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[Pg 109] <h2>A Scrap of Etruscan Pottery.</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> Deep down in a buried Etruscan tomb there lay a little three-cornered piece of pottery. It had some letters on it and a beautiful man's head, and had belonged to a King some three thousand years ago. Its only companions were a family of moles; for everything else had been taken out of the tomb so long ago that no one remembered anything about it. "What a dull life mine is," groaned the piece of pottery. "No amusement, and no society! It's enough to make one smash oneself to atoms!" "Dull, but safe," replied the Mole, who never took the least notice of the three-cornered Chip's insults. "And then, remember the dignity. You have the whole tomb to yourself." "Except for you," said the Chip ungraciously. "Well, we must live somewhere," said the Mole, quite unmoved, "and I'm sure we don't interfere. I always bring up my children to treat you with the greatest respect, in spite of your being cr-r—br-r—. I should say, not quite so large as you used to be."[Pg 110] "If only you had belonged to a King," sighed the Chip, "I might have had someone of my own class to talk to." "I don't wish to belong to a King," said the Mole. "There's nothing I should dislike more. I am for a Liberal Government, and no farming." "What vulgarity!" cried the Chip. "It's a blessing it's dark, and he can't see the children laughing," thought the Mole-mother, "or I don't know what would happen." "Everything that belonged to a King should be treated with Royal respect," continued the Chip. "As to that, I really haven't time for it," replied the Mole; "what with putting the children to bed, and getting them up again, and all my work in the passages, I can't devote myself to Court life." "If you like, you can represent the people," said the Chip. "I don't mind, only then I can't talk to you." "You can read out Royal Decrees, and make laws," said the Mole; and to herself she added, "It won't disturb me. I shan't take any notice of them." "Who's to be nobles?" said the Chip, crossly. "I'd rather not do the thing at all, if it can't be done properly!" "Well, I can't be people and nobles too, that's quite certain," remarked the Mole-mother, as she tidied up her house. "Besides, the children are too young—they wouldn't understand." "What's it like up above?" enquired the Chip languidly[Pg 111] after a short pause, for it was almost better to speak to the Mole, than to nobody. "People still walk on two legs?" "Why, of course," answered the Mole, "there's never any difference in people, that I can see. They're always exactly alike, except in tempers." The Chip was sitting upon a little stone-heap against one of the pillars. He fondly imagined it was a Throne; and the Mole-mother, with the utmost good nature, had never undeceived him. As the last words were spoken, a lump of earth fell from the roof, flattening out the stone-heap, and the Chip only escaped destruction by rolling on one side, where he lay shaking with fright and calling to the Mole-mother to help him. But the Mole had retired with her family to a place of safety. She knew what was happening. The tomb was being opened by a party of antiquarians, and in a few more minutes the blue sky shone into the darkness, and the three-cornered piece of pottery was lying wrapped in paper in the pocket of one of the explorers. <hr style='width: 45%;' /> When the Chip recovered himself, he found he was reclining on the velvet floor of a large glass case full of Etruscan vases. Here was the society he had been pining for all his life! "What are Moles compared to this?" he said to him[Pg 112]self, and quivered with joy at the thought of the pleasures before him. "How did that broken thing come into our Division?" enquired a Red Dish with two handles. "I can't imagine! The Director put him in just now," replied a Black Jug. "It's not what we're accustomed to. Everything in here is perfect." The Chip lay for a moment, dumb with horror and astonishment. "I belonged to a King," he gasped at last. "You can look at the name written on me." "You may have names written all over you, for all I care," said the Dish. "You're a Chip, and no King can make you anything else"—and she turned away haughtily. "And to think that for all those years the Mole-mother was never once rude to me!" thought the Chip. "She was a person of real refinement. Whatever shall I do if I have to be shut up with these ill-bred people?" he groaned miserably. "How the woodwork does creak!" said the Director as he came up to the glass case, with a young lady to whom he was showing the treasures of the Museum. "That's the most recent discovery," he continued smiling and pointing to the three-cornered piece of pottery—"All I found in my last digging." "It has a beautiful head on it," said the young lady, "I should be quite satisfied if I could ever find anything so pretty."[Pg 113] "Will you have it?" said the Director of the Museum, who after all was only a young man; looking at the young lady earnestly. She took the despised Chip in her little hand. "Thank you very much. It will be a great treasure," she said—and looking up at her face, the three-cornered piece of pottery knew that a happy life was in store for him. <hr style='width: 25%;' /> "In spite of the rudeness of my own people, I am in the Museum after all," remarked the Chip, as some months afterwards he hung on a bracket on the wall of the young lady's sitting room. "In what a superior position, too! They only belong to the Director, but I belong to the Director's wife!" <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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