Эдит Несбит: The Story of the Amulet

‘Buy me—do—please buy me!’

Cyril started as though he had been pinched, and jumped a yard away from the hutch.

‘Come back—oh, come back!’ said the voice, rather louder but still softly; ‘stoop down and pretend to be tying up your bootlace—I see it’s undone, as usual.’

Cyril mechanically obeyed. He knelt on one knee on the dry, hot dusty pavement, peered into the darkness of the hutch and found himself face to face with—the Psammead!

It seemed much thinner than when he had last seen it. It was dusty and dirty, and its fur was untidy and ragged. It had hunched itself up into a miserable lump, and its long snail’s eyes were drawn in quite tight so that they hardly showed at all.

‘Listen,’ said the Psammead, in a voice that sounded as though it would begin to cry in a minute, ‘I don’t think the creature who keeps this shop will ask a very high price for me. I’ve bitten him more than once, and I’ve made myself look as common as I can. He’s never had a glance from my beautiful, beautiful eyes. Tell the others I’m here—but tell them to look at some of those low, common beasts while I’m talking to you. The creature inside mustn’t think you care much about me, or he’ll put a price upon me far, far beyond your means. I remember in the dear old days last summer you never had much money. Oh—I never thought I should be so glad to see you—I never did.’ It sniffed, and shot out its long snail’s eyes expressly to drop a tear well away from its fur. ‘Tell the others I’m here, and then I’ll tell you exactly what to do about buying me.’ Cyril tied his bootlace into a hard knot, stood up and addressed the others in firm tones—

‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’m not kidding—and I appeal to your honour,’ an appeal which in this family was never made in vain. ‘Don’t look at that hutch—look at the white rat. Now you are not to look at that hutch whatever I say.’

He stood in front of it to prevent mistakes.

‘Now get yourselves ready for a great surprise. In that hutch there’s an old friend of ours—DON’T look!—Yes; it’s the Psammead, the good old Psammead! it wants us to buy it. It says you’re not to look at it. Look at the white rat and count your money! On your honour don’t look!’

The others responded nobly. They looked at the white rat till they quite stared him out of countenance, so that he went and sat up on his hind legs in a far corner and hid his eyes with his front paws, and pretended he was washing his face.

Cyril stooped again, busying himself with the other bootlace and listened for the Psammead’s further instructions.

‘Go in,’ said the Psammead, ‘and ask the price of lots of other things. Then say, “What do you want for that monkey that’s lost its tail—the mangy old thing in the third hutch from the end.” Oh—don’t mind MY feelings—call me a mangy monkey—I’ve tried hard enough to look like one! I don’t think he’ll put a high price on me—I’ve bitten him eleven times since I came here the day before yesterday. If he names a bigger price than you can afford, say you wish you had the money.’

‘But you can’t give us wishes. I’ve promised never to have another wish from you,’ said the bewildered Cyril.

‘Don’t be a silly little idiot,’ said the Sand-fairy in trembling but affectionate tones, ‘but find out how much money you’ve got between you, and do exactly what I tell you.’

Cyril, pointing a stiff and unmeaning finger at the white rat, so as to pretend that its charms alone employed his tongue, explained matters to the others, while the Psammead hunched itself, and bunched itself, and did its very best to make itself look uninteresting. Then the four children filed into the shop.

‘How much do you want for that white rat?’ asked Cyril.

‘Eightpence,’ was the answer.

‘And the guinea-pigs?’

‘Eighteenpence to five bob, according to the breed.’

‘And the lizards?’

‘Ninepence each.’

‘And toads?’

‘Fourpence. Now look here,’ said the greasy owner of all this caged life with a sudden ferocity which made the whole party back hurriedly on to the wainscoting of hutches with which the shop was lined. ‘Lookee here. I ain’t agoin’ to have you a comin’ in here a turnin’ the whole place outer winder, an’ prizing every animile in the stock just for your larks, so don’t think it! If you’re a buyer, BE a buyer—but I never had a customer yet as wanted to buy mice, and lizards, and toads, and guineas all at once. So hout you goes.’

‘Oh! wait a minute,’ said the wretched Cyril, feeling how foolishly yet well-meaningly he had carried out the Psammead’s instructions. ‘Just tell me one thing. What do you want for the mangy old monkey in the third hutch from the end?’

The shopman only saw in this a new insult.

‘Mangy young monkey yourself,’ said he; ‘get along with your blooming cheek. Hout you goes!’

‘Oh! don’t be so cross,’ said Jane, losing her head altogether, ‘don’t you see he really DOES want to know THAT!’

‘Ho! does ‘e indeed,’ sneered the merchant. Then he scratched his ear suspiciously, for he was a sharp business man, and he knew the ring of truth when he heard it. His hand was bandaged, and three minutes before he would have been glad to sell the ‘mangy old monkey’ for ten shillings. Now—‘Ho! ‘e does, does ‘e,’ he said, ‘then two pun ten’s my price. He’s not got his fellow that monkey ain’t, nor yet his match, not this side of the equator, which he comes from. And the only one ever seen in London. Ought to be in the Zoo. Two pun ten, down on the nail, or hout you goes!’

The children looked at each other—twenty-three shillings and fivepence was all they had in the world, and it would have been merely three and fivepence, but for the sovereign which Father had given to them ‘between them’ at parting. ‘We’ve only twenty-three shillings and fivepence,’ said Cyril, rattling the money in his pocket.

‘Twenty-three farthings and somebody’s own cheek,’ said the dealer, for he did not believe that Cyril had so much money.

There was a miserable pause. Then Anthea remembered, and said—

‘Oh! I WISH I had two pounds ten.’

‘So do I, Miss, I’m sure,’ said the man with bitter politeness; ‘I wish you ‘ad, I’m sure!’

Anthea’s hand was on the counter, something seemed to slide under it. She lifted it. There lay five bright half sovereigns.

‘Why, I HAVE got it after all,’ she said; ‘here’s the money, now let’s have the Sammy,… the monkey I mean.’

The dealer looked hard at the money, but he made haste to put it in his pocket.

‘I only hope you come by it honest,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. He scratched his ear again.

‘Well!’ he said, ‘I suppose I must let you have it, but it’s worth thribble the money, so it is—’

He slowly led the way out to the hutch—opened the door gingerly, and made a sudden fierce grab at the Psammead, which the Psammead acknowledged in one last long lingering bite.

‘Here, take the brute,’ said the shopman, squeezing the Psammead so tight that he nearly choked it. ‘It’s bit me to the marrow, it have.’

The man’s eyes opened as Anthea held out her arms.

‘Don’t blame me if it tears your face off its bones,’ he said, and the Psammead made a leap from his dirty horny hands, and Anthea caught it in hers, which were not very clean, certainly, but at any rate were soft and pink, and held it kindly and closely.

‘But you can’t take it home like that,’ Cyril said, ‘we shall have a crowd after us,’ and indeed two errand boys and a policeman had already collected.

‘I can’t give you nothink only a paper-bag, like what we put the tortoises in,’ said the man grudgingly.