The Imp opened a small door upon the right of the room, and through it Jimmieboy saw another apartment, the walls of which were lined with books, and as he entered he saw that to each book was attached a small wire, and that at the end of the library was a square piece of snow-white canvas stretched across a small wooden frame.
"Magic lantern?" he queried, as his eye rested upon the canvas.
"Kind of that way," said the Imp, "though not exactly. You see, these books in this room are worked by electricity, like everything else here. You never have to take the books off the shelf. All you have to do is to fasten the wire connected with the book you want to read with the battery, turn on the current, and the book reads itself to you aloud. Then if there are pictures in it, as you come to them they are thrown by means of an electric light upon that canvas."
"Well, if this isn't the most—" began Jimmieboy, but he was soon stopped, for some book or other off in the corner had begun to read itself aloud.
"And it happened," said the book, "that upon that very night the Princess Tollywillikens passed through the wood alone, and on approaching the enchanted tree threw herself down upon the soft grass beside it and wept."
Here the book ceased speaking.
"That's the story of Pixyweevil and Princess Tollywillikens," said the Imp. "You remember it, don't you?—how the wicked fairy ran away with Pixyweevil, when he and the Princess were playing in the King's gardens, and how she had mourned for him many years, never knowing what had become of him? How the fairy had taken Pixyweevil and turned him into an oak sapling, which grew as the years passed by to be the most beautiful tree in the forest?"
"Oh, yes," said Jimmieboy. "I know. And there was a good fairy who couldn't tell Princess Tollywillikens where the tree was, or anything at all about Pixyweevil, but did remark to the brook that if the Princess should ever water the roots of that tree with her tears, the spell would be broken, and Pixyweevil restored to her—handsomer than ever, and as brave as a lion."
"That's it," said the Imp. "You've got it; and how the brook said to the Princess, 'Follow me, and we'll find Pixyweevil,' and how she followed and followed until she was tired to death, and—"
"Full of despair threw herself down at the foot of that very oak and cried like a baby," continued Jimmieboy, ecstatically, for this was one of his favorite stories.