an to cry any more, so he turned his attention
to the ceiling. Some of the stalactites that hung from it looked like
great icicles, and some of them looked like damp, grey clothes hung out
to dry. This recalled the appearance of the wash hanging in the
garden behind the palace--a long stocking, or an unusually large shirt
descending below the rest of the clothes--and he remembered how, in
the fall, after the harvest, the clothes-lines used to be tied to the
plum-trees, and the ends decorated with branches still bearing the blue,
juicy fruit, and then his hunger became so ravenous that he buckled his
belt tighter round his waist and groaned aloud.

Night fell. The cave grew dark, and he tried to sleep, but could not,
although the drops of water splashed soothingly, and monotonously from
the roof into the pools below.

The later it grew, the more he was tormented by his hunger, and the
flapping of the bats, which he could not see in the dark. He longed for
it to be morning, and more than once, in his great need, he lifted his
hands and prayed for deliverance, and yet more passionately for a piece
of bread, and the coming of day. Then he sat lost in thought, and bit
his nails, for the sake of having something to chew. He was aroused by
a splash in one of the puddles on the Hoor. It must be a fish! He sat up
to listen, and it seemed as if some one called to him gently. He pricked
up his ears sharply, and then!--no, he had not deceived himself, for the
friendly words came distinctly from below: "George, my poor boy, are you
awake?"

How they comforted him, and how quickly he sprang up in answer to the
question! At last he was saved. That was as certain to him as that twice
two makes four, although it might have been otherwise.

Over the pool, from which the small voice had sounded, appeared now a
dim light, a beautiful goldfish lifted its head out of the water, opened
its round mouth, and said, in a scarcely audible tone,--for a real fish
finds it difficult to speak, because it has no lungs,--that George's
godmother, the fairy Clementine, had sent it. Its mistress was by no
means pleased with George's disobedience; but, as he was otherwise a
good boy, and she was pledged to aid the Greylocks, she would help him
out of his difficulty this time.

The boy cried: "Take me home take me home, take me to my mother!"

"That would indeed be the simplest thing to do," replied the fish, "and
it lies in our power to fulfil your wi