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Wee Willie Winkie and other child stories
Wee Willie Winkie and other child stories Author:Rudyard Kipling Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HIS MAJESTY THE KING. ' " Where the word of a King is, there is power: And who may say unto him—What doest thou ? " " Yeth! And Chimo to sleep at ve foot o... more »f ve bed, and ve pink pikky-book, and ve bwead— 'cause I will be hungwy in ve night—and vat's all, Miss Biddums. And now give me one kiss and I'll go to sleep. So! Kite quiet. Ow! Ve pink pikky-book has slidded under ve pillow and ve bwead is cwumbling! Miss Biddums! Miss Biddums! I'm so uncomfy! Come and tuck me up, Miss Biddums." His Majesty the King was going to bed; and poor, patient Miss Biddums, who had advertised herself humbly as a " young person, European, accustomed to the care of little children," was forced to wait upon his royal caprices. The going to bed was always a lengthy process, because His Majesty had a convenient knack of forgetting which of his many friends, from the mehter's son to the Commissioner's daughter, he had prayed for, and, lest the Deity should take offense, was used to toil through his little prayers, in all reverence, five times in one evening. His Majesty the King be- lieved in the efficacy of prayer as devoutly as he believed in Chimo the patient spaniel, or Miss Bid- dums, who could reach him down his gun—" with cursuffin caps—reel ones "—from the upper shelves of the big nursery cupboard. At the door of the nursery his authority stopped. Beyond lay the empire of his father and mother— two very terrible people who had no time to waste upon His Majesty the King. His voice was lowered when he passed the frontier of his own dominions, his actions were fettered, and his soul was filled with awe because of the grim man who lived among a wilderness of pigeon-holes and the most fascinating pieces of red tape, and the wonderful woman who was always getting into or stepping out of the...« less