Jack looked about, but there was no seat for Mopsa; and he was afraid
to let her run about on the floor, lest she should be hurt.
There was a very large dish standing before the Queen; for though the
people were small, the plates and dishes were exactly like those we
use, and of the same size.
This dish was raised on a foot, and filled with grapes and peaches.
Jack wondered at himself for doing it, but he saw no other place for
Mopsa; so he took out the fruit, laid it round the dish, and set his
own little one-foot-one in the dish.
Nobody looked in the least surprised; and there she sat very happily,
biting an apple with her small white teeth.
Then, as they brought him nothing to eat, Jack helped himself from
some of the dishes before him, and found that a fairy breakfast was
very nice indeed.
In the meantime there was a noise outside, and in stumped an elderly
woman. She had very thick boots on, a short gown of red print, an
orange cotton handkerchief over her shoulders, and a black silk
bonnet. She was exactly the same height as the Queen,--for of course
nobody in Fairyland is allowed to be any bigger than the Queen; so, if
they are not children when they arrive, they are obliged to shrink.
"How are you, dear?" said the Queen.
"I am as well as can be expected," answered the apple-woman, sitting
down in the empty chair. "Now, then, where's my tea? They're never
ready with my cup of tea."
Two attendants immediately brought a cup of tea, and set it down
before the apple-woman, with a plate of bread and butter; and she
proceeded to pour it into the saucer, and blow it, because it was hot.
In so doing her wandering eyes caught sight of Jack and little Mopsa,
and she set down the saucer, and looked at them with attention.
Now Mopsa, I am sorry to say, was behaving so badly that Jack was
quite ashamed of her. First, she got out of her dish, took something
nice out of the Queen's plate with her fingers, and ate it; and then,
as she was going back, she tumbled over a melon, and upset a glass of
red wine, which she wiped up with her white frock; after which she got
into her dish again, and there she sat smiling, and daubing her pretty
face with a piece of buttered muffin.
"Mopsa," said Jack, "you are very naughty; if you behave in this way,
I shall never take you out to parties again."
"Pretty lamb!" said the apple-woman; "It's just like a child." And
then she burst into tears, and exclaimed, sobbing, "It's many a long
day since I've seen a child. Oh dear! oh deary me!"
Upon this, to the astonishment of Jack, every one of the guests began
to cry and sob too.
"Oh dear! oh dear!" they said to one another, "we're crying; we can
cry just as well as men and women. Isn't it delightful? What a luxury
it is to cry, to be sure!"
They were evidently quite proud of it; and when Jack looked at the
Queen for an explanation, she only gave him a still little smile.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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