"I am now convinced that no Yip has taken your dishpan, and, since it is gone from the Yip Country, I suspect that some stranger came from the world down below us, in the darkness of night when all of us were asleep, and took away your treasure. There can be no other explanation of its disappearance. So, if you wish to recover that golden, diamond-studded dishpan, you must go into the lower world after it."
This was indeed a startling proposition. Cayke and her friends went to the edge of the flat tableland and looked down the steep hillside to the plains below. It was so far to the bottom of the hill that nothing there could be seen very distinctly and it seemed to the Yips very venturesome, if not dangerous, to go so far from home into an unknown land.
However, Cayke wanted her dishpan very badly, so she turned to her friends and asked:
"Who will go with me?"
No one answered this question, but after a period of silence one of the Yips said:
"We know what is here, on the top of this flat hill, and it seems to us a very pleasant place; but what is down below we do not know. The chances are it is not so pleasant, so we had best stay where we are."
"It may be a far better country than this is," suggested the Cookie Cook.
"Maybe, maybe," responded another Yip, "but why take chances? Contentment with one's lot is true wisdom. Perhaps, in some other country, there are better cookies than you cook; but as we have always eaten your cookies, and liked them—except when they are burned on the bottom—we do not long for any better ones."
Cayke might have agreed to this argument had she not been so anxious to find her precious dishpan, but now she exclaimed impatiently: