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[Illustration: It was a most beautiful sight, that city. (See page 103.)]


THE LITTLE GREEN GOBLIN

by

JAMES BALL NAYLOR.

Illustrated by Harry·L·Miller·






The Saalfield Publishing Company.

·New York·      ·Akron·Ohio·      ·Chicago·

H. L. Miller · 1907.

Copyright, 1907
by
The Saalfield Publishing Company


[Illustration]




[Illustration: ILLUSTRATIONS]


    It was a most beautiful sight, that city.                _Frontispiece_

    A broad band of moonlight streamed in at the open window.           36

    He picked up a large knotted pole for a cane.                       82

    Two giants stood triumphantly grinning down upon twenty pygmies.   134

    Bob and his comrade went straight to the mayor’s office.           160

    “If you’re rested now, we’ll resume our sight-seeing.”             176




[Illustration: CONTENTS.]


    CHAPTER                                                           PAGE

       I. A Midnight Visit from the Little Green Goblin                  9

      II. Bob Becomes an Aëronaut                                       25

     III. Through a Storm in a Balloon                                  43

      IV. In Danger of the Sea                                          57

       V. In which Bob Becomes a Giant                                  71

      VI. Lost in the Desert                                            87

     VII. Fitz Mee Magnetizes the Spring                               101

    VIII. The Balloonists Encounter Arabs                              117

      IX. A Wireless Message to Headquarters                           131

       X. Arrived in Goblinland                                        143

      XI. In the Land where You Do as You Please                       159

     XII. Before the Mayor of Goblinland                               173




CHAPTER I

A MIDNIGHT VISIT FROM THE LITTLE GREEN GOBLIN


Little Bob Taylor was mad, discouraged, and thoroughly miserable.
Things had gone wrong—as things have the perverse habit of doing with
mischievous, fun-loving boys of ten—and he was disgruntled, disgusted.
The school year drawing to a close had been one of dreary drudgery; at
least that was the retrospective view he took of it. And warm, sunshiny
weather had come—the season for outdoor sports and vagrant rambles—and
the end was not yet. Still he was a galley slave in the gilded barge of
modern education; and open and desperate rebellion was in his heart.

One lesson was not disposed of before another intrusively presented
itself, and tasks at home multiplied with a fecundity rivaling that of
the evils of Pandora’s box. Yes, Bob was all out of sorts. School was a
bore; tasks at home were a botheration, and life was a frank failure. He
knew it; and what he _knew_ he knew.

He had come from school on this particular day in an irritable, surly
mood, to find that the lawn needed mowing, that the flower-beds needed
weeding,—and just when he desired to steal away upon the wooded hillside
back of the house and make buckeye whistles! He had demurred, grumbled
and growled, and his father had rebuked him. Then he had complained of
a headache, and his mother had given him a pill—a pill! think of it—and
sent him off to bed.

[Illustration]

So here he was, tossing upon his own little bed in his own little room
at the back of the house. It was twilight. The window was open, and the
sweet fragrance of the honeysuckle flowers floated in to him. Birds were
chirping and twittering as they settled themselves to rest among the
sheltering boughs of the wild cherry tree just without, and the sounds of
laughter and song came from the rooms beneath, where the other members
of the family were making merry. Bob was hurt, grieved. Was there such
a thing as justice in the whole world? He doubted it! And he wriggled
and squirmed from one side of the bed to the other, kicked the footboard
and dug his fists into the pillows—burning with anger and consuming
with self-pity. At last the gathering storm of his contending emotions
culminated in a downpour of tears, and weeping, he fell asleep.

“Hello! Hello, Bob! Hello, Bob Taylor!”

Bob popped up in bed, threw off the light coverings and stared about him.
A broad band of moonlight streamed in at the open window, making the room
almost as light as day. Not a sound was to be heard. The youngster peered
into the shadowy corners and out into the black hallway, straining his
ears. The clock down stairs struck ten deliberate, measured strokes.

“I thought I heard somebody calling me,” the lad muttered; “I must have
been dreaming.”

He dropped back upon his pillows and closed his eyes.

“Hello, Bob!”

The boy again sprang to a sitting posture, as quick as a jack-in-a-box,
his eyes and mouth wide open. He was startled, a little frightened.

“Hel—hello yourself!” he quavered.

“I’m helloing you,” the voice replied. “I’ve no need to hello myself;
_I’m_ awake.”

Bob looked all around, but could not locate the speaker.

“I’m awake, too,” he muttered; “at least I guess I am.”

“Yes, you’re awake all right enough now,” the voice said; “but I nearly
yelled a lung loose getting you awake.”

“Well, where are you?” the boy cried.

A hoarse, rasping chuckle was the answer, apparently coming from the open
window. Bob turned his eyes in that direction and blinked and stared,
and blinked again; for there upon the sill, distinctly visible in the
streaming white moonlight, stood the oddest, most grotesque figure the
boy had ever beheld. Was it a dwarfed and deformed bit of humanity, or a
gigantic frog masquerading in the garb of a man? Bob could not tell; so
he ventured the very natural query:

“What are you?”

“I’m a goblin,” his nocturnal visitor made reply, in a harsh strident,
parrot-like voice.

“A goblin?” Bob questioned.

“Yes.”

“Well, what’s a goblin?”

“Don’t you know?” in evident surprise.

“No.”

“Why, boy—boy! Your education has been sadly amiss.”

“I know it,” Bob replied with unction, his school grievances returning in
full force to his mind. “But what is a goblin? Anything like a gobbler?”

“Stuff!” his visitor exclaimed in a tone of deep disgust. “Anything
like a gobbler! Bob, you ought to be ashamed. Do I look anything like a
turkey?”

“No, you look like a frog,” the boy laughed.

“Shut up!” the goblin croaked.

“I won’t!” snapped the boy.

“Look here!” cried the goblin. “Surely you know what goblins are. You’ve
read of ’em—you’ve seen their pictures in books, haven’t you?”

“I think I have,” Bob said reflectively, “but I don’t know just what they
are.”

“You know what a man is, don’t you?” the goblin queried.

“Of course.”

“Well, what _is_ a man?”

“Huh?” the lad cried sharply.

“What is a man?”

“Why, a man’s a—a—a _man_,” Bob answered, lamely.

“Good—very good;” the goblin chuckled, interlocking his slim fingers over
his protuberant abdomen and rocking himself to and fro upon his slender
legs. “I see your schooling’s done you _some_ good. Yes, a man’s a man,
and a goblin’s a goblin. Understand? It’s all as clear as muddy water,
when you think it over. Hey?”

“You explain things just like my teacher does,” the boy muttered
peevishly.

“How’s that?” the goblin inquired, seating himself upon the sill and
drawing his knees up to his chin.

“Why, when we ask him a question, he asks us one in return; and when we
answer it, he tangles us all up and leaves us that way.”

“Does he?” the goblin grinned.

“Yes, he does,” sullenly.

“He must be a good teacher.”

“He is good—good for nothing,” snappishly.

The goblin hugged his slim shanks and laughed silently. He was a
diminutive fellow, not more than a foot in height. His head was large;
his body was pursy. A pair of big, waggling ears, a broad, flat nose,
two small, pop eyes and a wide mouth made up his features. His dress
consisted of a brimless, peaked cap, cutaway coat, long waistcoat, tight
fitting trousers and a pair of tiny shoes—all of a vivid green color. His
was indeed an uncouth and queer figure!

“Say!” Bob cried, suddenly.

“Huh?” the goblin ejaculated, throwing back his head and nimbly
scratching his chin with the toe of his shoe.

“What are you called?”

“Sometimes I’m called the Little Green Goblin of Goblinville.”

“Oh!”

“Yes.”

“But what’s your name?”

“Fitz.”

“Fitz?”

“Yes.”

“Fitz what?”

“Fitz Mee.”

“Fits you?” laughed Bob. “I guess it does.”

“No!” rasped the goblin. “Not Fitz _Hugh_; Fitz _Mee_.”

“That’s what I said,” giggled the boy, “fits you.”

“I know you did; but _I_ didn’t. _I_ said Fitz _Mee_.”

“I can’t see the difference,” said Bob, with a puzzled shake of the head.

“Oh, you can’t!” sneered the goblin.

“No, I can’t!”—bristling pugnaciously.

“Huh!”—contemptuously—“I say my name is Fitz _Mee_; you say it is Fitz
_Hugh_; and you can’t see the difference, hey?”

“Oh, that’s what you mean—that your name is Fitz Mee,” grinned Bob.

“Of course it’s what I mean,” the goblin muttered gratingly; “it’s what I
said; and a goblin always says what he means and means what he says.”

“Where’s your home?” the boy ventured to inquire.

“In Goblinville,” was the crisp reply.

“Goblinville?”

“Yes; the capital of Goblinland.”

“And where’s that?”

“A long distance east or a long distance west.”

“Well, which?”

“Either or both.”

“Oh, that can’t be!” Bob cried.

“It can’t?”

“Why, no.”

“Why can’t it?”

“The place can’t be east and west both—from here.”

“But it can, and it is,” the goblin insisted.

“Is that so?”—in profound wonder.

“Yes; it’s on the opposite side of the globe.”

“Oh, I see.”

The goblin nodded, batting his pop eyes.

“Well, what are you doing here?” Bob pursued.

“Talking to you,” grinned the goblin.

“I know that,” the lad grumbled irritably. “But what brought you here?”

“A balloon.”

“Oh, pshaw! What did you come here for?”

“For you.”

“For me?”

“Yes; you don’t like to live in this country, and I’ve come to take you
to a better one.”

“To Goblinland?”

“Yes.”

“Is that a better country than this—for boys?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“In what way is it better?” Bob demanded, shrewdly. “Tell me about it.”

“Well,” the goblin went on to explain, unclasping his hands and
stretching his slender legs full length upon the window-sill, “in your
country a boy isn’t permitted to do what pleases him, but is compelled to
do what pleases others. Isn’t that so?”

“Yes, it is,” the lad muttered.

“But in our land,” the goblin continued, “a boy isn’t permitted to do
what pleases _others_, but is compelled to do what pleases _himself_.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Bob, surprised and pleased. “That’s great. I’d like to
live in Goblinland.”

“Of course you would,” said the goblin, placing a finger alongside of his
flat nose and winking a pop eye. “Your parents and your teacher don’t
know how to treat you—don’t appreciate you; they don’t understand boys.
You’d better come along with me.”

“I’ve a notion to,” Bob replied thoughtfully. Then, abruptly: “But how
did you find out about me, that I was dissatisfied with things here?”

“Oh, we know everything that’s going on,” the goblin grinned; “we get
wireless telephone messages from all over the world. Whenever anybody
says anything—or thinks anything, even—we learn of it; and if they’re in
trouble some one of us good little goblins sets off to help them.”

“Why, how good of you!” Bob murmured, in sincere admiration. “You chaps
are a bully lot!”

“Yes, indeed,” the goblin giggled; “we’re a good-hearted lot—_we_ are.
Oh, you’ll just love and worship us when you learn all about us!”

And the little green sprite almost choked with some suppressed emotion.

“I’m going with you,” the boy said, with sudden decision. “Will your
balloon carry two, though?”

“We can manage that,” said the goblin. “Come here to the window and take
a squint at my aërial vehicle.”

[Illustration]

Bob crawled to the foot of the bed and peeped out the window. There hung
the goblin’s balloon, anchored to the window-sill by means of a rope and
hook. The bag looked like a big fat feather bed and the car resembled
a large Willow clothes-basket. The boy was surprised, and not a little
disappointed.

“And you came here in that thing?” he asked, unable to conceal the
contempt he felt for the primitive and clumsy-looking contraption.

“Of course I did,” Fitz Mee made answer.

“And how did you get from the basket to the window here?”

“Slid down the anchor-rope.”

“Oh!” Bob gave an understanding nod. “And you’re going to climb the rope,
when you go?”

“Yes; can you climb it?”

“Why, I—I _could_ climb it,” Bob replied, slowly shaking his head; “but
I’m not going to.”

“You’re not?” cried the goblin.

“No.”

“Why?”

“I’m not going to risk my life in any such a balloon as that. It looks
like an old feather bed.”

“It _is_ a feather bed,” Fitz answered, complacently.

“What!”

The goblin nodded sagely.

“Whee!” the lad whistled. “You don’t mean what you say, do you? You mean
it’s a bed tick filled with gas, don’t you?”

“I mean just what I say,” Fitz Mee replied, positively. “That balloon bag
is a feather bed.”

“But a feather bed won’t float in the air,” Bob objected.

“Won’t it?” leered the goblin.

“No.”

“How do you know? Did you ever try one to see?”

“N—o.”

“Well, one feather, a downy feather, will fly in the air, and carry its
own weight and a little more, won’t it?”

“Yes,” the lad admitted, wondering what the goblin was driving at.

“Then won’t thousands of feathers confined in a bag fly higher and lift
more than one feather alone will?”

“No,” positively.

“Tut—tut!” snapped the goblin. “You don’t know anything of the law of
physics, it appears. Won’t a thousand volumes of gas confined in a bag
fly higher and lift more than one volume unconfined will?”

“Why, of course,” irritably.

“Well!”—triumphantly,—“don’t the same law apply to feathers? Say!”

“I—I don’t know,” Bob stammered, puzzled but unconvinced.

“To be sure it does,” the goblin continued, smoothly. “I know; I’ve tried
it. And you can see for yourself that my balloon’s a success.”

“Yes, but it wouldn’t carry _me_,” Bob objected; “I’m too heavy.”

“I’ll have to shrink you,” Fitz Mee said quietly.

“_Shrink_ me?” drawing back in alarm bordering on consternation.

“Yes; it won’t hurt you.”

“How—how’re you going to do it?”

“I’ll show you.”

The goblin got upon his feet, took a small bottle from his waistcoat
pocket and deliberately unscrewed the top and shook out a tiny tablet.

“There,” he said, “take that.”

“Uk-uh!” grunted Bob, compressing his lips and shaking his head. “I don’t
like to take pills.”

“This isn’t a pill,” Fitz explained, “it’s a tablet.”

“It’s all the same,” the boy declared obstinately.

“Won’t you take it?”

“No.”

“Then you can’t go with me.”

“I can’t?”

The goblin shook his head.

“Isn’t there some other way you can—can shrink me?”

Again Fitz Mee silently shook his head.

“W-e-ll,” Bob said slowly and reluctantly, “I’ll take it. But, say?”

“Well?”

“What’ll it do to me—just make me smaller?”

“That’s all.”

“How small will it make me?”

“About my size,” grinned the goblin.

“Oo—h!” ejaculated Bob. “And will it make me as—as _ugly_ as you are?” in
grave concern.

The goblin clapped his hands over his stomach, wriggled this way and that
and laughed till the tears ran down his fat cheeks.

“Oh—ho!” he gasped at last. “So you think me ugly, do you?”

“Yes, I do,” the lad admitted candidly, a little nettled.

“Well, that’s funny,” gurgled the goblin; “for that’s what I think of
you. So you see the matter of looks is a matter of taste.”

“Huh!” Bob snorted contemptuously. “But will that tablet change my looks?
That’s what _I_ want to know.”

“No, it won’t,” was the reassuring reply.

“And will I always be small—like you?”

“Look here!” Fitz Mee croaked hoarsely. “If you’re going with me, stop
asking fool questions and take this tablet.”

“Give it to me,” Bob muttered, in sheer desperation.

And he snatched the tablet and swallowed it.

Immediately he shrunk to the size of the goblin.

“My!” he cried. “It feels funny to be so little and light.”

He sprang from the bed to the window-sill, and anticly danced a jig in
his night garment.

“Get into your clothes,” the goblin commanded, “and let’s be off.”

Bob nimbly leaped to the floor, tore off his night-robe and caught up his
trousers. Then he paused, a look of comical consternation upon his apple
face.

“What’s the matter?” giggled the goblin.

“Why—why,” the boy gasped, his mouth wide open, “my clothes are all a
mile too big for me!”

Fitz Mee threw himself prone upon his stomach, pummeled and kicked the
window-sill, and laughed uproariously.




CHAPTER II

BOB BECOMES AN AËRONAUT


“You stop that, you mean old thing!” Bob blustered angrily.

The goblin laughed the harder.

“Stop it, I say!” the boy shouted, loud enough to waken all the sleepers
about the house, he thought.

The goblin continued to laugh and rub his fists and kick his heels.

“Oh, you think you’re smart!” the lad pouted, tears in his eyes, his lips
quivering. “Old Fits! Old Spasms! Old Convulsions! Yeah! Yeah!”

“Here—here!” cried the goblin, springing to his feet and frowning darkly.
“You mustn’t call me such names, boy.”

“I will!” sturdily.

“If you do, I’ll go away and leave you, just as you are.”

“I don’t care.”

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t.”

“What’re you mad about?”

“You played a mean trick on me, and then laughed at me—that’s what.”

“I didn’t play any trick on you.”

“You did, too. You coaxed me to take that pill.”

“Tablet, you mean.”

“Well, tablet. What’s the difference?”

“I persuaded you to take it.”

“It’s all the same.”

“And I forgot you didn’t have your clothes on. Now you’ll have to put ’em
on and take another tablet to shrink them.”

“I won’t take it.”

“Why won’t you?”

“’Cause I won’t—that’s why. Think I want to _live_ on pills? I don’t like
’em.”

“Are you afraid to take it?”

“No, I—I’m not. But it wouldn’t shrink my clothes, if I did take it.”

“Yes, it will. Look at your night-gown.”

Bob picked up his discarded night-robe and closely examined it. It was
not larger than a doll’s dress. The lad grinned sheepishly, and began to
hustle into his garments. They were a world too large for him, and hung
upon his shrunken limbs in a baggy and outlandish fashion. His shoes
were ten sizes too big; his cap rested upon his shoulders.

“Huh!” he muttered in disgust; “I look like a scarecrow.”

“Here!” the goblin said, soberly. “Take another tablet.”

Bob shook his head.

“What’s the matter, now?” asked Fitz.

“I’m afraid to take it,” the boy replied.

“What’re you afraid of?”

“I’m afraid it will shrink me all away to nothing.”

“No, it won’t.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. These are goblin tablets; gob-tabs we Call ’em for short. They just
shrink a person to goblin size; you can’t shrink any more. Take it now;
it’ll just shrink your clothes.”

“W-e-ll, I—I don’t know; I can’t remain in this fix, though.” Then in
sudden desperation:—“Give it to me; I’ll take it!”

The lad swallowed the tablet. Barely had he done so, when his clothes
shrank to fit him—skin tight.

“Say!” he giggled gleefully, closely examining himself. “Those tablets
are great.”

“Sure!” winked the goblin. “Now are you ready to go?”

“Why—why,” Bob faltered, “I’d like to bid my folks good-bye—especially
mamma.”

“You’re in nice shape to bid your folks good-bye, now, aren’t you?”
sneered the goblin.

“That’s so,” the boy muttered, sadly shaking his head. “But I do hate to
leave ’em without saying anything about it—especially mamma.”

“Huh!” the goblin grunted, contemptuously. “You tell your mother of your
intention and she won’t let you go.”

“Yes, that’s so.”

“Well, let’s be off; we’re losing too much time.”

“I—I can come back sometime, can’t I?”

“Pshaw;” snapped the goblin. “I guess you’re satisfied with things here
and don’t want to go at all.”

“Yes, I do want to go.”

“Well, come on then—and no more fooling. I’ll be a good comrade to you;
we’ll have lots of fun. I’ll call you Bob and you’ll call me Fitz. Oh,
we’ll have a bully time!”

“All right!” the lad cried courageously. “I’m ready.”

“That’s the stuff!” chuckled the goblin.

They leaped upon the window-sill. Fitz Mee caught the anchor rope and
shinned up it, and Bob nimbly followed.

As the lad clambered into the basket he remarked:

“Your balloon’s bigger than I thought it was, Fitz.”

“You’re smaller than you were, that’s all,” the goblin grinned in reply.

The car was indeed quite roomy and comfortable for such small beings.
A box-shaped bench encircled it on the inside, serving as seat and
locker, and at one side was a small tank of polished metal, with a pump
attachment.

“What’s that thing?” the boy inquired, indicating the shining tank.

“What thing?” asked Fitz Mee.

“That shiny thing.”

“Why, that’s my air-tank and pump.”

“It looks just like the air machine papa has in his office,” Bob
remarked. His father was a physician. “He uses his in treating people’s
throats. What do you use yours for?”

“Don’t you know?” queried the goblin in surprise.

“No,” answered the boy.

“Well—well! It’s plain you never had anything to do with feather-bed
ballooning. I use it in raising and lowering the balloon.”

“In raising and lowering the balloon?”

“Yes.”

“You do?”

“Certainly; that’s what I said.”

“But how do you use it?”

“I’ll show you in a minute,” Fitz Mee answered complacently. “You know
how they raise and lower gas balloons, don’t you?”

“Yes, I—I guess so,” the boy replied, a little dubiously. “The gas raises
’em.”

“Of course,” snapped the goblin, “that’s the lifting power, and feathers
raise feather-bed balloons. But what do they use for ballast in gas
balloons, eh?”

