Accordingly David shut the door, and then his eyes, and Miss Muffet began to sing in a thin cracked voice:
‘As it fell out upon a day
When margarine was cheap,
It filled up all the grocers’ shops
In buckets wide and deep.
Ah, well-a-day! ah, ill-a-day!
Matilda bought a heap.
And it fell out upon a day
When margarine was dear,
Matilda bought a little more
And made it into beer.
Ah, well-a-day! ah, ill-a-day!
It tasted rather queer.
As it fell out upon a day
There wasn’t any more;
Matilda took her bottled beer
And poured it on the floor.
Ah, well-a-day! ah, ill-a-day!
And that was all I saw.’
‘Poor thing!’ said Miss Muffet. ‘Such a brief and mysterious career. Now you may open your eyes.’
David did so, and found himself in a large room, with all the furniture covered up as if the family was away. The butler was still standing on his head, squinting horribly at David’s card, and muttering to himself, ‘He can’t be both, and he may be neither. He may be either, but he can’t be both.’ In the middle of the room was a big round seat, covered with ribands which were still blowing about in the wind, and on it was seated a little old lady with horn spectacles, eating curds and whey out of a bowl that she held on her knees.
‘Come and sit on the tuffet at once,’ she said, ‘and then we’ll pretend that there isn’t room for the spider. Won’t that be a good joke? I like a bit of chaff with my spider. I expect the tuffet will bear, won’t it? But I can’t promise you any curds.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said David politely, ‘but I don’t like curds.’
‘No more do I,’ said Miss Muffet. ‘I knew we should agree.’
‘Then why do you eat them?’ asked David.
‘For fear the spider should get them. Don’t you adore my tuffet? It’s the only indoor tuffet in the world. All others are out-door tuffets. But they gave me this one because most spiders are out-of-door spiders. By the way, we haven’t been introduced yet. Where’s that silly butler?’
‘Here,’ said the butler. He was lying down on the floor now, and staring at the ceiling.
‘Introduce us,’ said Miss Muffet. ‘Say Miss Muffet, David Blaize – David Blaize, Miss Muffet. Then whichever way about it happens, you’re as comfortable as it is possible to be under the circumstances, or even above them, where it would naturally be colder.’
‘I don’t quite see,’ said David.
‘Poor Mr. Blaize. Put a little curds and whey in your eyes. That’s the way. Dear me, there’s another pun.’
‘You made it before,’ said David.
‘I know. It counts double this time. But as I was saying, a little curds and whey – oh! it’s tipped up again. What restless things curds are!’
She had not been looking at her bowl, and for several minutes now a perfect stream of curds and whey had been pouring from it over her knees and along the floor, to where the butler lay. He was still repeating, ‘Miss Muffet, David Blaize – David Blaize, Miss Muffet.’ Sometimes, by way of variety, he said, ‘Miss Blaize – David Muffet,’ but as nobody attended, it made no difference what he said.
‘It always happens when I get talking,’ she said. ‘And now we know each other, I may be permitted to express a hope that you didn’t expect to find me a little girl?’
‘No, I like you best as you are,’ said David quickly.
‘It isn’t for want of being asked that I’ve remained Miss Muffet,’ said she. ‘And it isn’t from want of being answered. But give me a little pleasant conversation now and then, and one good frightening away every night, and I’m sure I’ll have no quarrel with anybody; and I hope nobody hasn’t got none with me. How interesting it must be for you to meet me, when you’ve read about me so often. It’s not nearly so interesting for me, of course, because you’re not a public character.’
‘Does the spider come every night, or every day, whatever it is down here?’ asked David.
‘Yes, sooner or later,’ said Miss Muffet cheerfully, ‘but the sooner he comes, the sooner I get back again, and the later he comes the longer I have before he comes. So there we are.’
She stopped suddenly, and looked at the ceiling.
‘Do my eyes deceive me?’ she whispered, ‘or is that the s – ? No; my eyes deceive me, and I thought they would scorn the action, the naughty things. Perhaps you would like to peep at my furniture underneath the sheets. It will pass the time for you, but be ready to run back to the tuffet, when you hear the spider coming. Really, it’s very tiresome of him to be so late.’
David thought he had never seen such an odd lot of furniture. Covered up in one sheet was a stuffed horse, in another a beehive, in another a mowing-machine. They were all priced in plain figures, and the prices seemed to him equally extraordinary, for while the horse was labelled ‘Two shillings a dozen,’ and the mowing-machine ‘Half a crown a pair,’ the beehive cost ninety-four pounds empty, and eleven and sixpence full. David supposed the reason for this was that if the beehive was full, there would be bees buzzing about everywhere, which would be a disadvantage.
‘When I give a party,’ said Miss Muffet, ‘as I shall do pretty soon if the spider doesn’t come, and take all the coverings off my furniture, the effect is quite stupendous. Dazzling in fact, my dear. You must remember to put on your smoked spectacles.’
David was peering into the sheet that covered the biggest piece of furniture of all. He could only make out that it was like an enormous box on wheels, and cost ninepence. Then the door in it swung open, and he saw that it was a bathing-machine. On the floor of it was sitting an enormous spider.
‘Does she expect me?’ said the spider hoarsely. ‘I’m not feeling very well.’
David remembered that he had to run back to the tuffet, but it seemed impolite not to ask the spider what was the matter with it. It had a smooth kind face, and was rather bald.
‘My web caught cold,’ said the spider. ‘But I’ll come if she expects me.’
David ran back to the tuffet.
‘He’s not very well,’ he said, ‘but he’ll come if you expect him.’
‘The kind good thing!’ said Miss Muffet. ‘Now I must begin to get frightened. Will you help me? Say “Bo!” and make faces with me in the looking-glass, and tell me a ghost story. Bring me the looking-glass, silly,’ she shouted to the butler.
He took one down from over the chimney-piece, and held it in front of them, while David and Miss Muffet made the most awful faces into it.
‘That’s a beauty,’ said Miss Muffet, as David squinted, screwed up his nose, and put his tongue out. ‘Thank you for that one, my dear. It gave me quite a start. You are really remarkably ugly. Will you feel my pulse, and see how I am getting on. Make another face: I’m used to that one. Oh, I got a beauty then: it terrified me. And begin your ghost story quickly.’
David had no idea where anybody’s pulse was, so he began his ghost story.
‘Once upon a time,’ he said, ‘there was a ghost that lived in the hot-water tap.’
‘Gracious, how dreadful!’ said Miss Muffet. ‘What was it the ghost of?’
‘It