“Oh!” said Max suddenly. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but have you got such a thing as a dried pea?”

And that broke the tension and made us laugh, and Ma said of course she had and how many did he want? And he said, just one, thank you very much, which sounded even odder. So she fetched it for him, and he tried to pay for it but she wouldn’t take anything—how can you take money for one dried pea?—and then we all seemed to be getting ready to go out.

The green was full now. The platform was up, the awning was in place, and all the villagers—all who weren’t shooting, anyway—seemed to have come. You could hardly move. But the workmen had set up a railing and a rope to hold the audience back from the shooting area, and those men who were competing were strolling about in a lordly manner in front of the platform, watched by all the rest. They loved being watched, too. They held their muskets to their shoulders and sighted along the barrel; they held them in one hand and tested the balance, as if they didn’t know the feel of it by heart already; they rolled ball after ball in the palm of their hand, trying to find the most perfect one, the one that would fly straight to the target and win for them. But there was no sign of Peter anywhere; and what on earth was Max doing? He was trying to fit the pea into the mouthpiece of his coach-horn—and then it rolled all the way through and fell out into the grass, and we had to go down on our knees and look for it.

“This is no good, Eliza,” he said despondently. “I’ll never win like this.”

“Don’t give up, my love,” she said. “Here it is, look!”

Then Lucy grabbed my arm. “Look!” she said. “Doctor Cadaverezzi!”

For into the shooting area in front of the platform came the great genius himself—in chains! On one side of him was Constable Winkelburg and on the other Sergeant Snitsch. Many of the spectators, and the contestants as well, had seen his performance in the Jolly Huntsman, and they cheered and clapped to see him again. He turned and tried to bow, but the policemen hustled him forward. Then Lucy ducked under the rope and ran up to him.

“Doctor Cadaverezzi! What’s happening? What are they doing?” she said.

“Princess Nephthys!” he replied, and he did bow this time—a great sweeping gracious bow that had the sergeant and the constable bending too, to avoid letting go, so that they looked like three councillors of state bowing to a little princess. “How enchanting to see you, my dear! I regret that I cannot receive you in the style that I would wish, but—”

“You clear off,” said the sergeant to Lucy, “else I’ll arrest you and all.”

“Sergeant,” said Doctor Cadaverezzi, “may I make a last request?”