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234 the Mouldiestwarp hears it he won't care tuppence whether its swear or swore. He is much too great. He's far above grammar, I'm sure."

"I wish every one was," sighed Edred, and I daresay you have often felt the same.

"Well, fire away! Not that's it's any good. Don't you remember you can only get at the Mouldiestwarp by a noble deed? And wanting to find Dickie isn't noble."

"No," she agreed; "but then if we could get Dickie back by doing a noble deed we'd do it like a shot, wouldn't we?"

"Oh! I suppose so," said Edred grumpily; "fire away, can't you?"

Elfrida fired away, and the next moment it was plain that Elfrida's poetry was more potent than Edred's; also that a little bad grammar is a trifle to a mighty Mouldiwarp.

For the walls of Edred's room receded further and further, till the children found themselves in a great white hall with avenues of tall pillars stretching in every direction as far as you could see. The hall was crowded with people dressed in costumes of all countries and all ages—Chinamen, Indians, Crusaders in armour, powdered ladies, doubleted gentlemen, Cavaliers in curls, Turks in turbans, Arabs, monks, abbesses, jesters, grandees with ruffs round their necks, and savages with kilts of thatch. Every kind of dress you can think of was there. Only all the dresses were white. It was like a redoute, which is a fancy-dress ball where the guests