d the order was then and there founded. And to the end of
the history of Ule, no honour was esteemed more highly by the citizens
than the simple affix F.F.

The formal part of the proceedings being finished, the Liglid proclaimed
the day a general holiday and in the name of the city invited the Flamp
to a grand banquet. Afterwards came sports of all kinds on the plain, in
which the Flamp took part, carrying enormous loads of children up and
down at a hand gallop, until the Commissioner of Works begged him to
move more slowly, owing to the danger caused to the public buildings of
Ule by the tremor of the earth. Never in the memory of the oldest
inhabitant had such a day of jollification and excitement been spent.

Of course the Flamp was the chief attraction, but Tilsa and Tobene and
old Alison were very considerable lions too, and a hundred times they
told the story of their adventures. Presuming on his relationship to the
explorers, the Liglid, it must be confessed, endeavoured to take to
himself some credit for the proceedings, but it is doubtful if he was
believed.

One worthy deed, however, he did perform: he publicly burned the Bill
for the Circumvention of the Flamp, amid deafening applause.

At last, late in the evening, the Flamp said good-bye, promising to come
again soon, and swung off across the plain, the people waving farewell
to him from the city wall. And as he moved along, he chanted to himself
a new song, which, although not much better in rhyme and metre, was
vastly more cheerful than his old dirge. This was the first line of it:

'_O life, I think, is a jolly good thing._'

XI

There is no space to tell a thousandth part of the benefits conferred by
the Flamp upon the city which once had used him so ill. Suffice it to
say, that henceforward the Flamp became the guardian of Ule.

A line of communication was set up between his cave and the city, and
when wanted he was signalled for; then at a rush he would cross the
plain, ready for any duty.

He helped the people of Ule in countless ways, from overwhelming the
attacking force of the King of Unna, without the loss of a single man in
the defending army, to lying on the plain in the heat of summer and
casting a shadow in which picnic parties might have lunch.

Sometimes the Flamp came when the signal had not been set in motion; and
then it was known that he was again in need of sympathy, and the
children of the city, headed by Tilsa