r!'

'What is it like?' Tobene asked.

'Like?' said the Liglid, 'like? Why, no one knows. No one has seen it.
But we can hear it--oh, horrible, horrible!' and the little man covered
his eyes and shuddered.

'Why does it come?' Tilsa went on.

'To eat us,' said the Liglid.

'How many people has it eaten?' said Tobene.

'Eh!' the Liglid replied. 'Well, I don't--well, I can't exactly--well, I
don't think it has ever eaten any one yet. But it wants to and means
to.'

'Then how do you know it wants to eat you?' Tilsa persisted.

'Because,' said the Liglid, 'because it sounds like it.'

At night the Flamp came, and the city trembled and the earth shook.
Before the Liglid's house it sat down and wept and sighed for fully five
minutes, while within doors the Liglid turned all the colours of the
rainbow with fright. 'His face was fine,' said Tobene afterwards: 'just
like those whirligig things at the end of magic-lantern shows.' From
which remark you may judge that Tobene did not share his grandfather's
alarm, nor did Tilsa, nor old Alison.

The next morning there was a pool outside the Liglid's house large
enough to sail a boat on.

V

One day not long after the Flamp's visit, Tilsa ran into old Alison's
room to ask something, and was surprised and grieved to find her nurse
rocking to and fro in her chair, with her face covered. Now and then
between her fingers trickled the tears, and Alison sighed deeply.

'What is it?' Tilsa asked, kneeling beside her. 'Can I do anything, dear
Alison?'

'Only stay here, dearie,' sobbed the old woman. 'I was remembering
happier days. Stay here, Tilsa dear. All I want is sympathy.'

So Tilsa stayed, and Alison soon was herself again. 'Thank you, dearie,'
she said as she wiped her eyes and jumped up ready to set to work again;
'you have done me a world of good. Always be sympathetic if you can. No
one knows how grateful it is.'

It was nearly bed-time, and Tilsa went downstairs to say good-night to
the Liglid. On the way her little white forehead was puckered into lines
like a railway map.

She entered her grandfather's room softly. The old man was seated on one
side of his desk; on the other was the Town Clerk of Ule. Between them
was a large sheet of paper with these words at the top:

'A BILL FOR THE CIRCUMVENTION
OF THE FLAMP.'

They were too busy to notice Tilsa's entrance.

'We must hurry it through the House,' the Liglid was saying, 'or t