measured him. It
will tone you up wonderfully to sit there and watch him."

"Very likely," said the Languid Youth; "but I would rather stay outside
and let you go up in the corner. The performance in that way will be
more interesting to me."

"You are dreadfully hard to please," said the Very Imp. "I have offered
them to you loose, and I offered them fastened to a wall, and now the
best thing I can do is to give you a chance at one of them that can't
move at all. It is the Ghastly Griffin, and is enchanted. He can't stir
so much as the tip of his whiskers for a thousand years. You can go to
his cave and examine him just as if he were stuffed, and then you can
sit on his back and think how it would be if you should live to be a
thousand years old, and he should wake up while you are sitting there.
It would be easy to imagine a lot of horrible things he would do to you
when you look at his open mouth with its awful fangs, his dreadful
claws, and his horrible wings all covered with spikes."

"I think that might suit me," said the Languid Youth. "I would much
rather imagine the exercises of these monsters than to see them really
going on."

"Come on, then," said the Very Imp; and he led the way to the cave of
the Ghastly Griffin.

The Bee-man went by himself through a great part of the mountain, and
looked into many of its gloomy caves and recesses, recoiling in horror
from most of the dreadful monsters who met his eyes. While he was
wandering about, an awful roar was heard resounding through the passages
of the mountain, and soon there came flapping along an enormous dragon,
with body black as night, and wings and tail of fiery red. In his great
fore-claws he bore a little baby.

"Horrible!" exclaimed the Bee-man. "He is taking that little creature to
his cave to devour it."

He saw the dragon enter a cave not far away, and, following, looked in.
The dragon was crouched upon the ground with the little baby lying
before him. It did not seem to be hurt, but was frightened and crying.
The monster was looking upon it with delight, as if he intended to make
a dainty meal of it as soon as his appetite should be a little stronger.

"It is too bad!" thought the Bee-man. "Somebody ought to do something."
And turning around, he ran away as fast as he could.

He ran through various passages until he came to the spot where he had
left his bee-hive. Picking it up, he hurried back, carrying the hive in
his two hands before h