“Oh, yes! He said: `That's all nonsense. What you saw was my bundle of
dusters. I was going to clean the windows. It takes a good many, you
know. Really, what they do say of their superiors down there!' `It's
only because they don't know better,' I ventured to say. `Of course,
of course,' said the little man. `Nobody ever does know better. Well,
I forgive them, and that sets it all right, I hope.' `It's very good
of you,' I said. `No!' said he, `it's not in the least good of me. I
couldn't be comfortable otherwise.' After this he said nothing for a
while, and I laid myself on the floor of his garret, and stared up and
around at the great blue beautifulness. I had forgotten him almost,
when at last he said: `Ain't you done yet?' `Done what?' I asked. `Done
saying your prayers,' says he. 'I wasn't saying my prayers,' I answered.
`Oh, yes, you were,' said he, `though you didn't know it! And now I must
show you something else.'
“He took my hand and led me down the stair again, and through a narrow
passage, and through another, and another, and another. I don't know
how there could be room for so many passages in such a little house. The
heart of it must be ever so much farther from the sides than they are
from each other. How could it have an inside that was so independent of
its outside? There's the point. It was funny--wasn't it, Diamond?”
“No,” said Diamond. He was going to say that that was very much the sort
of thing at the back of the north wind; but he checked himself and only
added, “All right. I don't see it. I don't see why the inside should
depend on the outside. It ain't so with the crabs. They creep out of
their outsides and make new ones. Mr. Raymond told me so.”
“I don't see what that has got to do with it,” said Nanny.
“Then go on with your story, please,” said Diamond. “What did you come
to, after going through all those winding passages into the heart of the
moon?”
“I didn't say they were winding passages. I said they were long and
narrow. They didn't wind. They went by corners.”
“That's worth knowing,” remarked Diamond. “For who knows how soon he may
have to go there? But the main thing is, what did you come to at last?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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