Wet Magic
the authors who created them. If you can truthfully say to them, ‘I never heard of you,' your words become a deadly sword that strikes at their most sensitive spot."
"What spot?" asked Bernard. And the Princess answered, "Their vanity."
So the little party went toward the golden door and found it behind a thick wall of Porpoises. Incessant cries came from beyond the gates, and to every cry they answered like one Porpoise, "We never heard of you. You can't come in. You can't come in. We never heard of you."
"We shan't be any good here," said Bernard, among the thick, rich voices of the Porpoises. "They can keep anyone back."
"Yes," said the Princess; "but if the Book Folk look through the gate and see that they're only Porpoises their wounded vanity will heal, and they'll come on as strongly as ever. Whereas if they did find human beings who have never heard of them the wounds ought to be mortal. As long as you are able truthfully to say that you don't know them they can't get in."
"Reuben would be the person for this," said Francis. "I don't believe he's read anything."
"Well, we haven't read much," said Cathay comfortably; "at least, not about nasty people."
"I wish I hadn't," sighed the Princess through the noise of the voices outside the gate. "I know them all. You hear that cold squeak? That's Mrs. Fairchild. And that short, sharp, barking sound—that's Aunt Fortune. The sort of growl that goes on all the time is Mr. Murdstone, and that icy voice is Rosamund's mother—the one who was so hateful about the purple jar."
"I'm afraid we know some of those," said Mavis.
"Then be careful not to say you don't. There are heaps you don't know—John Knox and Machiavelli and Don Diego and
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