ent.
"Patience. The smaller are always the better ones. If I had time, we
should reach the smallest, the final, the most glorious work of
Providence. Each one of these ships carries us not only beyond the
boundaries of our planet, but even beyond the limited barriers of our
senses. Each of them is adapted to carry us across the border. If you are
interested," he continued, "I have other wares in my shop. Here are the
captain's hedge-scissors, here is a plummet with which one can sound the
lowest depths of the firmament and the Milky Way. Here are the tropics of
Cancer and Capricorn. But you have no time, and I won't detain you."

The chandler closed the glass door on them; but they saw him with his
nose flattened against the pane, mysteriously, as if he still had
something to sell, holding his finger to his mouth, shaped like a carp's.
His lips seemed to be framing certain words. Frederick understood _legno
santo_, Toilers of the Light, and even what his uncle had said about "up
with you in the dismal air." But Peter Schmidt thrust his fist through
the glass door, pulled Rasmussen's embroidered cap off his head, took
from it a little key, and beckoned Frederick to come away with him. They
left the houses behind and stepped out into the open rolling country.

"The thing is," said Peter, "it will mean a lot of trouble."

And they ran and climbed for hours. Evening fell. They lit a fire, and
slept in a tree rocking in the wind. Morning came. They took to wandering
again, until the sun lay low on the horizon. Finally, Peter opened a
small gate in a low wall. On the other side of the wall was a garden.
A gardener was tying vines.

"How do you do, Doctor?" he said. "The sun is setting, but we know why we
die."

On looking at him more closely, Frederick recognised the dead stoker in
the man, whose face was illuminated by the rosy flush of the setting sun
and wore a friendly smile, as he stood there in what was a strange
garden, or vineyard, or fairy-land.

"I'd rather be doing this than shovelling coal," said the stoker,
pointing to the cords hanging in his hands, with which he had been tying
up the vines.

The three of them together now walked a rather long distance to a wild
section of the garden, where it had turned completely dark. The wind
began to rush, and the shrubs, trees and bushes of the garden swished
like breakers on the shore. The stoker beckoned to them, and they
squatted on the ground in a circle. It se