Page:The book of Betty Barber (IA bookofbettybarbe00andr).pdf/77

 “What is the matter?” asked a very kind voice. “ Have you, too, been trying to make apple pies out of cabbage leaves?”

Lucy examined the new-comer carefully, beginning with his boots and ending with the little button on top of his head, and Lucy bowed low. “You must be the Grand Panjandrum himself,” she said, and she bowed again and began to walk backwards.

“Let me help you, don’t go,” said the Grand Panjandrum, “I know she very imprudently married the barber, but don’t go.”

Lucy still continued to walk backwards. She knew that people always walked backwards before Royalty, and she felt sure that the Grand Panjandrum himself must be a person of very very great importance.

“What, no soap!” cried the Grand Panjandrum, and then quite suddenly he began to dance.

Lucy watched him a minute, then she called out, “Oh, the gunpowder!” and began to run as fast as ever she could, for she knew gunpowder was a thing with which no good little girl should play.

Though she soon began to puff and pant, she did not stop running until she found herself in front of a hedge, and she threw herself down beneath it.

“There’s no doubt about it,” she said sadly. “I’m in Nonsense Land. Well, I must get out. I must find that stile.” Then she stopped talking, and stared hard at a wood not very far away in the distance.

Something was happening at the top of one of the big trees. Something on it was moving, something white, or was it grey? It could not be a bird, it was too big. It was a signal. Lucy jumped to her feet, and looked about her for something to wave back. Someone up the tree was waving to her. Perhaps the tree was the one in the trunk of which the Book of Betty Barber was hidden. Perhaps it was Half-term or Thirteen-fourteenths signalling.

Lucy took off her pinafore and waved it in the air wildly.

Then she shouted, “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” and began to feel quite happy once more.

59