Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/22

8 color and light,—how like or unlike the actuality; no one could possibly tell.

"Blue is a cool thing, like water, or ice clinking in your glass," he would say, "and red's hot and sizzly, like the fire."

"Very true," his informants would agree; but for all that, they could not be sure what his conception might be of the colors.

Things were so confusing! There, for instance, were tomatoes. They were certainly very cool things, if you ate them sliced (when you were allowed), yet you were told that they were as red as red could be! And nothing could have been hotter than the blue tea-pot, when he picked it up by its spout; but that, to be sure, was caused by the tea. Yet the hot wasn't any color; oh, dear!

Ken had not practised the art of seeing stories for nothing. He plunged in with little hesitation, and with a grand flourish.

"My tale is of kings, it is," he said; "ancient kings—Babylonian kings, if you must know. It was thousands and thousands of years ago they lived, and you'd never be able to imagine the wonderful cities they built. They had hanging gardens that were—"