 THE BOOK OF WONDER by Lord Dunseney This is LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Schapp It was the occupation of Mr. Thomas Schapp to persuade customers that the goods were genuine and of an excellent quality. And that as regards the price their unspoken will was consulted. And in order to carry on this occupation, he went by train very early every morning, some few miles near to the city from the suburb in which he slept. This was the use to which he put his life. From the moment when he first perceived, not as one reads a thing in a book, but as truths are revealed to one's instinct, the very beastliness of his occupation and of the house that he slept in, its shape, make and pretensions, and even the clothes that he wore. From that moment he withdrew his dreams from it, his fancies, his ambitions. Everything in fact except that ponderable Mr. Schapp that dressed in a frock coat bought tickets and handled money and could in turn be handled by the statistician. The priest's share in Mr. Schapp, the share of the poet, never caught the early train to the city at all. He used to take little flights of fancy at first, dwelt all day in his dreamy way on fields and rivers lying in the sunlight where it strikes the world more brilliantly further south. And then he began to imagine butterflies there. After that, silken people and the temples they built to their gods. They noticed that he was silent and even absent at times, but they found no fault with his behavior with customers, to whom he remained as plausible as of old. So he dreamed for a year and his fancy gained strength as he dreamed. He still read half-penny papers in the train, still discussed the passing days of emerald topic, still voted at elections, though he no longer did these things with the whole shop. His soul was no longer in them. He had had a pleasant year, his imagination was all new to him still, and it had often discovered beautiful things away where it went, southeast at the edge of the twilight, and he had had a matter of fact and logical mind, so that he often said, Why should I pay my two-pence at the electric theater when I can see all sorts of things quite easily without? Whatever he did was logical before anything else, and those that knew him always spoke of shop as a sound, sane, level-headed man. On far the most important day of his life, he went as usual to town by the early train to sell plausible articles to customers, while the spiritual shop roamed off to fanciful lands. As he walked from the station, dreamy, but wide awake, it suddenly struck him that the real shop was not the one walking to business in black and ugly clothes. But he who roamed along a jungle's edge near the ramparts of an old and eastern city that rose up sheer from the sand, and against which the desert lapped with one eternal wave. He used to fancy the name of that city was Larkar. After all, the fancy is as real as the body, he said with perfect logic. It was a dangerous theory. For that other life that he led, he realized as in business the importance and value of method. He did not let his fancy roam too far until it perfectly knew its first surroundings. Particularly, he avoided the jungle. He was not afraid to meet a tiger there. After all, it was not real. But stranger things might crouch there. Slowly he built up Larkar, rampart by rampart, towers for archers, gateway of grass, and all. And then one day he argued, and quite rightly, that all the silk-clad people in its streets, their camels, their wares that come from Inkastan, the city itself were all the things of his will, and then he made himself king. He smiled after that when people did not raise their hats to him in the street, as he walked from the station to business. He was sufficiently practical to recognize that it was better not to talk of this to those that only knew him as Mr. Shapp. Now that he was king in the city of Larkar, and in all the desert that lay to the east and north, he sent his fancy to wander further afield. He took the regiments of his camel-guard, and went jingling out of Larkar with little silver bells under the camel's chins, and came to other cities far off on the yellow sand, with clear white walls and towers uplifting themselves in the sun. Through their gates he passed with his three silken regiments, the light-blue regiment of the camel-guards being upon his right, and the green regiment riding at his left, the lilac regiment going on before. When he had gone through the streets of any city and observed the ways of its people, and had seen the way that the sunlight struck its towers, he would proclaim himself king there, and then ride on in fancy. So he passed from city to city and from land to land. Clear-sighted, though Mr. Shapp was, I think he overlooked the lust of a grandizement to which kings have so often been victims. And so it was that when the first few cities had opened their gleaming gates, and he saw peoples prostrate before his camel, and spearmen shearing along countless balconies, and priests come out to do him reverence, he that had never had even the lowliest authority in the familiar world became unwisely and safe-shit. He let his fancy ride at inordinate speed. He forsook method. Scarce was he king of a land, but he yearned to extend his borders. So he journeyed deeper and deeper into the holy unknown. The concentration that he gave to this inordinate progress and the histories of which history is ignorant, and cities so fantastic in their bulwarks that, though their inhabitants were human, yet the foe that they feared seemed something less or more. The amazement with which he beheld gates and towers unknown even to art, and furtive people thronging intricate ways to acclaim him as their sovereign, all