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DAVID BLAIZE AND THE BLUE DOOR


      *      *      *      *      *      *

                BOOKS BY
              E. F. BENSON

    REX
    DAVID OF KING’S
    DAVID BLAIZE
    DAVID BLAIZE AND
        THE BLUE DOOR
    DODO THE SECOND
    MRS. AMES
    THE OAKLEYITES

        HODDER & STOUGHTON, LTD.
    PUBLISHERS          LONDON, E.C.4

      *      *      *      *      *      *


[Illustration: The flame-cats and the black man
 coming down the chimney]


DAVID BLAIZE AND THE BLUE DOOR

by

E. F. BENSON

[Illustration]

Illustrated by H. J. Ford







Hodder and Stoughton
Limited            London

Made and Printed in Great Britain by C. Tinling & Co., Ltd.,
Liverpool, London and Prescot.




ILLUSTRATIONS

   The flame-cats and the black man coming down the chimney
   David finds the Blue Door
   David shakes the bottle at the cats
   The game-cupboard comes to life
   David calls on Miss Muffet
   The spider chases Miss Muffet
   David finds the Mint-man in the bank
   The recovering of Uncle Popacatapetl
   The telegram rescues Uncle P. from the Mint-man
   David dances with the giraffe
   David and the Rhyme family
   Miss Bones sitting on David’s thumb
   David and the cow porter on the pile of luggage
   David uses the telephone in the cow porter’s tail
   The bald-headed men in the hairdresser’s get up to catch the train
   How Canon and Mrs. Rook quarrelled over a stick
   David does the lark-flight
   The birds carry up David to get his flying certificate
   David rescues the Brigadier-General
   Field-Marshal David inspects his guard of honour
   David and the trout
   Noah pursues David
   David in the registry office
   David runs for home
   David reaches home




                               CHAPTER I


Ever since he was four years old, and had begun to think seriously, as a
boy should, David Blaize had been aware that there was a real world
lying somewhere just below the ordinary old thing in which his father
and mother and nurse and the rest of the fast-asleep grown-up people
lived. Boys began to get drowsy, he knew, about the time that they were
ten, though they might still have occasional waking moments, and soon
after that they went sound asleep, and lost all chance of ever seeing
the real world. If you asked grown-ups some tremendously important
question, such as ‘Why do the leaves fall off the trees when there is
glass on the lake?’ as likely as not they would begin talking in their
sleep about frost and sap, just as if that had got anything to do with
the real reason. Or they might point out that it wasn’t real glass on
the lake, but ice, and, if they were more than usually sound asleep,
take a piece of the lake-glass and let you hold it in your fingers till
it became water. That was to show you that what you had called glass was
really frozen water, another word for which was ice. They thought that
it was very wonderful of them to explain it all so nicely, and tell you
at great length that real glass did not become water if you held it in
your fingers, which you must remember to wash before dinner. Perhaps
they would take you to the nursery window when you came in from your
walk, and encourage you to put your finger on the pane in order to see
that glass did not become water. This sort of thing would make David
impatient, and he asked, ‘Then why don’t you put ice in the window, and
then