In the course of a few hours Mr and Mrs Skratdj recovered their
equanimity. The punch was brewed in a jug, and tasted quite as good as
usual. The evening was very lively. There were a Christmas-tree, Yule
cakes, log, and candles, furmety, and snap-dragon after supper. When
the company was tired of the tree, and had gained an appetite by the
hard exercise of stretching to high branches, blowing out "dangerous"
tapers, and cutting ribbon and pack-thread in all directions, supper
came, with its welcome cakes and furmety and punch. And when furmety
somewhat palled upon the taste (and it must be admitted to boast more
sentiment than flavour as a Christmas dish), the Yule candles were blown
out and both the spirits and the palates of the party were stimulated by
the mysterious and pungent pleasures of snap-dragon.
Then, as the hot-tempered gentleman warmed his coat-tails at the
Yule-log, a grim smile stole over his features as he listened to the
sounds in the room. In the darkness the blue flames leaped and danced,
the raisins were snapped and snatched from hand to hand, scattering
fragments of flame hither and thither. The children shouted as the
fiery sweetmeats burnt away the mawkish taste of the furmety. Mr
Skratdj cried that they were spoiling the carpet; Mrs Skratdj
complained that he had spilled some brandy on her dress. Mr Skratdj
retorted that she should not wear dresses so susceptible of damage in
the family circle. Mrs Skratdj recalled an old speech of Mr Skratdj
on the subject of wearing one's nice things for the benefit of one's
family, and not reserving them for visitors. Mr Skratdj remembered
that Mrs Skratdj's excuse for buying that particular dress when she did
not need it, was her intention of keeping it for the next year. The
children disputed as to the credit for courage and the amount of raisins
due to each. Snap barked furiously at the flames; and the maids hustled
each other for good places in the doorway, and would not have allowed
the man-servant to see at all, but he looked over their heads.
"St! St! At it! At it!" chuckled the hot-tempered gentleman in
undertones. And when he said this, it seemed as if the voices of Mr
and Mrs Skratdj rose higher in matrimonial repartee, and the children's
squabbles became louder, and the dog yelped as if he were mad, and the
maids' contest was sharper; whilst the snap-dragon flames leaped up and
up, and blue fire flew about the room like foam.
At last the raisins were finished, the flames were all but out, and the
company withdrew to the drawing-room. Only Harry lingered.
"Come along, Harry," said the hot-tempered gentleman.
"Wait a minute," said Harry.
"You had better come," said the gentleman.
"Why?" said Harry.
"There's nothing to stop for. The raisins are eaten, the brandy is
burnt out--"
"No, it's not," said Harry.
"Well, almost. It would be better if it were quite out. Now come.
It's dangerous for a boy like you to be alone with the Snap-Dragons
to-night."
"Fiddle-sticks!" said Harry.
"Go your own way, then!" said the hot-tempered gentleman; and he bounced
out of the room, and Harry was left alone.
He crept up to the table, where one little pale blue flame flickered in
the snap-dragon dish.
"What a pity it should go out!" said Harry. At this moment the brandy
bottle on the side-board caught his eye.
"Just a little more," murmured Harry to himself; and he uncorked the
bottle, and poured a little brandy on to the flame.
Now of course, as soon as the brandy touched the fire, all the brandy in
the bottle blazed up at once, and the bottle split to pieces; and it was
very fortunate for Harry that he did not get seriously hurt. A little
of the hot brandy did get into his eyes, and made them smart, so that he
had to shut them for a few seconds.
But when he opened them again, what a sight he saw! All over the room
the blue flames leaped and danced as they had leaped and danced in the
soup-plate with the raisins. And Harry saw that each successive flame
was the fold in the long body of a bright blue Dragon, which moved like
the body of a snake. And the room was full of these Dragons. In the
face they were like the dragons one sees made of very old blue and white
china; and they had forked tongues, like the tongues of serpents. They
were most beautiful in colour, being sky-blue. Lobsters who have just
changed their coats are very handsome, but the violet and indigo of a
lobster's coat is nothing to the brilliant sky-blue of a Snap-Dragon.
How they leaped about! They were for ever leaping over each other, like
seals at play. But if it was "play" at all with them, it was of a very
rough kind; for as they jumped, they snapped and barked at each other,
and their barking was like that of the barking Gnu in the Zoological
Gardens; and from time to time they tore the hair out of each other's
heads with their claws, and scattered it about the floor. And as it
dropped it was like the flecks of flame people shake from their fingers
when they are eating snap-dragon raisins.
Harry stood aghast.
"What fun!" said a voice close by him; and he saw that one of the
Dragons was lying near, and not joining in the game. He had lost one of
the forks of his tongue by accident, and could not bark for awhile.
"I'm glad you think it funny," said Harry, "I don't."
"That's right. Snap away!" sneered the Dragon. "You're a perfect
treasure. They'll take you in with them the third round."
"Not those creatures?" cried Harry.
"Yes, those creatures. And if I hadn't lost my bark, I'd be the first
to lead you off," said the Dragon. "Oh, the game will exactly suit
you."
