ring cheerily up and down everywhere. But first I eagerly scanned
what text there was in the middle, in order to get a hint of what it
was all about. Of course I was not going to waste any time in reading.
A clue, a sign-board, a finger-post was all I required. To my dismay and
disgust it was all in a stupid foreign language! Really, the perversity
of some people made one at times almost despair of the whole race.
However, the pictures remained; pictures never lied, never shuffled nor
evaded; and as for the story, I could invent it myself.

Over the page I went, shifting the bit of coal to a new position; and,
as the scheme of the picture disengaged itself from out the medley
of colour that met my delighted eyes, first there was a warm sense of
familiarity, then a dawning recognition, and then--O then! along with
blissful certainty came the imperious need to clasp my stomach with
both hands, in order to repress the shout of rapture that struggled to
escape--it was my own little city!

I knew it well enough, I recognized it at once, though I had never been
quite so near it before. Here was the familiar gateway, to the left that
strange, slender tower with its grim, square head shot far above the
walls; to the right, outside the town, the hill--as of old--broke
steeply down to the sea. But to-day everything was bigger and fresher
and clearer, the walls seemed newly hewn, gay carpets were hung out over
them, fair ladies and long-haired children peeped and crowded on the
battlements. Better still, the portcullis was up--I could even catch a
glimpse of the sunlit square within--and a dainty company was trooping
through the gate on horseback, two and two. Their horses, in trappings
that swept the ground, were gay as themselves; and they were the gayest
crew, for dress and bearing, I had ever yet beheld. It could mean
nothing else but a wedding, I thought, this holiday attire, this festal
and solemn entry; and, wedding or whatever it was, I meant to be there.
This time I would not be balked by any grim portcullis; this time I
would slip in with the rest of the crowd, find out just what my
little town was like, within those exasperating walls that had so
long confronted me, and, moreover, have my share of the fun that was
evidently going on inside. Confident, yet breathless with expectation, I
turned the page.

Joy! At last I was in it, at last I was on the right side of those
provoking walls; and, needless to say, I looked a