s wonted stolidness.

"Surre, we did!"

"Then I give it up," said Tom resignedly. "The compass says north--we're
going north. This is the very same toymaker."

"Go-o-od _night_!" said Archer, with even more than his usual vehemence.
"Maybe the Gerrmans have conquerred the Norrth Pole and taken all the
steel to make mountains, just like they knocked international law all
endways, hey? That's why the compass don't point right. G-o-o-o-o-od
_night_!"

This ingenious theory, involving a rather large piece of strategy even
for "supermen," did not appeal to Tom's sober mind.

"That's what it is," said Archer. "You've got to admit that if they
could send Zeps and submarines and things to the North Pole and cop all
the steel, the British navy, and ourrs too, would be floppin' around the
ocean like a chicken with its head cut off.--It's a good idea!"

Tom went up to the old toymaker, who greeted them with a smile, seeming
no more surprised to see them than he had been the day before.

"North--_north_?" asked Tom, pointing.

"Nort--yah," said the old man, pointing too.

"Water," said Tom; "swim--_swim_ across" (he pointed southward and made
the motions of swimming). The old man nodded as if he understood.

"Ach--vauder, yach,--Nonnenmattweiher."

"What?" said Tom.

"_What_?" said Archer.

"Nonnenmattweiher," said the old man. "Yah."

"He wants to know what's the matter with you," said Archer.

"Water," Tom repeated, almost in desperation.

"Swim (he went through the motions): Swim across water to south--start
south, go north." He made no attempt to convey the incident of the
vanishing coats.

"Water--yah,--Nonnenmattweiher," the man repeated.

At last, by dint of repeating words and swinging their arms and going
through a variety of extraordinary motions, the boys succeeded in
conveying to the little man that something was wrong in the neighborhood
of the lake, and he appeared willing enough to go back with them,
trotting along beside Tom in his funny belted blouse, for all the world
like a mechanical toy. Tom had his misgivings as to whether they would
really reach the lake no matter which way they went, but they did reach
it, and standing under the tree where they had recovered their vanished
coats they tried to explain to the old man what had happened--that they
had crossed from the north to the south bank and continued southward,
only to find that they were going north!

Suddenly a new light illumined