"And you passed the dragon?"
"Yes."
"And unlocked the door! Well, I suppose it's all right. And what do you want to set about, now that you are here?"
"I should like to try my hand at fitting a puzzle together," answered the lad boldly.
Ellen stared. She had never heard anything so curious; for the lad to have come all that way and through all those dangers, and then want to play with a puzzle the first thing.
The gate-keeper, however, did not seem at all surprised. He walked over to one of the golden pillars and took a key from the bunch at his side. And now Ellen noticed that in each of the pillars was a narrow door. The gate-keeper unlocked the one in front of which he stood, and when he opened it the little girl could see that the pillar was hollow and fitted with shelves just like a closet. From a shelf the man took a box of puzzle blocks and put it in the lad's hand.
"That's your room in there," he said, pointing to one of the arched doorways.
The lad took the puzzle, and hastened away with such eager joy that he seemed to have quite forgotten Ellen and everything, even the magic pig that followed close at his heels.
The little girl looked after him. "I should think if he just wanted a puzzle he could have gotten one at home," she said.
"Not such puzzles as these," answered the man. "Did you ever see a Queerbodies' puzzle when it was finished?"