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Page 27
"'And the caterpillars came down here?'
"'Not for a long time,' said the beetle; 'her mother kept them while
_she_ lived, and then they were lost and came down. No toys come
down here till they are broken or lost.'
"'What are those sticks doing here?' I asked.
"The music had ceased, and all the toys were lying quiet. Up in a
corner leaned a large bundle of walking-sticks. They are often sold in
toy-shops, but I wondered on what grounds they came here.
"'Did you ever meet with a too benevolent old gentleman wondering where
on earth his sticks go to?' said the beetle. 'Why do they lend them to
their grandchildren? The young rogues use them as hobby-horses and lose
them, and down they come, and the sentinels cannot stop them. The real
hobby-horses won't allow them to ride with them, however. There was a
meeting on the subject. Every stick was put through an examination.
"Where is your nose? Where is your mane? Where are your wheels?" The
last was a poser. Some of them had got noses, but none of them had got
wheels. So they were not true hobby-horses. Something of the kind
occurred with the elder-whistles.'
"'The what?' I asked.
"'Whistles that boys make of elder-sticks with the pith scooped out,'
said the beetle. 'The real instruments would not allow them to play
with them. The elder-whistles said they would not have joined had they
been asked. They were amateurs, and never played with professionals. So
they have private concerts with the combs and curl-papers. But, bless
you, toys of this kind are endless here! Teetotums made of old cotton
reels, tea-sets of acorn cups, dinner-sets of old shells, monkeys made
of bits of sponge, all sorts of things made of breastbones and
merrythoughts, old packs of cards that are always building themselves
into houses and getting knocked down when the band begins to play,
feathers, rabbits' tails--'
"'Ah! I have heard about the rabbits' tails,' I said.
"'There they are,' the beetle continued; 'and when the band plays you
will see how they skip and run. I don't believe you would find out that
they had no bodies, for my experience of a warren is, that when rabbits
skip and run it is the tails chiefly that you do see. But of all the
amateur toys the most successful are the boats. We have a lake for our
craft, you know, and there's quite a fleet of boats made out of old
cork floats in fishing villages. Then, you see, the old bits of cork
have really been to sea, and seen a good deal of service on the
herring-nets, and so they quite take the lead of the smart shop ships,
that have never been beyond a pond or a tub of water. But that's an
exception. Amateur toys are mostly very dowdy. Look at that box.'
"I looked, thought I must have seen it before, and wondered why a very
common-looking box without a lid should affect me so strangely, and why
my memory should seem struggling to bring it back out of the past.
Suddenly it came to me--it was our old Toy Box.
"I had completely forgotten that nursery institution till recalled by
the familiar aspect of the inside, which was papered with proof-sheets
of some old novel on which black stars had been stamped by way of
ornament. Dim memories of how these stars, and the angles of the box,
and certain projecting nails interfered with the letter-press and
defeated all attempts to trace the thread of the nameless narrative,
stole back over my brain; and I seemed once more, with my head in the
Toy Box, to beguile a wet afternoon by apoplectic endeavours to follow
the fortunes of Sir Charles and Lady Belinda, as they took a favourable
turn in the left-hand corner at the bottom of the trunk.
"'What are you staring at?' said the beetle.
"'It's my old Toy Box!' I exclaimed.
"The beetle rolled on to his back, and struggled helplessly with his
legs: I turned him over. (Neither the first nor the last time of my
showing that attention to beetles.)
"'That's right,' he said, 'set me on my legs. What a turn you gave me!
You don't mean to say you have any toys here? If you have, the sooner
you make your way home the better.'
"'Why?' I inquired.
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