"Look! There's a real Jabberwock!" exclaimed Ione.
On ahead of them they saw a number of creatures that seemed to be made of painted wooden balls in different colors, joined together.
"Tinkertoys!" exclaimed Phil. "Live ones! Big ones!"
The animals, though they looked for all the world as though they were made of painted wood, moved with jerky motions and clattered and snarled.
"There is probably more to them in another dimension," Ione said.
Suddenly one of the beasts approached them with a leap. There were two big eyes and two rows of teeth that came together with a snap, right on Phil's trouser-leg. He jerked himself away, sacrificing some square inches of trouser-leg, and, whirling around, kicked at the thing with all his force. It almost paralyzed his foot, for the animal seemed to be made of wood or bone. But it disappeared, and, as it did, both of them felt a queer, nauseating jolt. A few more minutes' walk brought them back to the safe without seeing any more spaces; and the sight of its black iron bulk filled them with a home-like relief, which in a moment they recognized as a mockery.
"Are we on a sphere of some sort?" Phil asked.
"Probably on an irregular mass of matter," Ione replied, "part of which is Tony's concrete floor, and part of which comes out of some other dimension. This mass of matter is at one end of a long, bar-like portion of space, the middle of which is pivoted in our world, somewhere in Chicago, and both ends of which are free in hyperspace."
"Then," suggested Phil, "why can't we walk down to the axle on which it is balanced, and step out into Chicago?"