Page:Nine Unlikely Tales.djvu/236

228 so that each of the fifteen enemies gets his fair share! Go along with you!” said the Arithmetic Fairy.

But Edwin’s eyes were, as I said, wide open, goggling.

“I say,” he suddenly remarked, “how jolly pretty you are.”

The Arithmetic Fairy has but one weakness—a feminine weakness. She loves a pretty speech. If blunt, so much the worse; yet even bluntness....

She looked down and played shyly with the bunch of miscellaneous examples in vulgar fractions which adorned her waistband.

“I suppose you can’t be expected to understand, yet,” she said, and she said it very gently.

Edwin took courage.

“When I do things I want something to happen at once. ‘I want a white rabbit and I want it now.’”

She did not recognise the quotation.

“Get your Master to set you a little simple multiplication sum in white rabbits,” she said. “Goodbye, my child. You’ll know me better in time, and as you know me better you’ll love me more.”

“I ... you’re lovely now,” said Edwin.