Text from “The Blot on Peter Pan”, a short story by Barrie from another compilation book by Cynthia Asquith called “The Treasure Ship” published in 1926. This story is also based on Michael like “Neil and Tintinnabulum”, and Blot was a sort of sequel to it:
I HAD been asked to keep them quiet for an hour, as it was a
wet day.
"Well, then, you four shrimps," says I, "once upon a time
I was asked by some children to tell them what is the Blot on Peter
Pan. Then once upon another time the children of those children
asked me to tell them what is the Blot on Peter Pan.
Is that
clear?
Then, this brings us to to-day; but still I don't see why I
should tell you what is the Blot, when I have so long kept it secret."
"Because you love us," suggested Billy.
"No, no, Billy," said I, annoyed at being caught out, "there can
be no love without respect.
Jane, either put your shoe definitely
on or take it definitely off.
Lay down those matches,
Sammy.
Sara dear, get off my knee; surely you know by this time that I see
through your cheap blandishments.
I wish you children had not
such leery faces, but I suppose it is your natural expression."
"Peter is rather a leery one," said Sammy.
"You have found that out, have you? Well, when I made
him up he was the noble youth I should like you to be, though
I have given up hoping. He would have scorned then to brag to
that girl whom he took with him to his island, and he was always
obedient, polite and good."
"What changed him?"
"I did, Sara, because I had become a cynic."
"What is a sinsik?"
Here I got in the deadliest thing I have said for years.
"A cynic," says I, "is a person who has dealings with children."
"What made you a sinsik?"
"It was a boy called Neil."
"I don't know any Neil," said Billy.
You could not have known this boy, he was born so long
before you."
"I daresay I could have licked him," said Billy.
"Before you were born?"
"Well, if he had waited."
You could not have licked him in any case," I said rather
hotly.
"No one of his age could have stood up to that boy. He
was a wonder."
"So you were fond of him?"
"On the contrary, this story is to be the exposure of him."
"Funny way to begin," muttered Billy.
"How old was he?)
"At the time he did for me he was seventeen hundred days old."
Sammy whistled.
"That may seem old to the more backward of you," I explained.
"but those who have got out of beads into real counting should be
able to discover his age with a pencil.
If any of you has got out of
pencil into ink you should be able to do it with a pen."
Jane was the quickest to work it out (with a pencil), and she
found that Neil at that time was the same age as Sara is now, which
made Sara simper.
"Before we come, however," I continued, "to the advanced
age at which Neil laid me out, there is a reason why I should
describe his christening, for if it had been a different kind of
christening, P. Pan would be a different kind of boy. In the thirty
days or so before you are christened it scarcely matters whether
you are good or bad, because in the eyes of the law you are only a
bundle without a name, or such name as you have is written thus—
which is easy to write but more difficult to pronounce. A boy
called Mr. Macaulay remembered the day he was born, but if you
are only ordinarily nippy you get a pass by remembering your
christening. Neil could not remember even raising his head at the
christening to catch what his name was.
"I remember raising mine," said Billy.
"Neil, however, remembered something of far greater class»
I said haughtily; "he remembered seeing the fairy godmothers
sitting on the rim of the font."
At this there were exclamations, Billy's being the most offen-
sive.
"I had his word for it," I said.
"But if you had only my word for it-
2 Billy began and
stopped, so we shall never know what he was going to say.
"Did you see them?" asked Jane, speaking like a needle.
"I wasn't there."
"Weren't you invited?"
"Certainly I was invited; I was Neil's godfather. But when
the time came round I could not remember what a godfather wears
at christenings."
"I wouldn't have let that keep me away," said Sammy.
You would have risked going into the wrong waistcoat!" I
shrieked. "No, I consulted the best books of reference-_fairy tales,
of course-_and I made the extraordinary discovery that all a god-
father does at a christening is to stay away. Though these books
are full of godmothers there is not a single godfather in them.
I
offer a shilling for every fairy godfather you can produce."
They made a brief search in the books (during which I had
rather an anxious time), but not a godfather could they find.
"So I bit my lips," I told them,
"and stayed away.
Among
the carly arrivals at Neil's christening were the clergyman and the
parents and.
himself; and then came the usual rabble of fairy
godmothers, who took up their places in a circle on the rim of the font.”
"So they were really there."
"So Neil did see ther."
"Did the clergyman sce them?'
He is so used to them that if they behave he scarcely looks,
If they misbehave he wipes them off the rim with his sleeve. But I
don't blame you, Billy, for not having seen them at your christening
They cannot be seen clearly now-a-days because of a shocking thing
that happens at their own christenings.
