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Imperial Library
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Index
Title Page
Front
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
A Bonus Story about The Borrowers
Where, we sometimes ask ourselves, do all the sewing needles go? And the drawing pins, the matchboxes, the hairpins, the thimbles, the safety pins? Factories go on making safety pins, and people go on buying safety pins, and yet there never is a safety pin just when you want one. Where are they all? Now, at this minute? They cannot all just be lying somewhere about the house. Who takes them and why? It must—one begins to realize—be something or someone who is living quite close beside us, under the same roof; something or someone with human tastes and almost human needs; something (or someone) very secret, very hidden—under the floorboards, maybe, or behind the wall paneling. Very small, of course—that stands to reason—and very busy, always improvising, always "making do." And brave—they must be very brave to venture out into the vast human rooms (as dangerous to them as such rooms are to mice) seeking the wherewithal on which to sustain their lives. Who could grudge them the odd pencil stub, the occasional bottle top, the used postage stamp, or the leftover sliver of cheese? No (it takes all kinds, as they say, to make a world): we should accept their hidden presence and gently leave them alone. Children call them "The Borrowers."
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