“Sand bags,” Bob answered.

“Yes,” the goblin pursued; “and when they want to go higher they throw
out sand, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“And when they want to come down what do they do?”

“Let the gas out of the bag,” Bob said at a venture.

“That’s it,” Fitz Mee nodded. “And then they can’t go up again till
they’ve refilled the bag—eh?”

“I guess that’s the way of it.”

“To be sure it is. Well, we work the thing better with our feather-bed
balloons.”

“We?” Bob cried. “Do all goblins use feather-bed balloons?”

“Of course we do; that’s the way we travel. Didn’t you know that?”

“No; I never heard of it.”

“My—my!” Fitz Mee laughed. “You have a lot to learn, Bob. But I’ll show
you how I can bring my balloon to earth or send it to the skies in a
jiffy. When I wish to descend I just pump that tank full of compressed
air. See?”

“No, I don’t see,” Bob declared.

“You don’t?” muttered the goblin, in surprise and irritation.

“No, I don’t.”

“Why, compressed air’s heavier than ordinary air, isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, then, when I get that tank full the balloon’s heavier; and the
increased weight overcomes the buoyancy of the feathers, and down I come.”

“Oh!”—in open-mouth admiration,—“that’s great! And when you want to go up
again you just let the compressed air out, don’t you?”

“Sure!” blinked the goblin. “I’ll show you.”

He caught hold of the anchor rope, jerked the hook loose from the
window-sill, and wound up the slender line. Then he flew to the air
apparatus and turned a cock. Immediately there was the hiss of pent air
escaping through a hole in the bottom of the tank, and the balloon began
to ascend—slowly and gently at first, then more swiftly.

When it was a short distance above the housetop Fitz Mee closed the cock,
remarking:

“There! I guess that’ll balance us about right. We’ll rise a few hundred
feet and float there.”

His prediction proved true. When the balloon had cleared the hilltops,
it stopped rising and floated motionless, like a great bubble with a
dripping blob at its pendant point.

“Say!” Bob cried, suddenly.

“Well?” said the goblin.

“That tank looks just like the one papa has in his office.”

“It _is_ just like it,” the goblin assured him.

“And the car looks just like mamma’s old clothes-basket.”

“Yes.”

“And the bag looks just like grandma’s old feather-bed.”

The goblin nodded and winked and smiled.

“Well,” Bob declared triumphantly, “I could take those things and make me
a balloon.”

“Of course you could,” grinned Fitz Mee, “if you were going to stay at
home.”

“And couldn’t I have fun showing off before the other boys!” Bob
chuckled, gloatingly.

“You’ll have lots more fun with me, in Goblinland,” his companion said
quickly.

“Maybe I will,” the boy murmured reflectively, a little sadly. Then
observing that the balloon had stopped rising:

“Why, what made us stop going up?”

“Don’t you know?” the goblin returned with a half sneer.

“No, I don’t,” the lad admitted.

“Ho, ho!” Fitz Mee laughed, “You’re wonderfully dumb, you are,
Roberty-Boberty.”

Bob bristled instantly.

“Don’t you call me names,” he cried angrily. “You old—old Epilepsy!”

“Epilepsy!” the goblin cackled hoarsely, holding his sides and weaving to
and fro. “What does that word mean?”

“Fits,” the boy answered tersely.

“Ho—ho!” the goblin continued to tackle. “You call me names, but you
don’t want me to call you names. Say, Bob?”

Bob made no reply.

“Bob?” Fitz repeated in as pleasant a voice as he could command.

Bob maintained a stubborn silence.

“Bob,” his companion went on, “the reason we stopped rising is because
the weight of the balloon just balances an equal volume of air at this
height. Understand?”

“Yes,” the lad muttered rather grumpily.

“All right, and if we wished to go higher—”

“We’d have to let out more of the compressed air,” Bob interrupted,
brightly.

“And if we desired to descend—”

“We’d have to pump more into the tank.”

“Of course,” mumbled the goblin. “You’ll make a great aëronaut one of
these days.”

[Illustration]

Then he lifted a lid of the locker, took out a small instrument and
busied himself with the manipulation of its mechanism. Bob leaned over
the edge of the car and devoted his attention to the scene below.

Directly beneath lay the sleeping village, its roofs showing white in the
bright moonlight. To east and west the hills rolled away, their summits
hoary, their bases shadowy and obscure; and among them wound the placid
river—a stream of molten silver threading the narrow vale. The roar of
the distant mill-dam sounded sullen and indistinct, and the mists rising
from it waved as fairy plumes and banners. The lad looked and listened,
entranced, enraptured.

“How beautiful it all is!” he murmured feelingly to himself, a catch in
his voice. “I—I like it; and I rather hate to leave it.”

“Homesick already, are you, before you’re out of sight of home?” Fitz Mee
queried, his eyes upon the curious instrument he had placed in the bottom
of the car.

“No, I’m not homesick!” Bob retorted sharply.

“You’re not?” Fitz grinned provokingly. “What did you mean by your words,
then?”

“I was just admiring the beautiful scene, that’s all,” Bob explained.

“Oh!” ejaculated the goblin, wagging his head and saucily extruding his
tongue.

“Uh-huh,” the lad nodded in return.

“Well, I’ll show you scenes far more beautiful—in Goblinland.”

It was Bob’s turn to sneer.

“_Maybe_ you will,” he said.

“I will,” Fitz asserted positively.

“When?”

“When we get there, of course.”

“Yes; when we _get_ there.”

“Well, we’ll get there.”

“We’re not going very fast; we’re still right over the town.”

And the boy laughed aloud, scornfully.

“We haven’t started yet,” the goblin countered.

“No; and we’re not likely to start, as far as I can see—unless a wind
storm comes on; and it may blow us in any direction.”

“Bosh!” barked the goblin.

“Bosh, yourself!” snarled the boy.

“Say, Bob?”

“What?”

“Let’s quit quarreling.”

“All right.”

“Shake!”

They solemnly shook hands.

“Now,” the goblin cried briskly, “if you’re ready to say good-bye to
home, we’ll be off.”

“I’m ready,” the lad answered; “but I don’t see how we’re going to be
off.”

“I’ll show you. See that little instrument on the floor of the car?”

“That compass?”

“That’s not a compass.”

[Illustration: A broad band of moonlight streamed in at the open window.
(See page 11.)]

“It isn’t?”

“No.”

“Well, it looks like one. What is it?”

“A wireless selector.”

“And what’s that?”

“You’ve heard of wireless telegraph instruments?”

“Yes.”

“And you know they send messages with them without using wires, don’t
you?”

“Yes.”

“Then, too, you’ve heard or read that there are currents of electricity
running around the globe in all directions, haven’t you?”

“I—I think I have; yes.”

“Well, the selector picks up or selects any current the operator
desires, and enables him to travel over it in his balloon, using it as a
propelling power.”

“Well—well!” Bob exploded, in frank admiration. “Just like a trolley car!”

“Yes, except no wire is needed.”

“I don’t see how you tell which way it’ll go, though.”

“The balloon?”

“Yes.”

“It’ll go whichever way the needle points.”

“Why will it?”

“Well, the needle of a compass points north, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Why does it?”

“Because—because—I don’t know, I guess,” Bob admitted.

“Because the attraction swings it, isn’t that it?”

“I suppose so.”

“Well, if the attraction swings the needle, won’t the needle swing the
attraction?”

“I—I don’t know,” the boy stammered; “I never heard of such a thing!”

“Isn’t it a poor rule that won’t work both ways?”

“Yes; that’s what folks say, anyhow.”

“Well, it is—a mighty poor rule. Now I’ll show you. Watch me. I desire to
travel due east; so I point this little needle in that direction. That
done, I turn this thumb-screw, and off we start.”

Slowly the balloon began to move toward the east, over the village,
across the river, gradually leaving the valley behind.

“I turn the screw a little more and a little more,” said the goblin,
suiting the action to the words, “and we begin to travel faster and
faster.”

Soon they were going at a rapid and exhilarating speed. The air appeared
to whistle past as they cut through it; the moonlit landscape appeared to
flow away behind and beneath them.

“My—my!” Bob cried, gleefully clapping his hands. “I never expected to
travel as fast as this. Fitz, this is simply great.”

“You don’t call this gentle speed going fast, do you, Bob?” Fitz
returned, grinning broadly.

“Indeed I do,” the boy replied earnestly.

“Oh, we’re just loafing along!” the goblin chuckled. “I’ll show you how
I travel when I’m in a hurry to get along. Take off your cap, or you’ll
lose it, and hold on to the car. Now!”

With the last word he gave another turn to the thumb-screw of the
selector. The balloon leaped forward like a mad thing of life; the
fragile car strained and quivered. Bob clutched the seat with both hands
and held on for dear life. The air appeared to rush past in a cutting,
shrieking tempest of wrath, that blinded and deafened the boy. He tried
to scream out, but could not. He felt his grip upon the seat weakening,
and, fearing he might be swept overboard, he loosened his hold and threw
himself to the bottom of the car. There he lay, panting and gasping—sick
with mortal terror. Then, of a sudden, the mad speed of the balloon began
to slacken and the boy gradually gathered up courage to open his eyes and
look around.

There sat the impish Fitz Mee by the selector, his hand upon the
thumb-screw.

“Hello!” the goblin grinned apishly.

“Hello!” the boy muttered in reply.

“How did you like it?” queried the goblin.

“I didn’t like it,” answered the lad.

“Wasn’t it fast enough for you?”

“Too fast.”

“Oh!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Wouldn’t you like to try it just a little bit faster, eh?”

“No _sir_!”

“It’s great fun—when you learn to like it.”

“Yes,” Bob grumbled; “and taking pills is great fun—when you learn to
_like_ ’em.”

“I can make the balloon go faster,” Fitz suggested.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Bob grinned, shaking his head.

They got up and seated themselves upon the locker.

“Well,” the goblin remarked, yawning, “what do you think of us goblins as
balloonists?”

“I think you’re the candy,” Bob replied, his voice and manner evincing
profound admiration.

“The candy?” snickered his companion. “What do you mean by that?”

“I think you’re the best ever.”

“Oh! Better than you humans, eh?”

“Far better.”

“That so?”

“Yes, indeed. And When I come back from Goblinland, I’m going to get
patents on your air-ballast machine and your wireless selector; and some
day I’ll be a mighty rich man—a millionaire.”

The goblin grinned a very broad grin.

“You’re going to take out patents on our inventions, you say, Bob?” he
remarked.

“Yes,” the boy made reply.

“When you return from Goblinland, eh?”

“Yes.”

Fitz Mee gulped and screwed his features. Then he began to chuckle
silently, and at last he burst out laughing.

“What’s the matter?” Bob inquired, half in wonder, half in pique.

“Oh, it’s so funny,” croaked the goblin, and he went into another spasm
of rasping, cackling laughter.

“It _must_ be funny,” the boy grunted peevishly. “But what’s so funny?”

“The thought of your returning from Goblinland, Bob,” Fitz Mee replied,
sobering and wiping his eyes.

“Why, can’t I return—if I ever want to?”

[Illustration]

“You can, I suppose; but I doubt if you ever will.”

“Why?”

“Oh, ’cause.”

“Well, ’cause what?”

“You won’t want to, after you’ve been there a day or two.”

“That’s it, eh?”

The goblin nodded and winked seriocomically, mysteriously. Then he said:

“Now we’ve got to ascend a few thousand feet to clear the tops of the
Alleghany mountains. Let a little more air out of the tank. There—that’s
enough. It’ll be quite cool at the altitude to which we’ll rise, so we’d
better put on the fur coats that are in the locker under you, Bob, and
curl down in the car and snooze awhile.”

A few minutes later the two were asleep and the feather-bed balloon was
topping the Alleghanies.




CHAPTER III

THROUGH A STORM IN A BALLOON


On awaking Bob was a little confused. But soon he remembered where he
was, and he sat up and blinked and looked around for his companion. Fitz
Mee stood upon the locker, a tiny binocular glued to his pop eyes, gazing
intently at the western horizon. It was gray daylight, and they were
making good speed.

“What’s the matter, Fitz?” Bob demanded, alert and interested at once.
“What’re you looking at?”

“Looking at a storm gathering,” the goblin replied, without turning his
head.

The boy rose to his feet, removed his fur coat, and wadded it into a ball
and stuffed it into the locker.

“Storm?” he said. “I don’t see any signs of a storm.”

“Don’t you see that blue line along the horizon?” Fitz asked.

“Yes. Is that the storm?”

“No; that’s the mountains we crossed. But take this glass and you can see
the storm gathering on their tops. See it?”

“My!” Bob exclaimed, the glass to his eyes. “I guess I _do_ see it! It’s
a black one, too; and it’s moving this way. How soon will it overtake us?”

This question he asked in some trepidation.

“It won’t overtake us at all, unless we care to have it do so,” the
goblin made answer.

“Why, can we outrun it?”

“Yes.”

“Sure?”

“Sure, if we want to.”

“Well, we’ll want to, won’t we?”

“It’ll be fun to wait till it’s nearly upon us and then run away from it,
I think. Don’t you?”

“I—I don’t know,” Bob returned, dubiously shaking his head, his gaze
still riveted upon the rising storm; “it _might_ not be fun.”

“You’re afraid,” sneered the goblin.

“No, I’m—I’m not.”

“Yes, you are; you’re a coward.”

“Don’t you call me that!” the lad cried, snatching the binocular from his
eyes and angrily turning upon his Companion.

“I won’t,” the goblin promised. “Now turn your glass toward the east.
What do you see?”

“I see the sea!” Bob cried rapturously.

    “It’s plain to me as plain can be—
    In fact, I see you see the sea,”

hummed Fitz Mee in sing-song. Then he continued:

“If you’ll take a glance at the ground beneath us, you’ll notice we’re
moving very slowly. I’m loitering—waiting for the storm to catch up with
us; then we’ll have a race with it, out across the ocean. In the meantime
we’ll have breakfast.”

[Illustration]

“Breakfast?” Bob questioned. “Where’s breakfast coming from?”

“From the locker,” smiled the goblin, rubbing his round little belly
and smacking his lips in anticipatory gusto, “where everything else we
need’ll come from. I always keep my air-ship stored for a long voyage,
for when I leave Goblinland on business, I never know when I’ll get back
home again. Are you hungry?”

“You bet!” was the lad’s expressive but inelegant rejoinder.

“Well, what do you think you need this morning? You can have whatever you
require.”

“What do I think I need?” Bob tittered. “What a question! I need
breakfast, of course, Fitz.”

“Of course,” snapped the goblin. “But do you need muscle food, or nerve
food, or fat food, or what?”

“I—I don’t know,” stammered the boy, scratching his head in perplexity.
“I never heard of such things, I guess. I know what I’d _like_, though;
I’d like steak and gravy and hot biscuits, and some fruit and a glass of
milk.”

“Huh!” the goblin snorted in supreme contempt. “You’ll find, Bob, we
don’t indulge in such indigestible truck in Goblinland. Our foods are
scientifically prepared, not slapped together haphazard. We use nothing
but the concentrated extracts—the active principals of food stuffs. I’ll
show you.”

He went to the locker and brought forth a small leather hand-case or
satchel.

“Why—why,” Bob muttered, his eyes bulging, “that looks just like papa’s
medicine-case!”

“Well, it isn’t,” Fitz Mee grunted irritably; “it’s my portable pantry.”

And he loosened the catch and flung the case open, displaying several
rows of tiny bottles containing tablets and pellets of various shapes,
sizes and colors.

“Ugh!” the boy gagged. “Pills!”

“They’re not pills,” rasped the goblin; “they’re food tablets and drink
pellets.”

“They’re pills to me, all the same.”

“They’re not pills, I tell you,” Fitz Mee reiterated sharply, snapping
his jaws shut and angrily grating his teeth. “Now I’ll select what you’re
to eat; and you’ll eat it. The storm’s approaching rapidly; I hear the
thunder muttering and see the black clouds rolling. So you’ll need
something to make you strong and courageous. Here’s a tiger-muscle tablet
and a lion-heart tablet. Down ’em.”

Bob shut his mouth and shook his head.

“Down ’em!” the goblin repeated.

“Uk-uh!” the lad grunted.

“You must!”

“I won’t!”

“You’ll starve if you don’t eat.”

“I’d rather starve than take pills.”

“Nonsense!”

“I would!”

“It won’t take you but a second to swallow ’em, Bob,” Fitz Mee said
coaxingly. “That’s one of the advantages of our kind of food; it don’t
take long to eat a meal.”

“I never begrudged the time I spent in eating,” Bob remarked, with rather
a sickly grin.

“Well, down the tablets—that’s a good boy.”

“Are those—those things all you’ve got to eat?”

“Yes.”

“And don’t you have anything else in Goblinland?”

“No, of course not.”

“Oh, dear!” wailed the boy. “I wish I was back home! Nothing to eat but
pills! Golly!”

“There, there, Bob!” the goblin said soothingly, kindly even. “You don’t
wish you were back home; you’re just hungry and nervous. Take these
tablets and you’ll be all right in a jiffy.”

Bob silently held out his hand, his face a picture of lugubrious woe, and
silently took the tablets and swallowed them.

Fitz Mee idly fingered the tiny bottles in the case for a minute or two,
mumbling over the names upon the labels. Then he looked up and asked:

“Feel better, Bob?”

“Yes,” the lad admitted rather reluctantly, “I feel stronger and better,
but I’m still awful empty.”

“But you’re not hungry?”

“No; just hollow-like.”

“That’s because you’ve been used to filling your stomach with gross
food,” the goblin stated sagely; “you’ll get over that condition after
you’ve lived on tablets and pellets a month or two.”

“A month or two!” the lad groaned. “Oh, dear!”

“You haven’t had anything to drink,” Fitz remarked, smiling brightly.
“Take this pellet.”

“What is it?”

“A water pellet. It contains a pint of water.”

“That teenty-weenty thing?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, nonsense!”

“It does.”

“I don’t believe it; it can’t.”

“You down it and you’ll soon see.”

Bob took the tiny clear pellet and instantly announced:

“My thirst’s all gone, Fitz, and I feel fuller.”

“But you’re still a little lank—a little empty-like, eh?”

“A little, yes.”

“Well, I’ll fix you. Take this.”

“Oh, stop,” the boy demurred. “I’m not going to take all the pills in
that case.”

“This is the last dose I’ll ask you to take,” the goblin returned,
batting his eyes at a bright flash of lightning from the rapidly
approaching storm.

“Well, what is it?” Bob demanded, dodging the sharp clap of thunder
almost immediately following the lightning.

“A sponge tablet.”

“What’s it for?”

“It’s to absorb some of the water you’ve taken, and to swell and fill
your stomach.”

“I don’t want it—I don’t need it,” Bob said, decidedly shaking his head.

“All right,” Fitz laughed, “you don’t have to take it. We just make ’em
for folks who aren’t satisfied unless their stomachs are full all the
time. Now I’ll eat my breakfast.”

He hastily selected and swallowed a number of tablets and pellets; then
he closed the leather case with a bang and a snap and thrust it into the
locker.

“Now,” he smiled, “I guess we’re all ready to play tag with that tempest.
And we’ll show it a thing or two—oh, _won’t_ we!”

“Maybe it’ll show us a thing or two,” Bob replied, grinning a sickly grin
and shaking his head dubiously. “It’s getting pretty close and I don’t
like the looks of it. My! Just see those clouds rolling and whirling!
Fitz, I believe it’s a cyclone!”

“No, it isn’t,” his companion muttered contemptuously; “it’s nothing but
a summer thunder gust.”

By this time the storm was close upon them, coming swiftly. The lightning
was forking and flashing incessantly; the thunder was crackling and
crashing continuously. Bob gazed at the rolling, tumbling masses of black
clouds, at the play of electricity, and the forest and fruit trees
bending before the blast, and shivered; he listened to the mingled,
indescribable uproar of booming thunder and bellowing wind, and shuddered.

“Oh, let’s be off, Fitz!” he pleaded.

“We’re off!” his comrade cried, giving a half turn to the thumb-screw of
the selector.

Before the raging storm they sped, the boy frightened and miserable,
the goblin elated and jubilant. Rapidly they approached the ocean, and
soon they were sailing over a city on the shore. Binocular in hand, Bob
watched the storm behind and the earth beneath, and trembled. He saw
people rushing to shelter; saw fences and groves leveled, and skyscrapers
and steeples sent crashing to earth.

“Oh, Fitz—Fitz!” the lad groaned. “It _is_ a cyclone!”

“I guess it is,” the goblin answered nonchalantly.

“And it’s coming closer!” the boy cried in terror. “Let’s go faster!”

“Oh, this is all right; this is fine sport,” the goblin laughed, capering
about the car and gleefully rubbing his hands.

Out over the ocean they flew—out of sight of land—out over the boundless
expanse of heaving, tossing waters. After them raced the storm, each
minute drawing a little nearer and a little nearer. It was almost upon
them!

“Please, please let’s go faster, Fitz!” Bob screeched, dancing up and
down in an ecstacy of keen affright.

