by which they seem to reach an understanding with each other--but such awful sounds!..."Out of joint, completely out of joint!" he muttered in a pained tone. "Comes of your excited way of doing things. Look. See for yourself. The sucking-disk at the end of my proboscis looks like a twisted pewter plate."

"Have you a sucking-disk?" asked Maya.

"Goodness gracious, of course!-- Now tell me. What do you want to know about human beings?-- Never mind about my proboscis being out of joint. It'll be all right.-- I think I had best tell you a few things from my own life. You see, I grew up among human beings, so you'll hear just what you want to know."

"You grew up among human beings?"

"Of course. It was in the corner of their room that my mother laid the egg from which I came. I made my first attempts to walk on their window-shades, and I tested the strength of my wings by flying from Schiller to Goethe."

"What are Schiller and Goethe?"

"Statues," explained Puck, very superior, "statues of two men who seem to have distinguished themselves. They stand under the mirror, one on the right hand and one on the left hand, and nobody pays any attention to them."

"What's a mirror? And why do the statues stand under the mirror?"

"A mirror is good for seeing your belly when you crawl on it. It's very amusing. When human beings go up to a mirror, they either put their hands up to their hair, or pull at their beards. When they are alone, they smile into the mirror, but if somebody else is in the room they look very serious. What the purpose of it is, I could never make out. Seems to be some useless game of theirs. I myself, when I was still a child, suffered a good deal from the mirror. I'd fly into it and of course be thrown back violently."

Maya plied Puck with more questions about the mirror, which he found very difficult to answer.

"Here," he said at last, "you've certainly flown over the smooth surface of water, haven't you? Well, a mirror is something like it, only hard and upright."

The little fly, seeing that Maya listened most respectfully and attentively to the tale of his experiences, became a good deal pleasanter in his manners. And as for Maya's opinion of Puck, although she didn't believe everything he told her, still she was sorry she 

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