arble palace
towered over the surrounding houses; and as the Princess neared it she
saw that the doors were wide open. She walked in fearlessly, and found
herself in a large hall, with walls entirely covered with
cockle-shells. Long stone tables filled the middle of the room; at
which a crowd of small brown-coated men were seated, scribbling away
with long pens, but in total silence.

The great grey beards of some of the writers had touched the ground,
and even twisted themselves round the legs of the benches on which the
old men were sitting.

Princess Sidigunda stood for a minute looking on, curiously. She then
went up to one of the Trolls and pulled him gently by the sleeve.

He did not look up, but his pen slightly slackened its speed.

"What do you want?" he enquired in an uninterested voice. "Make haste,
for I have no time to spare!"

"What rude people they all are!" thought the Princess. "The Sea-Troll
said you would tell me how to find my golden shoe," she continued
aloud.

"I wish the Sea-Troll would mind his own business!" said the little
brown man vindictively. "He's always distracting us from our State
business with all sorts of messages."

"Are you working for the State?" enquired Sidigunda.

"Of course! I thought every oyster knew that," replied the brown
Troll.

"Are they particularly uneducated, then?" asked the Princess.

"Why they're _babies_!" said the brown Troll. "You can see them any
day in their beds by the side of the road, if you have eyes in your
head."

"What a place to keep babies in!" thought the Princess, but she said
nothing, for she saw that the old Troll's disposition was very
irritable.

"Would you tell me one thing," she began. "I do so much want to know
why I saw no one in the streets as I came along. Where have all the
people gone to?"

"Well, of _all_ the idi----" commenced the brown Troll, then checked
himself with an effort. "Of course you can't know how foolish your
questions sound," he said. "When you're two or three hundred years old
I daresay you'll be more sensible. Why all the people are asleep--you
don't suppose it's the same as in _your_ country!"

"Do they sleep all the time?" asked the Princess.

"Not all the time, of course. In this town it's two weeks at a
stretch. In other places more, or less. By this arrangement we always
have half the population asleep, and half awake--much pleasanter and
less crowding. I can't think why it's not done in other