[Illustration]

But his shrill cry was whirled away in the tumult of rushing air that
enveloped them, and if the goblin heard, which is doubtful, he paid no
attention to his companion’s frantic plea. Then of a sudden the balloon
stopped with a smart jerk and began to whirl round and round dizzily.
Fitz Mee’s fat face went white as paper, and he let out a cry of alarm
and dismay.

“What’s the matter, Fitz?” Bob bawled, staggering to his comrade’s side
and shouting in his ear. “What’s the matter?”

“The lightning has magnetized the selector!” the goblin bellowed. “Look
at the needle—pointing right back toward the storm! We’re drifting right
back into it! There is nothing now to prevent it!”

It was too true!

Immediately they were engulfed—overwhelmed in the maelstrom of cloud
and wind and rain. They could neither see nor hear for the fury of the
elements. The balloon spun round and round like a top; the light car
jerked and swayed and shot this way and that with lightning-like and
awful suddenness. One of the small ropes supporting it broke and hung
dangling from the side. Another parted and the car sagged dangerously.
A frightful lurch and Fitz Mee was flung upon the locker, the breath
knocked out of him; another lurch, and, with a despairing scream that
sounded above the deafening tumult of the tornado, he rolled overboard
and disappeared.

Bob threw himself into the bottom of the car, his eyes tight shut, his
palms over his ears, and lay there groaning and moaning. His comrade
was gone and he gave himself up for lost. Oh, how he wished he was safe
at home! But in the midst of the tumultuous storm and his tumultuous
thoughts a bright idea suddenly came to him. He started, he sprang to
his feet and was flung flat again. Then, shaking his head and gritting
his chattering teeth, he wriggled over to the air-tank and turned the
cock. The hiss of the escaping air was music to him. Little by little the
buffeted balloon rose, and soon it floated serenely above the zone of the
warring winds and clouds. Bob was saved!

A little while he lay upon the floor of the car, looking at the clear sky
overhead and wondering what he was to do. Then he thought of his lost
companion, and murmured feelingly:

“Poor old Fitz! Poor old Spasms!”

As if in answer to his pitying words, he heard a voice calling faintly
but snappishly:

“Bob, you rascal! Don’t you dare to call me Spasms!”

Electrified, the boy sprang to his feet and looked all around.

“Fitz!” he ejaculated. “But where can he be?” Then in superstitious fear:

“He’s dead; it must be his ghost!”

“Ghost nothing!” came the voice again, a little louder, more vigorous.
“Bob, you’re a fool!”

“Is—is that you, Fitz?” the boy faltered in reply.

“Of course, dunce!”

“Well, where are you?”

“Right down here, dummy!”

Bob flew to the side of the car, hunkered upon the locker and peered
over. There, a few feet down, was Fitz Mee hanging to one of the broken
ropes.

“Why—why, Fitz, what are you doing down there?” Bob asked foolishly.

“Oh, just enjoying myself; surely you can see that,” the goblin sneered
wrathfully. “But I’ve had enough; I’m no pig. Pull me up.”

“I don’t know whether I can or not,” Bob answered. “But reach me up your
hand; I’ll try.”

After a deal of struggling and kicking and grunting on the part of both,
Fitz was safely aboard.

“I thought I was a goner when I fell over,” he panted; “I just happened
to catch the rope.” Then, with unusual feeling: “And you saved us both,
Bob, by thinking to let out the air. I couldn’t have hung on, in that
storm, a minute longer; and, then the balloon was fast going to wreck. It
was my foolhardiness that caused all the trouble, and your thoughtfulness
that got us out of it. I’ll never go back on you, Bob, old boy, never!
But now the storm’s past, we must get under way again.”

“Will the selector work?” the boy asked in some anxiety.

“It’ll be all right, now,” the goblin assured him. “See? Off we go again.
And I’ll give her an extra turn for good speed; I’m keen to get along
toward home. It must be the middle of the forenoon.”

For an hour or two they sailed along steadily, covering mile after mile
of aërial space with the swiftness of an arrow. At last, however, Bob
remarked:

“Fitz, it appears to me we’re closer to the ocean than we were a while
back; we must be descending. I wonder if the rain wet the feathers in the
bag.”

“No,” the goblin replied positively. “They can’t get wet. They, and the
bag, too, for that matter, have been treated with goose oil; and they
won’t wet.”

“Won’t wet?”

“No. You know a goose’s feathers never get wet, no matter how much it
goes in the water. We raise thousands of geese in Goblinland just for the
feathers and the oil to treat them and our balloon bags with. We can’t be
descending, Bob.”

But he stepped to the side of the car and cast his eyes upward. Then
suddenly he started and collapsed upon the seat, white and trembling.

“What is it, what’s the matter, Fitz?” the lad questioned falteringly,
fearing what the answer would be.

“Bob,” his companion muttered hoarsely, “we are descending! We’re
lost—we’ll be drowned in the ocean! There’s a rip in the bag and the
feathers are escaping one by one!”




CHAPTER IV

IN DANGER OF THE SEA


Bob drew a deep breath and dropped down beside his companion. For several
minutes they sat silent, each staring stonily into the other’s white
face. At last the boy murmured huskily:

“Fitz, are the feathers es—escaping very fast? Can’t we do something to
stop the leak?”

The goblin shook his head.

“Not very fast,” he said slowly, moistening his dry lips by rubbing them
together, “just one at a time.”

“Is the rip in the bag a very big one?”

“No.”

Bob brightened.

“Couldn’t we climb up some way and fix it?” he inquired.

The goblin gave a negative shake of the head.

“No,” he replied, “it’s ’way up near the top of the bag.”

“Well, what’re we going to do, Fitz?”

“There’s nothing we _can_ do, Bob. The feathers are escaping—one now and
then; and, little by little, the balloon will lose its buoyancy and sink
into the sea. We’re lost!”

“Look here, Fitz,” Bob cried sharply. “Surely you’re not going to give up
that way. I didn’t think it of you. There must be something we can do to
save ourselves.”

The goblin dropped his chin upon his breast and, rolling his head,
muttered: “Nothing!”

“But,” the lad persisted, “we _must_ do something. There’s a little air
still left in the tank, and when we sink too low we can let that out, and
rise again. If we sail as fast as we can, can’t we cross the ocean before
we drop into it?”

Fitz Mee leaped to his feet like one electrified.

“Thank you, Bob—thank you!” he cried, grasping his companion’s hand.
“You’ve given me hope. We’ll try your project; and if we lose, we’ll have
the satisfaction of knowing we died trying!” And he set his jaws with a
resolute snap.

“I can’t see where there’ll be much satisfaction in that for us—after
we’re dead,” the lad muttered under his breath.

The goblin hurried to the selector, and gradually turned the thumb-screw
until the machine was wide open—the current was all on.

The balloon instantly responded, and began to fly through the air at
a speed little short of miraculous; its two occupants had to throw
themselves prostrate and cling to the locker for safety. The still
summer air appeared to be blowing a hurricane; the placid, heaving ocean
appeared to be racing toward the west, a foaming, tossing torrent. One
by one, a few each minute, the feathers escaped through the rent in the
striped bag; and foot by foot, very slowly and very surely, the aërial
vehicle yielded to the overmastering power of gravitation.

On, on and on they sped, reeling off miles as a watch ticks off seconds.
Neither the boy nor the goblin found anything to say. Both fully realized
that they were running a race with death, and the knowledge awed them to
silence.

The noon hour came, and still they were flying like mad, due east.

Fitz cautiously lifted his head, put the binocular to his eyes, and
looked away toward the south.

“There’s the Azores,” he said, shouting in order to make himself heard,
his tone expressing relief and satisfaction.

“The Azores?” Bob bellowed in reply.

“Yes—the islands.”

“Oh!”

“Yes; we’re making good time.”

“Well, hadn’t we better stop there?”

“No.”

“We’re only a few hundred feet above the water.”

The goblin shook his big head in a decided negative.

“Why not?” the boy insisted.

“I’m afraid to stop there.”

“Afraid?”

“Yes; I’m afraid there’s no geese on those islands.”

“Geese?”

“Yes, we’ve got to have goose feathers to refill our balloon bag.”

“Oh, I see! Well, what’re you going to try to do, Fitz?”

“Going to try to make the coast of Portugal. We’ll find geese there.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes; Portuguese.”

And Fitz Mee laughed at his own pun until his fat face became purple and
his breath came and went in wheezing gasps.

“Oh, shut up!” Bob cried angrily. “This is no time to be laughing.”

“Laughing will do just as much good as crying, Bob,” Fitz made answer,
but instantly sobering. “I believe we’ll come out all right. There
_are_ geese in Portugal; and I think we’ll be able to make the coast of
that country. We’re making good time; and we’ve not had to exhaust the
air-tank yet. We’ll drive ahead and hope for the best.”

One hour, two hours, three hours passed. The balloon descended so low
that the car threatened to dip into the waves. The goblin released the
remaining air in the tank, and again they soared aloft, but only a few
hundred feet. Another hour and again they were dangerously near to the
water.

Bob cried: “Why Fitz, the sun’s ’most down! This has been an awful short
afternoon.”

[Illustration]

“Yes,” the goblin nodded, “and the forenoon was short, too. You must
remember we’re moving east very rapidly—running away from the sun,
running to meet the night. It’ll be dark soon. I wish we’d sight the
coast; it seems to me it’s about time we were doing so.”

“What’s that wavy blue line ahead of us?” Bob inquired.

“I don’t see anything,” Fitz answered.

“I do,” the boy insisted positively. “Give me the glass.”

“It must be land, then,” the goblin suggested.

“It _is_ land!” Bob cried joyfully. “We’re going to be all right, Fitz.”

“I—I hope so,” Fitz made answer; “I hope we’ll make it.”

Warned by his companion’s tone and manner that danger was imminent, the
lad jerked the binocular from his eyes and dropped his gaze to the ocean.
One glance was sufficient; the car was threatening to dip into the water
at any moment.

“Oh, Fitz!” the boy wailed. “What are we to do?”

“I don’t know!” Fitz whimpered, wringing his hands and wriggling about
upon the locker. “We can’t do anything—oh, we can’t do anything! We’re
lost—lost!”

“Look here, Fitz Mee, you old Convulsions!” Bob cried angrily. “You got
me into this thing; now you’ve got to help get me out. Wake up! You’re
playing the baby. And you called me a coward! You’re the coward! Wake
up!” roughly shaking him, “We’ve got to throw something overboard; and
I’ll throw _you_, in about a minute.”

Just then the car hit the water a glancing spat that threw a blinding
cloud of brine over the two aëronauts. The balloon rebounded from the
impact and continued its mad speed.

“Whee!” screamed Fitz Mee. “You’re right, Bob. We must lighten the
balloon some way; one more lick like that will tear the car loose from
the bag. Raise the lids of the locker, and throw out a lot of the old
stuff we won’t need.”

Frantically they began to lighten ship, flinging into the sea odds and
ends of various kinds—the accumulation of many voyages. It availed
them little, however; the balloon ascended but a few feet, and skimmed
dangerously near to the water, into which it threatened to take a final
plunge at any moment.

Now the coast line was plainly visible to the naked eye; and now it
was but a few miles away, the hills and rocks standing out distinctly.
Yet how far off it seemed to the despairing aëronauts! Neither spoke;
each held his breath and his tongue, expecting to have to make a final
struggle and swim for life.

Lower and lower sank the balloon. Once more the car spatted the water,
and this time it did not rebound, but went tearing along at railroad
speed, deluging and almost drowning its occupants. For a few minutes the
two lost all sense of their surroundings, nearly lost consciousness.
Then the car struck the shelving, sandy shore with a smart bump, and the
balloon came to a full stop. The wild and dangerous ride was over!

“Saved!” sputtered Fitz Mee, jumping from the car and dancing up and down.

“Saved!” coughed Bob, indulging in similar antics.

Then they tearfully embraced, whirling round and round, their saturated
garments dripping a circle of wet upon the yellow sands.

The sun was gone from sight; the shades of night were stealing in upon
them.

“We can’t do anything to-night toward resuming our voyage,” the goblin
remarked; “it’s almost dark now. Then you’re wet and weak and I’m
famished and faint. We’ll spend the hours of darkness here upon the warm
sands, and in the morning we’ll look around us.”

“All right,” the boy agreed; “I guess that’s the best we can do.”

By dint of a deal of tugging and grunting, they drew the balloon up out
of reach of wave and tide. Then they wrung their garments, swallowed a
number of food-tablets and drink-pellets and lay down to sleep under the
shelter of an overhanging cliff.

The sun was an hour high when they awoke. Simultaneously they opened
their eyes and sprang to their feet. Sleep had much refreshed them; the
warm air and sand had dried their garments. After partaking of a hearty
but hasty breakfast, they began to look around them.

At their feet lay their balloon, a sorry wreck. But close examination
made plain the fact that it could be easily repaired and put in shape. A
short distance to the north a river put into the sea. They sauntered to
the mouth of it, and took in the view of the broad fertile valley. A mile
or two up the stream lay a small village.

“I’ll tell you what we’ve got to do, Bob,” Fitz remarked reflectively,
scratching his head.

“Well, what?” inquired the boy.

“We’ve got to go into that town.”

“What for?”

“For cord and goose feathers. We need the cord to splice the broken ropes
of our car, and we need the feathers to refill our bag.”

“Yes,” the lad mumbled, “we need those articles all right, Fitz; but
maybe the people of the village don’t have such things.”

“Of course they do,” the goblin sneered superiorly.

“How do you know?” the boy said tauntingly.

“Well, I know.”

“No, you don’t; you just guess.”

“A goblin never guesses at anything.”

“I guess he does; you guessed we’d get drowned—but we didn’t.”

“Shut up!”

“_You_ shut up!”

“I won’t!”

“Neither will I!”

Then they stood and silently glared at each other for a full half minute.
Finally both began to look foolish, and burst out laughing.

“Fitz, you’re too hot-headed, you old Epilepsy,” Bob giggled.

“I know it,” tittered the goblin; “but so are you, Roberty-Boberty.”

“I know it,” the boy admitted; “but I can’t stay mad at you, Fitz.”

“I can’t stay mad at you, either, Bob. Now let’s stop our foolishness and
go to that village, and see about the cord and feathers we need.”

“All right. But how are we to get the things, Fitz? Have you any money?”

“I’ve got gold; that’s just as good.”

“Gold?”

“Yes. Look here.”

The goblin took a bag of yellow nuggets from his pocket and emptied them
out and shook them before the boy’s eyes.

“Is that gold?” Bob inquired, interested and not a little excited.

“Yes, to be sure,” Fitz Mee answered.

“Where did you get it?”

“In Goblinland.”

“Is there much of it there?”

“Bushels of it. These nuggets are as common there as pebbles are in your
country.”

“Indeed!” the lad exclaimed, in wide-eyed wonder and admiration. “You
goblins must be mighty rich.”

“We don’t put any value upon gold,” was the complacent reply; “we never
use it at home.”

Bob was thoughtfully silent for some seconds.

“What’re you thinking about?” his companion inquired with a shrewd and
cunning smile.

“Thinking how rich I can be when I go back home,” was the a frank
admission. Then abruptly: “What’s that coming down the road yonder, Fitz?”

[Illustration]

“Hello!” the goblin ejaculated delightedly. “We won’t have to tramp to
the village. That’s a gooseherd. See; he has the geese tethered together
with twine and is guiding them with a crook. We’ll wait here and buy them
of him.”

The gooseherd and his flock drew near. He was a tall, angular young man,
ragged and barefoot. His merry whistle rose above the strident quacks of
his charges, and his flat feet softly spatted the dust of the highway in
time to his own music.

Fitz Mee stepped forward, politely lifted his cap and said in greeting:

“Good morning, Sir Gooseherd.”

The young man stopped in his tracks and dropped his crook and his jaw at
the same time. Plainly he was startled at the sudden appearance of the
little green sprite and his companion, and just as plainly he was greatly
frightened.

“We desire to purchase your geese,” the goblin ventured, boldly
advancing. “How much gold will buy them?”

The gooseherd let out a shrill yell of terror and turned and fled up the
road as fast as his long legs could carry him. The geese attempted to
flee also, but, being tethered together, became hopelessly and helplessly
entangled and fell to the ground, a flapping, quacking mass.

Bob and Fitz laughed heartily.

“Hurrah!” the goblin whooped. “The geese and cord are ours, anyhow.”

“But we didn’t pay the fellow,” Bob objected.

“I’ll fix that,” his comrade assured him. “When we’ve plucked the
feathers off the geese, I’ll tie the bag of nuggets around the neck of
one, and then we’ll turn ’em loose. The young fellow’ll find ’em and get
the gold. And now we must hurry up and get through with this job and be
off from this coast; the gooseherd may come back and bring his friends
with him.”

The two diminutive aëronauts laboriously disentangled the geese and
drove them to the immediate vicinity of the wrecked balloon. There they
plucked the feathers off the quacking, quaking fowls, and refilled the
balloon-bag and closed the rent. Then they turned the stripped and
complaining birds loose, one meekly bearing the bag of gold; and finally
they spliced the broken ropes of the car and were ready to resume their
voyage.

“Jump in and pump up the tank a little, Bob,” Fitz cried joyfully. “I’ll
be ready to weigh anchor when you say the word.”

But at that moment came the patter of many feet upon the dry sand,
followed by a shower of clubs and stones that rattled about the car and
the heads of its occupants, and instantly the balloon was surrounded by a
crowd of gaping, leering villagers!

“Captured!” groaned Fitz Mee.

“Captured!” echoed Bob.

The villagers began to close in upon them, brandishing rude weapons and
uttering hoarse cries of rage.

In sheer desperation the goblin squirmed and grimaced, and ended his
ridiculous performance by uttering a blood-curdling “boo!”

The startled villagers fell back in indecision and alarm, tumbling over
one another in frantic efforts to get out of reach of the little green
sprite. Taking instant advantage of the respite, Bob whipped out his
knife and cut the anchor rope, and with a smart jerk the balloon sprang
aloft.

“Saved!” murmured the boy. “Saved, Fitz Mee!”

He received no answer; and he hurriedly turned to look for his companion
who, a moment before, had been at his side. Then he sank back upon the
locker, overcome with wonder and dismay. Fitz Mee was not in the car; Bob
was alone!




CHAPTER V

IN WHICH BOB BECOMES A GIANT


The balloon was rapidly rising. Bob flew to the air-tank and frantically
worked the pump. Gradually the primitive air-craft came to a stop, and
floated motionless several hundred feet above the ground.

Then the boy hunkered upon the locker and peered over the edge of the
car. Distinctly he could hear the clamorous cries and yells of the
Portuguese; and in the center of the jeering, hooting mob, he could
barely distinguish his diminutive friend. The sudden jerk of the car had
thrown the goblin out, right among the villagers; and they were dancing
delightedly around the green little sprite, clapping their hands and
whooping themselves hoarse.

Bob caught up the binocular and directed it toward the scene below him.
After a momentary inspection, he settled back with a sigh of partial
relief.

“I guess they’re not going to kill him,” the boy muttered. “But I wonder
what they’ll do with him; and I wonder what’s to become of _me_.”

Again he surveyed the scene below. The Portuguese were setting off toward
their village, bearing the kicking, screaming Fitz Mee with them. A
gigantic peasant carried the goblin in his arms.

“I don’t know what to do,” Bob murmured, in deep perplexity; “I don’t
know what I _can_ do. I don’t know the way to Goblinland; and so I can’t
go there after help to rescue Fitz. I won’t go back home and leave him to
his fate, though; that would be mean and cowardly. I—I don’t know what
to—to do.”

A while he sat upon the locker, silently and thoughtfully peering over
the edge of the basket, occasionally putting the binocular to his eyes.
There was not a breath of air; and the balloon hung motionless as a
fleecy summer cloud. The boy saw the peasants making their way up the
valley to the outskirts of the village, and noted the hub-bub that was
raised among the other villagers, at the advent of the goblin. Then the
whole crowd disappeared among the trees and buildings of the little
hamlet. With a start, Bob roused himself.

“I’ve got to do _something_,” he grumbled testily to himself; “I can’t
just float here always. Poor old Spasms! I’ve got to help him out of the
fix he’s got into, someway. I don’t believe he’d go back on me—I don’t
_believe_ he would; and I won’t go back on him. But what in the world can
I do?” scratching his head and frowning. “Oh, I’d like to be a giant just
for a little while! If I wouldn’t show those Portuguese a thing or two!
I’d drop right down among ’em, lick the last one of ’em—and carry Fitz
away in the palm of my hand. Oh! but that would be fine!” And he chuckled
and wagged his head.

Then an idea, suggested by his wish to be a giant, came to him; and he
leaped from his seat and hurried to the locker on the opposite side of
the car, and threw it open. After a momentary search, he drew forth the
hand-satchel containing the food-tablets and drink-pellets.

“I’ll just see, anyhow,” he whispered excitedly. “If the goblins make
tablets to shrink people, maybe they make some to swell ’em up—make
giants of ’em. I’ll just see.”

He opened the satchel and, squinting his eyes and wrinkling his brows,
commenced to mumble over the names upon the tiny bottles.

