ly lavender
color. So I swooped down and picked off one in my bill and ate it. At
once I began to grow small. I could feel myself shrinking, shrinking
away, and it frightened me terribly, so that I lighted on the ground to
think over what was happening. In a few seconds I had shrunk to the
size you now see me; but there I remained, getting no smaller, indeed,
but no larger. It is certainly a dreadful affliction! After I had
recovered somewhat from the shock I began to search for you. It is not
so easy to find one's way when a creature is so small, but fortunately
I spied you here in this shed and came to you at once."

Cap'n Bill and Trot were much astonished at this story and felt grieved
for the poor Ork, but the little man Pessim seemed to think it a good
joke. He began laughing when he heard the story and laughed until he
choked, after which he lay down on the ground and rolled and laughed
again, while the tears of merriment coursed down his wrinkled cheeks.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" he finally gasped, sitting up and wiping his
eyes. "This is too rich! It's almost too joyful to be true."

"I don't see anything funny about it," remarked Trot indignantly.

"You would if you'd had my experience," said Pessim, getting upon his
feet and gradually resuming his solemn and dissatisfied expression of
countenance. "The same thing happened to me."

"Oh, did it? And how did you happen to come to this island?" asked the
girl.

"I didn't come; the neighbors brought me," replied the little man, with
a frown at the recollection. "They said I was quarrelsome and
fault-finding and blamed me because I told them all the things that
went wrong, or never were right, and because I told them how things
ought to be. So they brought me here and left me all alone, saying that
if I quarreled with myself, no one else would be made unhappy. Absurd,
wasn't it?"

"Seems to me," said Cap'n Bill, "those neighbors did the proper thing."

"Well," resumed Pessim, "when I found myself King of this island I was
obliged to live upon fruits, and I found many fruits growing here that
I had never seen before. I tasted several and found them good and
wholesome. But one day I ate a lavender berry--as the Ork did--and
immediately I grew so small that I was scarcely two inches high. It was
a very unpleasant condition and like the Ork I became frightened. I
could not walk very well nor very far, for every lump of earth in my
way seemed a mountain, every bl