"Mr Buttons," said Emmeline that night, as they sat on the sand near the tent he had improvised, "Mr Button--cats go to sleep."
They had been questioning him about the "never-wake-up" berries.
"Who said they didn't?" asked Mr Button.
"I mean," said Emmeline, "they go to sleep and never wake up again.
Ours did. It had stripes on it, and a white chest, and rings all down its tail. It went asleep in the garden, all stretched out, and showing its teeth; an' I told Jane, and Dicky ran in an' told uncle. I went to Mrs Sims, the doctor's wife, to tea; and when I came back I asked Jane where pussy was and she said it was deadn' berried, but I wasn't to tell uncle."
"I remember," said Dick. "It was the day I went to the circus, and you told me not to tell daddy the cat was deadn' berried. But I told Mrs James's man when he came to do the garden; and I asked him where cats went when they were deadn' berried, and he said he guessed they went to hell--at least he hoped they did, for they were always scratchin' up the flowers. Then he told me not to tell anyone he'd said that, for it was a swear word, and he oughtn't to have said it. I asked him what he'd give me if I didn't tell, an' he gave me five cents. That was the day I bought the cocoa-nut."
The tent, a makeshift affair, consisting of two sculls and a tree branch, which Mr Button had sawed off from a dwarf aoa, and the staysail he had brought from the brig, was pitched in the centre of the beach, so as to be out of the way of falling cocoa-nuts, should the breeze strengthen during the night. The sun had set, but the moon had not yet risen as they sat in the starlight on the sand near the temporary abode.
"What's the things you said made the boots for the people, Paddy?"
asked Dick, after a pause.
"Which things?"
"You said in the wood I wasn't to talk, else--"
"Oh, the Cluricaunes--the little men that cobbles the Good People's brogues. Is it them you mane?"
"Yes," said Dick, not knowing quite whether it was them or not that he meant, but anxious for information that he felt would be curious. "And what are the good people?"
"Sure, where were you born and bred that you don't know the Good People is the other name for the fairies--savin' their presence?"
"There aren't any," replied Dick. "Mrs Sims said there weren't."