000 2001 November 4000 2001 October/November 6000 2002 December* 9000 2003 November* 10000 2004 January*

 

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.

We need your donations more than ever!

As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Go to page:

Free ebook «The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay (best classic books .txt) 📖» - read online now

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment