Many were the adventures of the Tinkle-Tinkle, and countless the creatures he cheered and helped, yet he never fancied himself any use or knew why he was in the world. He brought home a poor old crab without a claw, and the green bird and the dormice found a hook and screwed it in, and the poor old crab used to carry parcels for the neighbours; but he still lived with the Tinkle-Tinkle.
Another time it was a snail with a broken shell; for him they built a beautiful little house, and he made little rush brooms and sold them to the passers-by; but he lived ever after close to the Tinkle-Tinkle’s front door.
So it went on till all the Tinkle-Tinkle’s homes were full of strange occupants, and he began to feel very old and worn and weary. Then he remembered the promise of the beautiful Creature, and went slowly over the sea hoping the time had come for it to be fulfilled, and it had. The beautiful Creature stretched out its lovely rose and purple wings and wrapped the Tinkle-Tinkle in their warm soft greatness, and bore him down and down through the depths till they came to the Great Gate. At the beautiful Creature’s voice it swung slowly back, and they passed down the Blue Pathway, which is all ice, cut and carved into lovely pinnacles and spires, very blue with the blue of the summer sky and the southern seas. The Tinkle-Tinkle could just see it from between the beautiful Creature’s wings, stretching away in the blue distance, and at the end one star.
Presently—and though the time had been one thousand years it had not seemed long to the Tinkle-Tinkle—they came out into a beautiful place that was nothing but light, and the beautiful Creature set the Tinkle-Tinkle down; he looked around him and saw many other Tinkle-Tinkles, and he knew them for what they were and loved their beauty; and the Creature gently swept one of its purple pinions across him, and the Tinkle-Tinkle took form. He had many, many little soft, strong hands and many little white feet, and long sweeping wings and a face which shone with something of the light of the beautiful Creature; and the Tinkle-Tinkle saw and understood and sang for joy.