Fairies -- Fiction; Great Britain -- History -- Edward VII, 1901-1910 -- Fiction; Siblings -- Fiction; Wishes -- Fiction
Bill was a man who knew his business. In a very little while, the
photographic views, the spyglasses you look at them through, so
that they really seem rather real, and the lights you see them by,
were all packed away. A curtain - it was an old red-and-black
carpet really - was run across the tent. Robert was concealed
behind, and Bill was standing on a trestle-table outside the tent
making a speech. It was rather a good speech. It began by saying
that the giant it was his privilege to introduce to the public that
day was the eldest son of the Emperor of San Francisco, compelled
through an unfortunate love affair with the Duchess of the Fiji
Islands to leave his own country and take refuge in England - the
land of liberty - where freedom was the right of every man, no
matter how big he was. It ended by the announcement that the first
twenty who came to the tent door should see the giant for
threepence apiece. 'After that,' said Bill, 'the price is riz, and
I don't undertake to say what it won't be riz to. So now's yer
time.'
A young man squiring his sweetheart on her afternoon out was the
first to come forward. For that occasion his was the princely
attitude - no expense spared - money no object. His girl wished to
see the giant? Well, she should see the giant, even though seeing
the giant cost threepence each and the other entertainments were
all penny ones.
The flap of the tent was raised - the couple entered. Next moment
a wild shriek from the girl thrilled through all present. Bill
slapped his leg. 'That's done the trick!' he whispered to 'Becca.
It was indeed a splendid advertisement of the charms of Robert.
When the girl came out she was pale and trembling, and a crowd was
round the tent.
'What was it like?' asked a bailiff.
'Oh! - horrid! - you wouldn't believe,' she said. 'It's as big as
a barn, and that fierce. It froze the blood in my bones. I
wouldn't ha' missed seeing it for anything.'
The fierceness was only caused by Robert's trying not to laugh.
But the desire to do that soon left him, and before sunset he was
more inclined to cry than to laugh, and more inclined to sleep than
either. For, by ones and twos and threes, people kept coming in
all the afternoon, and Robert had to shake hands with those who
wished it, and allow himself to be punched and pulled and patted
and thumped, so that people might make sure he was really real.
The other children sat on a bench and watched and waited, and were
very bored indeed. It seemed to them that this was the hardest way
of earning money that could have been invented. And only fifteen
shillings! Bill had taken four times that already, for the news of
the giant had spread, and tradespeople in carts, and gentlepeople
in carriages, came from far and near. One gentleman with an
eyeglass, and a very large yellow rose in his buttonhole, offered
Robert, in an obliging whisper, ten pounds a week to appear at the
Crystal Palace. Robert had to say 'No'.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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