these things began to affect his capacity for business. He knew as well as any that his fancy could not rule these beautiful lands unless that other chap, however unimportant, were well sheltered in fed, and shelter and food meant money, and money, business. His was more like the mistake of some gambler with cunning schemes who overlooks human greed. One day his fancy, riding in the morning, came to a city gorgeous as the sunrise, in whose opalescent wall were gates of gold so huge that a river poured between the bars, floating in when the gates were opened, large galleons under sail. Thence there came dancing out a company with instruments, and made a melody all around the wall. That morning Mr. Schapp, the bodily chap in London, forgot the train to town. Until a year ago he had never imagined at all. It is not to be wondered at that all these things now newly seen by his fancy should play tricks at first with the memory of even so sane a man. He gave up reading the papers altogether. He lost all interest in politics. He cared less and less for things that were going on around him. This unfortunate missing of the morning train even occurred again, and the firm spoke to him severely about it. But he had his consolation. Wernath Arathreion and Argun Zerith and all the level-coast of Aura, his? And even as the firm found fault with him, his fancy watched the yaks on weary journeys, slow specks against the snow-fields, bringing tribute, and saw the green eyes of the mountain men who had looked at him strangely in the city of Neth when he had entered it by the desert door. Yet his logic did not forsake him. He knew well that his strange subjects did not exist, but he was prouder of having created them with his brain than merely of ruling them only. Thus in his pride he felt himself something more great than a king. He did not dare to think what. He went into the temple of the city of Zora and stood some time there alone. All the priests kneeled to him when he came away. He cared less and less for the things we care about. For the affairs of Shab, the businessman in London, he began to despise the man with a royal contempt. One day when he sat in Saula, the city of the Thals, thrown on one amethyst, he decided, and it was proclaimed on the moment by silver trumpets all along the land, that he would be crowned as king over all the lands of wonder. By that old temple where the Thals worshipped, year in, year out, for over a thousand years, they pitched pavilions in the open air. The trees that blew there threw out radiant scents unknown in any countries that know the map. The stars blazed fiercely for that famous occasion. A fountain hurled up, clattering ceaselessly into the air, armfuls on armfuls of diamonds. A deep hush waded for the golden trumpets, the holy coronation night was come. At the top of those old worn steps, going down we know not whither, stood the king in the emerald and amethyst cloak, the ancient garb of the Thals. Beside him lay that sphinx that for the last few weeks had advised him in his affairs. Slowly, with music when the trumpet sounded, came up towards him from we know not where one hundred and twenty archbishops, twenty angels and two archangels, with that terrific crown, the diadem of the Thals. They knew as they came up to him that promotion awaited them all because of this night's work. Silent, majestic, the king awaited them. The doctors downstairs were sitting over their supper, the warders softly slipped from room to room, and when in that cozy dormitory of Hanwell they saw the king still standing erect and royal, his face resolute. They came up to him and addressed him. Go to bed, they said. Pretty bed. So he lay down and soon was fast asleep. The great day was over. End of The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shapp. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chabah and Sheemish It was the custom on Tuesdays in the temple of Chabah for the priests to enter at evening and chant, There is none but Chabah, and all the people rejoiced and cried out, There is none but Chabah, and honey was offered to Chabah and maize and fat, thus was he magnified. Chabah was an idol of some antiquity as may be seen from the color of the wood. He had been carved out of mahogany, and after he was carved he had been polished. Then they had set him up on the diorite pedestal with the brazier in front of it for burning spices and the flat gold plates for fat. Thus they worshipped Chabah. He must have been there for over a hundred years. One one day the priests came in with another idol into the temple of Chabah and set it up on a pedestal near Chabah and saying, There is also Sheemish, and all the people rejoiced and cried out, There is also Sheemish. Sheemish was probably a modern idol, and although the wood was stained with a dark red dye, you could see that he had only just been carved, and honey was offered to Sheemish as well as Chabah and also maize and fat. The fury of Chabah knew no time limit. He was furious all that night, and next day he was furious still. The situation called for immediate miracles. To devastate the city with the pestilence and kill all his priests was scarcely within his power. Therefore he wisely concentrated such divine powers as he had in commanding a little earthquake. Thus thought Chabah, will I reassert myself as the only God and men shall spit upon Sheemish. Chabah willed it and willed it and still no earthquake came, when suddenly he was aware that the hated Sheemish was daring to attempt a miracle too. He ceased to busy himself about the earthquake and listened, or shall I say felt, for what Sheemish was thinking, for gods are aware of what passes in the mind as other than any of our five. Sheemish was trying to