"What is it, dear?" said his aunt. "Wake up, Downy dear! you have been asleep, and we all thought you were lost, and were dreadfully frightened about you. What is the matter with your foot, my precious?"

Downy rubbed his eyes and looked about him, seeming very much puzzled.

"Why, where'v ve ladder?" he asked. "And where'v my dolden puddin? I didn't want to tome down from de fun! a-a-a-ah! I want to be de King of Fiam, and wide on a white elephant!"

Well, they all told him he had been asleep and dreaming; and they petted and consoled him, and took him into the house, and Aunt Grace gave him an apple almost as big as his own head. But all day long Downy was very melancholy. He smarted under a sense of injury, and could not forgive his aunt for taking his foot off the ladder; and it was many a day before he forgot the golden pudding and the white elephant.


CHAPTER XVI. UNDER THE SEA. The four mice had been settled at Glenwood for more than two weeks before I was able to pay them one of my evening visits. Little Puff had been very ill indeed, and all my spare time had been devoted to her. Besides this, there was a revolution in Meteoria (the place where the meteors come from, my dears), and numbers of the inhabitants had emigrated, and had been whizzing past my palace constantly, requiring my utmost care to prevent it from catching fire. But the revolution was over in a week, and about the same time Puff began to be a little better. Then she went on improving so fast that I thought I really must go and tell her brothers and sisters about it. So off to Glenwood I went one fine night, where I was greeted, as usual, with a chorus of delight. "Oh! Mr. Moonman!" cried Fluff, clapping her hands. "And we thought he didn't know the way here! How did you know where to find us, Mr. Moonman, dear?" "Why, if you come to that," I replied, "there are very few places in the world that I cannot find, and Glenwood is not a very hard one to discover, my mouse. Now I have good news for you. I have just come from Puff's nursery; she sends her love to you all, and says she is nearly well, and wants to know what you have been doing all this time."

Then rose a clamor of questions from all sides, which I answered as best I could. Yes, she sat up every day, and she had broiled chicken for dinner, and dip-toast for supper, and Uncle Jack had given her a lovely new doll, with flaxen hair curling all over her head, whose name was Scarlatina Clematis Alfarata; but Puff called her Tina, "for short."

"Did I know that Downy had been ill?" Brighteyes asked.

"No I did not know it! What had been the matter?"