they not? I did not know!--I remember now they do teach that with
you. It is a great mistake--one of the greatest ever wiseacre made! No
man of the universe, only a man of the world could have said so!"

"You a librarian, and talk such rubbish!" I cried. "Plainly, you did not
read many of the books in your charge!"

"Oh, yes! I went through all in your library--at the time, and came out
at the other side not much the wiser. I was a bookworm then, but when I
came to know it, I woke among the butterflies. To be sure I have given
up reading for a good many years--ever since I was made sexton.--There!
I smell Grieg's Wedding March in the quiver of those rose-petals!"

I went to the rose-bush and listened hard, but could not hear the
thinnest ghost of a sound; I only smelt something I had never before
smelt in any rose. It was still rose-odour, but with a difference,
caused, I suppose, by the Wedding March.

When I looked up, there was the bird by my side.

"Mr. Raven," I said, "forgive me for being so rude: I was irritated.
Will you kindly show me my way home? I must go, for I have an
appointment with my bailiff. One must not break faith with his
servants!"

"You cannot break what was broken days ago!" he answered.

"Do show me the way," I pleaded.

"I cannot," he returned. "To go back, you must go through yourself, and
that way no man can show another."

Entreaty was vain. I must accept my fate! But how was life to be lived
in a world of which I had all the laws to learn? There would, however,
be adventure! that held consolation; and whether I found my way home or
not, I should at least have the rare advantage of knowing two worlds!

I had never yet done anything to justify my existence; my former world
was nothing the better for my sojourn in it: here, however, I must earn,
or in some way find, my bread! But I reasoned that, as I was not to
blame in being here, I might expect to be taken care of here as well as
there! I had had nothing to do with getting into the world I had just
left, and in it I had found myself heir to a large property! If that
world, as I now saw, had a claim upon me because I had eaten, and could
eat again, upon this world I had a claim because I must eat--when it
would in return have a claim on me!

"There is no hurry," said the raven, who stood regarding me; "we do not
go much by the clock here. Still, the sooner one begins to do what has
to be done, the better! I will take you to my w