Free Spiderweb for Two - A Melendy Maze by Elizabeth Enright

an album of Bing Crosby and the one above it’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’! Gee whiz. And it was such a good idea.”
    â€œHeck,” said Oliver, also crestfallen.
    â€œWell, I know what I’m going to do,” said Randy after a discouraged silence. “I’m going to write to Father tonight and ask him for a list of well-known emperors. It’s the only thing.”
    â€œSend it air mail,” said Oliver. “Now let’s put on good old ‘Peter and the Wolf.’ Last time I heard it was when I was seven years old on a day that was raining and I had a stomachache and Cuffy was away in Braxton.”
    Father’s letter in reply to Randy’s came four days later. “Here they are,” said the letter. “But why?”
    â€œLook,” said Randy. “They’re all divided up in bundles: Roman emperors and then Byzantine; Holy Roman Empire ones and French (only two of them, of course), and then the Hapsburgs. No Chinese, though. He must have forgotten them.”
    â€œStart with the Romans, they were the ones who thought it up,” said Oliver, methodical as always.
    â€œAll right. So first there’s Augustus, then Tiberius; then come Caligula and Claudius and Nero and Galba and Otho and Vitellius and Vespasian and Titus—oh, Titus !” screamed Randy.
    â€œTitus!” screamed Oliver.
    The emperor’s namesake was revealed, at last, as their dear fat neighbor, Mr. Jasper Titus, Oliver’s favorite person.
    â€œWell, I never knew there was an emperor named that,” said Oliver. “But I think you should have, Randy.”
    â€œI think so, too. I learned about him once,” she admitted sheepishly. “I don’t know how I could have forgotten.”
    By this time, naturally, without even discussing it, they were putting on their jackets and soon were on their way to call on Mr. Titus.
    â€œIt’s probably somewhere in that old-fashioned clock he’s got in the hall; the grandfather one.”
    â€œBut that clock doesn’t work,” Oliver objected. “It just stands there without doing anything, the hours don’t even tell their names and go; that clock just always tells the world it’s three fifteen.”
    â€œPoetic license,” Randy said. “Maybe the very fact that it’s stopped is what they mean about a voice being silenced long ago.”
    â€œâ€˜ Above, a voice was silenced—’” quoted Oliver. “Whoever heard of a clock that had its machinery on top?”
    â€œAnyway we can just look at it,” said Randy soothingly. “And he must have other clocks.”
    They knew better than to approach Mr. Titus’s front door; that one was never opened. The whole activity of his house centered about the kitchen and backyard: kittens played there, ducks quacked and gabbled, and one red rooster crowed and strutted with three stout wives to praise him. Chrysanthemums were blooming in their bed, top-heavy and bending, and the last blue morning-glories, since the day was grey, were still wide open.
    â€œCome in, come in!” said Mr. Titus. He was wearing a blue-checked apron and had a spoon in his hand. “I was just mixing up a batch of cookies, and I need eaters for ’em. Think you can oblige?”
    Randy and Oliver assured him that they would make every effort to accommodate him and stepped with pleasant anticipation into the kitchen; they knew the cookies would be delicious: the two consuming interests of Mr. Titus’s life were fishing and cooking, for both of which he had great talent.
    It was right that the kitchen should be the heart and soul of his house. It was a wonderful room with windows facing south, many large ornamental calendars on the wall, and a stove as big and black and polished as a concert grand piano. The oven door of this splendid object was modestly embossed with its name: Heart of Perfection. On the red oil cloth of the