Land of Unreason Read Online Free Page A

days. There was no use arguing with the old fellow; he'd crawl through
a keyhole. No, that way out wouldn't do. However, there was a test that could
be applied to the reality of the experience. The senses of touch, hearing,
sight could be deceived, but—
     
                "You needn't rub it
in," said Barber. "I know I'm no beauty. But I am hungry."
     
                The winged fairy said:
"That's a malady we can mend. Who has the bottle?"
     
                A milk bottle with a rubber
nipple appeared, and was passed to Butler. He examined it at arm's length for a
moment, grinned, pulled off the nipple, and emptied it in a few large gulps. It
was milk; he could taste it. Hooray! He felt better. The fairies were murmuring
astonishment.
     
                "Thanks," he said,
"but I'm still hungry. How about some real food?"
     
                The fairy looked severe.
"Sugar-tits have we none. Is't possible you're schooled to sturdier
meat?"
     
                "I'll say I am. I'm
schooled to bacon and eggs and coffee for breakfast. How about it?"
     
                "Coffee? Oh fraudulent
Sneckett! He told us that the folk of your land drank tea."
     
                "They do. I'm just
peculiar—lots of ways. I prefer coffee." Barber ground the words a trifle,
the suggestion of tea for breakfast capping his annoyance over the constant
references to his babyhood. In the service, where one obtained a senior
consulship only through white hair and the ability to compare digestive
disorders with other old sots, he had been known as "Young" Barber.
     
                Violanta shrugged and spoke
into the crowd. A gangling sprite with pointed, hairy ears shuffled up with a
tray which contained nothing but a quantity of rose petals.
     
                "What the devil!"
exclaimed Barber.
     
                "Your eggs and coffee,
sweet babe—or since it's a mortal child, would I say Snookums?"
     
                "Not if you value your
health, you wouldn't. And this stuff may look like food to you, but to me it's just
posies. I might go for it if I were a rabbit."
     
                "Stretch forth your
hand."
     
                He did so; the rose petals
turned into a substantial breakfast complete with silver in a recognizable
Community pattern. He picked up the coffee cup, sniffed, and peered at it
suspiciously. It seemed all right. He squatted on the ground with the tray on
his lap and tasted. The result made him gag; it was exactly the rose-flavored
coffee served in Hindu restaurants, and a thrill of fear shot through him as he
realized this was the perfect pattern of hallucination, the appearance of one
thing and the actuality of another.
     
                Violanta caught his
expression of dismay. "Your pardon, gracious and most dear
Barber-babe," she said, "if the flavor wants perfection. A knavish
shaping has turned our spells to naught, and all here have lived on flower
leaves since."
     
                "Not very nourishing,
I'd say," remarked Barber, sniffing hungrily and remembering that dreadful
Yorkshire supper he had toyed with in what now seemed a past a thousand years deep.
     
                "Oh, as to that, fear
nothing. 'Twill nourish you featly, though it have the taste of adder's
venom."
     
                It might just as well,
thought Barber, munching away and trying to forget the heavy, sweet flavor that
went with the meal. At least the texture was real enough, indubitably that of
bacon and eggs. And the coffee did have the familiar reviving effect of coffee.
He finished and laid knife and fork on the tray with a little clink just as the
crowned woman came sweeping through the grove again. Barber laid aside the tray
and stood up, making the courtliest bow he could manage with a torn pajama-leg
dangling around one ankle.
     
                "May I