isobeying me, whether you knew it or
not."

"If I'd only known, ma'am----"

"You knew well enough that you were disobeying something, though you did
not know it was me. But come out and take your chance. Perhaps it may be
your last."

So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, if it had not been for
the scars on his face, he looked as clean and respectable as a
master-sweep need look.

"Take him away," said she to the truncheon, "and give him his
ticket-of-leave."

"And what is he to do, ma'am?"

"Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will find some very steady
men working out their time there, who will teach him his business: but
mind, if that crater gets choked again, and there is an earthquake in
consequence, bring them all to me, and I shall investigate the case very
severely."

So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking as meek as a drowned
worm.

And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweeping the crater of Etna
to this very day.

"And now," said the fairy to Tom, "your work here is done. You may as
well go back again."

"I should be glad enough to go," said Tom, "but how am I to get up that
great hole again, now the steam has stopped blowing?"

"I will take you up the backstairs: but I must bandage your eyes first;
for I never allow anybody to see those backstairs of mine."

"I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, ma'am, if you bid me
not."

"Aha! So you think, my little man. But you would soon forget your
promise if you got back into the land-world. For, if people only once
found out that you had been up my backstairs, you would have all the
fine ladies kneeling to you, and the rich men emptying their purses
before you, and statesmen offering you place and power; and young and
old, rich and poor, crying to you, 'Only tell us the great backstairs
secret, and we will be your slaves; we will make you lord, king,
emperor, bishop, archbishop, pope, if you like--only tell us the secret
of the backstairs. For thousands of years we have been paying, and
petting, and obeying, and worshipping quacks who told us they had the
key of the backstairs, and could smuggle us up them; and in spite of all
our disappointments, we will honour, and glorify, and adore, and
beatify, and translate, and apotheotise you likewise, on the chance of
your knowing something about the backstairs, that we may all go on
pilgrimage to it; and, even if we cannot get up it, lie at the foot of
it, an