make an earthquake too. The new God's motive was probably to assert himself. I doubt if Chabah understood or cared for his motive. It was sufficient for an idol already aflame with jealousy that his detestable rival was on the verge of a miracle. All the power of Chabah veered round at once and said dead against an earthquake, even a little one. It was thus in the temple of Chabah for some time and then no earthquake came. To be a God and to fail to achieve a miracle is a despairing sensation. It is as though among men one should determine upon a hearty sneeze and as though no sneeze should come. It is as though one should try to swim in heavy boots or remember a name that is utterly forgotten. All these pains were Sheemish's. And upon Tuesday the priests came in and the people and they did worship Chabah and offered fat to him, saying, O Chabah who made everything and then the priests sang, there is also Sheemish. And Chabah was put to shame and spake not for three days. Now there were holy burns in the temple of Chabah and when the third day was come and the night thereof it was as it were revealed to the mind of Chabah that there was dirt upon the head of Sheemish. And Chabah spake unto Sheemish as speak the gods moving no lips nor yet disturbing the silence saying, there is dirt upon thy head, O Sheemish. All night long he muttered again and again there is dirt upon Sheemish's head. And when it was dawn and voices were heard far off Chabah became exultant with earth's awakening things and cried out till the sun was high dirt, dirt, dirt upon the head of Sheemish and at noon he said, so Sheemish would be a god. Thus was Sheemish confounded. And with Tuesday one came and washed his head with rose water and he was worshiped again when they sang, there is also Sheemish. And yet was Chabah content for he said, the head of Sheemish has been defiled and again his head was defiled it is enough. And one evening low there was dirt on the head of Chabah also and the theme was perceived of Sheemish. It is not with the gods as it is with men we are angry one with another and turn from our anger again the wrath of the gods is enduring. Chabah remembered and Sheemish did not forget they spake as we do not speak in silence yet heard of each other nor were there thoughts as our thoughts we should not judge them merely by human standards all night long they spake and all night said these words only dirty Chabah, dirty Sheemish, dirty Chabah dirty Sheemish, all night long their wrath had not tired at dawn and neither had wearied of his accusation and gradually Chabah came to realize that he was nothing more than the equal of Sheemish all gods are jealous but this equality with the upstart Sheemish a thing of painted wood a hundred years newer than Chabah and this worship given to Sheemish and Chabah's own temple were particularly bitter Chabah was jealous even for a god and when Tuesday came again the third day of Sheemish's worship Chabah could bear it no longer he felt that his anger must be revealed at all costs and he returned with all the vehemence of his will to achieving a little earthquake the worshippers had just gone from his temple Chabah settled his will to attain this miracle now and then his meditations were disturbed by that now familiar dictum, dirty Chabah but Chabah willed ferociously not even stopping to say what he longed to say and had already said nine hundred times and presently even these interruptions ceased they ceased because Sheemish had returned to a project that he had never definitely abandoned the desire to assert himself and exalt himself over Chabah by performing a miracle and the district being volcanic he had chosen a little earthquake as the miracle most easily accomplished by a small god now an earthquake that is commanded by two gods has doubled the chance of fulfillment than when it is willed by one and an incalculably greater chance than when two gods are pulling different ways as to take the case of older and greater gods when the sun and the moon pull in the same direction we have the biggest tides Chabah knew nothing of the theory of tides and was too much occupied with his miracle to notice what Sheemish was doing and suddenly the miracle was an accomplished thing it was a very local earthquake for there are other gods than Chabah or even Sheemish it was only a little one as the gods had willed but it loosened some monoliths in a colony that supported one side of the temple and the whole of one wall fell in and the low huts of the people of that city were shaken a little and some of their doors were jammed so that they would not open it was enough and for a moment it seemed that it was all neither Chabah nor Sheemish commanded there should be more but they had set in motion an old law older than Chabah the law of gravity that that colonnade had held back for a hundred years and the temple of Chabah quivered and then stood still swayed once and was overthrown on the heads of Chabah and Sheemish no one rebuilt it for nobody dared to near such terrible gods some said that Chabah wrought the miracle but some said Sheemish and thereof schism was born the weakly amiable alarmed by the bitterness of rival sex sought compromise and said that both had wrought it but no one guessed the truth that the thing was done in rivalry and a saying arose and both sex held this belief in common that whoso toucheth Chabah shall die or whoso looketh upon Sheemish that is how Chabah came into my possession when I traveled once beyond the hills of Ting I found him in the fallen temple of Chabah with his hands and toes sticking up out of the rubbish lying upon his back and in that attitude just as I found him I keep him to this day on my mantelpiece as he is less liable to be upset that