He lighted one stick, and it smelled so like incense, and he felt so drowsy and nice, that he started to fall asleep. The lighted punk fell lower and lower until it touched one of the fire-cracker-packs. The silk paper began to curl and grow black, then it burst into flames. There was a sputter, then a crackle like the firing of many rifles, and then a great roar. My! but those were powerful fire-crackers. One pack exploded--and he was blown through the palace. Another--and over the Peppermint Pagoda he flew. Still another went off, and he was tossed clean over the Great Wall to the mouth of the hole down which he had come that very same day.
Then the last pack went--bang! and he was blown through the hole, Wienerwurst after him, up, up, up, past the Coal Giant and the Furnace Pit, and up, up, up, until he saw, just above him, the little circle of light again.
Out of it he flew--and--all of a sudden his head cleared, and he saw he was sitting back at home once more, sitting against the cedar post, and the Toyman was rubbing his head.
"Never mind," the Toyman was saying, "It'll feel better soon. And how did you like China?"
The head did feel better "pretty soon." Anyway, he didn't mind it a bit. It was worth a headache, as the Toyman said, to have seen the wonderful land of China.
[XVI]
HE THAT TOOK THE CITY
Marmaduke trudged up the road. And the road went up, up, up the hill. First he thought that road was like a great worm, always squirming ahead of him, but then he decided that, although it twisted, it didn't squirm, it was too still for that. After all, it was more like a ribbon, a wide brown ribbon, tied around the green shoulder of the hill.
He wondered where that ribbon road went--over the hill and far away--perhaps clear round the World! But, no, it couldn't do that, for there was the Sea between, and it must stop at the Sea. Anyway, he would have liked to have travelled over it, to the very end, to see all the people and animals that walked over it, and the cities and churches that stood by its side.
But first he must find the Toyman. That is what he had come for. And the Toyman had just gone over that very road. Marmaduke had seen him from the valley below, his long legs climbing up that hill and the little boy had hurried after him, calling and calling.