dogs should lie on the floor.

Fairy me tribber is what you say to the fairies when you want them to
give you a cup of tea, but it is not so easy as it looks, for all the
r's should be pronounced as w's, and I forget this so often that David
believes I should find difficulty in making myself understood.

"What would you say," he asked me, "if you wanted them to turn you
into a hollyhock?" He thinks the ease with which they can turn you into
things is their most engaging quality.

The answer is Fairy me lukka, but though he had often told me this I
again forgot the lukka.

"I should never dream," I said (to cover my discomfiture), "of asking
them to turn me into anything. If I was a hollyhock I should soon
wither, David."

He himself had provided me with this objection not long before, but
now he seemed to think it merely silly. "Just before the time to wither
begins," he said airily, "you say to them Fairy me bola."

Fairy me bola means "Turn me back again," and David's discovery made
me uncomfortable, for I knew he had hitherto kept his distance of
the fairies mainly because of a feeling that their conversions are
permanent.

So I returned him to his home. I send him home from my rooms under the
care of Porthos. I may walk on the other side unknown to them, but they
have no need of me, for at such times nothing would induce Porthos to
depart from the care of David. If anyone addresses them he growls softly
and shows the teeth that crunch bones as if they were biscuits. Thus
amicably the two pass on to Mary's house, where Porthos barks his
knock-and-ring bark till the door is opened. Sometimes he goes in
with David, but on this occasion he said good-bye on the step. Nothing
remarkable in this, but he did not return to me, not that day nor next
day nor in weeks and months. I was a man distraught; and David wore
his knuckles in his eyes. Conceive it, we had lost our dear Porthos--at
least--well--something disquieting happened. I don't quite know what to
think of it even now. I know what David thinks. However, you shall think
as you choose.

My first hope was that Porthos had strolled to the Gardens and got
locked in for the night, and almost as soon as Lock-out was over I was
there to make inquiries. But there was no news of Porthos, though
I learned that someone was believed to have spent the night in the
Gardens, a young gentleman who walked out hastily the moment the gates
were opened. He had said nothing, h