The last dragon

ALLAN the armorer was a wise little hunchback who had his shop on the king’s great highway. He wore a big ruby in the very tip of his long hooked nose, and he thought it looked very beautiful there. Maybe it did, who knows? “People wear stones in their ears, why not in their noses?” Johnathan argued to himself when he saw it.

Allan was very busy just at this time, for there was a war going on, the siege of the castle that the children had glimpsed from the dragon’s back, and Crubby had to do much pleading with him before he would stop work to measure the little Baxters and Grandma for suits of mail.

Such excitement as was going on in that tailor shop, you never have seen! “Just like a department store at Christmas,” remarked Janet Jane, “only worse, I guess.” The din was ear-splitting. You had to shriek to be heard. Knights would thunder in on horseback, or would come rushing in on foot, their armor banging and clanging, and how they would shout for service and demand all sorts of impossible things at once. Little pages, just like messenger boys, scurried about yelling for their masters’ armor—“But you said he could have it at five o’clock!” “I didn’t!” “You did!” “I didn’t!” “You did!” “It isn’t five yet, anyhow!” “It is! It’s five and then morning!” “No!” “But he has to have it! He has to fight all morning and afternoon, and he can’t go out in that old suit! It’s filled with holes and bags at the knees!”

And in the back room where the tailors worked, sitting up with their legs crossed like scissors, the noise and confusion was even worse. You can imagine it, can’t you? Think of working with hammers and bolts, and pinchers and pliers, and iron and steel, instead of needles and thread, and scissors and thimbles! It resembled a blacksmith’s shop with all its clangety-clang-clang, and forges stuck out red tongues and sparks flew.

Well, Allan himself couldn’t wait on Crubby’s party, so they were turned over to Allan’s brother-in-law, Lars the Red, who had hair like fire, and a disposition just as fiery. He pulled the children about as if they had no feelings at all, as he fitted them, but when it came to pulling Grandma about, that was a different story. She gave him one terrifying look from behind her steel-rimmed spectacles and he became gentle and extremely polite, and bowed almost double when she asked him a question. Even his red hair that was standing up all over his head calmed down and lay flat.

After that, he picked out the best ready-to-wear armor in the whole shop, and took great care in fitting it, seeing that the shoulders set just right and the vizors were in working order, and the joints were well-oiled and the bolts were tight. Oh, how pleased the dragon was to see Grandma and the children getting into their armor—even the dogs were given little coats of steel that fitted around their middles like blankets, and the dragon was quite tearful because they all looked so beautiful.

Of course, Johnathan and Peter were delighted when they each received a sword,—Peter gladly exchanging his wooden one for a real slim blade of Damascus steel, but Janet Jane was rather afraid of hers,—she never liked swords, anyhow, or guns either, and she had great difficulty in getting it back into its sheath, once she had taken it out. Grandma received a sword too and poked it at Red Lars whenever she thought he was becoming fiery again.

Crubby marched up and down like a little officer with his chest puffed out, giving orders in his shrill voice, standing on his very tiptoes, and wagging his finger. “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” he kept on shrieking.

At length they were all fitted. Grandma looked very strange in her black armor with her sharp nose sticking out from the vizor, spectacles still on, and, somehow, the armor didn’t fit right in places, and the mysterious knitting bag didn’t match at all. But the children were fitted perfectly in small sizes and they couldn’t help exclaiming with delight when they saw themselves in the tall mirror that was stood up in a corner by two strange objects that looked like monkeys but had no tails and were much larger than any monkeys the little Baxters had ever seen in a zoo. One day, on a boar hunt, Allan had captured them in the black forest, and had trained them to be excellent servants. One was named Booh and the other Shoo.

“That’s enough primping,” Crubby snapped, after even the dogs had come up to take a peek, and barked because they didn’t know themselves. “It’s very late and we must get started for we have far to go.”

“Come, come, children,” said Grandma, “obey at once!”

They all returned to the dragon’s back while Crubby paid the armor bill with a handful of coins that he took from a pouch that he wore on a belt about his round middle. They were worn copper coins with dragons on them. Then, swinging a brown sack over his shoulders,—it contained oil cans and tools for oiling and mending armor—he perched himself once more behind the dragon’s ear, and off they flew, Allan and Red Lars shouting good luck after them. And Lars yelled, “Hope Dallahan doesn’t eat you, but I’m afraid he will!” which was certainly far from encouraging.

“Did you hear that?” said Janet Jane, looking frightened.

“Bosh!” said Grandma.