It was very remarkable how I first came to make his acquaintance at all.
Shin Shira I mean. I had been sitting at my desk, writing, for quite a
long time, when suddenly I heard, as I thought, a noise in another part
of the room. I turned my head hastily and looked towards the door, but
it was fast closed and there was apparently nobody in the room but
myself.
"Strange!" I murmured, looking about to try and discover what had caused
the sound, and then my eyes lighted, to my great surprise, upon a pair
of bright yellow morocco shoes with very long, pointed toes, standing on
the floor in front of a favourite little squat chair of mine which I
call "the Toad."
I gazed at the yellow shoes in amazement, for they certainly did not
belong to me, and they had decidedly not been there a short time before,
for I had been sitting in the chair myself.
I had just got up to examine them, when, to my utter astonishment, I saw
a pair of yellow stockings appearing above them; an instant later, a
little yellow body; and finally, the quaintest little head that I have
ever seen, surmounted by a yellow turban, in the front of which a large
jewel sparkled and shone.
It was not the turban, however, but the face beneath it which claimed my
greatest attention, for the eyes were nearly starting out of the head
with fright, and the expression was one of the greatest anxiety.
It gave way, however, to reassurance and content directly the little man
had given a hurried glance round the room, and he sank comfortably down
into "the Toad" with a sigh of relief.
"Phew!" he exclaimed, drawing out a little yellow fan from his sleeve
and fanning himself vigorously, "that _was_ a narrow squeak! I really
don't think that I've been in such a tight corner before for two hundred
years at least." And he tucked his fan away again and beamed upon me
complacently.
I was so astounded at the sudden appearance of this remarkable little
personage that for the moment I quite lost the use of my tongue; and in
the meantime my little visitor was glancing about the room with piercing
eyes that seemed to take in everything.
"H'm!--writer, I suppose?" he said, nodding his head towards my desk,
which was as usual littered with papers. "What line? You don't look very
clever," and he glanced at me critically from under his bushy eyebrows.
"I only write books for children," I answered, "and one doesn't have to
be very clever to do that."
"Oh, children!" said the little Yellow Dwarf--as I had begun to call him
in my own mind. "No, you don't have to be _clever_, but you have to
be--er--by the way, do you write fairy stories?" he interrupted himself
to ask.
"Sometimes," I answered.
"Ah! then I can put you up to a thing or two. I'm partly a fairy
myself.
"You see, it's this way," he went on hastily, seeing, I suppose, that
I looked somewhat surprised at this unexpected piece of information.
"Some hundreds of years ago--oh! ever so many--long before the present
Japanese Empire was founded, in fact, there was a man named Shin Shira
Scaramanga Manousa Yama Hawa----"
"Good gracious!" I exclaimed.
"Don't interrupt," said the little Yellow Dwarf, "it's rude, and
besides, you make me forget--I can't even think now what the rest of the
gentleman's name was--but anyhow, he was an ancestor of mine, and that
much of his name belongs to me."
"How much?" I inquired.
"Shin Shira Scaramanga Manousa Yama Hawa," repeated the Yellow Dwarf;
"but you needn't say it all," he added hastily, seeing, I suppose, that
I looked rather distressed, "Shin Shira will do; in fact, that's what I
am always called. Well, to continue. This ancestor of mine, part of
whose name I bear, did something or other to offend his
great-grandmother, who was a very influential sort of a fairy--I _could_
tell you the whole story, but it's a very long one and I'll have to tell
you that another time--and she was so angry with him that she condemned
him to appear or disappear whenever she liked and at whatever time or
place that she chose, for ever."
"For ever?" I inquired incredulously.
"Why not?" asked Shin Shira. "Fairies, you know, are immortal,
and my ancestor had fairy blood in his veins. Well, to make a long
story short, the spell, or whatever you choose to call it, which his
great-grandmother cast over him, didn't work in him, nor in his son, nor
even in his grandson; but several hundreds of years afterwards _I_ was
born, and then it suddenly took effect, and I have always been afflicted
with the exceedingly uncomfortable misfortune of having to appear or
disappear whenever the old lady likes, and in whatever place she
chooses.
"It's terribly awkward at times, for one minute I may be in China taking
tea with a Mandarin of the Blue Button, and have to disappear suddenly,
turning up a minute later in a first-class carriage on the Underground
Railway, greatly to the surprise and indignation of the passengers,
especially if it happens to be over-crowded without me, as it very
often is.
"Not but what it has its advantages too," he added thoughtfully, "and
this very power of being able to disappear suddenly has just got me out
of a most serious dilemma."
"Won't you tell me about it?" I inquired with considerable curiosity,
for I was beginning to be very interested in this singular little
person's account of himself.
"With pleasure," said Shin Shira; and settling himself more comfortably
in "the Toad," resting his elbows on the arms of the chair, and placing
the tips of his fingers together, he told me the following story.
"The very last place in which I appeared before turning up here, was in
the grounds of the Palace belonging to the Grand Panjandrum--"
"Where is that situated, if you please?" I ventured to inquire.
Shin Shira gave me a quick glance.
"Do you mean to say that you actually don't even know where the land of
the Grand Panjandrum is?" he asked. "H'm! well," he continued as I shook
my head, "I remarked a short time ago that you didn't _look_ very
clever, but really, I couldn't have believed that you were so ignorant
as all that. You'd better look it up in your atlas when I am gone, I
can't bother to explain where it is now--but to resume my story. I
appeared there, as I said, and in the middle of the kitchen garden all
amongst the cabbages and beans.
"I could at first see nobody about, but at last I heard somebody
singing, and presently came upon a man carrying a basket in which were
some cabbages that he had evidently just gathered.
"Although he was singing so cheerfully, his head was bound up with a
handkerchief, and I could see that his face was badly swollen.
"When he had come a little nearer, I bowed politely and inquired of him
what place it was, for my surroundings were quite strange to me, it
being my first visit to the neighbourhood.
"He told me where I was, and explained that he was the Grand
Panjandrum's Chief Cook, and that he had been to gather cabbages to make
an apple pie with."
I was about to ask how this was possible, when I caught Shin Shira's
eye, and I could see by the light in it that he was expecting me to make
some inquiry; but I was determined that he should not again have the
opportunity of remarking upon my ignorance, so I held my tongue and said
nothing, as though gathering cabbages in order to make an apple pie was
the most natural thing in the world to do.