did

   inquire for the land of the Lo-grollas, but in vain.

   Happily we chanced to meet an old man, clothed in a whitish robe of some unknown substance, not unlike paper. This fluttering vesture was marked with strange characters, in black and red, which Leonora was able to interpret. She read them thus. They were but fragmentary.

   On the fragments the words, 'Tragedy,' 'Awful Revelations,' 'Purity,' and other apparently inconsistent hieroglyphics might be deciphered.

   He had a large and ragged staff; on his back he carried a vast Budget, and he was always asking everybody, 'Won't you put something in the Budget?'

   'Father,' said Leonora, in a respectful tone, 'canst thou tell us the way to the land of the people called Lo-grolla, and the place of the Rolling of Logs.'

   He stroked his beautiful white beard, and smiled faintly.

   'Indeed, child, we not only know it, but ourselves discovered it and wrote it up—we mean, sent our representative,' he answered.

   It was a peculiarity of this man that he always spoke, like royalty, in the first person plural.

   'And if a daughter may ask,' said Leonora, 'what is the name of my father?'

   Stedfastly regarding her, he answered, 'Our name is Pellmelli.'

   'And whither go we, my father?'

   'That you shall see—as soon, that is, as the fog lifts, or as our representative has made interest with a gas company.'

   With these words he furnished an unequalled supply of litter, which came, he said, 'from the office,' where there was plenty, and we were borne rapidly in a westward direction.

   As we journeyed, old Pellmelli gave us a good deal of information about the Lo-grollas, whom he did not seem to like.

   They were, he said, a savage and treacherous tribe, inhabiting for the most part the ruined abodes of some kingly race of old.

   The names of their chief dwellings, he told us, were still called, in some ancient and long-lost speech,

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