"There we are," said the Wizard, locking the drawer from the inside. "How do you like it, Jimmieboy?"
"It's awfully dark," said the little fellow. "I can't see an inch in front of my face."
"Then take my hand," said the Wizard, "and I'll lead you to where it is light."
Jimmieboy did as he was told, and the two little creatures groped their way along in the dark until the Wizard found a small door. Turning the knob to this he threw it wide open, and Jimmieboy looking through it saw a beautiful garden in which sweetly perfumed fountains were plashing merrily, and through which there were scattered beds and beds of the loveliest and withal the most singular-looking flowers he had ever seen.
"My!" he cried in an ecstasy of delight. "Isn't this magnificent!"
"Oh, yes—pretty good," said Thumbhi. "I suppose when one sees it for the first time it must look like the most beautiful place in the world, but to one whose prison it has been it isn't quite so beautiful. You never heard my song,
"'I would rather be free in a dungeon cell
Than a captive at large in a flowered dell.'
"Did you?"
"No," said Jimmieboy, "I never did. How does it go?"
"This way," replied the Wizard, and then he repeated these lines: