and seemed to come out of grey, low-hanging, swaying curtains.
There was a gigantic column too, black against the grey. The ladder
bridge, cast down, lay on the ground not far from him.

Pain and fear overcame Philip, and he ceased to hear or feel or know
anything.

When he recovered consciousness he found himself under the table in the
drawing-room. The swelling feeling was over, and he did not seem to be
more than his proper size.

He could see the flat feet of the nurse and the lower part of her grey
skirt, and a rattling and rumbling on the table above told him that she
was doing as she had said she would, and destroying his city. He saw
also a black column which was the leg of the table. Every now and then
the nurse walked away to put back into its proper place something he had
used in the building. And once she stood on a chair, and he heard the
tinkling of the lustre-drops as she hooked them into their places on the
chandelier.

'If I lie very still,' said he, 'perhaps she won't see me. But I do
wonder how I got here. And what a dream to tell Helen about!'

He lay very still. The nurse did not see him. And when she had gone to
her breakfast Philip crawled out.

Yes, the city was gone. Not a trace of it. The very tables were back in
their proper places.

Philip went back to his proper place, which, of course, was bed.

'What a splendid dream,' he said, as he cuddled down between the sheets,
'and now it's all over!'

Of course he was quite wrong.

CHAPTER III

LOST

Philip went to sleep, and dreamed that he was at home again and that
Helen had come to his bedside to call him, leading a white pony that was
to be his very own. It was a pony that looked clever enough for
anything, and he was not surprised when it shook hands with him; but
when it said, 'Well, we must be moving,' and began to try to put on
Philip's shoes and stockings, Philip called out, 'Here, I say, stop
that,' and awoke to a room full of sunshine, but empty of ponies.

'Oh, well,' said Philip, 'I suppose I'd better get up.' He looked at his
new silver watch, one of Helen's parting presents, and saw that it
marked ten o'clock.

'I say, you know,' said he to the watch, 'you can't be right.' And he
shook it to encourage it to think over the matter. But the watch still
said 'ten' quite plainly and unmistakably.

Now the Grange breakfast time was at eight. And Philip was certain he
had not been called.

'This is jolly rum,'