d the windows wide open in case the wanderers
returned during the night.

The next day, not hearing any news, I was obliged to telegraph for
Lionel's father and mother; and I had a terrible scene with them, for
they reproached me over and over again for letting their son venture out
upon the Magic Carpet.

"You must have known," said my aunt tearfully, "that it was dangerous to
trust to such heathenish and out-of-date methods of travelling, and now
the poor dear boy is probably transformed or bewitched, or done
something terrible to by this wretched Yellow Dwarf friend of yours,
with the awful name. It's really disgraceful of you to have let him go
at all!"

And so, amid the most bitter reproaches, although I left no stone
unturned in my hopeless search for Lionel and Shin Shira, several days
flew by, till one morning I nearly leaped from my chair in surprise and
delight, at seeing the following report in the paper--

"EXTRAORDINARY RESCUE AT SEA

"By Marconigram comes a message from mid-ocean that two days ago
the S.S. _Ruby_, from Liverpool to New York, picked up at sea,
under extraordinary circumstances, an English school-boy who
states that he was travelling by means of a Magic Carpet, which he
was unable to manage. He was found to be in a state of complete
exhaustion, but has since recovered, and appears to be a lively,
intelligent lad. He will be landed at New York."

It is needless to say that my uncle and myself lost no time in putting
ourselves in communication with the steamship people, and of course
found that the rescued lad was no other than Lionel.

His father and I crossed over by the next boat, and found him happy and
well and being made a tremendous fuss of by everybody at the hotel where
we had arranged for him to stay till our arrival.

"Of course," he explained in telling us all about it, "everything went
all right at first, and we went to Gammage's house in no time, but he
was out. We landed in the garden, and nobody saw us, and I went up to
the front door and knocked, and when I found Gammage wasn't at home I
just went back to Shin Shira and asked where else we could go, because I
didn't want to go home so soon.

"'How would you like to go over to France?' he said; 'we could do it in
about twenty minutes.'

"So of course I said yes, and we were crossing the Channel all right
when he suddenly began to disappear.

"You can guess I was in an aw