The Cuckoo Tree by Joan Aiken Page B

uphill toward the lawyers' office, but before she reached the doorway she was startled to
observe, set in a glass-fronted case in the wall of the building, what must surely be the Tegleaze luck-piece itself.
    "But that could never have hung in a dolls' house," she thought. "It's far too big." Then she realized that the whole front of the case was in fact a powerful magnifying glass; the oval picture painted on a piece of ivory mounted in the case, though appearing to be about the size of a man's face, was really not much bigger than a gull's egg.
    "It's a right naffy bit o' work, I will allow," Dido thought, studying it with interest. "I still don't see how it could be worth such a
deal
of dibs, but whoever done it put plenty of elbow grease into the job, I can see that, special considering how tiny it is. Musta been at it for hours."
    The picture showed a very high tower, encircled by a spiral ramp. Hundreds of little people were rushing up and down the ramp, were occupied in building the tower, climbing ladders, at work with trowels and buckets of mortar; others were setting bricks, wheeling barrows, or consulting plans; but many others were just arguing, or even fighting, presumably about how the tower should be built; and in any case the tower had been struck by lightning and was falling down, so a great many people were trying to escape from it and trampling over each other in the process; some devils, down below, were finding the whole affair very funny indeed, and some angels, up above, seemed sad about it. The picture was painted in very bright, beautiful colors, reds and greens, browns and yellows; it seemed even gayer than the merry-go-round
horses. The faces of all the little people were done with wonderful skill, no two the same, each with something strange, unexpected, yet lifelike about it; the painter's name, E Bruegel, was neatly written in one corner.
    "Fancy just leaving it there, where anybody might bust the glass and walk off with it," Dido murmured wonderingly.
    "Oh, there's no risk of
that.
For one thing, the glass is specially strong: you'd need a diamond to cut it; for another, everybody round here thinks it's unlucky; no one would buy it from the thief."
    Dido looked around in surprise at this unexpected reply; for a moment she thought that it was Cris standing behind her; then she recognized Tobit in what he plainly considered to be disguise; he had abandoned his black velvet and ruffles; instead he wore a frieze coat and pantaloons. The lower half of his face was concealed by a red muffler.
    "Tobit! What the plague are you doing here?"
    Dido was not best pleased to see him; his presence would make it difficult to go into the office of the family lawyers and say she suspected a plot against the family; they would probably think it was just some of Tobit's romancing.
    "Anyway, how in the world did you get leave of your gran?"
    "Oh, I took French leave," said Tobit boastfully. "Pelmett told me Petworth fair was on, and I didn't see why, as I'm
not going to the coronation, I shouldn't at least come to
this;
so I put a lot of minced-up Joobie nuts in Grandmother's gruel, and she's gone to bed with one of her headaches; and now I'm going to have a fine time, I can tell you."
    "Did Sannie know?"
    "She kicked up a bit of a dust, but I didn't pay any heed. After all, I'm nearly of age."
    "How did you get here?"
    "Came with Frill in the trap; he's doing some errands for Colonel FitzPickwick. Come on—let's go and look at the shows." He grabbed her hand.
    Dido went with some reluctance; she glanced back toward the offices of Pickwick, FitzPickwick, and Wily; but at this moment the heavy black outer door opened and two very elderly gentlemen came out, followed by one somewhat younger; the first two were so extremely old and frail that they could get along only by leaning against one another; they looked like ancient hairless mice; while the younger one, presumably Mr. Wily, had such an extremely villainous,