More about Mary Poppins / И снова о Мэри Поппинз

And as they went, the feather dropped from her hat and the silk cloak from her shoulders and the diamonds from her shoes. The bright clothes of the Match-Man faded, and his straw hat turned into his old ragged cap again. Mary Poppins turned and looked at him, and she knew at once what had happened. Standing on the pavement she gazed at him for a long minute, and then her glance explored the wood behind him for the Waiter. But the Waiter was nowhere to be seen. There was nobody in the picture. Nothing moved there.

But Mary Poppins and the Match-Man smiled at one another. They knew, you see, what lay behind the trees…

* * *

When she came back from her Day Out, Jane and Michael came running to meet her.

“Where have you been?” they asked her.

“In Fairyland,” said Mary Poppins.

“Did you see Cinderella?” said Jane.

“Huh, Cinderella? Not me,” said Mary Poppins, contemptuously.

“Or Robinson Crusoe?” asked Michael.

“Robinson Crusoe – pooh!” said Mary Poppins rudely.

“Then how could you have been there? It couldn’t have been our Fairyland!”

Mary Poppins gave a superior sniff.

“Don’t you know,” she said pityingly, “that everybody’s got a Fairyland of their own?”

And with another sniff she went upstairs to take off her white gloves and put the umbrella away.

Laughing Gas*

“Are you quite sure he will be at home?” said Jane, as they got off the Bus, she and Michael and Mary Poppins.

“Would my Uncle ask me to bring you to tea if he intended to go out, I’d like to know?” said Mary Poppins, who was evidently very offended by the question. She was wearing her blue coat with the silver buttons and the blue hat to match, and on the days when she wore these it was the easiest thing in the world to offend her.

All three of them were on the way to pay a visit to Mary Poppins’s uncle, Mr Wigg,* and Jane and Michael had looked forward to the trip for so long that they were more than half afraid that Mr Wigg might not be in, after all.

“Why is he called Mr Wigg – does he wear one?” asked Michael, hurrying along beside Mary Poppins.

“He is called Mr Wigg because Mr Wigg is his name. And he doesn’t wear one. He is bald,” said Mary Poppins.