was admitted, and partly because you had to ring also, and there wasn’t any bell. But there seemed just a chance of getting in by the right-hand part of the door, and he went up to it and knocked. To his great surprise he heard a bell ring inside as soon as he had knocked, which seemed to explain ‘ring also.’ The bell did not sound like an electric bell, but was like the servants’ dinner bell. As soon as it had stopped, he heard a voice inside the door say very angrily:
‘Give me my tuffet at once.’
There was a pause, and David heard the noise of some furniture being moved, and the door flew open.
‘What’s your name?’ said the butler. ‘And have you got a calling-card?’
David gave him one of his cards, and he looked at it and turned it upside down.
‘It’s one of them dratted upside-downers,’ he said, ‘and it sends the blood to the head something awful.’
He gave a heavy sigh, and bent down and stood on his head.
‘Now I can read it,’ he said. ‘Are you David or Blaize? If David, where’s Blaize, and if Blaize, where’s David?’
‘I’m both,’ said David.
‘You can’t be both of them,’ said the butler. ‘And I expect you’re neither of them. And why didn’t you go away?’
‘You’ve given me too much curds,’ said a voice behind the door. ‘I’ve told you before to find some way to weigh the whey. It’s a curd before. Take it away!’
‘That must be Miss Muffet,’ thought David. ‘There’s a girl creeping into it after all. I wonder if she makes puns all the time. I wish I hadn’t knocked.’
‘No, I’m rationed about puns,’ said Miss Muffet, as if he had spoken aloud, ‘and I’ve had my week’s allowance now. But a margin’s allowed for margarine. Butter – margarine,’ she said in explanation.
‘I saw that, said David.
‘No, you didn’t: you heard it. Now, come in and shut the door, because the tuffet’s blowing about. And the moment you’ve shut the door, shut your eyes too, because I’m not quite ready. I’ll sing to you my last ballad while you’re waiting. I shall make it up as I go along.’
Accordingly David shut the door, and then his eyes, and Miss Muffet began to sing in a thin cracked voice:
‘As it fell out upon a day
When margarine was cheap,
It filled up all the grocers’ shops
In buckets wide and deep.
Ah, well-a-day! ah, ill-a-day!
Matilda bought a heap.
And it fell out upon a day
When margarine was dear,
Matilda bought a little more
And made it into beer.
Ah, well-a-day! ah, ill-a-day!
It tasted rather queer.
As it fell out upon a day
There wasn’t any more;
Matilda took her bottled beer
And poured it on the floor.
Ah, well-a-day! ah, ill-a-day!
And that was all I saw.’
‘Poor thing!’ said Miss Muffet. ‘Such a brief and mysterious career. Now you may open your eyes.’
David did so, and found himself in a large room, with all the furniture covered up as if the family was away. The butler was still standing on his head, squinting horribly at David’s card, and muttering to himself, ‘He can’t be both, and he may be neither. He may be either, but he can’t be both.’ In the middle of the room was a big round seat, covered with ribands which were still blowing about in the wind, and on it was seated a little old lady with horn spectacles, eating curds and whey out of a bowl that she held on her knees.
‘Come and sit on the tuffet at once,’ she said, ‘and then we’ll pretend that there isn’t room for the spider. Won’t that be a good joke? I like a bit of chaff with my spider. I expect the tuffet will bear, won’t it? But I can’t promise you any curds.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said David politely, ‘but I don’t like curds.’
‘No more do I,’ said Miss Muffet. ‘I knew we should agree.’
‘Then why do you eat them?’ asked David.
‘For fear the spider should get them. Don’t you adore my tuffet? It’s the only indoor tuffet in the world. All others are out-door tuffets. But they gave me this one because most spiders are out-of-door spiders. By the way, we haven’t been introduced yet. Where’s that silly butler?’
‘Here,’ said the butler. He was lying down on the floor now, and staring at the ceiling.
‘Introduce us,’ said Miss Muffet. ‘Say Miss Muffet, David Blaize – David Blaize, Miss Muffet. Then whichever way about it happens, you’re as comfortable as it is possible to be under the circumstances, or even above them, where it would naturally be colder.’
‘I don’t quite see,’ said David.
‘Poor Mr. Blaize. Put a little curds and whey in your eyes. That’s the way. Dear me, there’s another pun.’
‘You made it before,’ said David.
‘I know. It counts double this time. But as I was saying, a little curds and whey – oh! it’s tipped up again. What restless things curds are!’
She had not been looking at her bowl, and for several minutes now a perfect stream of curds and whey had been pouring from it over her knees and along the floor, to where the butler lay. He was still repeating, ‘Miss Muffet, David Blaize – David Blaize, Miss Muffet.’ Sometimes, by way of variety, he said, ‘Miss Blaize – David Muffet,’ but as nobody attended, it made no difference what he said.
‘It always happens when I get talking,’ she said. ‘And now we know each other, I may be permitted to express a hope that you didn’t expect to find me a little girl?’
‘No, I like you best as you are,’ said David quickly.
‘It isn’t for want of being asked that I’ve remained Miss Muffet,’ said she. ‘And it isn’t from want of being answered. But give me a little pleasant conversation now and then, and one good frightening away every night, and I’m sure I’ll have no quarrel with anybody; and I hope nobody hasn’t got none with me. How interesting it must be for you to meet me, when you’ve read about me so often. It’s not nearly so interesting for me, of course, because you’re not a public character.’
‘Does the spider come every night, or every day, whatever it is down here?’ asked David.
‘Yes, sooner or later,’ said Miss Muffet cheerfully, ‘but the sooner he comes, the sooner I get back again, and the later he comes the longer I have before he comes. So there we are.’
She stopped suddenly, and looked at the ceiling.
‘Do my eyes deceive me?’ she whispered, ‘or is that the s – ? No; my eyes deceive me,
