When the Princess Angelica was born, her parents not only did not ask the fairy Blackstick to the christening party, but gave orders to their porter to refuse her if she called. This porter"s name was Gruffanuff, and he had been selected for the post by their Royal Highnesses because he was a very tall, fierce man, who could say "Not at home " to a tradesman or an unwelcome visitor with a rudeness which frightened most of such persons away.
Now, this fellow tried his rudeness once too often, as you shall hear. When the fairy Blackstick came to call upon the Prince and Princess, who were actually sitting at the open drawing-room window, Gruffanuff not only denied them, but made an odious sign as he was going to slam the door in the fairy"s face ! " Get away, old Blackstick! " said he. "I tell you, Master and Mistress aren"t at home to you. " And he was, as we have said, going to slam the door.
But the fairy, with her wand, prevented the door from being shut; and Gruffanuff came out again in a fury, using violent language, and asking the fairy whether she thought he was going to stay at that door all day.
"You are going to stay at that door all day and all night, andfor many a long year, " the fairy said, very majestically; and Gruffanuff, coming out of the door, straddling before it with his great calves, burst out laughing, and cried, "Ha, ha, ha! this is a good one! Ha-ha-what"s this? Let me down-O-o-h"m!" and then he was dumb! For, as the fairy waved her wand over him, he felt himself rising off the ground, and fluttering up against the door, and then, as if a screw ran into his stomach, he felt a dreadful pain there, and was pinned to the door; and then his arms flew up over his head; and his legs, after writhing about wildly, twisted under his body; and he felt cold, cold, growing over him, as if he was turning into metal; and he said, "O-o- h"m ! " and could say no more, because he was dumb.
He was turned into metal! He was, from being brazen, brass! He was neither more nor less than a knocker! And there he was, nailed to the door in the blazing summer day, till he burned almost red-hot; and there he was, nailed to the door all the bitter winter nights, till his brass nose was dropping with icicles. And the postman came and rapped at him, and the vulgarest boy with a letter came and hit him up against the door. And, when the king and queen (princess and prince they were then) came home from a walk that evening, the king said, "Hullo, my dear ! you have had a new knocker put on the door. Why it"s rather like our porter in the face! What has become of that vagabond? " And the housemaid came and scrubbed his nose with sand-paper; and once, when the Princess Angelica"s little sister was born, he was tied up in an old kid glove; and, another night, some larking young men tried to wrench himoff, and put him to the utmost agony with a turn-screw. And then the queen had a fancy to have the colour of the door altered; and the painters dabbed him over the mouth and eyes, and nearly choked him, as they painted him pea-green.
I warrant he had leisure to repent of having been rude to the fairy Blackstick! As for his wife, she did not miss him; and, as he was always guzzling beer at the public- house, and notoriously quarrelling with his wife and in debt to the tradesmen, it was supposed he had run away from all these evils, and emigrated to Australia or America. And, when the prince and princess chose to become king and queen, they left their old house, and nobody thought of the porter any more.
From The Rose and the Ring, by William Makepeace ThackerayAuthor.-William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) was one of the most famous of English novelists. His best-known books are Vanity Fair, Pendennis, Henry Esmond, The Book of Snobs, Barry Lyndon, and The Four Georges.
General.-Is this story serious or humorous? Does the language suit the characters? What kind of people were they? Did the punishment fit the crime? Why did the wife think Gruffanuff had gone "to Australia or America "?
