Just then a fairy, with little bright wings the colour of a peacock’s tail, fluttered across the path, and settled on a magnolia flower.
“Oh! Silly darling,” cried Thomasina, “it _is_ fairyland, and there’s a fairy, such a beautiful dear. Look—there she goes.”
But Selim would not look—he turned over and hid his eyes.
“There’s no such thing as fairyland, I tell you,” he grunted, “and I don’t believe in fairies.”
And then, quite suddenly and very horribly the fairy turned into a policeman—because every one knows there are such things as policemen, and any one can believe in _them_.
And all the rare and beautiful flowers withered up and disappeared, and only thorns and thistles were left, and the misty, twiny trim little grass path that led along the top of the cliffs turned into a parade, and the policeman walked up and down it incessantly, and watched the children at their play, and you know how difficult it is to play when any one is watching you, especially a policeman. Selim was extremely vexed: that was why, he said, there couldn’t possibly be glow-worms as big as bicycle lamps, which, of course, there were in “Whereyouwantogoto.” It was after that that the gas-lamps were put all along the parade, and a pier sprang up on purpose to be lighted with electricity, and a band played, because it is nonsense to have a pier without a band.
[Illustration: IT IS DIFFICULT TO PLAY WHEN ANY ONE IS WATCHING YOU, ESPECIALLY A POLICEMAN.]
“Oh, you naughty, silly children,” said the Bouncible Ball, turning red with anger, except in the part where he was green with disgust; “it makes me bounce with rage to see how you’ve thrown away your chances, and what a seaside resort you’re making of ‘Whereyouwantogoto.’”
And he did bounce, angrily, up and down the beach till the housemaid looked out of the cave and told the children not to be so noisy, and the policeman called out—
“Now then, move along there, move along. You’re obstructing of the traffic.”
And now I have something to tell you which you will find it hard to make any excuses for. I can’t make any myself. I can only ask you to remember how hard it is to be even moderately good, and how easy it is to be extremely naughty.
When the Bouncible Ball stopped bouncing, Selim said—