wonderful change should happen to any one besides himself. This just
meant that the whole thing was a dream. And he said nothing.

"Never mind," said Elfrida in comforting tones; "don't try to believe
it. I know you can't. Forget it. Or pretend we were just kidding you."

"Well, it doesn't matter," Edred said. "What can we do to pay out old
Parrot-nose?"

Then Richard found a voice and words.

"I don't like it," he said. "It's never been like this before. It makes
it seem not real. It's only a dream, really, I suppose. And I'd got to
believe that it was really real."

"I don't understand a word you're saying," said Edred; and, darting to a
corner, produced a photographic camera, of the kind called "Brownie."

"Look here," he said, "you've never seen anything like _this_ before.
This comes from the times we belong to."

Richard knew it well. A boy at school had had one. And he had borrowed
it once. And the assistant master had had a larger one of the same kind.
It was horrible to him, this intrusion of the scientific attainments of
the ugly times in which he was born into the beautiful times that he had
grown to love.

"Oh, stow it!" he said. "I know now it's all a silly dream. But it's not
worth while to pretend I don't know a Kodak when I see it. That's a
Brownie."

"If you've dreamed about our time," said Elfrida.... "Did you ever dream
of fire carriages and fire-boats, and----"

Richard explained that he was not a baby, that he knew all about
railways and steamboats and the triumphs of civilization. And added that
Kent made 615 against Derbyshire last Thursday. Edred and Elfrida began
to ask questions. Dickie was much too full of his own questionings to
answer theirs.

"I shan't tell you anything more," he said. "But I'll help you to get
even with old Parrot-nose." And suggested shovelling the snow off the
roof into the room of that dismal tyrant through the skylight
conveniently lighting it.

But Edred wanted that written down--about Kent and Derbyshire--so that
they might see, when they got back to their own times, whether it was
true. And Dickie found he had a bit of paper in his doublet on which to
write it. It was a bill--he had had it in his hand when he made the
magic moon-seed pattern, and it had unaccountably come with him. It was
a bill for three ship's guns and compasses and six flags, which Mr.
Beale had bought for him in London for the fitting out of a little ship
he had made to order for