“Food-tablets—tiger-muscle, food-tablets—lion-heart, drink-pellets—pure
water, food-tablets—fat, gob-tabs—for dwarfing purposes.”

He grinned and shook his head.

“I don’t want any more of those,” he grimaced; “I’m too small for any
good use now. It’s funny there isn’t any—ah! What’s this? ‘Giant-tabs—to
be used only in cases of extreme need.’ I’ll bet those are the very
things I’m looking for. I’m going to try ’em, anyhow. If there ever was a
case of extreme need, this is one.”

He shook out one of the little tablets and was about to pop it into his
mouth, when he started suddenly and sharply and shook his head, muttering:

“It won’t do to take it now—till I get to the ground. It might swell me
up so big my weight would overcome the buoyancy of the feathers or break
the ropes of the car; and then I’d fall like a gob of mud. I’ll have to
wait till I’m out of the balloon before I make the experiment. And it
may get me into trouble when I do take the stuff—I don’t know; it may
poison me—or swell me up so fast I’ll burst. Well, I don’t know what else
to try; so I’ve got to do it. Now I’ll just sail out over the town, the
first thing, and see if I can find out what those Portuguese have done
with Fitz—poor old chap! My! I almost wish I was out of all this mess of
trouble, and back home.”

He set the needle of the selector as he had seen the goblin do, and gave
a slight turn to the thumb-screw; and the balloon instantly began to
move toward the village a mile or so away. When his vessel had reached
a position directly over the little town, Bob shut off the power and
brought it to a standstill. Then he took his glass and peered down among
the roofs and treetops. He saw the people congregated in the central
square of the place. It was evident they were holding some sort of public
meeting. A speaker upon an improvised platform was wildly talking and
gesticulating; and the other villagers were listening intently, mouths
agape. Bob could hear the words of the orator of the occasion, and was
surprised and pleased to learn that he could understand their meaning.
The man was saying:

[Illustration]

“My people, I’ve called you together here to determine what we shall do
with this strange being that has landed upon our shores. The first thing
to do, however, is to ascertain what the thing is. It’s not a man—that’s
plain; and I’d like an expression of opinion from you as to what you
consider it to be. Speak out, now.”

“It’s a big green frog,” said one man.

Bob smiled as he listened.

“It’s a green parrot without feathers,” said another.

Bob grinned.

“It’s a green devil,” ventured a third.

Bob chuckled.

“It’s a green monkey,” opined a fourth.

Bob laughed outright.

And the peasants heard him, and cast their gaze aloft; and immediately
began to gesticulate and vociferate excitedly.

“I’m a goblin, you fools!” croaked a familiar voice. “I’m a goblin, I
tell you!”

Bob then saw his friend. The latter was confined in a parrot cage hanging
upon a post in front of a building. The speaker—who, it was plain, was in
authority—quieted the populace; and then he continued:

“As you will perceive, there’s another one of the strange beings up there
in that balloon. Now, my opinion is that they’re moon-men from the moon.
As you all know, the moon’s made of green cheese; and that would account
for the color of them.”

“But the one up there _isn’t_ green,” a woman objected; “he’s _gray_.”

“No doubt he’s old and faded,” the speaker explained.

Bob laughed heartily; then listened intently, for the official was saying:

“My opinion is that these moon-men have come to bring a pestilence upon
us, my children; and if we do not rid ourselves of them, we will suffer
greatly. So I condemn them to death. This one that, by your great prowess
and bravery, you have already captured, we will execute at sunset; and
bury him with a great stone upon him, that he may know no resurrection.
The other one must be captured. We must think of some plan to entice
him within our reach. Let us adjourn to my official residence, there to
consider the grave matter.”

Soon the street was apparently deserted; but the boy could see guards
peeping from places of concealment.

“Bob!” Fitz Mee called softly. “Hello, Bob!”

“Hello, Fitz!” the lad answered.

“Come down and get me—quick!”

“I don’t dare, Fitz; they’re watching.”

“But you must get me out of this fix, Bob, somehow.”

“Of course, Fitz. But how?”

“Can’t you think of a plan? I’m so scared I _can’t_ think.”

“I’ve thought of _one_ plan.”

“What is it?”

Bob gave a few strokes to the air-pump; and the balloon sank almost to
the level of the treetops. Then the boy said, cautiously:

“Fitz, do you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, this is the plan I’ve thought of: I’ve found some giant-tabs in
your portable pantry; and I think of taking one of them.”

“That’s the thing,” Fitz interrupted gleefully. “You’re a genius, Bob.”

“It won’t hurt me—the medicine, will it?”

“Not a bit.”

“Just make a giant of me?”

“That’s all.”

“And I can go back to boy size or goblin size, when I want to?”

“Yes; all you’ll have to do is to take a few gob-tabs.”

“Ugh! more pills. Well, all right; I’ll do it, then. I’ll make a giant of
myself, and sail in and knock these Portuguese galley-west—and carry you
off.”

“Well, do it right now,” Fitz cried impatiently.

“I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?” peevishly.

“I don’t dare take the giant-tabs till I’m upon the ground, you
understand; my size would wreck the balloon. And I don’t dare to come to
the ground, right here and right now; the Portuguese would capture me
before I could do anything. See?”

“Y-e-s,” Fitz Mee admitted, disappointment in his voice. “But what _are_
you going to do?”

“I’m going over the hills out of sight, drop to the ground there, and
hide the balloon, and then come back afoot.”

“Well, don’t be very long about it, Bob.”

“Oh! there’s no hurry. They don’t mean to kill you till sunset, Fitz.”

“Well, do you think I want to stay cooped up here all day?”

“You mustn’t get impatient, Fitzy,” the boy giggled.

“You stop your laughing,” the goblin grumbled. “It isn’t funny.”

“Isn’t it?” tauntingly.

“No, it _isn’t_, Roberty-Boberty!”

“Yeah—yeah! Old Epilepsy!”

“Shut up!”

“_You_ shut up!”

“Say, Bob?”

“What?”

“You _will_ hurry, won’t you?”

“Yes! But say, Fitz?”

“Well?”

“How is it that I can understand what these Portuguese say?”

“Well, you know we goblins can understand any language.”

“_We_ goblins?” the boy cried sharply.

“Yes,” Fitz chuckled.

“I’m no goblin,” Bob asserted stoutly; “I’m a Yankee.”

“You’re a goblin—half goblin, anyhow.”

“I’m _not_!”

“You _are_! You’ve taken gob-tabs; and that makes you partly goblin.”

“Fitz Mee,” the boy yelled, “you mean old thing! You say that again, and
I’ll sail off home—and leave you right where you are.”

“I won’t _say_ it any more, Bob; but it’s _so_.”

“Good-bye, Fitz; I’m going.”

“Not home?”

“No; over the hills.”

“Well, hurry back.”

“All right.”

Bob released a little of the pent air in the tank, and soared high above
the earth; then he manipulated the selector and sped away over the hills
out of sight of the village. When he thought it safe, he worked the pump
and descended to the earth. There he made the balloon fast in a secluded
spot near the highway—by tying it securely to a tree, with the piece of
anchor-rope remaining.

“There,” he breathed softly, “I’ll know where to find my air-ship; I’ll
remember the place by this big funny-looking stone here at the roadside.
Now I’ll take my medicine and be off to the rescue of my good comrade,
Fitz Mee.”

He took one of the tiny giant-tabs and swallowed it; and immediately he
began to grow and grow—clothes and all. He stretched up, up till his head
was on a level with the tops of the smaller trees; and he spread out till
he was as big in girth as the trunks of the largest.

“Wonderful!” he ejaculated, and his voice almost frightened him; it was
as coarse and hoarse as the roar of a lion. He looked at his hands and
feet—and laughed. They were as large as hams of meat; and his limbs were
like the great limbs of an elephant. Proudly he strode about, crooking
his arm and feeling his biceps muscle and muttering to himself:

“Won’t I make a scatterment among those Portuguese! I’ll scare ’em all
into conniption fits. But I won’t hurt any of ’em, unless I have to; that
would be wrong, cruel—just like a big man whipping a little boy. But I
must be off; Fitz will be tired of waiting. I wonder how far I’ve got to
walk. My! but I’m _hungry_; and I want _meat_.”

He picked up a large knotted pole for a cane and set off along the road,
whistling; and his whistle was as loud as that of a calliope. The birds
flew away in affright; and the hares and other small animals scampered
into the depths of the forest. Bob smiled complacently, recklessly
swinging his big knotted club.

Presently he approached a hut by the roadside; and he went up to it and
knocked upon the swinging door. An old woman put in an appearance; but,
at sight of her gigantic caller, she let out a yell and fled back into
the dusky interior.

Bob turned the corner of the cabin,—his head overtopped the comb of the
roof by several feet!—and dropped upon hands and knees and crawled into
the kitchen. The poor old woman again caught sight of him; and fled
from the premises, screaming shrilly. Bob pitied her and called to her
to come back, that he meant her no harm; but his awful bellowing voice
served only to frighten her the more. The boy-giant—or the giant-boy, or
whatever he should be called—discovered upon the table in the center of
the floor a leg of roast mutton, a loaf of black bread, a jug of milk and
some fruit; and ravenously devoured the whole. Then he retreated from the
kitchen; and, feeling much refreshed, resumed his way toward the village,
taking strides fully fifteen feet long.

[Illustration]

But when he had gone a short distance, he met the old woman whose food
he had eaten returning toward her home, accompanied by her husband. The
man had been at work in the fields; and now he was walking rapidly, his
head down, cracking his fists and valiantly declaring what he would do to
the bold intruder when he encountered him. Bob heard the fellow’s rash
threats, and gave a loud laugh. The man flung up his head, took one look
at the boy-giant—and incontinently took to his heels, literally dragging
his wife after him. Across the fields they flew, and disappeared in a
bit of woodland; and Bob pursued his course unmolested, still laughing
boisterously. It was all so very funny!

[Illustration: He picked up a large knotted pole for a cane.]

Shortly he reached the top of the hill, where he could look down upon the
little village, whose inhabitants were all unconscious of the terrible
being that was approaching it. There the boy-giant paused to consider.
Shaking his head he muttered, a grin spreading over his coarse features:

“Well, those giant-tabs have increased my size wonderfully, but I don’t
feel that they’ve increased my courage in the same way. I’m almost afraid
to go down into that town. Those Portuguese might take it into their
heads to shoot; and I’d be such a big mark they _couldn’t_ miss me. But I
guess there’s no other way; so here goes.”

He loped off down the hill; and a few minutes later he was entering the
village. Some children at play saw him coming and ran ahead of him,
screaming frantically. A woman came to her door, and immediately followed
the children, also yelling at the top of her voice. Several men hastily
put in an appearance; and as hastily joined the woman and children, in a
mad race toward the public square of the town. The alarm spread. Others,
and still others—of both sexes and all ages and sizes—emerged from
concealment; and sought safety in mad flight, all speeding toward one
destination, the mayor’s official residence.

The mayor and his officers and advisors heard the hub-bub and poured
forth to ascertain the cause of it; and when the boy-giant arrived at
the town’s place of public gathering, there they all were, yelling,
screaming, shouting and gesticulating.

Bob swung his big club and bellowed “boo! boo! boo!” as loud as he could;
and the frightened people tumbled over one another in an effort to hurry
to places of security. The mayor led the way, closely followed by his
officers. All deserted the place but one old soldier. He ran at Bob, a
rusty sword in his hand, and tried to hack the boy-giant’s legs; and the
latter had to snatch the sword away from the pugnacious old warrior and
take him across his knee and spank him soundly, before he would consent
to behave. However, when at last the boy-giant set the old fellow upon
the ground, he scampered away as fast as he could limp.

“Oh, Bob—Bob!” Fitz Mee cried pipingly, piteously, a hint of tears in his
voice. “I’m _so_ glad you’ve come. They had just decided to execute me at
noon; and it wants only an hour of the time.”

“A miss is as good as a mile, Fitz,” Bob laughed. “But we must get out
of here before they recover their wits and their courage, and return;
they might shoot us. My! but didn’t that old soldier want to fight? A
few like him would have given me a lot of trouble. Well, here we go—for
safety and a better country.”

And he took the parrot cage containing the goblin under arm, and made a
hurried retreat from the village.




CHAPTER VI

LOST IN THE DESERT


As Bob moved rapidly along the country road, bearing his comrade in
the parrot cage, he could hear the sounds of clamor and pursuit behind
him—the barking of dogs, the confused shouting and yelling of men, and
the booming and cracking of fire-arms.

“Hurry, Bob, hurry!” squeaked Fitz Mee. “They’re after us!”

[Illustration]

“Yes, but their legs are too short,” Bob chuckled; “they won’t catch us.
Don’t you worry, my teenty-weenty green frog, the naughty men shan’t hurt
you.” And he held the parrot cage up in front of him, and with his finger
playfully poked Fitz Mee in the ribs.

“Quit that!” croaked the goblin. “And don’t you call me a green frog any
more, either.”

“Pretty little green monkey, that’s what it is!” Bob laughed, teasingly.

“Shut up!” snapped Fitz.

“Nice little green devil!” the boy-giant continued, shaking with laughter.

“Shut up!” screeched the goblin. “Shut up, I say! I’ll scratch you; I’ll
bite you!”

“Sweet-tempered little green moon-man!” Bob persisted.

“Look here, Bob Taylor!” Fitz cried, vexed and desperate. “If you don’t
quit calling me names, I’ll—I’ll run off and leave you.”

“All right,” the boy-giant returned placidly, “I’ll just set you down
here in the road and let you run off.”

And he suited his action to his words.

“Oh, don’t, please don’t, Bob!” Fitz Mee pleaded, almost in tears. “Let
me out of this cage, and take me up and go ahead. And don’t plague me
any more, just because you’re so big and so strong. It isn’t like you,
Bob—to be so cruel. I don’t like you as a giant; I’d rather have you as a
goblin—as a boy, I mean—and I’ll be glad when you’re back in that state
again.”

“Maybe I won’t be a boy or a goblin any more,” Bob remarked thoughtfully,
as he released his companion and took him up in his arms; “maybe I’ll
just remain a giant. I rather like being a giant; I don’t have to take
pills when I’m a giant. I can eat meat and things.”

“But you can’t go in the balloon, as a giant,” Fitz Mee suggested.

“No, that’s so. Well, maybe I won’t go in it any more; maybe you don’t
want me to.”

“You know I do, Bob.”

“Sure?”

“Of course! Aren’t we on our way to Goblinland, to have the time of our
lives—hey?” shrewdly.

“Well, I’ll go back to the form of a goblin, then, Fitz; but—ugh!—I don’t
like the _pills_!”

They topped the hill and reached the hut where Bob had taken the old
woman’s dinner. He told the goblin what he had done, and the goblin
chuckled and spluttered in great glee. The boy-giant shook him and said
to him:

“Have you any more gold about you?”

“A little,” the green sprite made reply. “Why?”

“I want it.”

“What for?”

“To pay that old woman for the dinner I ate.”

“Well, you can’t have it.”

“I can’t?”

“No, you can’t!”

“Why can’t I?”

“It’s _my_ gold, not _yours_.”

“I know, Fitz; but you’ll let me have it.”

“_Will_ I? Not much, Roberty-Boberty!”

“Take care!” Bob cried, giving the tiny fellow a threatening shake.
“Remember I’m a giant right now, and liable to lose my temper. And don’t
you call me any more names, I warn you. Now, hand over that gold.”

“You’re a robber, that’s what you are, Rob Taylor,” the goblin complained
sullenly, fumbling in his pocket for the gold demanded.

“And you’re a mischievous, ill-tempered little pest,” Bob laughed.

At last, with apparent reluctance, the goblin dropped two or three
nuggets into the boy-giant’s broad palm.

“There!” he muttered. “But I don’t see what you want to pay the old woman
for.”

“Because it’s _right_ to pay her,” Bob explained; “I took her dinner.”

“Oh!” giggling.

“Yes, sir. And you _know_ it’s right, Fitz; you’re just plaguing me.”

“Think so?”—laughing. “Well, pay her. But hurry up about it; I hear our
pursuers coming. You’ll fool around and get us trapped, if you don’t look
sharp.”

“Here!” Bob cried, dropping the goblin to the ground and returning the
gold to him. “You go to the door and pay her. If she sees me, she’ll run
away again. Go on; I’ll hide.”

[Illustration]

With the words he stepped aside among the trees that bordered the road;
and the goblin ran to the door of the hut and kicked upon it. There was
silence in the cabin for several moments; then the door screaked on its
hinges and slowly swung open. The old man and old woman were both there;
but as soon as they caught sight of the green little being, they were
more frightened than they had been at sight of the giant. With a great
flirting of skirts and shaking of trousers, they leaped right over the
goblin’s head and sped away to the fields again, yelling lustily. Fitz
Mee rolled upon the ground, laughing immoderately; and Bob joined in his
companion’s merriment. However, he called to him:

“Throw the gold upon the floor—and come on; they’ll find it, if they
ever pluck up courage to come back to their house. Come on; we’ve got to
hurry.”

The boy-giant caught up his wee comrade and ran as fast as he could
toward the place where he had hid the balloon. The sounds of pursuit were
close behind them. Into the woods Bob dashed and crashed; and soon he
stood beside the air-vessel.

“Open the satchel and get me a gob-tab—quick!” he bellowed to Fitz,
tossing him into the basket.

“A gob-tab?” squeaked Fitz.

“Yes—quick!”

“_One_ won’t do you any good.”

“Huh!”

“No; you’ll have to take a half-dozen. Here they are.”

“Have I got to swallow all those pills?”

“Yes, down ’em—and be nimble about it.”

“Well, I _won’t_!”

“Now, Bob!” coaxingly.

“I won’t!” stubbornly. “You _know_ I don’t like pills!”

“Bob, you’ll get us into trouble.”

“I don’t care. I’d rather get into trouble than have trouble get into me;
and that’s what pills are—trouble.”

Just then came a loud rattling and crashing of the underbrush; and a
large number of men and boys and dogs burst into the little open space
and surrounded the two adventurers.

“Surrender!” cried the mayor.

“Get out!” roared the boy-giant in answer. And he set into kicking the
too inquisitive dogs and cuffing the too venturesome men in a strenuous
manner that made them fall back to a respectful distance—and in a great
hurry.

“Untie the balloon!” Bob bawled to his companion. “And give me those
gob-tabs!”

Fitz Mee did as directed.

“Boo! boo! boo!” roared the boy-giant, leaping and dancing awkwardly
about.

“At ’em again!” commanded the mayor. “But don’t shoot; capture ’em alive!”

Again men and boys and dogs began to close in upon the aëronauts. Fitz
Mee signalled that the balloon was in readiness. Bob clapped the six
gob-tabs into his mouth and hastily swallowed them—making a ridiculously
grotesque face that caused his enemies to hesitate in their advance upon
him. Then he tried to let out another startling “boo.” It started off all
right, big and coarse and awful; but it ended in a tiny dribbling squeak
that was so funny that the goblin dropped to the bottom of the car,
squirming and laughing. Bob had suddenly shrunk to goblin size.

“A miracle!” cried the mayor, crossing himself and retreating.

“A miracle!” seconded his people, following his example.

Taking advantage of the momentary respite in his favor, Bob jumped into
the car. Fitz released the air; and away the balloon soared—up through
the treetops—to the fleecy clouds far, far above the earth. Cries and
wails of disappointment and chagrin followed the daring aëronauts.

“Saved again!” yelled Bob.

“Saved again!” croaked Fitz.

“They came near catching us!” the boy panted.

“Yes, and it was all your fault,” the goblin grumbled.

“How do you make that out?” Bob cried sharply.

“Why, you wouldn’t take the gob-tabs, and that delayed us—that’s how,”
Fitz Mee retorted.

“Yes, and _you_ lay down and laughed in the old woman’s door-yard; and
that delayed us, too.”

“It didn’t!”

“It did!”

“It _didn’t_, I say!”

“It _did_, I say!”

“Bob, you’re a contrary boy, that’s what _you_ are!”

“And, Fitz, you’re a stubborn goblin, that’s what _you_ are!”

Then they sat upon the locker and glared at each other—and burst out
laughing.

“Well, we got away, anyhow,” Fitz said.

“That’s what we did,” Bob replied.

“Let’s be off.”

“All right.”

“Here’s for Goblinland!” waving his arms.

“Hurrah!” waving his cap.

Fitz began to manipulate the selector.

“You haven’t set that needle right,” the boy objected.

“Huh?”—sharply.

“No, you haven’t.”

“Why haven’t I?”

“Goblinland’s east from here, isn’t it?”

“Of course.”

“Well, you’ve set that needle pointing west.”

“I haven’t.”

“You have, too.”

“Why, Bob, the sun rises in the east, doesn’t it?”

“To be sure.”

“Well?”

“Well, it’s afternoon now, and the sun’s in the west; and you’ve set the
indicator pointing straight toward it.”

“I tell you it’s forenoon; and the sun’s in the east.”

“Fitz, you’re _wrong_.”

“Bob, I’m _not_.”

“You’ll _see_.”

