eds of us there, entirely undigested, including
Mother Hubbard and a gentleman named Johnson, against whom, at that
period, I entertained a strong prejudice by reason of our divergent
views upon the subject of spelling. Even in this hour of our mutual
discomfort Johnson would not leave me alone, but persisted in asking me
how I spelt Jonah. Nobody was looking, so I kicked him. He sprang up
and came after me. I tried to run away, but became wedged between
Hop-o'-my-Thumb and Julius Caesar. I suppose our tearing about must
have hurt the dragon, for at that moment he gave vent to a most fearful
scream, and I awoke to find the fat man rubbing his left shin, while
we struggled slowly, with steps growing ever feebler, against a sea of
brick that every moment closed in closer round us.

We scrambled out of the carriage into a great echoing cave that
might have been the dragon's home, where, to my alarm, my mother was
immediately swooped down upon by a strange man in grey.

"Why's he do that?" I asked of my aunt.

"Because he's a fool," answered my aunt; "they all are."

He put my mother down and came towards us. He was a tall, thin man, with
eyes one felt one would never be afraid of; and instinctively even then
I associated him in my mind with windmills and a lank white horse.

"Why, how he's grown," said the grey man, raising me in his arms until
my mother beside me appeared to me in a new light as quite a little
person; "and solid too."

My mother whispered something. I think from her face, for I knew the
signs, it was praise of me.

"And he's going to be our new fortune," she added aloud, as the grey man
lowered me.

"Then," said my aunt, who had this while been sitting rigid upon a flat
black box, "don't drop him down a coal-mine. That's all I say."

I wondered at the time why the grey man's pale face should flush so
crimson, and why my mother should whisper angrily:

"Flow can you be so wicked, Fanny? How dare you say such a thing?"

"I only said 'don't drop him down a coal-mine,'" returned my aunt,
apparently much surprised; "you don't want to drop him down a coal-mine,
do you?"

We passed through glittering, joyous streets, piled high each side with
all the good things of the earth; toys and baubles, jewels and gold,
things good to eat and good to drink, things good to wear and good to
see; through pleasant ways where fountains splashed and flowers bloomed.
The people wore bright clothes, had happy faces.