And the first thing after breakfast they all went around to Toobad's
shop dressed in their old clothes, and each one of them kept his word
so well that Toobad was laid up in the hospital for a week. And every
time he got well and came out again a fresh batch of victims was
waiting to send him back again, for Winn had gone all about the city
telling everybody who had bought the enchanted clothes, how to pull
down their vests and get rid of them. And, of course, one of the first
persons he told after his immediate family was his mother's aunt's
second cousin. But as his mother's aunt's second cousin had forgotten
to put on his vest when he donned his enchanted suit, he could not pull
his vest down. And so the only thing to do was to give him chloroform
and skin the clothes off him a little strip at a time. After which they
sent _him_ to the hospital also, where he lay in bed right alongside of
Toobad the tailor.
And perhaps that is the reason Toobad is still in the hospital, for
after Winn's mother's aunt's second cousin got well, he refused to
go home, but sat down on the hospital steps to wait for Toobad. And
neither Winn's father, nor his grandfather, nor his uncle, nor his big
brother, were able to coax him away.
But as for Winn, he did not try to coax him, indeed he soon forgot
all about his mother's aunt's second cousin, for all the persons in
Vex who had been wearing Toobad's enchanted clothes, began sending
Winn presents to show their gratitude, and when you have sixteen gold
watches, and a couple of ponies, and skates, and air guns, and pretty
much every sort of a thing that a boy likes, you cannot think of much
else.
The best you can do is just to enjoy yourself, and if you think Winn is
not doing that, take a trip to Vex some day and you will soon find out.
THE SNOOPING-BUG
Once there was a Snooping Bug that lived in a glass jar on a shelf
in the cottage of a Fairy Godmother. Now fairy godmothers are always
nice, but this Fairy Godmother was _very_ nice, and the reason she kept
the Snooping Bug a prisoner in a jar on her shelf was because she was
afraid he would go about and get folks into trouble. And another thing
that showed she was unusually nice was that every week-end she always
invited a little prince or princess to be her guest. And this story
opens just as Prince Pranc, the only son of the king of a nearby city,
had arrived to spend several days with his Fairy Godmother.
"Now, Pranc," said the Fairy Godmother, "I want you to have the
happiest kind of a time, and you'll have it without doubt if you don't
get into mischief."
"Oh, that's all right," replied the Prince, as he watched the Fairy
Godmother unpack his trunk, "if I get into mischief you just send me
home again."
"Yes," said the Fairy Godmother, "but suppose you are not here to
send home again; suppose you have disappeared. Don't forget this is
an enchanted house and that strange things can happen in an enchanted
house."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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