United States or Saint Barthélemy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He shoved it in, quite as if they were his own pockets, without saying, By your leave, and perhaps I discovered it on reaching home a tin-soldier, or a pistol when I put it on my mantle-shelf and sighed. And here is another pleasant memory. One day I had been over-friendly to another boy, and, after enduring it for some time David up and struck him.
Oh! how dark it was inside, even darker than in the tunnel, and it was really very close quarters! But there the steadfast little Tin-soldier lay full length, shouldering his gun. Up and down swam the fish, then he made the most dreadful contortions, and became suddenly quite still.
All at once one of the little boys took up the Tin-soldier, and threw him into the stove, giving no reasons; but doubtless the little black imp in the snuff-box was at the bottom of this too. There the Tin-soldier lay, and felt a heat that was truly terrible; but whether he was suffering from actual fire, or from the ardour of his passion, he did not know.
Suddenly a door opened, the draught caught up the little Dancer, and off she flew like a sylph to the Tin-soldier in the stove, burst into flames and that was the end of her! Then the Tin-soldier melted down into a little lump, and when next morning the maid was taking out the ashes, she found him in the shape of a heart.
She remained on tip-toe, with both arms outstretched; he stood steadfastly on his one leg, never moving his eyes from her face. The clock struck twelve, and crack! off flew the lid of the snuff-box; but there was no snuff inside, only a little black imp that was the beauty of it. 'Hullo, Tin-soldier! said the imp. 'Don't look at things that aren't intended for the likes of you!
The stirring story of these tin-soldier campaigns occupies the greater share of the book, though interspersed with many pages of scattered verse, not a little Gaelic idiom and verb, a half-made will and the chaptering of a novel.
Then it was as if a flash of lightning had passed through him; the daylight streamed in, and a voice exclaimed, 'Why, here is the little Tin-soldier! The fish had been caught, taken to market, sold, and brought into the kitchen, where the cook had cut it open with a great knife.
She took up the soldier between her finger and thumb, and carried him into the room, where everyone wanted to see the hero who had been found inside a fish; but the Tin-soldier was not at all proud. They put him on the table, and no, but what strange things do happen in this world! the Tin-soldier was in the same room in which he had been before!
Only think! at the end of the tunnel the gutter discharged itself into a great canal; that would be just as dangerous for him as it would be for us to go down a waterfall. Now he was so near to it that he could not hold on any longer. On went the boat, the poor Tin-soldier keeping himself as stiff as he could: no one should say of him afterwards that he had flinched.
Ah, if only the little lady were sitting beside me in the boat, it might be twice as dark for all I should care! Suddenly there came along a great water-rat that lived in the tunnel. 'Have you a passport? asked the rat. 'Out with your passport! But the Tin-soldier was silent, and grasped his gun more firmly. The boat sped on, and the rat behind it.
Word Of The Day