There was a roar of laughter from all sides.
'Oh dear, oh dear!' they said. 'What an awful thought!'
'You mustn't be frightened,' the Ladybird said kindly. 'We wouldn't dream of hurting you. You are one of us now, didn't you know that? You are one of the crew. We're all in the same boat.'
'We've been waiting for you all day long,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said. 'We thought you were never going to turn up. I'm glad you made it.'
'So cheer up, my boy, cheer up!' the Centipede said. 'And meanwhile I wish you'd come over here and give me a hand with these boots. It takes me hours to get them all off by myself.'
Twelve
James decided that this was most certainly not a time to be disagreeable, so he crossed the room to where the Centipede was sitting and knelt down beside him.
'Thank you so much,' the Centipede said. 'You are very kind.'
'You have a lot of boots,' James murmured.
'I have a lot of legs,' the Centipede answered proudly. 'And a lot of feet. One hundred, to be exact.'
'There he goes again!' the Earthworm cried, speaking for the first time. 'He simply cannot stop telling lies about his legs! He doesn't have anything like a hundred of them! He's only got forty-two! The trouble is that most people don't bother to count them. They just take his word. And anyway, there is nothing marvellous, you know, Centipede, about having a lot of legs.'
'Poor fellow,' the Centipede said, whispering in James's ear. 'He's blind. He can't see how splendid I look.'
'In my opinion,' the Earthworm said, 'the reallymarvellous thing is to have no legs at all and to be able to walk just the same.'
'You call that walking!' cried the Centipede. 'You're a slitherer, that's all you are! You just slither along!'
'I glide,' said the Earthworm primly.
'You are a slimy beast,' answered the Centipede.
'I am not a slimy beast,' the Earthworm said. 'I am a useful and much loved creature. Ask any gardener you like. And as for you...'
'I am a pest!' the Centipede announced, grinning broadly and looking round the room for approval.
'He is so proud of that,' the Ladybird said, smiling at James. 'Though for the life of me I cannot understand why.'
'I am the only pest in this room!' cried the Centipede, still grinning away. 'Unless you count Old-Green-Grasshopper over there. But he is long past it now. He is too old to be a pest any more.'
The Old-Green-Grasshopper turned his huge black eyes upon the Centipede and gave him a withering look. 'Young fellow,' he said, speaking in a deep, slow, scornful voice, 'I have never been a pest in my life. I am a musician.'
'Hear, hear!' said the Ladybird.
'James,' the Centipede said. 'Your name is James, isn't it?'
'Yes.'
'Well, James, have you ever in your life seen such a marvellous colossal Centipede as me?'
'I certainly haven't,' James answered. 'How on earth did you get to be like that?'
'Very peculiar,' the Centipede said. 'Very, very peculiar indeed. Let me tell you what happened. I was messing about in the garden under the old peach tree and suddenly a funny little green thing came wriggling past my nose. Bright green it was, and extraordinarily beautiful, and it looked like some kind of a tiny stone or crystal...'
'Oh, but I know what that was!' cried James.
'It happened to me, too!' said the Ladybird.
'And me!' Miss Spider said. 'Suddenly there were little green things everywhere! The soil was full of them!'