Two accordion-players began to play a quadrille.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ACCORDION-PLAYERS BEGAN]

The Rats licked their chops and, pulling at their moustaches, strutted about full of joy.

Two chariots, filled with a pearly and transparent paste, were brought up, and several dancers taking long pipes began rapidly to make b.a.l.l.s of it, and to blow them at the rackets; the paste seemed to be of some sugary substance, and if they blew too hard the b.a.l.l.s exploded without leaving so much as a trace.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TENNIS]

Several b.a.l.l.s vanished in this way.

Then a pretty blue ball, spangled with gold, hit one of the vermicelli rackets. The ball went right through the racket; but since it had lost velocity, it hung motionless in mid-air.

While the ball was hanging thus, the two players who had the rackets of parchment tossed up to decide which of the two should send the ball back.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BALL HUNG UP THUS]

This fell to the part of the fair girl, who advanced with the stately steps of a quadrille, while the ball hung awaiting her, and with one short stroke she hit it towards one of the teacups.

The ball rushed forward undeviatingly; but, as it neared the cup, its speed slackened so as not to break it. Finally it crept in as gently as a baby is put in a cradle.

"For you, Vera, for you," cried the fair girl who had hit the ball.

"Thank you, my love," replied she who had been called Vera.

And thus the game went on; whenever a girl hit one of the b.a.l.l.s hanging in mid-air she cried out the name of the friend to whom she offered it.

By this ingenious method, without disputes or complications, the eight cups received each its ball, and when the game was over Vera took her ball, Dorothea hers, Simonetta hers, and so on, until each girl had her ball.

They then all embraced, and twining their arms about each other began to go back along the road down which they had arrived.

When they pa.s.sed by Smaly, who was still standing at the door of the kitchen, he demanded:

"But who won?"

The young girls were quite unable to understand what this question meant. They smiled divinely at him with their delicately curved mouths, then each one showed him her ball made of pearly sugar.

CHAPTER XII

The Mother of the Crow tells of the life and death of Djorak in his own country.

All this time Smaly and Redy had remained in the great kitchen. Suddenly they heard a voice say:

"It's confoundedly cold in this disgusting kitchen."

"Hullo, who is that?" asked Smaly and Redy together.

"It's I," replied the Mother of the Crow.

Peering about them they discovered her where she had been left forgotten under the table, still sitting in her oyster-sh.e.l.l.

"I'm cold," she said again.

"What can we do for you?" exclaimed Redy pityingly.

"Yes, how can we help?" asked Smaly.

"Take me back to my tree of coral."

"They won't let us go out of here," exclaimed Redy and Smaly.

"Then put the Tea-Cosy over me," suggested the poor old Mother of the Crow, whose teeth were chattering in her beak.

And so it was done.

There was no longer anything to see but a Tea-Cosy. The Mother of the Crow was completely hidden.

"Now I'm nice and warm," said the Mother of the Crow.

It was really quite a new experience for Smaly and Redy to hold a conversation with a Tea-Cosy. The Mother of the Crow was a great chatterbox, and she knew a thing or two, and several things more after that.

"What are you doing here?" asked the Tea-Cosy.

Redy and Smaly folded their hands, and began:

We wish to have three girls, Fine, sweet----

"I know, I know," interrupted the Tea-Cosy, "but I meant what are you doing here in the great kitchen?"

"We're waiting for the sun to go down," was the response.

"And you can't leave till then," replied the Tea-Cosy. "Then tell me a story, a nice long story. I love long stories," added the Tea-Cosy with enthusiasm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TEA-COSY]

"Are you equally fond of telling long stories?" asked Redy and Smaly, both seized with the same idea.

"I like it even better than gooseberry-fool and candy-sugar caterpillars," replied the Tea-Cosy in a voice that trembled with excitement.

[Ill.u.s.tration: KISIKA IN HER SEDAN-CHAIR

_Page 165_]