"Who are you?" said a voice; and as soon as her eyes had become accustomed to the gloom she saw a queer creature resembling a great toad swathed in a long white beard.
"Whoever you are," said the quaint inhabitant, "I'm too blind to see you. Just lead me to the further corner, there's a good trespasser."
Monica did not quite like being talked to like that, but she held out the bandbox and, supporting himself by it, her new acquaintance limped to where he was led and sat down.
"Thanks, and many of them. It's not so draughty here," he said.
"Have you been long in this cave?" asked Monica.
"A few thousand years or so—I can't tell to a minute," he mumbled. "But who are you, my dear? By birth, of course, a Lunarian, but not by accent."
Monica mentioned who she was. Whereupon he became quite talkative, and began telling her about the moon, but only what she had read in her lesson books.
"Have you a House of Parliament?" she asked, anxious to glean useful information. She had recently been to hear her father speak in theirs at home, and was very proud of that.
"We've only a moonicipality, you know," said her strange companion, rambling on until he became quite drowsy. Emboldened by his kind manner, she told him why she had come, and begged for his advice. To her dismay the only reply she got was a series of the loudest snores she had ever heard. He was sound asleep.
"Do tell me what I had better do," she implored, and she shook and pinched him till he awoke.