“Advance to the portals, Diggeldy Dan!” cried Mayor Mouser, as he waved toward the tightly locked doors. With two strides the clown stood before them.
“You have the key?”
“Right here in my hand,” Dan made haste to reply, as he held the object on high that all might observe it.
“Then, be it known to you that that which you hold is the key to the underground passage—the passage that leads to the Clock.
“Are we all ready?” called Mayor Mouser, as he leaped to the seat of his carriage the better to look back across the vast sea of faces that stretched for yard after yard down the avenue.
“Yes, yes!” answered a thousand and one voices as their owners danced with impatience upon a thousand and one tails.
“Then, Dan—open the doors!”
At this command the clown dropped to both knees. Quickly he thrust the key in the lock and turned it as swiftly with a twist to the right. As he did so the dragoons swung the two doors apart. And there, before him, and leading into the knoll, was a tunnel as black as the darkest of nights.
Into this curious passage leaped the van of the column, waving bright torches high overhead. The bands followed after and next came the mayors—all four of them—marching abreast.
Now Dan had sunk down on his knees when he unlocked the doors and so was quite in a position to enter the passage—not walking upright, as you may well suppose, but moving along on “all fours.”