way Sheemish was broken so I left him where he was and there is something so helpless about Chabah with his fat hands stuck up in the air that sometimes I am moved out of compassion to bow down to him and pray saying O Chabah, thou that made everything help thy servant Chabah cannot do much though once I am sure that at a game of bridge he sent me the ace of trumps after I had not held a card with having for the whole of the evening and chance alone could have done as much as that for me but I do not tell this to Chabah end of Chabah and Sheemish The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsany This is LibriVox Recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Wonderful Window The old man in the oriental looking robe was being moved on by the police and it was this that attracted to him and the parcel under his arm the attention of Mr. Sladden whose livelihood was earned in the Emporium of Measures Mergan and Chaitre that is to say in their establishment Mr. Sladden had the reputation of being the silliest young man in business a touch of romance a mere suggestion of it would send his eyes gazing away as though the walls of the Emporium were of Gossamer and London itself a myth instead of attending to customers merely the fact that the dirty piece of paper that wrapped the old man's parcel was covered with Arabic writing was enough to give Mr. Sladden the ideas of romance and he followed until the little crowd fell off and the stranger stopped by the curb and unwrapped his parcel and prepared to sell the thing that was inside it it was a little window in old wood with small panes set in lead it was not much more than a foot in breath and was under two feet long Mr. Sladden had never before seen a window sold in the street so he asked the price of it its price is all you possess said the old man where did you get it? said Mr. Sladden for it was a strange window I gave all that I possessed for it in the streets of Baghdad did you possess much? said Mr. Sladden I had all that I wanted he said except this window it must be a good window said the young man it is a magical window said the old one I have only ten shillings on me but I have fifteen and six at home the old man thought for a while then twenty-five and six pence is the price of the window he said it was only when the bargain was completed and the ten shillings paid and the strange old man was coming for his fifteen and six and to fit the magical window into his only room that it occurred to Mr. Sladden's mind that he did not want a window and then they were at the door of the house in which he rented a room and it seemed too late to explain the stranger demanded privacy when he fitted up the window so Mr. Sladden remained outside the door at the top of a little flight of creaky stairs he heard no sound of hammering and presently the strange old man came out with his faded yellow robe and his great beard and his eyes on far off places it is finished he said and whether he remained a spot of color and an anachronism in London or whether he ever came again to Baghdad and what dark hands kept on the circulation of his twenty-five and six Mr. Sladden never knew Mr. Sladden entered the bare-boarded room in which he slept and spent all his indoor hours between closing time and the hour at which measures Mr. Sladden shader commenced to the penities of so dingy a room his neat frock coat must have been a continual wonder Mr. Sladden took it off and folded it carefully and there was the old man's window rather high up in the wall there had been no window in that wall hitherto nor any ornament at all but a small cupboard so when Mr. Sladden had put his frock coat he glanced through his new window it was where his cupboard had been in which he kept his tea-things they were all standing on the table now when Mr. Sladden glanced through his new window it was late in a summer's evening the butterflies some while ago would have closed their wings though the bat would scarcely yet be drifting abroad but this was in London the shops were shut and street lamps not yet lighted Mr. Sladden rubbed his eyes then rubbed the window and still he saw a sky of blazing blue and far far down beneath him so that no sound came up from it or smoke of chimneys a medieval city set with towers brown roofs and cobbled streets and then white walls and buttresses and beyond them bright green fields and tiny streams on the towers archers lalled and along the walls were pikemen and now and then a wagon went down some old world street and lumbered through the gateway and out to the country and now and then a wagon drew up to the city from the mist that was rolling with evening over the fields sometimes folks put their heads out of lattice windows sometimes some idle troubadour seemed to sing and nobody hurried or troubled about anything airy and dizzy though the distance was for Mr. Sladden seemed higher above the city than any cathedral gargoyle he had one clear detail he obtained as a clue the banners floating from every tower over the idle archers had little golden dragons all over a pure white field he heard motor buses roar by his other window he heard the news boys howling Mr. Sladden grew dreamier than ever after that on the premises in the establishment of measures mergen and shader but in one matter he was wise and waitful he made continuous and careful inquiries about the golden dragons on a white flag and talked to no one of his wonderful window he came to know the flags very king in Europe he even dabbled in history he made inquiries at shops that understood heraldry but nowhere could he learn any trace of little dragons or on a field Argent and when it seemed that for him alone those golden dragons had fluttered he came to love them as an