Read Online The Book of Dragons by E. Nesbit - Free Book Online Page B

“but I have a fire
work
. It’s only a squib one of the boys gave me, if that’s any good;” and he began to feel among the string, and peppermints, and buttons, and tops, and nibs, and chalk, and foreign postage-stamps in his knickerbocker pockets.
    “One could but try,” the sportsman replied, and he held out his hand.
    But Jane pulled at her brother’s jacket-tail, and whispered, “Ask him what he wants it for.”
    So then the sportsman had to confess that he wanted the firework to kill the white grouse with; and, when they came to look, there was the white grouse himself, sitting in the snow, looking quite pale and careworn, and waiting anxiously for the matter to be decided one way or the other.
    George put all the things back in his pockets, and said, “No, I shan’t. The season for shooting him stopped yesterday—I heard father say so—so it wouldn’t be fair, anyhow. I’m very sorry; but I can’t—so there!”
    The sportsman said nothing, only he shook his fist at Jane, and then he got on the slide and tried to go towards the Crystal Palace—which was not easy, because that way is uphill. So they left him trying, and went on.
    Before they started the white grouse thanked them in a few pleasant, well-chosen words, and then they took a sideways slanting run, and started off again on the great slide, and so away towards the North Pole and the twinkling, beautiful lights.
    The great slide went on and on, and the lights did not seem to come much nearer, and the white silence wrapped them round as they slid along the wide, icy path. Then once again the silence was broken to bits by someone calling:
    “Hi! You there! Stop!”
    “Tumble for your life!” cried George, and tumbled as before, stopping in the only possible way, and Jane stopped on top of him, and they crawled to the edge, and came suddenly on the butterfly collector who was looking for specimens with a pair of blue glasses, and a blue net, and a blue book with colored plates.
    “Excuse me,” said the collector, “but have you such a thing as a needle about you—a very long needle?”
    “I have a
needle-book,”
replied Jane, politely, “but there aren’t any needles in it now. George took them all to do the things with pieces of cork—in the
Boy’s Own Scientific Experimenter
and
The Young Mechanic
. He did not do the things, but he did for the needles.”
    “Curiously enough,” said the collector, “I, too, wished to use the needle in connection with cork.”
    “I have a hat-pin in my hood,” said Jane. “I fastened the fur with it when it caught in the nail on the greenhouse door. It is very long and sharp—would that do?”
    “One could but try,” said the collector, and Jane began to feel for the pin. But George pinched her arm and whispered, “Ask what he wants it for.” Then the collector had to own that he wanted the pin to stick through the great Arctic moth, “a magnificent specimen,” he added, “which I am most anxious to preserve.”
    And there, sure enough, in the collector’s butterfly-net sat the great Arctic moth listening attentively to the conversation.
    “Oh, I couldn’t!” cried Jane. And while George was explaining to the collector that they would really rather not, Jane opened the blue folds of the butterfly-net, and asked the moth, quietly, if it would please step outside for a moment. And it did.
    When the collector saw that the moth was free, he seemed less angry than grieved.
    “Well, well,” said he, “here’s a whole Arctic expedition thrown away! I shall have to go home and fit out another. And that means a lot of writing to the papers and things. You seem to be a singularly thoughtless little girl.”
    So they went on, leaving him, too, trying to go up-hill towards the Crystal Palace.
    When the great white Arctic moth had returned thanks in a suitable speech, George and Jane took a sideways slanting run and started sliding again, between the star-lamps along the great slide, towards