“_You’ll_ see.”

“Fitz Mee, you don’t know anything.”

“Bob Taylor, I know everything.”

“_Yes_, you do!”

“I _do_!”

“Bah!” the boy sneered. “You didn’t know enough to loose the latch of a
parrot cage and let yourself out.”

“And _you_ didn’t know enough to take gob-tabs when you needed ’em.”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah!”

Both remained sullenly silent for some seconds. Then Bob said grumblingly:

“All right, Fitz Mee, have your way. You’ll see, though.”

The goblin made no reply; he simply turned the thumb-screw of the
selector, and the balloon sailed away upon its course rapidly and
gracefully. Presently, however, Fitz gave a start and muttered:

“Why, we’re out over the water again; and we ought to be crossing the
mountains. I wonder what’s the matter—eh, Bob?”

“Oh! there’s nothing the matter,” snickered Bob, “except we’re going
west, as I told you—going back to America.”

[Illustration]

“Bob, I—I guess you’re right,” Fitz admitted, reluctantly.

“Of course I’m right,” the boy said, swelling with supreme
self-satisfaction.

“Well,” muttered the goblin, “we can turn around and go the other way;
and we _will_.”

With that he again began to busy himself with the selector. But in a
moment he mumbled peevishly:

“Why—why, what’s the matter with this thing?”

“What?” the boy inquired.

“The needle won’t turn at all, Bob.”

“It won’t?” stooping to examine.

“No, it won’t. See?”

“Yes. What do you suppose ails it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you understand your own machinery, Fitz Mee of Goblinland?”
teasingly.

“Yes, I do—when a certain boy from Yankeeland hasn’t meddled with it,”
crossly.

“Oh!”

“Yes.”

“You think I hurt your old machine?”

“I _know_ you did—in some way.”

“Fitz Mee, I wish I’d left you in the hands of the Portuguese.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I _do_!”

“Now, Bob!”

“Well, what did you say I spoiled the selector for?”

“I didn’t mean you did it on purpose, Bob.”

“Didn’t you?”

“No; I just meant you did it by accident. It’s a very delicate
instrument, you know.”

“Oh!”

“Yes. Well, it’s done and can’t be helped. It appears that I’ve set the
indicator west instead of east, so west we must go. It’ll be a longer
journey, but who cares! We’ll sail right back across America and over the
Pacific. I’ll open her up and let her fly.”

He gave a turn or two to the thumb-screw; and the balloon shot forward—at
the speed of a comet, almost. The two aëronauts dropped flat upon the
floor of the car and remained silent, for the uproar occasioned by their
rapid passage through the air prevented conversation. Soon, however, the
mercurial boy grew restless; and he cautiously drew himself up across
the locker and peeped over the edge of the basket. The goblin caught his
venturesome companion by the heels and attempted to draw him back; but
Bob wriggled and gesticulated, pointing downward over the rim of the
basket, and finally grabbed Fitz by the arm and pulled him up on to the
locker. The goblin took one peep; then rolled to the bottom of the car,
and tightened the thumb-screw and gradually brought the balloon to a
standstill.

“We’re over the land again,” Bob gasped.

“Yes,” panted Fitz Mee, climbing to his comrade’s side.

“Well, what does it mean? We haven’t reached America already, have we?”

The goblin shook his head, frowning in a puzzled way.

“Well, where are we, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Fitz, we’re lost.”

“I guess we are, Bob.”

The boy took up the binocular and looked all around.

“Why!” he exclaimed. “There’s a city ’way back yonder on the coast, an
odd-looking city like the pictures in my geography; and there’s nothing
out there ahead of us but sand—sand—sand, as far as I can see.”

“Huh!” snorted Fitz Mee.

Then he rolled to the floor of the car, laughing immoderately and holding
his sides and kicking up his heels.

“Look here!” the boy cried angrily. “What’s the matter with you, old
Convulsions? What’s so funny, I’d like to know?”

“Why—why, Bob,” Fitz said, getting upon his feet and wiping his pop eyes
upon the long tails of his coat, “we’re a pair of precious ninnies. We’ve
been traveling south all the time—instead of east as I thought, or west
as you thought. And here we are in Africa. We’ve crossed the narrow part
of the Mediterranean; and we’re now in the southern edge of Morocco—right
over the Sahara desert!”




CHAPTER VII

FITZ MEE MAGNETIZES THE SPRING


Bob looked very sober, and said nothing; and Fitz continued:

“So you see we were both wrong; we forgot that the sun is south at
noon—that’s all. Isn’t it funny?” and again the goblin laughed.

“I don’t think it very funny,” the boy replied, pouting his lips, and
looking very glum.

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because here we are in the desert—away south of where we ought to
be; and the selector won’t work, and we can’t go back—can’t go in
any direction but south. If we keep on, we’ll just come to the south
pole—that’s all.”

“Say!” the goblin cried. “I never thought of that, Bob. That’s so; and
we’re in a fix, sure.” Then, after wrinkling his forehead and blinking
thoughtfully for a few moments: “Well, there’s just one thing to do:
we’ve got to fix the selector—got to find out what ails it and set it
right. We’ll travel on till we come to an oasis; and there we’ll descend
to the ground, and I’ll tinker the machine.”

“Why can’t you do it here and now?” Bob suggested.

“I’m afraid I might get us into worse trouble, Bob; might shake the thing
up in some way that would cause it to run away with us. It’s tricky
sometimes. No, I’ll wait till we come to an oasis; then I’ll work at it
on the ground.”

“All right. And I’ll work my teeth upon some ripe dates and any other
fruit I can find.”

“That reminds me, Bob,”—setting the balloon in motion,—“that we haven’t
had any dinner; and it’s getting late in the afternoon. Why didn’t you
mention that you were getting hungry?”

“Oh! I’m not _very_ hungry; you know I had a big meal that I got from the
old woman’s table. But you haven’t eaten anything since morning, have
you, Fitz?”

“No, but I’ll eat now as we go along; and you can join me.”

“Oh, _can_ I?” contemptuously.

“Certainly.”

“You’re very kind.”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“Not hungry enough to take pills.”

“Bob, I tell you they’re _not_ pills; they’re food tablets.”

“They’re pills all the same, Fitz; and I won’t take ’em when I can get
anything else. And I think I’ll find some fruit when we reach an oasis.”

The goblin said no more; but silently opened the hand-satchel, and took
out and swallowed a number of the tiny tablets and pellets, smacking his
lips in a manner that made his companion turn up his nose in disgust.

The sun was slowly sinking in the west. Bob had the binocular to his eyes
and was sweeping the southern horizon. Suddenly he cried:

“Look! Look, Fitz! We’re coming to a great city!”

The goblin smiled pityingly, wagging his head and rolling his eyes.

“Don’t you see it?” the boy asked eagerly.

The goblin nodded, still smiling. Bob leveled his glass upon the distant
city and continued to observe it. It was a most beautiful sight, that
city. It stood upon the bank of a blue lake; and its white walls, its
domes and spires, glistened in the rays of the declining sun. But
gradually it began to fade away; and little by little it disappeared from
view.

“Why—why,” the boy cried, “what’s become of it, Fitz? I can’t see it any
more. What’s become of it?”

“Don’t you know?” the goblin snickered.

“No.”

“You didn’t see any city, Bob.”

“I know I _did_! Think I can’t _see_?”

“Yes, you can see; but you didn’t see any city.”

“What did I see, then?”

“A mirage.”

“Oh!”

“You know what I mean?”

“Yes. Was that all it was?”

“That was all.”

“Well, it was beautiful, anyway. And there’s another one—a lot of grass
and green trees this time.”

“That’s an oasis.”

“Maybe it’s just another mirage.”

“No, it’s an oasis. See! It’s getting closer and clearer all the time.
There’s where we’ll stop.”

The swift speed of their air-vessel soon brought them to the green
oasis. There they descended to the earth, pumped the tank full of air,
and firmly secured the balloon to a tree. Then Fitz set about to repair
the selector, and Bob began to search for fruit. The boy was successful
in his quest and soon returned to his comrade, his cap full of luscious
dates. The goblin was sitting upon the ground, his back against the side
of the basket, apparently glum and half asleep.

“Have some, Fitz,” the boy mumbled, his mouth full of fruit, offering a
share to his companion. Fitz drowsily shook his head.

“Did you get the selector fixed?” Bob inquired.

The goblin nodded, batting his eyes.

“I—I _guess_ I’ve got it fixed,” he said.

“What was the matter with it?”

“I don’t know, Bob. I never had a selector act like this one does; I’m
afraid it’s permanently magnetized.”

“Why, what would put it in that condition, Fitz?”

“Oh! I don’t know, I guess.”

“Yes, you do. Out with it.”

“I don’t want to scare you, Bob, but—”

[Illustration]

“Scare me? Pooh! Out with it.”

“Well, down here in Africa somewhere—I don’t know just where—there’s a
magnetic mountain; and we goblins have had trouble with it. Whenever we
get within the zone of its power with our balloons, it magnetizes our
selectors so they won’t work right; and if we get too close, it draws us
to it—and we have great trouble in getting away. Some of my countrymen
have had to abandon their balloons and walk miles and miles, and then
send a wireless message home for help.”

“Is that _so_?”—mouth agape.

“Yes, indeed.”

“And you think that’s what ails our selector?”

“I’m afraid it is.”

“Well, what’re we going to do about it?”

“There’s very little we _can_ do—if that’s what’s the matter with our
machine. It seems to be all right now; but you must remember we’re on the
ground, with other mountains between us and the magnetic peak—breaking
its power, as it were. Probably when we’re high in the air again, we’ll
encounter the old difficulty.”

“Then we’d better sail as close to the earth as we can, Fitz, till we’re
beyond the influence of that strange mountain.”

“That’s a good idea, Bob; I’d already thought of it. And, as the sun’s
almost down and we’ll need to see our way when travelling close to the
ground, I think we’d better spend the night here, don’t you?”

“Yes. But—but say, Fitz!”

“What?”

“If you need to send a wireless phone message to Goblinland, how do you
do it?”

Fitz Mee silently drew from his pocket a small shiny metallic box, and
opened it. It contained a tiny telephone instrument, perfect in every
detail—speaking-tube, receiver and all.

“My!” the boy exclaimed in admiration and wonder. “Isn’t it pretty and
isn’t it little! But how do you use it, Fitz?”

“Just like you use any telephone,” the goblin replied complacently.

“Do you take down that teenty-weenty little receiver and call up central
in Goblinland?”

“Yes.”

“And central gives you whatever number you want?”

The goblin nodded.

“Say!” the boy cried excitedly. “Call up some one right now, Fitz.”

The goblin shook his head.

“Yes,” Bob insisted; “I want to see how it works.”

“I don’t dare to.”

“Don’t _dare_ to?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“There’s a law against using the instrument, except for messages of grave
importance.”

“Oh!”

“Uh-huh.”

Fitz Mee closed the little box and returned it to his pocket; Bob resumed
the munching of his ripe fruit.

“Won’t you have some, Fitz?” he suggested, temptingly displaying it to
the goblin’s gaze.

“Uk-uh!” Fitz grunted.

“Better try some; it’s fine.”

“It would make me sick.”

“Pshaw!”—incredulously, contemptuously.

“I’m afraid it would; I’m afraid it will make _you_ sick.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Huh! Fruit never makes _me_ sick; I can eat bushels of it.”

“You mean you _could_.”

“What?”

“You could—when you were a boy.”

“Well?”

“Well, you’re part goblin now.”

“Well, I’m _not_!”

“You’ll see, Bob.”

“Well, I _will_ see; I’ll eat this fruit and prove to you, Fitzy, that
I’m just a healthy boy.”

“All right,” the goblin grinned.

Bob finished his fruit—to the last date. Then he went to the great spring
near at hand, and lay down and drank his fill. He set out to return to
his comrade; but suddenly he became so ill that he dropped upon the
ground and rolled and writhed and groaned. Fitz came flying to him.

“Here, Bob,” he said quietly, “take this,” offering the wriggling boy a
tablet.

“Oh! pills! pills! pills!” Bob moaned. But he took the tablet and downed
it; and soon he was relieved of the fruit—and his pain. Sheepishly he got
on his feet and sauntered back to the balloon, crestfallen and subdued.
All Fitz Mee said to him was:

“I guess you’ll know enough to stick to goblin diet after this.”

And Bob made no reply.

The sun had gone down; dusky shadows were gathering from far and near and
throwing themselves prone upon the desert sands. The air, that all the
afternoon had been so hot, was growing chill.

“I’m sleepy,” Bob remarked, dropping upon the warm earth and stretching
full length.

“Well, you mustn’t go to sleep there,” Fitz replied.

“Why?” the boy queried.

“You’ll see why when it grows a little darker. Wild beasts will be
prowling around here, after food and water.”

“They will?” raising himself upon his elbow and glancing apprehensively
around.

“Yes, indeed,” the goblin answered.

“Lions?”

“Yes.”

“Leopards?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And hyenas and jackals?”

The goblin nodded.

“Well, where are we going to sleep, then?”

“We’ll let the balloon rise to the level of the tops of these palm trees,
tie it there, and sleep in the car.”

“That’ll do. But I’ll bet we don’t get much sleep; the wild animals will
raise such a rumpus, roaring and howling and fighting. Won’t they?”

“It’s likely.”

“Dear—dear! I wish I was back home.”

“No, you don’t, Bob.”

“I do, too. You promised to take me to Goblinland where everything was to
be lovely; and you’ve got me away down here in the Sahara desert where
there’s nothing but sand and wild beasts. And you’ve got me in such a fix
I can’t eat a little fruit, even, without getting sick; and now I’m to
have no sleep. Bah!”

“That’s all that ails you, Bob.”

“What?”

“You’re sleepy—and cross.”

“I’m not cross.”

“Well—well, we won’t argue the matter.”

“I’ll argue if I want to, old Epilepsy.”

“Say, Bob,”—pleasantly.

No reply.

“Bob.”

“Huh!”—ungraciously.

“I think I know what we can do to send the wild animals about their
business if they bother us.”

“What?”—with a show of interest.

“That is,” with a reflective shake of the head, “if we didn’t throw
overboard, when we were about to sink in the Atlantic, the stuff we need.”

“What is it, Fitz?”

“Magnetic powder.”

“There’s a bottle of it in the locker; I saw it there this morning. But
what on earth are you going to do with it?”

“I’ll tell you. I’m going to sprinkle some of it in the spring; and it’ll
magnetize the water. Then any animal that comes for a drink will get
a shock that will stir up its ideas—and send it flying. Won’t that be
great?”

“Great?” Bob cried, capering about in glee. “Yes, indeed, Fitz! And
won’t it be funny to hear ’em and see ’em? I’m not a bit sleepy now.
Let’s fix the spring right now.”

Soon they had magnetized the spring, and had snuggled down in the car of
their balloon, to spend the night. By that time it was quite dark; so
they partook of a few food-tablets and drink-pellets, and then composed
themselves to rest—out of reach of any beast that might come prowling
around. Bob dropped into a doze. A roar like distant, muttering thunder
roused him. He sat up and rubbed his eyes; then he nudged his sleeping
companion.

“Huh!” ejaculated Fitz, waking with a start.

“I heard something roaring—sounded like thunder,” the boy explained.

“Where?”

“I don’t know; I wasn’t wide enough awake to tell. There—there it goes
again.”

“That’s a lion out on the sands,” chuckled the goblin; “he’s coming for a
drink. Now the fun’ll begin, Bob.”

“And listen! What are those other sounds, Fitz?”

“Jackals barking and hyenas howling. They’re all coming at once. There’ll
be a circus when they gather at the spring.”

The two aëronauts giggled and shrugged their shoulders, in nervous but
delicious expectancy. The moon made the night almost as light as day;
but soon great dark shapes and shadows were to be seen approaching the
oasis, from various directions. The lion roared defiantly, the jackals
barked snappishly and the hyenas howled dolefully.

“I see the lion,” Bob whispered excitedly. “There! He’s just coming in
among the trees. But what’s that other animal creeping along away out
there in the bright moonlight?”

“A leopard,” Fitz replied.

“And that pack of little fellows are jackals?”

“Yes.”

“And those ugly scrawny ones are hyenas?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my!” the boy exclaimed gleefully. “Talk about a circus, Fitz; _I_
call it a menagerie. This is a free show; and you and I have box seats.”
Then thoughtfully, and with a little shiver, “And I’m mighty glad we
have—and right above the ring. I—”

He was interrupted by a roar that seemed to shake the slender fronds of
the palm trees and rock the balloon. The lion was directly beneath them,
smelling over the ground where they had been. The two small comrades
cuddled close together upon the locker, held each other’s hands, and
strained their eyes and ears to see and hear all that was going on.
Presently the leopard, too, was among the trees and, like the lion, was
nosing from one spot to another; and the jackals and hyenas had ranged
themselves along the border of the little oasis, and were indulging in a
discordant serenade.

“Ugh!” the boy grunted in disgust. “Those cowardly things out there make
me lonesome with their mournful sounds.”

[Illustration]

“Me, too,” the goblin admitted, nodding. Then he whispered sharply:
“There—there, Bob. The lion’s going to the spring. See him in that patch
of moonlight?”

“Yes.”

“And now he’s right at the edge of the water. See him—see him?”

“Uh—huh. And there’s the leopard coming up on the other side.”

The lion advanced majestically to the edge of the pool. He looked askance
at his slender cousin, the leopard; and then he touched his nose to
the clear water. Instantly he sprang backward, bristling, sneezing and
shaking his head, in surprise and anger. The leopard looked on in wonder
at her cousin’s strange behavior; and the lion glared fiercely at her.
The two aëronauts hugged each other and laughed softly.

Again the lion essayed to slake his burning thirst at the glassy pool;
and again he retreated in rage and confusion. Attributing his trouble to
the leopard, evidently, he made a vicious slap at her with his great paw.
She sprang aside, spitting and snarling. The lion pursued her; and, to
escape, she sprang upon the slender trunk of the palm tree to whose top
the balloon was tied, and began a nimble and quick ascent.

“Oo—h!” Bob gasped.

“Murder!” croaked Fitz Mee.

Then, instantly, he jumped from the locker; and opened and shut the valve
of the air-tank, three or four times in quick succession.

“Pst! pst! pst!” hissed the escaping air, and the leopard, more alarmed
at the unknown danger above than at the known danger below, gave a yowl
of fright and leaped to the ground and loped out of sight.

Bob heaved a sigh of relief. “Fitz,” he whispered, “playing with wild
beasts is like playing with fire; a fellow’s likely to burn his fingers.”

The goblin nodded; then he jerked out:

“But look at the lion! Bob, look at the lion!”

The noble animal was not content to go without a drink; and once more he
was drawing near the spring, cautiously, slowly. A third time his nose
and tongue touched the water; and a third time he sprang back, startled
and enraged. And this time he rashly spatted the surface of the pool with
his paw, and let out a hoarse roar of futile rage, as the treacherous
liquid sent a stream of electricity tingling through his anatomy.

The two aëronauts were hunkered upon the locker, leaning far over the rim
of the basket and laughing heartily but softly. On a sudden the goblin’s
hands slipped and he fell headlong from the car—turning completely over
in mid air and lighting plump astride the lion’s back!




CHAPTER VIII

THE BALLOONISTS ENCOUNTER ARABS


Fitz Mee let out a frantic yell as he descended; Bob echoed it. “I’m a
goner!” squeaked the goblin as he alighted on the lion’s back.

“Goner!” screamed the boy, in unison.

The lion, no doubt coupling the sudden arrival of the little green sprite
with the unusual condition of the spring he had always known, went mad
with fright. He stuck his tail between his hind legs, gave a snort,
followed by a prolonged and doleful whine, and scampered away among the
trees and across the sands of the desert, the goblin clinging to his mane.

“Oh, dear—dear!” moaned the boy. “What am I to do? What _can_ I do?
Poor old Fitz Mee! Poor old Convulsions! The lion’ll shake him off out
there—and—and eat him up! And I can’t help him! I don’t dare to go to his
aid; the other beasts would eat _me_! Was ever a boy in such a pickle!
Oh, I wish I was back home! I do—I do! I was a fool to come on such a
wild adventurous trip, anyhow! Poor old Fitz Mee! Poor old Epilepsy!
Gone! Lost! And here I am down here in the desert—with miles of trackless
sands all around me; and with no means of getting away—except an old
balky balloon! Oh, dear—dear!”

He wrung his hands and wept. At last, however, he muttered sleepily:
“Poor unlucky old Fitz! He’s always getting into trouble and danger; he’s
always tumbling out of the balloon. I’ve rescued him two or three times;
but I can’t go on rescuing him every few hours. He’ll have to look out
for himself this time; I can’t do anything for him. And,”—yawning,—“I’m
so—so sleepy. I’ve just got to—sleep; that’s all—all—there is—”

He sank upon the bottom of the car and lost all sense of his surroundings.

“Bob! Oh, Bob!” Someone was calling him—someone in the far distance, he
thought.

“Huh!” ever so drowsily.

“Bob! Bob Taylor! Wake up!”

“Hel—hello!” the boy grunted.

