me with her own hands.  She was likewise my schoolmistress, to teach me the language; when I pointed to anything she told me the name of it in her own tongue, so that in a few days I was able to call for whatever I had a mind to.  She was very good-natured, and not above forty foot high, being little for her age.  I called her my Glumdalclitch, or little nurse, and I should be guilty of great ingratitude if I omitted this honorable mention of her care and affection toward me, which I heartily wish it lay in my power to requite as she deserves.

[Footnote 21:  That is, her doll.]

A most ingenious artist, according to my directions, in three weeks finished for me a wooden chamber, of sixteen foot square, and twelve high, with sash windows, a door, and two closets, like a London bedchamber.  The board that made the ceiling was to be lifted up and down by two hinges, to put in a bed, ready furnished by her majesty’s upholsterer, which Glumdalclitch took out every day to air, made it with her own hands, and letting it down at night, locked up the roof over me.  A workman, who was famous for little curiosities, undertook to make me two chairs, with backs and frames, of a substance not unlike ivory, and two tables, with a cabinet to put my things in.  The room was quilted on all sides, as well as the floor and the ceiling, to prevent any accident from the carelessness of those who carried me, and to break the force of a jolt when I went in a coach.  I desired a lock for my door, to prevent rats and mice from coming in.  The smith made the smallest that ever was seen among them, for I have known a larger at the gate of a gentleman’s house in England.  I made a shift to keep the key in a pocket of my own, fearing Glumdalclitch might lose it.

III.  Adventures at the Royal Court

I should have lived happily enough in that country if my littleness had not exposed me to several ridiculous and troublesome accidents; some of which I shall venture to relate.  Glumdalclitch often carried me into the gardens of the court in a smaller box, and would sometimes take me out of it, and hold me in her hand, or set me down to walk.  I remember the queen’s dwarf followed us one day into those gardens, and my nurse having set me down, he and I being close together, near some dwarf apple trees, I must needs show my wit, by a silly allusion between him and the trees, which happens to hold in their language as it does in ours.  Whereupon, the malicious rogue, watching his opportunity when I was walking under one of them, shook it directly over my head, by which a dozen apples, each of them near as large as a Bristol barrel, came tumbling about my ears; one of them hit me on the back as I chanced to stoop, and knocked me down flat on my face; but I received no other hurt, and the dwarf was pardoned at my desire, because I had given the provocation.