TWILIGHT LAND

you will trouble me no more. Just wait here a moment
until I bring it to you.”

The spendthrift was left all alone in the room; not a
soul was there but himself. He looked up, and he looked
down, and scratched his head. ‘‘ Why,” he cried aloud,
‘““should I be content to take a-part when I can have the
whole?”

To do was as easy as to say. He snatched up the
iron ‘candlestick, caught up the staff that the ‘old man
had left leaning against the wall, and seated himself upon
the magic carpet. “By the horn of Jacob,” he cried,
“T command thee, O Carpet! to carry me over hill and
valley, over lake and river, to a place where the old man
can never find me.”

Hardly had the words left his mouth than away flew
the carpet through the air, carrying him along with it ;
away and away, higher than the clouds and swifter than
the’wind. Then at last it descended to the earth again,
and when the young spendthrift looked about him, he
found himself in just such a desert place as he and the
old man had come to when they had found the treasure.
But he gave no thought to that, and hardly looked around
him to see where he was. All that he thought of was to
try his hand at the three dancers that belonged to the
candlestick. He struck a light, and lit the three candles,
and instantly the three little old men appeared for him
just as they had for the old greybeard. And around and
around they spun and whirled, until the sand and dust
spun and whirled along with them. Then the young man
grasped his cudgel tightly.

Now, he had not noticed that when the old man struck
the three dancers he had held the cudgel in his left hand,

Iio