“Here! Wake up, you lazy pest! Do you hear me? Ah-hah! Do you _feel_ me?”

“Ouch!”—petulantly—“Quit! Quit, I say!”

Someone was twitching and pinching the lad’s ear. He stirred, opened his
eyes, flounced over upon his stomach and raised his head. There stood the
Little Green Goblin of Goblinville, grinning down at him.

“Fitz!” the boy cried, springing to his feet and holding out his hand.

“Fitz Mee!”

The goblin continued to grin and bat his pop eyes—saucily, perversely.
Daylight was just breaking.

“When—when did you get back?” Bob inquired, embarrassed by his comrade’s
manner.

“Just got back, my friend,” Fitz croaked hoarsely; “and a time I’ve had
getting you awake. I called and called from the ground, but you slept
on. So I had to climb the tree; and then yell at you—and yell again and
again, and shake you, and pinch you. You must have been greatly worried
over my disappearance and danger! Oh, yes! Sure! You couldn’t sleep at
all, you were so worried!”

“Fitz, I _was_ worried,” the boy replied sheepishly.

“Of course!” the goblin sneered. “That’s what I _said_—you were so
worried you couldn’t _sleep_!”

“You may say what you please,” Bob insisted, “but I was worried—worried
like everything. I thought I’d never see you again.”

“And no doubt you searched for me, seeking to rescue me from my perilous
position!” Fitz continued sarcastically. “Why, to be sure you did! Oh,
my!—yes, indeed!”

“No, I didn’t hunt for you,” Bob returned thickly, a hint of tears in his
voice.

“You didn’t?” snappishly.

“No.”

“Well, _why_ didn’t you—huh?”

“How could I, Fitz, with wild beasts all around me?”

[Illustration]

“Well,”—crustily,—“maybe there wasn’t wild beasts all around me! Hey, Bob
Taylor!”

“You’re unreasonable, Fitz!” angry now. “Of course, you were in danger.
But what would have been the use of my rushing into danger when I
couldn’t help you a bit by doing it? I couldn’t whip all those wild
animals and snatch you away from them. Now, could I?”

“No, I suppose you couldn’t,”—sullenly and rather reluctantly admitting
the truth. “But it did make me _mad_, Bob, to find you sleeping so
comfortably and soundly after the terrible time I’ve had.”

“Did you have a bad time, Fitz?”

“Did I? Well, I rather _guess_ I did!”

“How far did the lion carry you?”

“About a hundred miles.”

“Oh, not that far!”

“How do you know, smarty? _You_ weren’t there!”

“Well—well! Maybe he did. But why didn’t you stop him before he went so
far?”

“Stop him! Bob Taylor, I just wish you’d have to take a ride on a lion
once! Stop him! I _did_ try to. I yelled and yelled at him to stop; but
he just went the faster.”

“Well, why didn’t you let loose and roll off, then?”

“Just because I _couldn’t_—that’s why.”

“You _couldn’t_?”

“No, I _couldn’t_!” irritably.

“Why?”

“Why? Bob, you’re foolish! Just because he went so fast I was afraid to
let loose—afraid the fall might hurt me.”

Bob laughed.

“Laugh!” muttered Fitz, gritting his teeth. “You think you’re smart!”

“But how did you get off? How did you get away from the lion?” the boy
suggested.

“He stumbled and fell—and threw me off.”

“Oh!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, didn’t he try to eat you up, then?”

“Eat me up? No, he was dead.”

“Dead?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Why, what killed him?”

“I don’t know; I didn’t stop to find out.”

“What do you _think_ killed him?”

“I think he just ran himself to death.”

“Oh, Fitz!”

“Or he was scared to death.”

“Take care!”

“Or died from heart disease.”

“Fitz Mee, you’re yarning to me; you’ve been yarning to me about your
adventure all the way through.”

“Look here!” Fitz cried, grinning impishly. “Wasn’t I on the lion’s back
the last you saw of me?”

“Yes.”

“And wasn’t he carrying me off across the sands?”

“Yes.”

“Well, haven’t I come back alive—without a hurt or scratch?”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“Well, then, you’ve no good reason to doubt my story. And, Bob, I can
tell you something else—something that _will_ surprise you and test your
credulity.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“How did I get back here—from a hundred miles away, do you suppose?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“I fell in with a caravan of Arabs, and they brought me.”

“What!”

“Yes.”

“Where are the Arabs now?”

“Right out there. See ’em?”

Bob looked in the direction indicated. There, sure enough, was a number
of Arabs with horses and camels rapidly approaching the oasis.

The boy turned to his companion and murmured reproachfully: “Fitz, you’re
a big story-teller—that’s what _you_ are. Just now you happened to see
those Arabs, and you put them into your story. You’ve been spinning a big
yarn to me. I’ll bet the lion didn’t carry you but a short distance out
on the sands; then you came to your senses, got over your surprise, and
rolled off and made your way back. I believe you’ve been here ever since
shortly after I went to sleep. Now, haven’t you?”

Fitz Mee grinned broadly; but would make no reply to the charge. Instead,
he said:

“Bob, we’d better be getting away from here. Those Arabs have been
travelling all night, taking advantage of the cool air; and now they’ll
spend the hot hours of the day under the trees of this oasis near this
spring.”

“My!” Bob ejaculated sharply.

“What?” his companion asked, in keen concern.

“I was just thinking about the spring—about its being charged with
electricity.”

“Whew!” whistled the goblin. “I hadn’t thought of that. We’d better get
away from here before those Arabs discover what we’ve done to the spring,
Bob. They’ll be mad when they find out; and they might shoot us with the
long guns they carry. Sh! There comes one with a camel now.”

[Illustration]

The two aëronauts kept perfectly quiet. The Arab swiftly approached the
spring, leading his camel and hugging an empty waterskin to his breast.
The beast of burden tried to get at the tempting water, and its owner
tried to keep it back, scolding and jerking at the halter-rope. But the
camel succeeded in touching the water with its nose; and immediately
it surged backward, coughing and shivering. The Arab, in an effort to
control the frightened animal, chanced to set his foot in the edge of the
pool. Then he gave a startled yell and danced about on one leg, grimacing
and grunting. The whole thing was so funny that Bob could not restrain
a snort of laughter. The Arab cast his gaze aloft. Then he yelled
louder than before, dropped the halter-rope, and sped away to tell his
companions of his wonderful experience and discovery.

“You’ve played the mischief, Bob!” Fitz Mee grumbled, but grinning in
spite of himself. “Untie that rope; let’s get out of here.”

The boy was prompt to obey. Fitz released the air; and the balloon began
to rise slowly, steadily, floating out over the shining sands. At that
moment, however, the whole band of Arabs put in an appearance at the
edge of the oasis; and, with shouts and imprecations, raised their guns
and fired at the rising air-ship. The bullets whistled around the two
adventurers, causing them to drop precipitately to the bottom of the car.

“You hurt, Bob?” Fitz inquired.

“No. You?”

“No.”

“Bully!”

“That’s what _I_ say!”

“But, Fitz, that was a close shave.”

“Too close for comfort.”

“Look here! One bullet went through the basket.”

“Yes and look there! Another one went through the balloon-bag.”

“They didn’t do any harm, though—eh?”

“No.”

“I’m glad they didn’t. And now I want to get out of this country; I’m
tired of it.”

“So am I. And I’ll set the needle north-east, for Goblinville; and away
we’ll go. Hurrah!”

“Hurrah!” the boy echoed.

“Well—well!” the goblin mumbled irritably, fumbling at the selector.

“What’s the matter _now_, Fitz?” Bob cried impatiently, stooping to
ascertain the cause of his companion’s exclamatory remark.

“The selector’s out of fix again, Bob. The needle won’t point any way but
south.”

“And—and, Fitz!”

“Huh!” springing erect.

“See how fast we’re going directly south.”

“Yes,” nodding gravely, “and there’s hardly any power at all turned on.”

“Shut it all off, Fitz.”

“I will,” croaked the goblin. And he did so. Still the balloon slowly
drifted southward.

“What are we to do, Fitz?”

“Indeed I don’t know,” the little green fellow answered dejectedly.

“We’re going faster again.”

“I see.”

“Well, we’ve got to do some—” The boy broke off abruptly; then cried in
great excitement: “Look! Look, Fitz!”

“What?” screeched Fitz Mee, nervously dancing up and down. “What? Where?”

“A mountain!” yelled Bob. “See it? Away to the south! A big shiny
mountain!”

“Yes!” moaned the goblin. “And that’s what’s drawing us!” He cast a
despairing look behind them.

“Why—why,” he jerked out, “Bob, the Arabs are following us!”

“Oh, dear—dear!” muttered the boy. “Now we _are_ lost!”

“We don’t dare to stop,” Fitz whimpered; “the Arabs’ll get us!”

“And we don’t dare to go ahead,” Bob whined; “we’ll fly against the side
of that mountain and burst ourselves all to pieces!”

“Oh, dear!” groaned the goblin.

“Oh, dear!” moaned the boy.

“Bob!”

“What, Fitz?”

“Which would you rather—be eaten up by the Arabs, or bursted up by the
mountain?”

“Why, _neither_, you silly old thing!” pettishly.

“We’ve got to choose, Bob.”

“Well, we _haven’t!_”

“What else can we do, Bob?”

“I know!” brightly. “An idea has just come to me, Fitz.”

“Oh! what is it, Bob?” joyfully.

“You’ll see—in time. Stop the balloon.”

“Bob, I _can’t_ stop it!”

“That’s so. Well, pump up the tank and send the balloon to the ground.”

“It’ll spill us out, Bob, at the rate we’re going.”

“Let it spill!”—recklessly.

“All right! Here goes!”

Fitz worked industriously at the pump; and the air-ship began to drop
swiftly. Soon it was within a few feet of the ground, flying along
rapidly.

“Hold on to the car when it strikes,” Bob cautioned his companion, “or
the balloon, relieved of our weight, will fly up—and away from us.”

“I understand,” Fitz replied.

Bump! The car struck the earth, throwing its occupants sprawling; but
they hung on. Bump! Bump! Then it dragged along the sand for some
distance; and at last came to a stop.

“Pump the air-tank up good and tight, Fitz,” Bob commanded; “we don’t
want to lose our air-ship and be left out here in the desert.”

“But the Arabs’ll get us, anyhow,” Fitz complained disconsolately. “There
they come—only a few miles away!”

“Let ’em come!” the boy cried gleefully. “They’ll be sorry! Let me have
that hand-satchel.”

“But what’re you going to _do_, Bob?”

“Just wait and _see_!” was the tantalizing answer.




CHAPTER IX

A WIRELESS MESSAGE TO HEADQUARTERS


The goblin silently handed the small black satchel to his comrade. The
boy opened it and took out two of the tiny bottles, remarking as he did
so:

“I—I rather hate to do it; but I’ve got to—we’ve got to save ourselves.”

“But what do you mean to do, Bob?” his companion insisted. “Tell
me—before the Arabs get here.”

The boy silently shook a few tablets into his palm from each of the two
bottles. Then he queried:

“Fitz, does the—the effect of these tablets—these gob-tabs—last forever?
Tell me the truth.”

“The effect lasts as long as the person eats goblin diet, Bob. That’s the
reason I’ve insisted on your eating nothing else. See?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, now what’re you going to do?”

“Going to give those Arabs some gob-tabs.”

“How are you going to get them to take the gobs?” asked the little green
sprite, grinning broadly.

“You just watch me and see,” Bob replied complacently; “and do whatever I
tell you to do.”

[Illustration]

“All right. But you’ve got some giant-tabs there, too. What are you going
to do with those?”

“You’ll see. Hist! Here come the Arabs. Now, don’t you hesitate to do
what I tell you, Fitz.”

“I won’t, Bob.”

The Arabs, some on horses and others on camels, came galloping to the
spot, raising a great cloud of sand. They formed in a circle round the
two diminutive aëronauts and their balloon; and dismounted and stood
silently, sullenly scowling.

At last the sheik of the tribe advanced and said:

“You two are devils. You’ve poisoned the spring where we drink and
refresh ourselves and our beasts. You must die; we’re going to kill you.”

Bob replied composedly: “Great sheik, we are magicians, not devils. We
worked enchantment upon the spring, but did not poison it. As soon as
the sun shines a few hours, the waters of the spring will again be pure
and sweet—purer and sweeter than ever before. To convince you that we’re
magicians, we’re ready to perform before you. See! I will make a giant of
my green comrade.”

The boy gave a giant-tab to the goblin and motioned him to swallow it.
Unhesitatingly Fitz obeyed; and almost immediately he grew and swelled
to gigantic size. With gestures and cries of amazement the Arabs drew
back. Several of them touched their foreheads and muttered strange words;
others prostrated themselves and hid their faces upon their extended
arms. But the fierce old sheik gave no sign of wonder or fear. Instead,
he said firmly, boldly:

“Devils can work magic upon devils; but devils cannot work magic upon
Allah’s elect. I’ll put you to the test; and if you fail,—as you
will!—you die. Give me and my children of your magic medicine.”

At a word from their sheik, the Arabs formed a line. Then the fierce old
warrior of the desert said:

“My children, these devils cannot injure you with their magic medicine.
If they succeed in making giants of us, we shall then be able to overcome
all our enemies; if they fail, we shall be as we are—and the devils
shall die.” Then to Bob: “Give us of your devil drugs.”

The boy stepped forward and dropped a gob-tab into the outstretched palm
of each warrior. The sheik gave a signal; and twenty red mouths flew open
and twenty gob-tabs disappeared. At the same moment Bob took a giant-tab.
And a few minutes later two giants stood triumphantly grinning down upon
twenty bearded and turbaned pygmies!

“Now, sheik,” Bob roared briskly and cheerily, “no doubt you’re convinced
that we’re what we claim to be—great magicians. But we don’t mean to work
you any injury, now that we’re big and you’re small; although you meant
to put us to death, just because _you_ were big and _we_ were small.
You’ll come back to your natural size all right, in a few days. And we’re
not going to rob you; just going to borrow two of your camels.”

The sheik had stood silently staring at his diminutive warriors and
inspecting his own shrunken limbs. But now he piped shrilly:

“Allah is great! Allah is great! But what use can you have for our
camels? You are so huge that they cannot bear you!”

“Say!” Bob muttered in consternation. “Fitz, that’s a fact. What are we
to do? I meant to take two of the camels to carry us and our balloon out
of reach of the power of the magnetic mountain. What are we to do?”

[Illustration: Two giants stood triumphantly grinning down upon twenty
pygmies.]

“I don’t know,” the goblin-giant grumbled surlily.

“Well, can’t you think of some plan?”

“You’re the one, Roberty-Boberty, that’s making the plans this time.” And
Fitz Mee grinned a grin that made his big fat face look simply awful.

“I know,” Bob admitted ruefully. “But won’t you help a fellow out, when
he’s doing the best he can?”

“Say, Bob!”

“What?”—eagerly, expectantly.

“I’ll tell you what! We’ll have to take gob-tabs and go back to goblin
size. Then the camels can carry us.”

“Yes, but we couldn’t manage the camels—couldn’t get on ’em, even,” the
boy-giant objected. “Could we?”

“I’m afraid we couldn’t,” the goblin-giant admitted, shaking his head. “I
hadn’t thought of that.”

“Oh, dear!” groaned Bob.

“Oh, dear!” seconded Fitz.

“Say!” squeaked the old sheik, looking up at the two giants. “What are we
Arabs to do? We are so small we cannot mount and manage our beasts.”

“I don’t know,” rumbled Bob.

“And _I_ don’t know,” mumbled Fitz.

“Well, you’re a nice pair of magicians—_you_ are!” screeched the sheik,
pulling at his long beard. “Don’t you know anything you can do to help us
out of our quandary?”

Each giant sadly shook his big head.

“Well,” the old sheik screeched, “I know what you’ve _got_ to do—you’ve
got to give our beasts some of your magic medicine, and shrink ’em.”

“Oh!” Bob ejaculated.

“Oh!” Fitz exclaimed.

“That’s a good idea,” the boy-giant remarked.

“A splendid idea,” the goblin-giant agreed.

“And we can give giant-tabs to the two camels we’re going to use,” Bob
suggested.

“Of course we can,” Fitz assented.

“Well, here goes!”

The two giants went to work. After repeated trials they succeeded in
getting the camels and horses to swallow the magic medicine. All those
animals to whom they gave gob-tabs shrunk to pygmy size; and the two
camels to whom they administered giant-tabs grew to giant size. Then the
old sheik and his bearded warriors, looking very dejected and forlorn,
got upon their tiny beasts and rode away over the sands.

Bob and Fitz lashed their balloon upon the back of one of the giant
camels, and mounted and set out toward the north. All that day they
traveled and far into the night, the great desert animals covering the
ground rapidly. At last they stopped at an oasis; and there rested until
morning. Then they tested the selector of the balloon and, to their
unbounded delight, found it in perfect working order. They had got beyond
the influence of the magnetic mountain.

“Now,” said Bob, “we’ll take some gob-tabs and give some to the camels;
then we’ll be all ready to take to the air again.”

They carried out the plan thus expressed. When they were once more ready
to embark upon the tenuous tide of the air, Fitz Mee remarked:

“Now, I’ll telephone to Goblinland that we’re coming, that we’ll arrive
there to-morrow.” He drew forth his wireless telephone, rang the tiny
bell, and waited. Bob stood at his comrade’s side, alertly observant.
Presently he saw the goblin give a start and heard him saying:

“Hello! Hello! Is this Goblinland? It is, you say? All right. This is
Fitz Mee. Yes, Fitz Mee. _Yes_, the Little Green Goblin. Uh-huh. Well,
give me the mayor’s office. Yes—_yes_! the mayor’s office.”

There was a momentary pause; and then:

“Hello! Is this the mayor’s office in Goblinland? What? Huh? Is this the
mayor’s office in Goblinland, I say? You can’t hear me? Well, I can’t
hear _you_. I want to know if this is the mayor’s office in Goblinland.
You say it is? Huh? Oh! All right. Well, is the mayor there? How’s that?
Well, I want to speak to him, please.”

Another momentary pause; and then:

“Hello! _Hel_-lo, Hel-_lo_! Is this his honor, the mayor of Goblinland?
It is? How’s that? It _isn’t_? How’s that? What? Huh?” Bob began to
snicker. “Oh! All right. Well, mayor, this is Fitz Mee. Fitz Mee, I say.
No—_no_! Fitz Mee. _No!_ Not _Swiss cheese!_”—Bob laughed outright; and
the goblin scowled darkly. “F-i-t-z M-e-e, Fitz Mee. Oh! You understand
now, do you? Well, I’ve got the boy. Yes. Why, I’ve been delayed by
storms and misadventures. Yes. Yes, bad storms. We’ll get in to-morrow
morning, I think. Hey? I—I know; but I hope your honor will pardon—what?
Well, mayor, you don’t know what an awful time I’ve had with this boy.”
Bob rolled upon the ground and roared. “Well, I’m very sorry. You’ll
_what_—your honor? Please don’t say _that_! Oh! _don’t_ say that!” The
goblin’s face had gone white, Bob observed; and the boy wondered what was
the matter. “Yes, to—morrow morning. Good-bye.”

Fitz Mee rang off, returned the instrument to his pocket, and dropped
upon the ground, pale and panting.

“What is it, what’s the matter, Fitz?” Bob inquired kindly.

The goblin drew his knees up to his chin and rolled his pop eyes and
waggled his big head; but made no answer.

“What is it?” the boy repeated.

Fitz moaned, but made no other reply.

“Tell me,” Bob insisted.

The goblin shook his head.

“I don’t dare to, Bob,” he said.

“Why don’t you?”

“I just don’t—that’s all.”

“Well, let’s be off. I’m anxious to get back home.”

“Back home?” springing nimbly to his feet.

“Yes.”

“Back _home_!”

“That’s what I said.”

“But, Bob, you’re not going back home.”

[Illustration]

“But I am.”

“I say you’re _not_!”

“And I say I _am_!”

“Bob, you _can’t_!”

“Fitz, I _can_!”

“You _shan’t_!”

“I _will_!”

“You’re a spoiled, stubborn boy, Roberty-Boberty Taylor.”

“And you’re a contrary old goblin, Mr. Epilepsy Spasms Convulsions Fitz
Mee. Now!”

“Bob, you ought to be ashamed to call a comrade naughty names.”

“I _am_; but you called me names first.”

“I know I did; and I’m sorry. But, Bob, why do you desire to go back
home?”

“Because I’m tired of being _away_ from home; because I’m tired of
adventure.”

“But you haven’t seen Goblinland yet.”

“I don’t care; I don’t want to see it, I—I guess.”

“Yes, you do. And you must go with me, Bob.”

“Why must I?”

“Because.”

“Well, because what?”

“I hate to tell you.”

“Yes, tell me.”

“Because my head will come off, if you don’t.”

Bob started.

“Is that what the mayor told you?” he inquired. “Is that what made you
turn so pale?”

The goblin nodded gravely; and said: “Yes, he said if I didn’t have you
in Goblinland by to-morrow forenoon, he’d have my head cut off.”

