hat could I have said to start it? What has it done this to me
for?"

"I know!" cried Dick. "Don't you remember? You said you wished you were
a boy again, like me. So you are, you see, exactly like me! What a lark
it is, isn't it? But, I say, you can't go up to business like that, you
know, can you? I tell you what, you'd better come to Grimstone's with me
now, and see how you like it. I shouldn't mind so much if you came too.
Grimstone's face would be splendid when he saw two of us. Do come!"

"That's ridiculous nonsense you're talking," said Paul, "and you know
it. What should I do at school at my age? I tell you I'm the same as
ever inside, though I may have shrunk into a little rascally boy to look
at. And it's simply an abominable nuisance, Dick, that's what it is! Why
on earth couldn't you let the stone alone? Just see what mischief
you've done by meddling now--put me to all this inconvenience!"

"You shouldn't have wished," said Dick.

"Wished!" echoed Mr. Bultitude. "Why, to be sure," he said, with a gleam
of returning hopefulness, "of course--I never thought of that. The
thing's a wishing stone; it must be! You have to hold it, I suppose, and
then say what you wish aloud, and there you are. If that's the case, I
can soon put it all right by simply wishing myself back again. I--I
shall have a good laugh at all this by and by--I know I shall!"

He took the stone, and got into a corner by himself where he began
repeating the words, "I wish I was back again," "I wish I was the man I
was five minutes ago," "I wish all this had not happened," and so on,
until he was very exhausted and red in the face. He tried with the stone
held in his left hand, as well as his right, sitting and standing, under
all the various conditions he could think of, but absolutely nothing
came of it; he was just as exasperatingly boyish and youthful as ever at
the end of it.

"I don't like this," he said at last, giving it up with a rather
crestfallen air. "It seems to me that this diabolical invention has got
out of order somehow; I can't make it work any more!"

"Perhaps," suggested Dick, who had shown throughout the most
unsympathetic cheerfulness, "perhaps it's one of those talismans that
only give you one wish, and you've had it, you know?"

"Then it's all over!" groaned Paul. "What the dooce am I to do? What
shall I do? Suggest something, for Heaven's sake; don't stand cackling
there in that unfeeling manner. Can't you see what