Chapter 11 Part 1

The Ancient Ones

Part 1

A

1.The Grand High Witch stood on the very centre of the platform, and those dangerous eyes of hers travelled slowly around the audience of witches who were sitting so meekly before her.

2."All those over seventy put up your hands!" she barked suddenly.

3.Seven or eight hands went up in the air.

4."It comes to me", said The Grand High Witch, "that you ancient vuns vill not be able to climb high trrrees in search of grrruntles' eggs."

B

1."We won't, Your Grandness! We are afraid we won't!" chanted the ancient ones.

2."Nor vill you be able to catch the crrrabcrrruncher, who lives high up on rrrocky cliffs," The Grand High Witch went on;

3."I can't exactly see you sprrrinting after the speedy catsprrringer either, or diving into deep vorters to spear the blabbersnitch, or striding the bleak moors vith a gun under your arm to shoot the grrrobblesqvirt.

4.You are too old and feeble for those things."

C

1."We are," chanted the ancient ones."We are! We are!"

2."You ancient vuns have served me vell over many years," said The Grand High Witch, "and I do not vish to deny you the pleasure of bumping off a few thousand children each just because you have become old and feeble.

3.I have therefore prepared personally vith my own hands a limited quantity of Delayed Action Mouse-Maker which I will distrrribute to the ancient vuns before you leave the hotel."

4."Oh, thank you, thank you!" cried the old witches.

D

1."You are far too good to us, Your Grandness! You are so kind and thoughtful!"

2."Here is a sample of vot I am giving you," shouted The Grand High Witch.

3.She fished around in a pocket of her dress and brought out a very small bottle.

4.She held it up and shouted, "In this tiny bottle is five hundred doses of Mouse-Maker!

5.Is enough to turrrn five hundred children into mice!"

E

1.I could see that the bottle was made of dark-blue glass and that it was very small, about the same size as the ones you can buy at the chemist with nose-drops in them.

2."Each of you ancient vuns vill get two of these bottles!" she shouted.

3."Thank you, thank you, O Most Generous and Thoughtful One!" chorused the ancient witches.

4."Not one drop will be wasted! Each of us will promise to squish and squallop and squiggle one thousand children!"

5."Our meeting is over!" announced The Grand High Witch.

F

1."Here is the time-table for the rrreemainder of your stay in this hotel.                                        

2."Rrright now, vee must all go out on to the Sunshine Terrace and have tea vith that rrridiculous Manager.

3."Next, at six o'clock tonight, those vitches who are too old to climb trees after grrruntles' eggs vill rrree-port to my rrroom to rrree-ceive two bottles each of Mouse-Maker.

4.My rrroom number is 454.Do not forget it.

5."Then, at eight o'clock, all of you vill assemble in the Dining-Rrroom for supper.

G

1.Vee are the lovely ladies of the RSPCC and they are setting up two long tables specially for us.

2.But do not forget to put the cotton plugs up your noses.

3.That Dining-Rrroom vill be full of filthy little children and vithout the nose-plugs the stink vill be unbearrrable.

4.Apart from that, rrree-member to behave normally at all times.

5.Is everything clear? Any questions?"

Next