“Why, he’s a cruel old tyrant!” the boy cried hotly.

“No, he isn’t,” the goblin protested; “he has to do what he said he’d
do. It’s the law, you know; the law that when one agrees to do a certain
thing by a certain time, he must do it or suffer death.”

“Well, such a fool law!” Bob muttered testily. “I don’t want to go to a
country that has such laws; and I won’t.”

“Bob, remember—if you don’t go with me, I’ll be killed.”

The boy was silent for some moments. Then he said:

“Well, Fitz, I’ll go with you—to save your life; but I wish I hadn’t come
with you at all.”

A few minutes later they were again off for Goblinland.




CHAPTER X

ARRIVED IN GOBLINLAND


All that day and all that night the two daring adventurers traveled
steadily and directly north-eastward, and at the dawn of the next
day they were floating high over western China. The air was thin and
penetrating and both were shivering with cold.

Fitz Mee, standing upon the locker and watching the sunrise through the
binocular, observed:

“We’re almost to our journey’s end, Bob.”

“Almost to Goblinland?” the boy queried.

“Yes; I can see it.”

“Where—where?” Bob cried eagerly, mounting to his comrade’s side.

“See that mountain top a little to the left yonder?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s Goblinland.”

“Oo—h!” Bob muttered. “It must be a pretty cold place to live.” And his
teeth chattered sympathetically at the thought.

“No, it isn’t,” the goblin assured him. “You see Goblinland is really the
crater of a volcano.”

“The crater of a volcano?” said Bob, in mild consternation.

“Yes,” Fitz laughed. “But you needn’t be alarmed, Bob; it’s an extinct
volcano. Still the crust over it is so thin that the ground is always
warm and the climate mild. Now we’re getting right over the place.
Release the selector and pump up the air-tank; and we’ll soon cast anchor
in port.”

As they slowly descended Bob swept his eyes here and there, greedily
taking in the scene. Goblinland was indeed the crater of an immense
ancient volcano. The great pit was several miles in diameter and several
hundred feet in depth, walled in by perpendicular cliffs of shiny,
black, volcanic rock. Through the middle of this natural amphitheater
ran a clear mountain brook; and on either side of the stream, near the
center of the plain, were the rows of tiny stone houses constituting
Goblinville. Shining white roadways wound here and there, graceful little
bridges spanned the brook, and groves of green trees and beds of blooming
flowers were everywhere.

“How beautiful!” Bob exclaimed involuntarily.

“Yes,” the goblin nodded, his eyes upon the village below, “to me, at
least; it’s my home.”

“I know now why you goblins always travel in balloons,” the lad remarked;
“you can’t get out of your country in any other way.”

Again Fitz Mee nodded absent-mindedly. Then he said: “My people are out
to welcome us, Bob. Look down there in the public square.”

The boy did as directed. “What a lot of ’em, Fitz!” he tittered
gleefully. “And what bright-colored clothes they wear—red and green and
blue and all colors!”

“Yes,” Fitz Mee answered. Then, after a momentary pause: “The mayor will
be present to greet us, Bob. He’ll make a speech; and you must be very
polite and respectful. See them waving at us—and hear them cheering!”

A few minutes later the balloon had touched the earth and eager hands had
grasped the anchor-rope.

“Hello! Hello, Fitz Mee! Welcome home, Fitz Mee!” were the hearty
greetings that arose on all sides.

Fitz Mee stepped to the ground, bowing and smiling, and Bob silently
followed his example. The balloon was dragged away and the populace
closed in upon the new arrivals, elbowing and jostling one another and
chuckling and cackling immoderately.

“Shake!” they cried. “Give us a wag of your paw, Fitz Mee! Shake, Bob
Taylor!”

There were goblins great and goblins small, goblins short and goblins
tall; goblins fat and goblins lean, goblins red and goblins green;
goblins young and goblins old, goblins timid, goblins bold; goblins dark
and goblins fair—goblins, goblins everywhere!

Bob was much amused at their cries and antics and just a little
frightened at their exuberant friendliness. Fitz Mee shook hands with all
comers, and chuckled and giggled good-naturedly.

“Out of the way!” blustered a hoarse voice. “Out of the way for his
honor, the mayor!”

A squad of rotund and husky goblins, in blue police uniforms and
armed with maces, came forcing in their way through the packed crowd.
Immediately behind them was the mayor, a pursy, wrinkled old fellow
wearing a long robe of purple velvet. The officers cleared a space for
him, and he advanced and said pompously:

[Illustration]

“Welcome, Fitz Mee, known the world over as the Little Green Goblin of
Goblinville. I proclaim you the bravest, if not the speediest, messenger
and minister Goblinland has ever known. Again, welcome home; and welcome
to your friend and comrade, Master Robert Taylor of Yankeeland. I trust
that he will find his stay among us pleasant, and that he will in no way
cause us to regret that we have made the experiment of admitting a human
being—and a boy at that!—to the sacred precincts of Goblinville. The
freedom of the country and the keys of the city shall be his. Once more,
a sincere and cordial welcome.”

Then to the officers: “Disperse the populace, and two of you escort the
Honorable Fitz Mee and his companion to their dwelling-place, that they
may seek the rest they greatly need after so arduous a journey.”

The officers promptly and energetically carried out the orders of their
chief.

When Fitz and Bob were alone in the former’s house, the latter remarked:

“Fitz, I believe I’ll like to live in Goblinville.”

“I—I hope you will, Bob,” was the rather disappointing reply.

“Hope I will? Don’t you think I will, Fitz?”

“I don’t know; boys are curious animals.”

“Well, I think I will. You know you said I could do as I pleased here.”

“Yes.”

“Say, Fitz?”

“Well.”

“How does it come that you goblins speak my language?”

“We speak any language—all languages.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“Why, how do you learn so many?”

“We don’t have to learn ’em; we just know ’em naturally—as we know
everything else we know at all.”

“My, that’s great! You don’t have to go to school, not study, nor
anything, do you?”

“No.”

“I wish I was a goblin.”

“But you’re not,” laughed Fitz Mee; “and you never will be.”

“But I’ll be a man some day, and that will be better.”

“Maybe you will.”

“Maybe?”

“You’ll never be a man if you stay in Goblinland.”

“I won’t?”

“No.”

“Won’t I ever grow any?”

“Not as long as you stay in Goblinland—and eat our kind of food.”

“Well, I’ll get older, and then I’ll be a man, or a goblin, or
something—won’t I?”

“You’ll still be a boy.”

“Pshaw!” Bob pouted. “I don’t like that. You told me I could be what I
pleased in Goblinland.”

“No, I didn’t,” Fitz Mee returned quietly but firmly. “I told you that in
our country boys—meaning goblin boys, of course—were compelled to do what
pleased them and were not permitted to do what pleased others. That law
or custom is still in effect; and you, as a human boy, will be subject to
it.”

“And I can do anything that pleases me?”

“You can’t do anything else.”

“Good!” Bob shouted gleefully. “I guess I’ll like Goblinland all right;
and I don’t care if I do stay a boy. Am I the first human boy that ever
got into your country, Fitz?”

“You’re the first human being of any kind that ever set foot in
Goblinland.”

“Is that so? Well, I’ll try not to make your people sorry you brought me
here, Fitz.”

“That’s all right, Bob,” his companion made reply, a little dejectedly,
the boy thought. “And what would you like to do first—now that you are in
a land that is absolutely new to you?”

“Fitz, I’d like to take a good long sleep.”

“That would please you?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“More than anything else, for the present?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Off to bed you go. You’ll find a couch in the next room. Go
in there and tumble down.”

“I will pretty soon.”

“But you must go now.”

“Must go now? Why?”

“Because it’s the law in Goblinland that a boy shall do what he
pleases—and at once.”

“Well, I won’t go to bed till I get ready, Fitz.”

“You don’t mean to defy the law, do you, Bob?”

“Doggone such an old law!” the lad muttered peevishly.

Fitz Mee giggled and held his sides and rocked to and fro.

“What’s the matter of you, anyhow?” Bob cried crossly.

His comrade continued to laugh, his knees drawn up to his chin, his fat
face convulsed.

“Old Giggle-box!” the boy stormed. “You think you’re smart—making fun of
me.”

Fitz Mee grew grave at once.

“Bob,” he said soberly, “you’ll get into trouble, and you’ll get me into
trouble.”

“I don’t care.”

“Go to bed at once, that’s a good boy.”

“I won’t do it.”

Just then the outer door opened and a uniformed officer stepped into the
room.

“His honor, the mayor, begs me to say,” he gravely announced, “that as
Master Robert Taylor has said that he would be pleased to sleep, he must
go to sleep—and at once. His honor trusts that Master Taylor will respect
and obey the law of the land, without further warning.”

The officer bowed and turned and left the house.

“Well, I declare!” Bob gasped, completely taken aback. “What kind of a
country is this, anyhow?”

Fitz Mee tumbled to the floor, and rolled and roared.

[Illustration]

The ludicrousness of the situation appealed to the fun-loving Bob, and he
joined in his companion’s merriment. Together they wallowed and kicked
upon the floor, prodding each other in the ribs and indulging in other
rude antics indicative of their exuberant glee.

When they had their laugh out Bob remarked:

“Well, I’ll go to bed, Fitz, just to obey the law; but I don’t suppose I
can snooze a bit.”

Contrary to his expectations, however, the lad, really wearier than he
realized, soon fell asleep. He slept through the day and far into the
hours of darkness; and it was almost dawn of the next day when he awoke.
He quietly arose and began to inspect his surroundings. A soft white
radiance flooded the room. He drew aside the window-blind and peeped out.
Darkness reigned, but bright lights twinkled here and there. He dropped
the blind and again turned his attention to the things within.

“I wonder if Fitz is awake,” he mumbled; “I’m hungry. I suppose he slept
on the couch in the next room. I wonder where all this brightness comes
from; I don’t see a lamp of any kind. Huh! It comes from that funny
little black thing on the stand there. What kind of lamp can it be—hey?”

He walked over and looked at the strange object—a small perforated
cone, from the many holes of which the white light streamed. Noticing a
projecting button near the top of the black cone, he made hold to touch
it and give it a slight turn. Instantly the holes had closed and the room
was in darkness. He turned the button back again; and the holes were open
and the room was light as day.

“Well, that beats _me_!” muttered Bob. “It looks like an electric light;
but I don’t see any wires. There aren’t any wires. I must find Fitz and
learn about this thing.”

He peeped into the adjoining room, which was in darkness, and called:

“Fitz! Oh, Fitz! Are you asleep, Fitz?”

“Huh?” was the startled reply. “Yes—no, I guess so—I guess not, I mean.”

Bob laughed.

“Well, get up and come in here,” he said.

“Why, it isn’t morning yet,” the goblin objected.

“I’ve had my sleep out, anyhow.”

“_I_ haven’t.”

“Well, get up and come in here, won’t you?”

“I suppose I might as well,” grumbled Fitz; “you won’t let me sleep any
more.”

Then, appearing in the doorway and rubbing his pop eyes and blinking:
“Now, what do you want?”

“First, I want to know what kind of a light this is,” indicating the
little black cone.

“Why, it’s an electric light, of course,” Fitz Mee made answer, in a tone
that showed his wonder and surprise that Bob should ask such a question.

“I don’t see how it can be, I don’t see any wires.”

“Wires?” chuckled Fitz. “We don’t need any wires.”

“Well, where does the electricity come from, then?”

“From the bug under the cone.”

“The bug?”

“Yes, the electric firefly. Didn’t you ever see one?”

Bob shook his head—half in negation, half in incredulity.

“Well, I guess they’re peculiar to Goblinland, then,” Fitz went on,
grinning impishly. “We raise them here by thousands and use them for
lighting purposes. The electric firefly is a great bug. Like the electric
eel, it gives one a shock if he touches it; and like the ordinary
firefly, it sheds light—but electric light, and very bright. I’ll show
you.” He gingerly lifted the perforated cone.

There lay a bug, sure enough, a bug about the size of a hickory-nut, and
so scintillant, so bright, that the eye could hardly gaze upon it.

“And this is the only kind of light you have in Goblinland, Fitz?” the
boy asked.

“Yes. We light our houses, our streets, our factories, our mines,
everything with them.”

“Wonderful!” Bob exclaimed. “And what do you do for fire, for heat?”

“We don’t need heat for our dwellings. Owing to the fact that our
country is protected from all cold winds by the high cliffs around it,
and that the earth crust is thin over the fires of the volcano below, the
temperature remains about eighty the year round. Then, we don’t cook any
crude, nasty food, as you humans do; so—”

“No, you live on pills,” Bob interjected, in a tone of scorn and disgust.
“Bah!”

“So,” Fitz Mee went on smoothly, unheeding his comrade’s splenetic
interruption, “all we need heat for is in running our factories. For that
we bore down to the internal fire of the earth.”

“Well—well!” Bob ejaculated. “You do?”

“Yes.”

“Well, where are your factories, Fitz? I didn’t see anything that looked
like factories when we got out of the balloon.”

“They’re all in caverns hewed in the cliffs.”

“And the fire you use comes from ’way down in the ground?”

“Yes.”

“And you light your factories with electric fireflies?”

The goblin gravely nodded. Bob was thoughtfully silent for a moment; then
he remarked:

“It must be awfully hot work in your factories—the men shut up in caves,
and no fresh air.”

“We have plenty of fresh air in our works,” Fitz hastened to make plain;
“we have large funnel-shaped tubes running up to the mountain-tops. The
cold wind pours down through them, and we can turn it on or off at our
pleasure.”

“Say!” Bob cried.

“What?” queried his companion.

“I’d like to go through your factories.”

“You mean what you say, Bob?”

“Mean what I say?” said Bob, in surprise bordering on indignation. “Of
course I do.”

“That you’d like to go through our factories?”

“Certainly. Why not?”

“When do you want to make the—the experiment—the effort?”

“To-day—right away, soon as we’ve had something to eat.”

“All right, Bob,”—with a smile and a shake of the head,—“but—”

“But what?”

“Nothing. We’ll have breakfast and be off. It’s coming daylight, and the
factories will be running full blast in an hour from now.”

“More pills for breakfast, I reckon,” Bob grumbled surlily.

“More tablets and pellets,” Fitz Mee grinned, rubbing his hands together
and rolling his pop eyes.

“Huh!” the boy grunted ungraciously. “I wish you folks cooked and ate
food like civilized people. I’m getting tired of nothing but pills. I
can’t stand it very long—that’s all.”

“You’ll get used to it,” the goblin said, consolingly.

“Used to it!” the boy snorted angrily. “Yes, I’ll get used to it like
the old man’s cow got used to living on sawdust; about the time she was
getting used to it she died.” But he accepted the pellets and tablets his
companion offered him, and meekly swallowed them. Then they caught up
their caps and left the house.




CHAPTER XI

IN THE LAND WHERE YOU DO AS YOU PLEASE


Bob and his comrade went straight to the mayor’s office; and to that
august official Fitz Mee said:

“Your honor, Master Taylor wishes to go through our factories.”

“So I’ve heard,” the mayor answered grimly, “but could hardly credit my
ears.” Then to Bob: “Master Taylor, is this true that I hear: that you
desire to go through our factories?”

“Yes, sir,” Bob replied respectfully but sturdily, rather wondering,
however, why such an ado should be made over so small a matter.

“Very well, Fitz Mee,” said the mayor to that worthy, “I’ll depend upon
you to see that Master Taylor goes through our factories; and I’ll hold
you responsible for any trouble that may arise. Here’s your permit.”

When the two were out of the mayor’s presence and on their way to the
factories, Bob remarked:

“Fitz, how did the mayor learn that I want to go through your
machine-shops and places?”

“He heard us talking.”

“Heard us talking?”

“Yes. There’s a wireless telephone instrument in the room where we were,
an automatic one that catches every sound.”

“Oh!”

“Yes.”

“And what did the mayor mean by saying he’d hold you responsible for any
trouble that might arise?”

“Oh, nothing—nothing!” Fitz Mee answered hastily and grumpily.

The boy questioned his companion no further, and soon they crossed one of
the picturesque bridges spanning the brook, ascended a long, gentle slope
to the base of the black cliffs, and stood before a wide, nail-studded
door. To the officers on guard Fitz Mee presented the mayor’s permit. The
guard deliberately and carefully read the slip of paper, then he lifted
his brows, drew down the corners of his mouth and grunted pompously:

“Fitz Mee, you’re aware of the import of this official document, are you?”

Fitz Mee nodded gravely, grimly, and Bob looked from one to the other in
silent wonder.

[Illustration: Bob and his comrade went straight to the mayor’s office.]

The guard went on: “This permit of his honor, the mayor, says that not
only is Master Robert Taylor, the friend and comrade of the honorable
Fitz Mee, hereby permitted to go through our factories, but by the same
token is _compelled_ to go through them, this being his expressed desire
and pleasure; and that the honorable Fitz Mee shall be held responsible
for any trouble that may thereby arise. That’s all right, is it, Fitz
Mee?”

[Illustration]

“It’s all right,” Fitz Mee muttered sullenly, but determinedly.

“Pass in,” said the officer, unbolting the door and dragging it open.

As soon as the two had stepped over the sill, the door was slammed shut
behind them, and Bob heard the great bolts shot into place—and shuddered
in spite of himself. On each side of him were smooth, solid walls of
rock: ahead of him stretched a dusky corridor dimly lighted with electric
fireflies suspended here and there. The dull rumble of distant machinery
came to his ears; the faint smell of smoke and sulphurous fumes greeted
him.

“Fitz?” the lad said to his comrade, who stood silent at his side.

The goblin simply gave the speaker a look in reply.

“Fitz,” Bob continued, “what’s the meaning of all this talk about my
going through the factories? What’s the matter, anyhow?”

“Nothing—nothing!” Fitz murmured hoarsely, shiftily gazing here and there.

“Yes, there is,” the boy insisted. “Why do you all emphasize the word
‘through’?”

“Why—why,” Fitz stammered, rubbing his nose and blinking his pop eyes,
“we thought maybe you didn’t mean that you desired to go _through_ the
factories; thought maybe you meant you desired to go _partly_ through
only—just wanted to see _some_ of the things.”

“No,” Bob hastily made reply, “I want to go through; I want to see
everything. Understand?”

Fitz nodded.

“Well, come on, then,” he said; “we’ve got to be moving.”

As they went along the corridor, Bob became aware of doors ahead opening
to right and left. He saw the flash of flames and heard the whirr of
wheels and the hub-bub of hammers.

“This room to the right,” said Fitz Mee, “is the machine-shop; that on
the left is the forging-room.”

They visited each in turn, and the lad was delighted with all he saw.

“He! he!” he laughed when they were again out in the corridor and free
from the thunder and crash and din that had almost deafened them. “The
idea, Fitz, of me not wanting to go through your factories; of not
wanting to see everything! You bet I want to go through! You thought I’d
be afraid—that’s what _you_ thought; and the mayor, too. But I’ll show
you; I’m no baby—not much!”

His companion grinned impishly, but made no reply.

The next place they entered was the great moulding-room. Open cupolas
were pouring forth white-hot streams of molten metal, which half-nude and
sweaty, grimy goblins were catching in ladles and bearing here and there.
The temperature of the room was almost unbearable; the atmosphere was
poisonous with sulphurous gases. Bob crossed the threshold and stopped.

“Come on,” commanded his companion; “we must hurry along, or we won’t get
through to-day.”

“I—I don’t believe I care to go through here,” Bob said hesitatingly.

“Why?” Fitz Mee jerked out.

“It’s so awful hot and smelly,” the boy explained; “and I’m—I’m a little
afraid of all that hot metal.”

“No matter; you must go through here.”

“I _must_?” Bob cried indignantly.

“Certainly. You said you’d be pleased to go through our factories; so
now you must go through—through every apartment. Boys in Goblinville, you
know, must do what pleases ’em.”

“But it doesn’t please me to go through this fiery furnace, Fitz.”

“Well, boys’re not allowed to change their minds every few minutes in
Goblinville. Come on.”

“I won’t!” Bob said obstinately.

“You’ll get into trouble, Bob.”

“I don’t care.”

“And you’ll get _me_ into trouble.”

“You into trouble? How?”

“You heard what the mayor said, didn’t you?”

“Y-e-s.”

“Well?”

“Well, I’ll go through for your sake, Fitz; but I don’t want to. It is a
fool law or custom—or whatever it is—that won’t let a fellow change his
mind once in a while, when he feels like it! A great way that is to let a
boy do what he pleases! But lead on.”

They sauntered through the moulding—room, Bob trembling and dodging and
blinking, and out into the corridor again.

“Mercy!” the urchin exclaimed, inhaling a deep breath of relief. “I don’t
want any more of that! I’m all in a sweat and a tremble; I was afraid all
the time some of that hot metal would splash on me.”

“It does splash on the workers at times,” Fitz Mee observed quietly.

Not heeding his companion’s remark, Bob continued: “And my lungs feel
all stuffy. I couldn’t stand such a hot and smelly place more than a few
minutes.”

“How do you suppose the moulders stand it for ten hours a day?” Fitz
asked.

