“How did it happen, Dick, dear?” asked Marjorie, in an awe-stricken voice. “It seems so funny to be up here in the air, and yet I don’t feel in the least frightened, do you?”
“Of course not,” said Dick, contemptuously. “Why, we just said we wished to be as tall as the Pater, you know, and it happened.”
“Oh, yes; and I said I should like to float in the air. I suppose we can always do what we want to now—how lovely! Like the ”Arabian Nights,” isn’t it?”
“I don’t want to be thin, like a walking-stick,” said Fidge, in a dissatisfied voice.
“No, it’s rather horrid,” said Dick. “Let’s see; we said as tall as the Pater, didn’t we?—not as big. I wonder if that makes any difference.”
“I want to be as fat as old Mrs. Mofflet,” said Fidge, mischievously.
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he dwindled down to his usual height, and spread out in girth till he exactly resembled, in appearance, what one looks like in a concave mirror—that is, he was about twice as wide as he was high.
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! That’s worse than ever!” laughed the children, while little Fidge waddled about in an absurd way.
The gnomes were highly amused, and cut the most extraordinary antics in their glee.
“I think perhaps the best thing to do for the present would be to wish ourselves as we were,” said Dick. “I have no doubt it will be very useful by and by to be any size we like, but just now it’s rather awkward.”