ully, for I remembered from previous experience that Shin Shira's
magical powers had an unfortunate habit of going wrong at times.

"Without the least doubt," replied he; "in fact, from the time that you
are reduced to the size which you desire to be, you very gradually
increase, till your original size is reached."

"Then there's no danger?" I hazarded.

"None whatever," was the reassuring reply.

"Then do, _do_ please let us be 'reduced,'" pleaded Lionel eagerly.

"Very well, then," said I. "And do you propose that we should go for a
trip in the model yacht?"

"Of course!" declared Lionel.

"Put it in the water then," said Shin Shira, "and I'll see what I can
do."

Lionel quickly put down the boat, and stood watching Shin Shira to see
what would happen.

The little Yellow Dwarf was busily gathering pebbles from the edge of
the pond, examining each carefully, and then throwing them down again in
what appeared to be an aimless and unintelligible manner.

Presently, however, he said, "There's _one_," and putting a stone
carefully away in his belt, he continued to search till he had found
another like it.

"And there's the other," he said, coming towards us.

"Now then, all you have to do is to swallow these two little white
stones and wish to be--let's see--an inch and a quarter high, and there
you are."

"It seems rather a venturesome proceeding," I said, hesitatingly.

"Oh no! it'll be all right! Come along! Let's swallow them!" cried
Lionel, suiting the action to the word and popping one of the stones
into his mouth without further ado.

He immediately became so small that I had some difficulty in seeing him
at all amongst the stones at the edge of the Pond.

"Are you not going to swallow one of the stones too?" I inquired of the
Dwarf before swallowing mine.

"No, I think not," was the reply. "I'll remain as I am, I think, in
case you may require assistance of a kind which only a larger person
than yourself could afford."

I then swallowed my stone, and immediately became almost as tiny as my
small cousin, having, for my part, wished to be reduced to the height of
an inch and a half, thinking that _some_ sort of distinction ought to be
preserved in our relative sizes.

"There!" exclaimed Lionel in a vexed voice, when I had joined him. "It's
no use after all! How on earth are we going to get on board?"

"Ah!" cried Shin Shira, laughing good-humouredly and now looking, to us,
like a good-natur