THE BOOK OF BETTY BARBER.
All the little Violets joined hands in a circle round the Fraction, and shouted as loudly as such small bits of things could shout:
“By the use of this ointment, one shilling a box. Allow me to sell you a couple.”
Then they all began to laugh, and the Thimble, the Needle, the Rooks, and all the other animals joined in.
“Father William, you know,” explained Mr. Snip, “Father William always carries about boxes of this ointment, and drops them too.”
“And who is Father William?” asked the Fraction.
“If you will walk along with us,” said Mr. Snip, “I will tell you all I know about Father William, an exceedingly curious person. But we must be moving on, or we shall be late, and it is most important that we should not be late. Excuse me, one moment.”
Mr. Snip clicked sharply three times, then calling, “On, on, we shall be too late to help Lucy,” made a sign to the Thimble, and once more the procession started.
“To help Lucy?” repeated Thirteen-fourteenths. Then he looked around him. “Then you are Lucy’s,” he said.
“Of course,” said Mr. Snip. “We are all Lucy’s, and we are off to Nonsense Land to try to help her out. One of the Rooks heard from Mrs. Owl, who had heard from someone else—and, by the way, I believe that that someone was the same Father William you were asking about—heard that Lucy, who is lost in Nonsense Land, was to appear this very day before the Court of the Grand Panjandrum to prove that she was sense, not nonsense.”
“And we thought we could help her, so we set off at once,” cawed one of the Rooks who was drawing the basket.
“But we couldn’t get through the little gate, there were so many of us, and we had to come all the way round,” said another.
“I wish I could help too,” said the Fraction, “but I am looking for a book, which I believe your friend Father William has in his possession.”
“Why, Mrs. Owl said something about Father William fetching
