HAIRY QUEEN sat in her office drinking afternoon tea. Fairy Queen, thinking how she could please children best, had turned publisher. She had come to London, she had taken an office up a steep flight of stairs, and had sent out her fairies all over Europe in search of children’s books. Off they had gone in all directions, and so many manuscripts and books had been sent in or brought back by them, that Fairy Queen published volume after volume of the Children’s Library, and still there remained a lot of work to be done.
There she sat now thinking over the tales she had published and over those she was planning to publish, as the clock of St. Paul’s slowly struck five. Fairy Queen poured out a last cup of tea; she finished sorting a heap[2] of letters which she packed away in the drawers of her writing-table, and listened in the direction of the room next to hers. There were steps on the stairs coming and going. Then there was a good deal of banging about the room, and Fairy Queen’s ear caught snatches of a song.
In that room were stored books, and manuscripts, and letters and brown paper parcels, and there by the side of the big, big waste-paper basket of Fairy Queen’s publishing firm, sat Gogul Mogul reading manuscripts. Gogul Mogul was a long-legged creature, with a tiny head, who had come out of Fairyland to help publish tales suitable for child readers. He was devoted to Fairy Queen, and read through piles and piles of manuscript with great perseverance, though he frequently groaned, longing to be back in Fairyland.
But he was not groaning now. As Fairy Queen opened the door calling to him, he was lightly dancing a double shuffle and waving a telegram to the tune. At sight of her he burst into a joyous laugh.
‘Her absence need not cast a shadow on us all,’ he cried; ‘the fairy from Germany is on her way home. She telegraphs to me from Dover; she will be here in time for the fairies’ meeting. And having passed the seas and crossed the sands, she found the story of the Little Glass Man at last.’
[3]
‘A good thing, a good thing,’ said Fairy Queen, taking the telegram; ‘as it is, I have lost all patience with her. From France, from Ireland, from Greece, even from Russia, numbers of tales have arrived. And from Germany, so much nearer to us, so much more literary, nothing comes. Just as though there were not plenty of fairy tales to be found there! But I have no doubt she has wasted so much time looking for these special stories, just because you had set your heart on having them.’
‘Upon my word,’ Gogul Mogul said. And he jumped over his toes, a feat he was fond of performing, serenely smiling at the large blot of ink which ornamented his forefinger.
‘Of course you will meet her at the station,’ said Fairy Queen; ‘see her home, and call for her again in a cab. The meeting begins at nine; all the fairies who are in town will be there. And mind you do not keep us waiting as you did last month!’
Her tone was severe; but Gogul Mogul went on smiling his sweetest smile, while he muttered to himself—