"Then do, do please let us be 'reduced,'" pleaded Lionel eagerly.
"Very well, then," said I. "And do you propose that we should go for a trip in the model yacht?"
"Of course!" declared Lionel.
"Put it in the water then," said Shin Shira, "and I'll see what I can do."
Lionel quickly put down the boat, and stood watching Shin Shira to see what would happen.
The little Yellow Dwarf was busily gathering pebbles from the edge of the pond, examining each carefully, and then throwing them down again in what appeared to be an aimless and unintelligible manner.
Presently, however, he said, "There's one," and putting a stone carefully away in his belt, he continued to search till he had found another like it.
"And there's the other," he said, coming towards us.
"Now then, all you have to do is to swallow these two little white stones and wish to be—let's see—an inch and a quarter high, and there you are."
"It seems rather a venturesome proceeding," I said, hesitatingly.