“I don’t see how they do—and I don’t see _why_ they do,” the boy replied.

“You don’t see why they do?”

“No, I don’t.”

“For the same reason workmen stand disagreeable and dangerous kinds of
work in your country, Bob; to earn a living.”

“I wouldn’t do it,” the boy declared loftily.

“You might have to, were you a grown man or goblin.”

“Well, I wouldn’t. My papa doesn’t have to do anything of the kind.”

“Your father’s a physician, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Well, doesn’t he miss meals, and lose sleep, and worry over his
patients, and work sometimes for weeks at a time without rest or peace of
mind?”

“Yes, he does.”

“But you’d rather do that than be a common laborer for eight or ten hours
a day, would you?”

“I—I don’t know; I’d rather just be a boy and have fun all the time. And
I guess I’ve seen enough of your factories, Fitz; I want to get out into
the fresh air and sunshine again.”

“You must go on through,” the goblin answered, quietly but positively.

“Well, have we seen nearly all there is to see?”

“No, we’ve just begun; we haven’t seen one-tenth part yet.”

“Oh, dear!” Bob groaned. “I never can stand it, Fitz; it’ll take us all
day.”

“Yes,” the goblin nodded.

“Well, I tell you I can’t stand it.”

“But you must; it was your choice.”

“Choice!” angrily. “I didn’t know What it would be like.”

“You shouldn’t have chosen so rashly. Come on.”

Bob demurred and pleaded, and whimpered a little, it must be confessed;
but his guide was inexorable.

It is not necessary to enter into details in regard to all the boy saw,
experienced and learned. Let it suffice to say that at three o’clock
that afternoon he was completely worn out with strenuous sight-seeing.
The grating, rumbling, thundering sounds had made his head ache; the
sights and smells had made his heart sick. He had seen goblins, goblins,
goblins—goblins sooty and grimed, goblins wizened and old before their
time; goblins grinding out their lives in the cutlery factory; goblins
inhaling poisonous fumes in the chemical works; goblins, like beasts of
burden, staggering under heavy loads; goblins doing this thing, that
thing and the other thing, that played havoc with their health and
shortened their lives. And he was disgusted—nauseated with it all!

“Oh, Fitz!” he groaned. “I can’t go another step; I can’t stand it to see
any more! I thought it would be pleasant; but—oh, dear!”

“Sit down here and rest a minute,” Fitz Mee said, not unkindly,
indicating a rough bench against the wall of the corridor. “Now, why
can’t you bear to see any more?”

“Oh, it’s so awful!” the boy moaned. “I can’t bear to see ’em toiling and
suffering, to see ’em so dirty and wretched.”

The goblin laughed outright.

“Bob, you’re a precious donkey!” he cried. “True, the workers in the
factories toil hard at dirty work—work that shortens their lives in
some cases; but they’re inured to it, and they don’t mind it as much as
you think. And what would you? All labor is hard, if one but thinks so;
there are no soft snaps, if one does his duty. It’s the way of the goblin
world, and it’s the way of the human world. All must labor, all must
suffer more or less; there’s no escape for the highest or the lowest. And
work has its compensation, has its reward; it—”

“Oh, shut up!” the lad muttered petulantly. “I don’t want to hear any
more. You talk just like my papa does. I wish I’d never been born, if
I’ve got to grow up and work. So there!”

“You’ll never grow up, if you stay in Goblinville, Bob,” Fitz Mee said
softly; but his pop eyes were twinkling humorously. “And you won’t have
to work—not much, anyhow.”

Bob sat soberly silent; evidently he was doing some deep thinking.

The goblin went on: “If you’re rested now, we’ll resume our sight-seeing.”

“I don’t want to see any more,” the lad grunted pugnaciously; “and I’m
not going to, either.”

“Yes, come on.”

“I won’t do it.”

“Please do, Bob.”

“I won’t, I say.”

“You’ll get us both into trouble.”

“I don’t care if I do.”

“They’ll send us to prison.”

“What!”

“They will.”

“Who will?”

“The mayor and his officers.”

“Send us both?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” bristling, “I guess they won’t send _me_—the old meddlers! They
won’t dare to; I’m not a citizen of this country.”

“That won’t make any difference, Bob!”

“It will too. If they send me to prison, the people of my country will
come over here and—and lick ’em out of their boots. Now!”

Fitz Mee bent double and stamped about the floor, laughing till the tears
ran down his fat cheeks. But suddenly he sobered and said:

“Come on, Bob; you’ve got to.”

“I won’t!” the boy declared perversely. “I _don’t_ have to.”

The goblin made no further plea; but placing a silver whistle to his
lips blew a sharp blast. In answer, a squad of officers stepped from the
shadows.

“What’s wanted, Fitz Mee?” said the leader.

“This boy flatly refuses to obey the law, to go on through the factories,
as he stated would please him.”

“Boy, is this true?” demanded the officer.

“Yes, it is,” Bob confessed fearlessly, shamelessly.

“Fitz Mee, he confesses,” muttered the officer. “What would you have me
do?”

“Take him and carry him through,” Fitz Mee said icily.

“Very well,” answered the officer. “But if we do that we take the case
out of your hands, Fitz Mee. And in order to make a satisfactory report
to the mayor, we’ll have to carry him through all the factories—those he
has already visited as well as those he has not.”

[Illustration]

“Yes, that’s true,” Fitz nodded.

“What’s that?” Bob cried, keenly concerned.

The officer gravely repeated his statement.

“Oh, nonsense!” the boy exclaimed. “You fellows go away and quit
bothering me. I never saw such a country! A fine place for a boy to do as
he pleases, surely! Come on, Fitz.”

All the goblins laughed heartily, and Bob disrespectfully made faces at
them, to their increased amusement.

When the two comrades had made their round of the factories, and were out
in the fresh air again, the boy murmured meekly, a sob in his throat:

“Fitz, I’m tired—I’m sick of it all! I wish I hadn’t come here, I—I wish
I was back home again.”

“What!” his companion cried in assumed surprise.

“I do!”

“Back home, and be compelled to obey your elders—your parents and your
teachers?” Fitz Mee said, grinning and winking impishly.

“Well,”—pettishly,—“it wouldn’t be any worse than being compelled to obey
a lot of fool officers, anyhow.”

“You’re just compelled to do what pleases you, just as I told you,” Fitz
Mee explained smoothly.

“Oh, do shut up!” the lad pouted.

“You’re out of sorts,” the goblin giggled; “you’re hungry—you need some
food tablets.”

“Bah!” Bob gagged. “Pills! I can’t swallow any more of ’em—I just can’t!
Oh, I wish I had a good supper like mother cooks!”

Fitz Mee threw himself prone and kicked and pounded the earth, laughing
and whooping boisterously; and Bob stood and stared at him, in silent
disapproval and disgust.




CHAPTER XII

BEFORE THE MAYOR OF GOBLINLAND


As the days passed Bob became more and more disgruntled, more and more
dissatisfied with things in Goblinville. The bare thought of food-tablets
and drink-pellets disgusted and nauseated him; and he could hardly
swallow them at all. The young goblins would not, could not, play the
games he liked to play. They were too small for one reason; and, then,
as it did not please them to do so, they were not permitted to do so.
And the boy was without youthful companionship. The only associates he
had were his faithful companion Fitz Mee and the officers of the town,
who were always at his elbow to see that he did what pleased him. This
constant espionage became simply unbearable; and the lad grew peevish,
gloomy; desperate. At last he broke down and tearfully confessed to his
comrade:

“Fitz, I want to go back home; I do—I do! I can’t stand it here any
longer. It isn’t at all what I thought it would be like; and I’m
homesick!”

Fitz Mee did not laugh; he did not smile, even. On the contrary he looked
very grave—and a little sad.

“So you’re homesick, Bob—eh?” he said.

“Yes, I am, Fitz.”

“And you desire to go home?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You don’t like things here in Goblinville?”

“No, I don’t.”

“What is it you object to?”

“Oh, everything!”

“But especially?”

“Well, the—the pills, I guess.”

“Oh!” joyfully. “Is that all, Bob? We can fix that all right. I’ll get a
special permit from the mayor—he’s a political friend of mine,—to let me
prepare you food like you’ve been accustomed to. Then you’ll be as happy
as a clam, won’t you?”

“I—I don’t hardly know, Fitz; no, I don’t think I will.”

“What!”

“Uk-uh.”

“Well, what else is wrong, then?”

The goblin’s pop eyes were dancing with mischief.

“I don’t like to be compelled to do what pleases me,” Bob confessed
shamefacedly.

“Ho, ho!” laughed Fitz Mee.

“Oh, you can laugh!” the boy cried, in weak irritation. “But I don’t!”

“You said it would just suit you, Bob—before you came here,” Fitz
chuckled hoarsely, holding his sides and rocking to and fro.

“I know I did; but I’d never tried it.”

“And you don’t like it?”

“No, indeed,” Bob answered very earnestly.

“And you’re homesick, and want to go home?”

The boy nodded, his eyes downcast.

“All the goblins’ll laugh at you, if you go to leave Goblinville.”

“Well, let ’em; I don’t care.”

“And your people and your schoolmates will laugh at you, when you return
home.”

Bob was silent, deeply pondering.

“Don’t you care?” Fitz Mee asked, cackling explosively.

“Yes, I do! But I’ve got to go, anyhow; I’ll die here.”

“Oh, no, you won’t, Bob,” said the goblin, teasingly.

“I will, too,” said Bob, desperately in earnest; “I know.”

“You’ll have to go to school, if you return home.”

“I don’t mind that; I’ll have other boys to play with, anyhow.”

“Yes, but you’ll have to obey the teacher.”

“I know.”

“And you’ll have to do what pleases your parents.”

“I know that, too.”

“And you won’t be permitted to do what pleases yourself.”

“I know; I’ve thought it all over, Fitz.”

“And yet you wish to return home?”

“Yes, I do.”

Fitz Mee laughed gleefully, uproariously, irrationally, laughed till the
tears coursed down his cheeks and his fat features were all a-quiver.

“Ho, ho!” he gasped at last. “Roberty-Boberty, you’re not the same boy
you were, not at all; you’re not half as high and mighty. What’s come
over you, hey?”

“I’ve—I’ve learned something, I—I guess, Fitz.”

“Oh, you have!”

“Uh-huh.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to say,” replied Bob, grinning sheepishly; “but I think I
know what you brought me to Goblinland for.”

“What for?”

“W-e-ll, to—to teach me what I’ve learned. Didn’t you?”

“I’m not going to say,” mimicked the goblin.

Then both tittered.

“And you’re bound to go back home, Bob?” Fitz pursued.

The boy nodded.

[Illustration: “If you’re rested now, we’ll resume our sight-seeing.”
(See page 168.)]

“You’re a pretty looking thing to go back to Yankeeland—a little mite of
a human like you!” sneeringly.

“Oh, Fitz!” the lad wailed. “Can’t I be made a real boy again?”

The goblin impressively shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “You see you’ve taken so many gob-tabs
it’s very doubtful whether you can be changed back into a boy at all.”

“Oh, Fitz, don’t say that!”—greatly distressed.

“Of course, if you were put on human diet for a long time, you might come
out all right,”—reflectively.

“But can’t I take something that will change me quick—right away?”

Again the goblin shook his head.

“I doubt it,” he murmured. “Giant-tabs would make a giant of you; and you
don’t want to be a giant.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, I guess, then, if you want to go back home right away, you’ll have
to go just as you are.”

“Oh, Fitz!” almost blubbering. “I don’t want to go back home this way;
I just can’t! Can’t you give me something that will—will stretch me and
swell me to boy size—just to boy size? Can’t you—can’t you?”

“I don’t know,”—with a gloomy shake of the head; “I never heard of such
a drug or chemical, but it’s barely possible our chemists may know of
something of the kind. I’ll see about it. But here’s a difficulty.”

“What? What, Fitz?”

“Why, as you know, there’s no means of getting out of Goblinland except
by balloon; and I doubt if my balloon will carry you at full and normal
weight.”

“But can’t you get a bigger one?”

“I might have one made; I don’t—”

“Oh, no—no, Fitz!” the boy interrupted frantically. “Don’t think of doing
that; I can’t wait. Can’t you borrow a bigger one?”

“There are no bigger ones, except the mayor’s state balloon. It has two
feather beds lashed together for a bag, and a very large car.”

“Can’t you get it—can’t you get it, Fitz?”

“I don’t know, indeed. Then, here’s another difficulty, Bob, and a
greater one to my mind.”

“Oh, Fitz!” the boy moaned, wringing his hands. “You don’t mean it!”

“Yes, I do,” said the goblin, nodding gravely; but his twinkling pop eyes
belied his words. “You see, Bob, you’re the first human being that has
ever come to Goblinland. Now, the secrets of the country—including the
secret of its whereabouts, have always been carefully guarded. I don’t
know what his honor, the mayor, will say about letting you go.”

“I won’t tell anything, Fitz, I won’t—I won’t!”

“Not a thing?” questioned Fitz Mee.

“No, sir—not a thing.”

“W-e-ll, I—I don’t know. What will you do, Bob, if the mayor won’t let
you go back home?”

“I’ll just die—that’s what!”

The goblin slapped his thin thighs and laughed and whooped, and laughed
some more.

Out of patience, the lad screamed: “Laugh! Laugh till you burst, you old
Convulsions! You old Spasms! You old Hysterics! Yeah! Yeah!”

And Fitz Mee did laugh—till he was entirely out of breath and panting and
wheezing like a bellows. When at last he had regained control of himself,
he whispered brokenly:

“Bob, we’ll—we’ll go and see—the mayor.”

And they caught up their caps and were off.

“So you wish to go home, boy—eh?” said the mayor, the august ruler of
Goblinville and all adjacent territory, as soon as the two were ushered
into his presence.

“Yes, sir,” Bob answered humbly. Then, with boyish inquisitiveness: “But
how did you know it?”

“Never mind,” was the gruff reply. “It will please you to return home
will it?”

“Yes, sir, indeed it will.”

“Then you must go. Be off at once.”

“But—but—” Bob began.

“I’ll fix all that,” his honor interrupted, quickly divining what the boy
meant to say. “I’m as anxious to be rid of you as you are to be gone.
You’ve stirred up a pretty rumpus here—_you_ have. You’re the first human
boy that ever came into my domain; and you’ll be the last. But I trust
your experience has done you good—eh?”

Bob nodded.

“Very well, then. Sign this pledge that you won’t reveal what you’ve seen
and learned, and that you’ll take the lesson to heart.”

Bob gladly signed the pledge.

“Now,” continued the mayor, his eyes snapping humorously, “these are
the conditions under which you must leave my domain: I’ll call in
the chemists and have them restore you to normal size; I’ve already
communicated with them, and they assure me they can do it. Then I’ll
let the honorable and worthy Fitz Mee take my state balloon and carry
you back to Yankeeland. You will set out this afternoon at one o’clock.
But one other thing I exact: you must bear nothing away with you that
you did not bring here with you.” And the mayor gave the boy a keen,
meaningful look that the urchin could not interpret.

[Illustration]

The chemists came in, three aged and bewhiskered goblins wearing long,
black robes and silk skull caps.

“My good chemists,” said the mayor, “are you ready for the experiment?”

“All ready, your honor,” the eldest of the three made answer, bowing
profoundly.

“To work, then,” the mayor commanded.

The younger two advanced and caught and held Bob’s hands, their fingers
upon his pulse. The eldest produced a tiny phial of thick, opalescent
liquid.

“Put out your tongue,” he said to the boy.

The lad unhesitatingly obeyed, and the aged and trembling chemist let a
drop of the viscid liquid fall upon the tip of the youngster’s quivering
organ of speech.

The effect was instantaneous and startling, if not marvelous. Bob let
out a mad bellow of pain, shaking his head and writhing and drooling.
The mayor changed countenance and deprecatingly shook his head. Fitz Mee
groaned aloud.

“Draw in your tongue and shut your mouth and swallow!” the three savants
simultaneously yelled at the boy.

Bob reluctantly did as he was told; and immediately, instantaneously he
was restored to normal size.

“Whoopee!” shouted the chemists, embracing one another and indulging in
mad capers and other manifestations of insane joy. “A success! A complete
success!”

“Thank goodness!” murmured Fitz Mee. “A success!”

“Yes,” the mayor muttered drily, grimly, “a remarkable success—a _too_
remarkable success! My good chemists, destroy what you have left of that
stuff, and make no more at your peril. I’m not going to have any more
_boys_ manufactured in this country—a noisy, disturbing lot! You hear
me!” Then to Fitz Mee: “You take your departure from the public square
at one o’clock, remember. The state balloon will be there in readiness.
You’re excused.”

When the two comrades were again at Fitz Mee’s residence, Bob remarked
ingenuously:

“Fitz, while you’re getting ready I’m going to gather up some of the gold
nuggets I saw on the shore of the brook.”

“Better not,” Fitz replied, without looking up from his work.

“Why?”

“I wouldn’t, if I were you—that’s all.”

“Well, why?”

“They’re not yours.”

“I know. But you goblins make no use of them; and it wouldn’t be
wrong—wouldn’t be stealing, would it?”

“No,” Fitz Mee mumbled, “it wouldn’t be robbery, exactly. But you heard
what the mayor said.”

“What about?”

“That you weren’t to take anything away with you that you didn’t bring
here with you.”

“Yes, I heard him. Is that what he meant?”

“To be sure.”

“Well, why does he object to my taking a few old nuggets of gold that
none of you will use?” said Bob peevishly.

“For this reason, Bob: you take that gold back to Yankeeland, and tell
where you got it—”

“But I won’t tell where I got it,” the lad interrupted.

Unheeding, the goblin continued: “And your money-mad people will search
out our country and conquer and ruin us.”

“Oh, pshaw, Fitz!”

“What I say is true, Bob.”

But Bob was neither convinced nor satisfied, and he resolved to have the
nuggets at all hazard. Where was the harm? The gold was of no value to
the goblins; it would be of great value to him. And he wouldn’t say a
word about where he got it—indeed he wouldn’t. He would take it; and no
one would be the wiser or the poorer. So, while his comrade was busy at
other things, he slipped out to the brookside and filled his pockets.

One o’clock came, the time of departure, and all Goblinville, including
the mayor and his officers, was out to see the aëronauts off upon their
long voyage. The mayor shook hands with the two and wished them God-speed
and the populace gave them three hearty cheers.

Then the anchor was weighed, and they were off. Slowly and majestically
the great state balloon began to ascend. But when it had risen a
hundred feet, Bob, looking over the side of the car, became aware of a
disturbance in the crowd beneath. He saw goblins excitedly running this
way and that and a number of officers trundling a big black object on
wheels across the public square.

“What’s the meaning of the rumpus, Fitz?” the lad cried to his companion.
“What’s that the officers have?”

“Why,” Fitz gasped, taking a hurried look beneath, “the officers are
running out the dynamite gun!”

“And they’re training it upon our balloon—upon _us_!” Bob whispered
hoarsely, his soul a prey to guilty fear. “What—what can it mean, Fitz?”

Then arose the voice of the mayor, bellowing:

“Fitz Mee, descend! Come back! That boy can’t leave Goblinland with his
pockets full of gold! He has deceived us; he can’t leave Goblinland at
all. Come down; or we’ll send a dynamite shell through the balloon-bag,
and bring you down in a hurry.”

Fitz gave a few strokes to the pump, and the big balloon came to a stop.
Bob sat silent, speechless at the dread result of his rash act.

“You’ve played the mischief—_you_ have, Bob Taylor!” his companion
snarled angrily, reproachfully. “And you’ll spend the balance of your
days in Goblinland—that’s what!”

“Oh, dear!” the boy found voice to moan. “Oh, dear!”

“Hello!” Fitz called over the side of the car. “Hello, your honor!”

“Hello!” answered the mayor.

“If I’ll make the boy throw the gold down to you, will that satisfy you?”

“No, it won’t!” came the hoarse and determined reply. “Bring the young
scamp back! He shall stay in Goblinville!”

“I guess I won’t!” Bob shouted, desperation spurring his courage. And he
sprang to the air-tank and opened the cock. The balloon began to rise
swiftly.

“Oh, Bob—Bob!” Fitz Mee groaned. “What have you done? We’ll both be
killed!”

“Boom!” went the dynamite gun; and a shell tore through the balloon-bag,
rending it asunder and sending goose feathers fluttering in all
directions.

The car began to drop like a plummet. Its occupants let it out shrill
screeches of terror. Then came the proverbial dull, sickening thud! Bob
felt the empty balloon—bag fall over him and envelop him; and then he
lost consciousness.

“Bob, crawl out of there.”

[Illustration]

“Fitz! Fitz!” the boy cried, disentangling himself and struggling to his
feet.

“Fits!” laughed a big manly voice. “Yes, I guess you’ve got ’em, Bob; and
you’ve rolled out of bed in one, and dragged the covers with you.”

Bob blinked and rubbed his sleepy eyes. There stood his father in the
doorway, grinning broadly;

“Hustle into your clothes, laddie,” he said; “breakfast’s ready.”

[Illustration: THE END.]