An ogre who hates them
and is called Science-
Why does Sams hate them?"
Same is a better name for him. He hates them because they
prevent children from joining, in the forward movement."
"Golly, what's that?"
"It is Progress, The fairies see to it that the newly-born of to-
day are not a whit more advanced than their predecessors, and so the
latest child is just as likely as the first one (dear little Cain), to ask
a poser that has never been asked before. As a result Sam naturally
hates the fairies, and he goes to their christenings and tries to rub
them out. Don't cry, Sara, he doesn't entirely rub them out; he
leaves quite a pretty blur, He also rubs away at their voices, which
in conseruence have become very faint. If Sara doesn't stop crying
I shall stop the story.
"The christening seemed to those present to be quite un-
eventful. First the clergyman did his dipping and said, 'I name
this child Neil, and if anyone objects let him for ever after hold
his pence.* Then the fairy godmothers gave their gifts, qualities
such as Beanty, each at the same time copying the clergyman (for
they are very imitative) and letting fall one drop of water on Neil's
face, always aiming (if I know anything about them) at the eye.
The people then went home to rejoice with sandwiches, thinking all
was well"
" And wasn't it?"
"Alas, as the years revolved (which they do because the earth
is round) we discovered that the fairies had made a mess of things.
What do fairy godmothers usually do at a christening? You know
the stories better than I do."
"All the godmothers are good," Jane said, "except one whom
the parents forget to invite, so she comes in a rage and mischiefs the
child."
"Exactly, Jane. And it does seem rather dense of parents.
One would think that there must have been here and there in the
history of the ages a father and mother who learned from the
wrecks around them to send an invitation to the bad fairy. Never-
theless, we must admit that she performs in her imperfect way a
public function, for if you were entirely good there would be no
story in you; and the fairies are so fond of stories that they call
giving you one bad quality Putting in the story.
"I daresay the good godmothers meant to do the right thing
by Neil, but on their way to the church there was a block, and the
bad one overtook them, and was so impertinent to the policeman
that he put her in his pocket, meaning to report her later. This
flustered the others, and they got separated. Some of them were
not heard of again till they were quite old (they get old by night-
time) and several swopped qualities with other godmothers and
went to the wrong church and gave Neil's gifts to the wrong child
Oddly enough (not at all) his one valuable quality came from his
bad-godmother, who had been released with a caution and arrived
at the church in a chastened spirit.
"The qualities implanted in Neil by the godmothers who
should have been good were:
The Quality of Beauty
The Quality of Showing Off
The Quality of Sharp Practice
The Quality of Copy Cat
The Quality of Dishing his Godfather.
Of course you are all wanting to know what was the bad god-
mother's gift; but wait, wait. As you will soon hear, P. Pan knows.
"We quickly discovered that Beauty was one of Neil's gifts, but
we never guessed at the others till he was seventeen hundred. Let us
now blow ourselves out for a moment and compate the parents of
past and present in relation to their offspring. The parents of long
ago had a far easier time than the parents of to-day, for they could
hear the godmothers announcing the child's future, and so knew for
certain what he would grow into, and that nothing could possibly
harm him until, say, he plucked a blue rose, when he would be
neatly done for. They had no responsibilities, scarcely needed to
send him to school
"By Bum " eulaimed, Pilléaly when he swallowed father's
watch or came out in spots. How different is the position of the
parents of to-day, who cannot hear the fairies' words, and therefore
can only guess at the gifts which have been given. They don't know
what quality, good or bad, is to pop out of you presently, but they
watch for it unceasingly, ready to water it or to grub it up.
Thus
children who were certainties in the old times have now become
riddles. You, O Sara, though outwardly agreeable if somewhat too
round, are still only a riddle to your mother. The one sure thing she
knows about you is that there you are,
Don't cry, Sara.
"Ah me, we guessed very wrongly about Neil. His parents
did not extol him in public, but visitors who were equally reticent
were not asked back. We thought his gifts were Sweetness,
Modesty, Goodness and Blazing Intelligence.
We even believed,
Heaven help us, that he had Moral Grandeur. Not being able to
find a bad godmother's handiwork in him we concluded that the
noble little Neil had bitten it in the bud."
"Like I bit off that wart," volunteered Billy, much interested.
"Don't be nasty, Billy, at a time like this," said Jane, obviously
his sister.
I thanked Jane and continued.
"To be present at Neil's
brushing of his teeth when in his fifteen hundreds was regarded
as a treat; he looked at you over the brush as he did it to see whether
you were amazed, and you were. On his first day at school he re-
turned home with a prize. He seemed to like me best. Always to
do the same what godfather does was a motto he invented, and I
little understood its fell significance. Is it any wonder that I was
deceived? We now come to the fatal seventeen hundredth day,
which was also the day of the production of Peter Pan."
