name was Rumpty-Dudget, and
whose only pleasure lay in doing mischief. An ugly little dwarf he
was, all grey from head to foot. He wore a broad-brimmed grey hat, a
thick grey beard, and a grey cloak that was so much too long for him
that it trailed on the ground like a grey tail as he walked. On his
back was a grey hump, which made him look even shorter than he
was--and he was not much over a foot high at his tallest. He lived in
a large grey tower, whose battlements the three children could see
rising above the hedge as they played on the round lawn; and over the
tower there hung, even in the brightest weather, a dull grey cloud.

Inside the tower was a vast room with a hundred and one corners to it;
and in each of the corners stood a little child, with its face to the
wall and its hands behind its back. Who were the children, and how
came they there? They were children, whom Rumpty-Dudget had caught
trespassing on his grounds, and had therefore carried away with him to
his tower. In this way he had filled up one corner after another,
until only one corner was left unfilled; and that one, curiously
enough, was the one-hundred-and-first. Now, it was a well-known fact
that if Rumpty-Dudget could but catch a child to put it in that one
empty corner he would become master of all the country round about.
And since he loved nothing that was not of the same colour and temper
as himself, the noble palace would in that case disappear, the garden
would be changed into a desert covered with grey stones and brambles,
and the dull grey cloud that now hung above the tower would sullenly
spread itself over all the heavens. The mighty Forest of Mystery, too,
would be cut down and sold for firewood; and the elves and fairies
would fly westward in pursuit of the flying sun. You may be sure,
therefore, that Rumpty-Dudget tried with all his might to get hold of
a child to put into that hundred-and-first corner. But by this time
the inhabitants of the country had begun to realise their danger; and
all the mothers were so careful, and all the children were so
obedient, that, for a long time, the hundred-and-first corner remained
empty.

CHAPTER II.

THE AUNT, THE CAT, AND THE DWARF.

When Hilda, Harold, and Hector were still very young indeed the Queen,
their mother, was obliged to make a long journey to a far-off country,
and to leave her children behind her. But before going she took them
in her arms and said, 'My darlings,