FullReads

Tommy did not wait for them. No one held him, and he ran away at the top of his speed. What a nightmare sort of run it was!–the policemen chasing him, and the clown urging them on at the top of his voice. Everybody he passed turned round and ran after him too.

Still he kept ahead. He was surprised to find how fast he could run, and all at once he remembered that he was running the opposite way from home. Quick as thought he turned up the first street he came to, hoping to throw them off the scent and get home by a back way.

For the moment he thought he had got rid of them; but just as he stopped to take breath, they all came whooping and hallooing round the corner after him; and he had to scamper on, panting, and sobbing, and staggering, and almost out of his mind with fright. If he could only get home first, and tell his mother! But they were gaining on him, and the clown was leading and roaring with delight as he drew closer and closer. He came to a point where two roads met. It was round another corner, and they could not see him. He ran down one, and, to his immense relief, found they had taken the other. He was saved, for his house was quite near now.

He tried to hasten, but the pavement was all slushy and slippery, and his boots felt heavier and heavier, and, to add to his misery, the pursuers had found out their mistake. As he looked back, he could see the clown galloping round the corner and hear his yell of discovery.

‘Oh, fairy, dear fairy,’ he gasped, ‘save me this time. I do like your part best, now!’

She must have heard him and taken pity, for in a second he had reached his door, and it flew open before him. He was not safe even yet, so he rushed upstairs to his bedroom, and bounced, just as he was, into his bed.

‘If they come up I’ll pretend I’m ill,’ he thought, as he covered his head with the bedclothes.

They were coming up, all of them. There was a great trampling on the stairs. He heard the clown officiously shouting: ‘This way, Mr. Policeman, sir!’ and then a tremendous battering at his door.

He lay there shivering under the blankets.

‘Perhaps they’ll think the door’s locked, and go away,’ he tried to hope, and the battering went on not quite so violently.

‘Master Tommy! Master Tommy!’ It was Sarah’s voice. They had got her to come up and tempt him out. Well, she wouldn’t, then!

And then–oh! horror!–the door was thrown open. He sprang out of bed in an agony.

‘Sarah! Sarah! keep them out,’ he gasped. ‘Don’t let them take me away!’

‘Lor’, Master Tommy! keep who out?’ said Sarah, wonderingly.

‘The–the clown–and the policemen,’ he said. ‘I know they’re behind the door.’

‘There, there!’ said Sarah; ‘why, you ain’t done dreaming yet. That’s what comes of going out to these late pantomimes. Rub your eyes; it’s nearly eight o’clock.’

Tommy could have hugged her. It was only a dream after all, then. As he stood there, shivering in his nightgown, the nightmare clown began to melt away, though even yet some of the adventures he had gone through seemed too vivid to be quite imaginary.

* * * * *

Singularly enough, his Uncle John actually did call that morning, and to take him to the Crystal Palace, too; and as there was no butter-slide for him to fall down on, they were able to go. On the way Tommy told him all about his unpleasant dream.

‘I shall always hate a clown after this, uncle,’ he said, as he concluded.

‘My good Tommy,’ said his uncle, ‘when you are fortunate enough to dream a dream with a moral in it, don’t go and apply it the wrong way up. The real clown, like a sensible man, keeps his fun for the place where it is harmless and appreciated, and away from the pantomime conducts himself like any other respectable person. Now, your dream clown, Tommy—-‘

‘I know,’ said Tommy, meekly. ‘Should you think the pantomime was good here, Uncle John?’