this tumble-down old ancient place with.'

'_I_ built?'

'Yes, with them bricks I made you. I understand as this was the first
building you ever put up. That's why it's first on the road to where you
want to get to!'

Philip looked round at the Stonehenge building and saw that it was
indeed built of enormous oak bricks.

'Of course,' he said, 'only I've grown smaller.'

'Or they've grown bigger,' said Mr. Perrin; 'it's the same thing. You
see it's like this. All the cities and things you ever built is in this
country. I don't know how it's managed, no more'n what you do. But so it
is. And as you made 'em, you've the right to come to them--if you can
get there. And you have got there. It isn't every one has the luck, I'm
told. Well, then, you made the cities, but you made 'em out of what
other folks had made, things like bricks and chessmen and books and
candlesticks and dominoes and brass basins and every sort of kind of
thing. An' all the people who helped to make all them things you used to
build with, they're all here too. D'you see? _Making's_ the thing. If it
was no more than the lad that turned the handle of the grindstone to
sharp the knife that carved a bit of a cabinet or what not, or a child
that picked a teazle to finish a bit of the cloth that's glued on to the
bottom of a chessman--they're all here. They're what's called the
population of your cities.'

'I see. They've got small, like I have,' said Philip.

'Or the cities has got big,' said the carpenter; 'it comes to the same
thing. I wish you wouldn't interrupt, Master Philip. You put me out.'

'I won't again,' said Philip. 'Only do tell me just one thing. How can
you be here and at Amblehurst too?'

'We come here,' said the carpenter slowly, 'when we're asleep.'

'Oh!' said Philip, deeply disappointed; 'it's just a dream then?'

'Not it. We come here when we're too sound asleep to dream. You go
through the dreams and come out on the other side where everything's
real. That's _here_.'

'Go on,' said Philip.

'I dunno where I was. You do put me out so.'

'Pop you something or other,' said Philip.

'Population. Yes. Well, all those people as made the things you made the
cities of, they live in the cities and they've made the insides to the
houses.'

'What do they do?'

'Oh, they just live here. And they buy and sell and plant gardens and
work and play like everybody does in other cities. And when they go to
sleep they go slap through t