off up the hill, with Dickey following closely at his heels.

"I tried to mend the Great Dipper once," resumed the Itinerant Tinker,
at length. "I only succeeded, however, in crooking the handle; but it
looks better that way, I think."

"How did you manage to reach it?" asked Dickey, a little doubtfully.

"I climbed up the Milky Way," replied the Itinerant Tinker, sadly. "In
order to reach it after I got there, I was obliged to stand on the horn
of the moon. It was a very perilous undertaking."

Dickey couldn't believe quite all that the Itinerant Tinker was telling
him. But his mild and gentle eyes wore such a serious expression that he
very much disliked to doubt the old man's word.

"Speaking of the moon," went on the Itinerant Tinker after a while, "I
tried once to make her stand up--after she had set, you know. It proved
a thankless task. She treated me very rudely, indeed. By the by, have
you seen the Flighty-wight?"

"No, sir; I have not," replied Dickey.

"_He's_ always jumping at conclusions, you know. I jumped at a
conclusion once, fell into disgrace, and was very much cut up over it. I
tried to patch _him_ up and he called me an old meddler! You haven't
heard of such ingratitude before, I fancy?"

"It was very mean of him, I think," said Dickey, sympathetically.

"Oh, _that's_ nothing," pursued the Itinerant Tinker, in a melancholy
tone. "That's _nothing_! I once attempted to solder a new tip on the
Wizard's wand. He turned me into a rabbit, _he_ did."

"Whatever did you do then?" asked Dickey.

"I protested, of course. He merely said that he was only making game of
me. But if there's any one thing that I can do better than another,"
went on the Itinerant Tinker, after another embarrassing pause, "it's
piecing together a split infinitive. Would you like me to show you how
it's done?"

"Indeed, I should," Dickey eagerly answered; "very much, indeed."

"Very well, then. Just give me time to set down these necessary
commodities, and I'll show you exactly the manner in which it's done and
undone."

After he had rid himself of his awkward burden, the Itinerant Tinker
carefully selected a saw from his kit of tools.

"Is that a log over there?" he asked, pointing toward a mound of earth.
"I'm a trifle nearsighted, you know."

"No," Dickey replied. "But there's one off there, just to the other
side. A big one, too."

"The identical thing," said the Itinerant Tinker. Whereupon he walked
over to i