said Neville. "I didn't know you had scene-shifters
here." Neville had been to see pantomimes, and therefore knew what a
scene-shifter was.

"Then how do you think we shift the scenes?" cried the wee yellow man
rather crossly. Then he suddenly became very busy about nothing, as he
whispered, "Look out! Here's the head scene-shifter coming now."

Looking back, Neville saw, coming towards them, a man with very large
ears. He was not a nice-looking man, and he was extremely like the
cloud man that Neville had sometimes seen in the sky when he went to
look at the sunset from the bald hill.

"Now then! Now then!" roared the man with the large ears. "Move
yourself there, Goldie! We shut up the show here in a few minutes, and
open at once on the next range. See that you have that curtain down on
time."

"Certainly, sir," replied the little yellow man very humbly.

Then the man with the large ears noticed Neville for the first time.
He frowned darkly, and his big ears seemed to flap with annoyance.

"Who is this on our Cloud Horse?" he roared in his great angry voice.

"Just a little boy," said the yellow man--for Neville was far too
frightened to speak. "Just a little boy that the Cloud Horse has been
playing tricks on. I think he'd like to be getting home--just over by
the bald hill, if you don't mind, sir."

"Certainly not!" shouted the man with the large ears. "The Cloud Horse
is not to go out there again to-night, nor the silly little boy
either. I'm not going to have the sunset upset by any such silly
nonsense. You mind what I say and attend to your work."

And, without another glance at Neville, the man with the large ears
strode off to arrange for the sunset on the next range, miles and
miles away.

Neville gazed at the wee yellow man hopelessly, and the wee yellow man
gazed at Neville, and neither spoke a word until the man with the
large ears was well out of the way. Then the Last Sunbeam grew quite
cheerful again.

"Well," said he, "you heard what the head scene-shifter said. You
certainly can't go home by the way you came. The only thing for you to
do is to go round. You'll just about have time to do it, if you
hurry."

"Go round?" repeated Neville in a puzzled voice. "Go round what, round
where?"

"Round the world, of course," replied the little yellow man.

"Round the world?" cried Neville. "Why you must be making fun of me,
and I think that is very unkind."

"Not a bit of it," laughed the lit