exile in some desert might love the lilies of his home or as a sick man might love swallows when he cannot easily live to another spring as soon as measures mergen and shader closed Mr. Sladden used to go back to his dingy room and gaze through the wonderful window until it grew dark in the city and the guard would go with a lantern round the ramparts and the night came up like velvet full of strange stars another clue he tried to obtain one night by jotting down the shapes of the constellations but this led him no further for they were unlike any that shone upon either hemisphere each day as soon as he woke he went first to the wonderful window and there was the city diminutive in the distance all shining in the morning and the golden dragons dancing in the sun and the archers stretching themselves or swinging their arms on the tops of the windy towers the window would not open so that he never heard the songs that the troubadours sang down there beneath the gilded balconies he'd not even hear the belfry's chimes though he saw the jackdaws routed every hour from their homes and the first thing that he always did was to cast his eye round all the little towers that rose up from the ramparts to see that the little golden dragons were flying there on their flags and when he saw them flaunting themselves on white folds from every tower against the marvelous steep blue of the sky he dressed contentedly and taking one last look went off to his work with a glory in his mind it would have been difficult for the customers of Mejur's mergen and shader to guess the precise ambition of Mr. Sladden as he walked before them in his neat frock coat it was that he might be a man at arms or an archer in order to fight for the little golden dragons that flew on a white flag for an unknown king in an inaccessible city at first Mr. Sladden used to walk round and round the mean street that he lived in but he gained no clue from that and soon he noticed that quite different winds blew below his wonderful window from those that blew on the other side of the house in August the evenings began to grow shorter this was the very remark that the other employees made him at the Emporium so that he almost feared that they suspected his secret and he had much less time for the wonderful window for lights were few down there and they blinked out early one morning late in August just before he went to business Mr. Sladden saw a company of pikemen running down the cobbled road towards the gateway of the medieval city golden dragon city he used to call it alone in his own mind but he never spoke of it to anyone the next thing that he noticed was that the archers were handling round bundles of arrows in addition to the quivers which they wore heads were thrust out of windows more than usual a woman ran out and called some children indoors a knight rode down the street and then more pikemen appeared along the walls and all the jackdaws were in the air in the street no troubadour sang Mr. Sladden took one look along the towers to see that the flags were flying and all the golden dragons were streaming in the wind then he had to go to business he took a bus back that evening and ran upstairs nothing seemed to be happening in golden dragon city except a crowd in the cobbled street that led down to the gateway the archers seemed to be reclining as usual lazily in their towers and then a white flag went down with all its golden dragons he did not see at first that all the archers were dead the crowd was pouring towards him towards the precipitous wall from which he looked men with a white flag covered with golden dragons were moving backwards slowly men with another flag were pressing them a flag on which there was one huge red bear another banner went down upon a tower then he saw it all the golden dragons were being beaten his little golden dragons the men of the bear were coming under the window whatever he threw from that height would fall with terrific force fire irons, coal, his clock whatever he had he would fight for his little golden dragons yet a flame broke out from one of the towers and licked the feet of a reclining archer he did not stir and now the alien standard was out of sight directly underneath Mr. Sladden broke the panes of the wonderful window and wrenched away with a poker the lead that held them just as the glass broke he saw a banner covered with golden dragons fluttering still and then as he drew back to hurl the poker there came to him the scent of mysterious spices and there was nothing there not even the daylight for behind the fragments of the wonderful window was nothing but that small cupboard in which he kept his teethings and though Mr. Sladden is older now and knows more of the world and even has a business of his own he has never been able to buy such another window and has not ever since either from books or men heard any rumor at all of golden dragon city end of the wonderful window epilogue here the fourteenth episode of the Book of Wonder and here the relating of the chronicles of little adventures at the edge of the world I take farewell of my readers but it may be we shall even meet again for it is still to be told how the gnomes robbed the fairies and of the vengeance that the fairies took and how even the gods themselves were troubled thereby in their sleep and how the king of Ul insulted the troubadours thinking himself safe among his scores of archers and hundreds of halbadiers and how the troubadours stole to his towers by night and under his battlements by the light of the moon made that king ridiculous forever in song but for this I must first return to the edge of the world behold the caravans start end of epilogue end of the Book of Wonder by Lord Dunseney read by Greg Elmanstor