this. Give a thing and take a thing? Why, it's never done. Let the
poor exiled stranger dragon have his birthday present." And they tried
to get at Tom--but the guinea pig stood in the way.

"Yes," Tom cried. "Fair play is a jewel. And your helpless exile shall
have the Princess--if he can catch her. Now then, Mary Ann."

Mary Ann looked around the big pillar and called to the dragon: "Bo! you
can't catch me," and began to run as fast as ever she could, and the
dragon ran after her. When the Princess had run a half mile she stopped,
dodged around a tree, and ran back to the pillar and around it, and the
dragon after her. You see, he was so long he could not turn as quickly
as she could. Around and around the pillar ran the Princess. The first
time she ran around a long way from the pillar, and then nearer and
nearer--with the dragon after her all the time; and he was so busy
trying to catch her that he never noticed that Tom had tied the very end
of his long, tight, whipcordy tail to the rock, so that the more the
dragon ran around, the more times he twisted his tail around the pillar.
It was exactly like winding a top--only the peg was the pillar, and the
dragon's tail was the string. And the magician was safe between the
Belgian hares, and couldn't see anything but darkness, or do anything
but choke.

When the dragon was wound onto the pillar as much as he possibly could
be, and as tight--like cotton on a reel--the Princess stopped running,
and though she had very little breath left, she managed to say,
"Yah--who's won now?"

This annoyed the dragon so much that he put out all his strength--spread
his great purple wings, and tried to fly at her. Of course this pulled
his tail, and pulled it very hard, so hard that as he pulled the tail
_had_ to come, and the pillar _had_ to come around with the tail, and
the island _had_ to come around with the pillar, and in another minute
the tail was loose, and the island was spinning around exactly like a
top. It spun so fast that everyone fell flat on their faces and held on
tight to themselves, because they felt something was going to happen.
All but the magician, who was choking between the Belgian hares, and
felt nothing but fur and fury.

And something did happen. The dragon had sent the kingdom of Rotundia
spinning the way it ought to have gone at the beginning of the world,
and as it spun around, all the animals began to change sizes. The guinea
pigs got small, and the