A shiversome silence fell upon the room, and Sara was hang-
ing on to my leg.
"Give me air!" I cried hoarsely.
They were all very sorry for me.
"What a beast of a fellow
Neil must have been!" Billy shouted.
"None of that!" says I sternly.
"There you go, sticking up for him again."
"The next one who interrupts unnecessarily," I said, "I shall
ask to spell 'unnecessarily. The original performance of Peter Pan
was not given in a theatre, but in a country house, and then only
the first two acts, the acts that made so small an impression on
you, Billy my boy."
This was a deserved sneer at Billy, who, on being asked in the
theatre at the end of the second act how he was enjoying Peter
Pan, had replied that what he liked best was tearing up the
programme and dropping the bits on people's heads.
"Not so silly as Sara, at any rate," Billy growled, and then it
was Sara's turn to look abashed. Before the performance I had taken
her to a restaurant and discovered later that she thought the meal
was Peter Pan.
For such persons do great minds stoop to folly.
"The performers were incompetent little amateurs like your-
selves, but owing to his youth and other infirmities Neil was not one
of the company, to which indignity he was at first indifferent, but a
change came over him when he discovered that acting was a way of
showing off. He then demonstrated for a part with unmanly
clamour, and one of the mistakes of my life was in not yielding to
him. I let him, instead, sit beside me and watch my interesting
way of conducting rehearsals. Soon he was betraying an unhealthy
interest in the proceedings. He could not read nor write nor spell,
though he did know his letters, but after seeing a few rehearsals he
could have taken my place as producer had I had the luck to fall ill
and be put to bed with a gargle.
"At this time there were thunder and galloping, horses and
the gound of the sea in Peter Pan, though I cut them out after the
performance in that house for reasons which will soon be obvious to
the dullest of you. I am not sure which of you that is. As soon as
Neil saw and heard those marvellous imitations they went straight
to his temperature and his eyes glared and he had to be given a
powder. Our thunder was made with a sheet of tin, and our gal-
loping horses were two halves of a cocoa-nut rubbed together, and
our sca was sago rolled up and down in a tray. Neil daily cut
himself on the thunder, bleeding disgustingly, and every night the
sago had to be plucked out of him like ticks. His nurse, whom I
shall always suspect, despite her denials, of having been his red-
handed accomplice in the affair of the seventeen hundredth day,
told me that it was no longer an actor that he wanted to be but an
author and producer, like his godfather.
"'In his sleep, she said, 'he writes plays in the air and calls
out "Speak my words and not your own, dash youl just as you do, sir,
at rehearsals, and I have to give him the dictionary to hug in bed
instead of his golly-wog, because he saw you getting the words out
of it. If that innocent could spell.'
"I admitted that spelling is the dramatist's big difficulty, but
could not see how Neil was to get round it.
"'If he docan't it will be the first thing he hasn't got
round, she said darkly, so darkly that I should have taken
heed.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen, the night of the performance
came round. It wasn't really night, but we helped night alonz
by pulling down the blinds and turning up the lights. All the
chairs and sofas and tables and even the mantelpiece were occupied
by the public, who had first been filled to repletion with cakes and
cyder to as to take away their facultier. I was not present myself.
I was walking up and down in the garden, listening for approving
sounds and gnawing my moustache.
"Out there in the garden I could not hear the words, but I
could hear the thunder and the galloping of the horses and the lonely
lash of the sca; and, my dear Sara, I could hear the extraordinarily
sweet music that is made by the ecatatic clapping of hands. I had not
expected much enthusiasm so promptly, because, as you all have
often pointed out, Peter Pan opens rather quietly,
"I expect," says Billy, meaning no offence, " they were cheering
the cocoa-nuts.
Was it really like horses?"
"Far more like than horses are. Well, the applause was 50
prodigious that I felt it would be churlish to delay any longer
giving the audience a sight of me, so I slipped in among them
What I saw I wish to describe to you in the simplest words and with
as little emotion as possible, for, after all, it happened many years
ago, Still, hold my hand, Sara,
"The first thing I noticed was that the curtain was down
though the play had been in progress for but a dozen minutes.
Simultaneously I knew that the air was being rent with cries for
*AuthorI Author I must confess that for the moment I presumed
my success to be so epoch-making that the prompter, bowing to the
popular will, had taken the unusual step of deciding to present me
to my kind friends in front in the middle of the first act.
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