ility.

"Yes," he exclaimed, gazing round on the circle of his admirers; "I said
from the first that this would be a wonderful trip, and that we would be
sure to find _something_. And did we not find it?"

(Vigorous assent by look and voice from the audience.)

"And," he continued, with a lowered voice and solemn look, "if Cheenbuk
had not turned to the _left_ when I told him, we never would have found
it."

"But what was it like?" asked an elderly man with a squat-nose, whose
mind was not quite clear, although he had already listened to an
elaborate description.

"Like? Ho! it was like--like--"

"Like a big kayak?" remarked some one.

"No, no. Far, far bigger," said the magician, making an imbecile
attempt to indicate inconceivable size by waving arms and outspread
fingers; "it was--as big--as--as--"

"A whale?" suggested Squat-nose.

"Bigger--Bigger!" said Aglootook, with a lost look in his eyes. "You
could stuff twenty igloes into it; and there were three great poles
rising out of it as thick as--as _me_, with other poles across them, low
down and high up, and walrus-lines hanging about in all directions, some
as thick as my wrist, others as thin as my finger, and strange igloes
inside of it--not of snow, but of wood--with all kinds of things you
could think of in there; and things that--that--you could _not_ think of
even if you were to try--that nobody ever thought of since the world
began--wonderful!"

This seemed to fairly take away the breath of the audience, for they
could only glare and remain dumb. For a few moments they breathed hard,
then Squat-nose said in a deep whisper--

"Go on."

Aglootook did go on, and kept going on so long that his audience were
forced to go off and assuage the pangs of hunger which prolonged
abstinence and mental excitement at last rendered unendurable. But no
sooner was appetite appeased than the magician and his hearers returned
to the subject with redoubled energy.

"Is it very, _very_ far away?" asked Aglootook's wife, with a sigh, when
he explained to her the wonders of the mirror.

"Yes, a long, long way, and some of the ice is very rough for the dogs."

"Not too far for some of us to go and return before the open water?"
Squat-nose ventured to hope.

"Plenty of time," returned Aglootook, with a patronising smile. "In
fact I advised Cheenbuk to start away back as fast as possible with many
sledges, so that my woman will see it with her own eyes."