Is it a watch?
Do you have a watch?"
All was quiet again. And again she could hear something thumping.
Suok raised her finger.
Tutti listened also.
"That's not a watch," he said sadly. "That's my iron heart beating."
CHAPTER TEN
AT THE ZOO
At two o'clock Tutti the Heir was called to the classroom.
That was the hour for lessons.
Suok was left all alone.
Of course, no one dreamed she was a live girl.
Perhaps the real doll that had belonged to Tutti the Heir and that was now in the possession of One-Two-Three the dancing master was just as live-looking, A really skilled craftsman must have made it.
True, it didn't eat pastries.
But maybe Tutti the Heir was right. Maybe it simply had no appetite.
Anyway, Suok was now alone.
Things were rather confusing.
There was the huge palace, the endless corridors, doors, stairways, and balconies.
There were the frightening Guards, the strange, stern men in coloured wigs, the quiet and sparkle everywhere.
No one paid any attention to her.
She was standing at the window in Tutti the Heir's bedroom.
"I've got to think of a plan," she decided. "Prospero's iron cage is in Tutti's zoo.
That means I have to find the zoo first."
You already know that Tutti had never been allowed to see any live children.
He was never taken into town, not even in a closed carriage.
He grew up in the Palace.
He was taught various subjects, and his tutors read him books about cruel kings and warriors.
No one who came near him was allowed to smile.
All his teachers and tutors were tall, thin old men, with firmly pressed thin lips and faces the colour of clay.
Besides, all of them had indigestion, and a person with indigestion has no time to smile.
Tutti the Heir had never heard the sound of happy laughter.
Sometimes he heard the drunken guffaws of some fat butcher who was visiting the Palace, or of the Three Fat Men themselves.
But was that really laughter?
No, it was a terrible roaring sound that made him feel frightened, not merry.
The only one in the Palace who smiled was the doll.
But the Three Fat Men did not think its smile was dangerous.
Besides, a doll could not talk.
She could never tell Tutti the Heir of the many things that were hidden from his sight by the Palace park and the sentries with their drums who stood watch at the iron bridges.
And that is why he knew nothing about the people, about poverty, hungry children, factories, mines, prisons, and peasants. He did not know that the rich made the poor work for them and then took away everything that was made by the work-worn hands of the poor.
The Three Fat Men wanted their heir to grow up to be cruel and mean.
He was not allowed to play with children. Instead, they gave him a zoo of his own.
"Let him look at the animals/' they decided. "He has a lifeless doll. Now he will have a collection of cruel beasts.
Let him see how the tigers are fed raw meat and how the boa-constrictor swallows live rabbits.
Let him listen to the roaring of the bloodthirsty beasts and look into their red burning eyes.
Then he will learn to be cruel."
But things did not turn out as the Three Fat Men had planned.
Tutti the Heir did his lessons well, he listened to the terrible stories about the cruel kings and warriors, he looked at the long noses of his tutors with hatred, but he did not become cruel.
He loved his doll more than all the animals in his zoo.
You will probably say that a twelve-year-old boy is too big to play with dolls.
Many boys his age would much rather go tiger hunting.