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 | |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1924, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 99 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse