ey cried; "off with him to the ant-hills!" But when they
found that Toonie still held him, quickly they all let go.

One fairy, standing out from the rest, pulled off his cap and bowed low.
"What is your will, master mortal?" he inquired; "for until you have
taken your wish and gone, we are all slaves at your bidding."

They all cringed round him, the cruel little people; but he answered
nothing. The moonbeams came thick, laying their slender white palms
graciously upon Toonie's head; and he, looking up, opened his mouth for
a laugh that gave no sound.

"Ah, so! That is why--he is a mute!" cried the fairies.

Quickly one dipped his cap along the grass and brought it filled with
dew. He sprang up, and poured it upon Toonie's tongue; and as the fairy
dew touched it, "Now speak!" they all cried in chorus, and fawned and
cringed, waiting for him to give them the word.

Cudgelling his brain for what it all meant, he said, "Tell me first what
wish I may have."

"Whatever you like to ask," said they, "for you have become one of our
free men. Tell us your name?"

"I am called Little Toonie," said he, "the son of old Toonie that was
lost."

"Why, as I live and remember," cried the little elderly man, "old Toonie
was me!" Then he threw himself grovelling at his son's feet, and began
crying: "Oh, be quick and take me away! Make them give me up to you: ask
to have me! I am your poor, loving old father whom you never saw; all
these years have I been looking and longing for you! Now take me away,
for they are a proud, cruel people, as spiteful as they are small; and
my back has been broken twenty years in their bondage."

The fairies began to look blue, for they hate nothing so much as to give
up one whom they have once held captive. "We can give you gold," said
they, "or precious stones, or the root of long living, or the waters of
happiness, or the sap of youth, or the seed of plenty, or the blossom of
beauty. Choose any of these, and we can give it you."

The old man again caught hold of his son's feet. "Don't choose these,"
he whimpered, "choose me!"

So because he had a capful of moonshine in his head, and because the
moonbeams were laying their white hands on his hair, he chose the weak,
shrivelled old man, who crouched and clung to him, imploring not to be
let go.

The fairies, for spite and anger, bestowed every one a parting pinch
on their tumble-down old bondsman; then they handed him to his son, and
swung ba