CHAPTER IV
THE HUMAN OCTOPUS STARTS
UPON A MISSION
Across the minor sea whose blue, sparkling waters kissed the fair shores of Queen Titania’s fairy kingdom, about a hundred leagues as flies the crow, there was another country where lived the notorious enchanter Dragonfel.
A fairy messenger on a winged steed had conveyed information that Dragonfel intended to make trouble. But this was nothing new for Dragonfel.
As a matter of fact, he was always trying to make trouble for everybody. Trouble was his specialty.
Dragonfel was not a nice man, and, if you had known him, you would not have liked him. He cheated when he played croquet, and he was always claiming wickets that he never made. He did not go to Sunday School, either. If he had gone, he would not have put a penny in the plate for the heathen. That was the kind of man he was.
Yet he was the possessor of fabulous riches, and he never would have missed what he might have given away had he been charitably inclined, which he was not in the least.
No one else in the whole world was as wealthy as he. He owned a combination mine in which were diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and other precious gems galore, some of them as big as cobblestones.