up for lost time, the moonbeam had already made an opening all
round the part on which it shone, and I had but to turn the other side
towards it--not even very slowly--to get the whole lid free. After
cleansing my hands in the water, I made trial of the Fifth Jar, and, as
I replaced it, a chorus of applause and cheering came up from below.

The Jars were mine.

VIII

WAG AT HOME

There was no scrambling up to the window-sill this time. My visitors
shot in like so many arrows, and "brought up" on their hands on the
tablecloth, or lit on their feet on the top rail of a chair-back or on
my shoulder, as the fancy took them. It would be tedious to go through
all the congratulations and thanks which I offered, and indeed received,
for it was important to them that the Jars should not get into wrong
hands.

"Father says," said Wag, who was sitting on a book, as usual--"Oh, what
fun it is to be able to fly again!" And he darted straight and level and
butted head first into the back of--Sprat, was it?--who was standing
near the edge of the table. Sprat was merely propelled into the air a
foot or two off, and remained standing, but, of course, turned round and
told Wag what he thought of him. Wag returned contentedly to his book.
"Father says," he resumed, "he hopes you'll come and see us now. He says
you did all right, and he's very glad the stuff got spilt, because
they'll take moons and moons to get as much of it together again. He
says they meant to squirt some of it on you when they got near enough,
and while you were trying to get it off they'd have got hold of----" He
pointed to the box of jars; there was a shyness about mentioning it.

"Your father's very kind," I said, "and I hope you'll thank him from me;
but I don't quite see how I'm to get into your house."

"Fancy you not knowing that!" said Wag. "I'll tell him you'll come." And
he was out of the window. As usual, I had recourse to Slim.

"Why, you did put some on your chest, didn't you?" was Slim's question.

"Yes, but nothing came of it."

"Well, I believe you can go pretty well anywhere with that, if you think
you can."

"Can I fly, then?"

"No, I should say not; I mean, if you couldn't fly before, you can't
now."

"How do you fly? I don't see any wings."

"No, we never have wings, and I'm rather glad we don't; the things that
have them are always going wrong somehow. We just work it in the proper
way with our backs, and there you are; l