Nine Unlikely Tales

by E. Nesbit

NINE
UNLIKELY TALES

By

E. NESBIT

Illustrated by

H. R. MILLAR
AND
CLAUDE A. SHEPPERSON

 

ERNEST BENN LIMITED
LONDON

COWARD—McCANN INC
NEW YORK

First re-issued in this edition 1960
Published by Ernest Benn Limited
Bouverie House • Fleet Street • London • EC 4
and Coward-McCann Inc
210 Madison Avenue • New York 16 • NY

Printed in Great Britain

IRIDI MEAE
HOC ET COR MEUM

CONTENTS

I	THE COCKATOUCAN	page 1
II	WHEREYOUWANTOGOTO	49
III	THE BLUE MOUNTAIN	85
IV	THE PRINCE, TWO MICE, AND SOME KITCHEN-MAIDS	129
V	MELISANDE: OR LONG AND SHORT DIVISION	159
VI	FORTUNATUS REX AND CO	193
VII	THE SUMS THAT CAME RIGHT	223
VIII	THE TOWN IN THE LIBRARY, IN THE TOWN IN THE LIBRARY	243
IX	THE PLUSH USURPER	267

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Matilda swung her legs miserably		page 5
He waved away the eightpence		11
The top part of Pridmore turned into painted iron and glass		17
The Princess was like a yard and a half of white tape		21
The King sent his army, and the enemy were crushed		31
The King had turned into a villa residence		37
Four men came wheeling a great red thing on a barrow		43
They bounced through the suburbs		59
The seal was very kind and convenient		63
Suddenly, out of nothing and nowhere, appeared a large, stern housemaid		69
A long, pointed thing came slowly up out of the sand		73
It is difficult to play when any one is watching you, especially a policeman		79
The people of Antioch were always in a hurry and generally angry		89
Off they all went. King, court, and men-at-arms		99
Tony was stamped on by the great seal, who was very fierce		103

The giant-little-girl		page 107
Tony among the rocks in the bread-and-milk basin		115
“Everything you say will be used against you,” said the public persecutor		121
He was growing, growing, growing		125
Malevola’s dress was not at all the thing for a christening		135
There stood up a Prince and a Princess		155
Trains of Princes bringing nasty things in bottles and round wooden boxes		173
The Princess grew so big that she had to go and sit on the common		181
The Princess in one scale and her hair in the other		189
“Welcome! Welcome!”		273
“Poor benighted, oppressed people, follow me!”		279