arch must have had
stirring times. The Palaeonto-theologist was just about to begin the
grand chain of evidence in which he proves conclusively, from careful
study of the original Hebrew manuscripts, and from examination of the
soil of Mount Ararat, whose fossils are abraded to this day where the
Ark rested on them, that the dimensions of the Ark were anything but
what they are said to be, when Walter ordered him to come and field.
There was no help for it; he went and fielded; 'he ran, he fell, he
fielded well.'

While he and the Poet were thus occupied, Mab and the Owl rested on a
great horse-chestnut and watched the game, and Mab, under the impression
that the boy, at sight of her, would be filled with wonder and delight,
slipped off her invisible cloak. For some time he was too much absorbed
in 'crumping the Poet's slows,' as he said, to notice her; but at last,
when the Poet and the Palaeonto-theologist were utterly 'collared' (as
Walter put it) and exhausted, and the perspiration stood thick on
their intellectual foreheads, the advent of refreshments gained them
a momentary respite. Walter attacked the fruit and cakes so vigorously
that Queen Mab grew impatient, and descended to a lower branch of the
huge tree, where at last the boy, raising his eyes, beheld her.

'Hi!' he cried, rushing indiscriminately at his companions. 'Get me a
catapult, lower boy, I say! Stones, peashooter, anything. Look alive!
Here goes!'

And he assailed the astonished Mab with a cricket-ball, and next 'it
came to pleats,' as Mrs. Major O'Dowd said; and then he hurled a jampot
and a fruit-knife. Fortunately for the fairy, who at the moment was
too much astonished to move, his aim was rendered inaccurate by his
excitement, and the missiles flew wide. The unhappy fags had started
up, and the Poet, looking round bewildered, with a volley of desperate
expletives un-uttered in his soul, caught sight of Mab.

'Celestial being!' he exclaimed rapturously. 'I again behold thee.
Bright inmate! How did it run?'

'Bother your verses!' cried the boy with utter contempt. 'Shy at it, you
duffer! Oh, what a Butterfly! Get her into the teapot. Blockhead!'

This last disdainfully to himself, for he had hurled the ancient and
valuable teapot at Mab, who was flying to a higher branch, and the
teapot had missed.

'Rash boy!' cried the Palaeonto-theologist, shaking him angrily, 'you
have broken my grandfather's teapot.'

'Run for the butterfly-net,'