"What is it, please?" Harry asked.
"You'd better not say `please' to the others," said the Dragon, "if you
don't want to have all your hair pulled out. The game is this. You
have always to be jumping over somebody else, and you must either talk
or bark. If anybody speaks to you, you must snap in return. I need not
explain what _snapping_ is. _You know_. If anyone by accident gives a
civil answer, a claw-full of hair is torn out of his head to stimulate
his brain. Nothing can be funnier."
"I dare say it suits you capitally," said Harry; "but I'm sure we
shouldn't like it. I mean men and women and children. It wouldn't do
for us at all."
"Wouldn't it?" said the Dragon. "You don't know how many human beings
dance with dragons on Christmas Eve. If we are kept going in a house
till after midnight, we can pull people out of their beds, and take them
to dance in Vesuvius."
"Vesuvius!" cried Harry.
"Yes, Vesuvius. We come from Italy originally, you know. Our skins are
the colour of the Bay of Naples. We live on dried grapes and ardent
spirits. We have glorious fun in the mountain sometimes. Oh! what
snapping, and scratching, and tearing! Delicious! There are times when
the squabbling becomes too great, and Mother Mountain won't stand it,
and spits us all out, and throws cinders after us. But this is only at
times. We had a charming meeting last year. So many human beings, and
how they _can_ snap! It was a choice party. So very select. We always
have plenty of saucy children, and servants. Husbands and wives too,
and quite as many of the former as the latter, if not more. But besides
these, we had two vestry-men, a country postmaster, who devoted his
talents to insulting the public instead of to learning the postal
regulations, three cabmen and two `fares,' two young shop-girls from a
Berlin wool shop in a town where there was no competition, four
commercial travellers, six landladies, six Old Bailey lawyers, several
widows from almshouses, seven single gentlemen and nine cats, who swore
at everything; a dozen sulphur-coloured screaming cockatoos; a lot of
street children from a town; a pack of mongrel curs from the colonies,
who snapped at the human beings' heels, and five elderly ladies in their
Sunday bonnets with Prayer-books, who had been fighting for good seats
in church."
"Dear me!" said Harry.
"If you can find nothing sharper to say than `Dear me,'" said the
Dragon, "you will fare badly, I can tell you. Why, I thought you'd a
sharp tongue, but it's not forked yet, I see. Here they are, however.
Off with you! And if you value your curls--Snap!"
And before Harry could reply, the Snap-Dragons came on on their third
round, and as they passed they swept Harry with them.
He shuddered as he looked at his companions. They were as transparent
as shrimps, but of this lovely cerulaean blue. And as they leaped they
barked--"Howf! Howf?"--like barking Gnus; and when they leaped Harry
had to leap with them. Besides barking, they snapped and wrangled with
each other; and in this Harry must join also.
"Pleasant, isn't it?" said one of the blue Dragons.
"Not at all," snapped Harry.
"That's your bad taste," snapped the blue Dragon.
"No, it's not!" snapped Harry.
"Then it's pride and perverseness. You want your hair combing."
"Oh, please don't!" shrieked Harry, forgetting himself. On which the
Dragon clawed a handful of hair out of his head, and Harry screamed, and
the blue Dragons barked and danced.
"That made your hair curl, didn't it?" asked another Dragon, leaping
over Harry.
"That's no business of yours," Harry snapped, as well as he could for
crying.
"It's more my pleasure than business," retorted the Dragon.
"Keep it to yourself, then," snapped Harry.
"I mean to share it with you, when I get hold of your hair," snapped the
Dragon.
"Wait till you get the chance," Harry snapped, with desperate presence
of mind.
"Do you know whom you're talking to?" roared the Dragon; and he opened
his mouth from ear to ear, and shot out his forked tongue in Harry's
face; and the boy was so frightened that he forgot to snap, and cried
piteously,--
"Oh, I beg your pardon, please don't!"
On which the blue Dragon clawed another handful of hair out of his head,
and all the Dragons barked as before.
How long the dreadful game went on Harry never exactly knew. Well
practised as he was in snapping in the nursery, he often failed to think
of a retort, and paid for his unreadiness by the loss of his hair. Oh,
how foolish and wearisome all this rudeness and snapping now seemed to
him! But on he had to go, wondering all the time how near it was to
twelve o'clock, and whether the Snap-Dragons would stay till midnight
and take him with them to Vesuvius.
At last, to his joy, it became evident that the brandy was coming to an
end. The Dragons moved slower, they could not leap so high, and at last
one after another they began to go out.
"Oh, if they only all of them get away before twelve!" thought poor
Harry.
At last there was only one. He and Harry jumped about and snapped and
barked, and Harry was thinking with joy that he was the last, when the
clock in the hall gave that whirring sound which some clocks do before
they strike, as if it were clearing its throat.
"Oh, _please_ go!" screamed Harry in despair.
The blue Dragon leaped up, and took such a claw-full of hair out of the
boy's head, that it seemed as if part of the skin went too. But that
leap was his last. He went out at once, vanishing before the first
stroke of twelve. And Harry was left on his face on the floor in the
darkness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------