Page:Stories and story-telling (1915).djvu/191

 "It is dull Old Deposit," they murmured to one another, and felt contemptuous, but curious, as scornful people often will be.

"I am going to be glorious and great," thought Lampblack, and his heart swelled high; for nevermore would they be able to hurl the name of Deposit at him, a name which hurt all the more because he did not know what it meant.

"You will do for this work," said the master, and let Lampblack out of his metal prison-house into the light and touched him with the brush that was the wand of magic.

"What am I going to be?" wondered Lampblack, as he felt himself taken on to a large piece of deal board, so large that he felt he must be going to make at the least the outline of an athlete or the shadows of a tempest.

He could not tell what he was becoming; but he was happy enough and grand enough only to be used. He began to dream a thousand things of all the scenes he would be in, and all the hues that he would wear, and all the praise that he would hear when he went out into that wonderful world where his master was so much admired.

But he was harshly roused from his secret dreams; all the colors were laughing and tittering round him till the little tin helmets they wore shook with their merriment.

"Old Deposit is going to be a sign-post," they