As the disk passed over my head, Ocou rested the white tip of the baton on the pedestal. Instantly a slide flew out of the shaft’s top bearing a painted ideograph. The professor and I were not "up" in the Baigol ideographs, and were very much surprised at the actions of Ocou and his companions when they looked at the slide. They recoiled, stared at me suspiciously, and moved about me with caution. I grabbed my word-box. "What’s the matter, anyhow?" I asked. "We have just discovered that you are a robber," said Ocou. "I am no robber here," I answered, "no matter what I was in the place I came from." "Once a robber always a robber," retorted Ocou, "unless you touch the Bolla." "Well, well!" murmured the professor, rubbing his hands delightedly over the pedestal and giving little heed to Ocou’s remark. "What do you call this machine, Mr. Ocou?" "That, sir," Ocou replied, "is a character indexograph. We find it very useful in cataloguing the natural tendencies of subjects of the realm." He sighed. "The number of indexographs in the kingdom is limited, and they have all been working overtime of late. This is the first opportunity we have had to use one on you and your friend. Now, professor, if you will oblige me." The professor dropped down, the disk gliding over his bald head, and another ideograph shot into sight. "Ah," murmured Ocou, reading the sign: ’philanthropist, scientist, a man to counsel with!’ You’ll do, sir; but your friend!"—and he shook his head sadly as he dropped his talking machine. "I suppose," said I, watching Ocou and his attendants make off with the indexograph, "that I shall be kept within this circle indefinitely?" "Let us hope not, Mr. Munn," rejoined the professor, laying a kindly hand on my arm. "Rather let us hope that you will experience a moral rejuvenation, so that when the indexograph is tried on you at another time it will show a different result." "I wish they would try that thing on J. Archibald Meigs!" I exclaimed. "The Baigols would find, I think, that I have no monopoly on that particular ideograph." The professor laughed quietly. "Let us see what comes to us now after we have been catalogued," said he. "I think they have simply been waiting to make trial of our tendencies before allowing us to pass out of this enchanted circle." Ocou came back in a couple of hours, carrying a roll of parchment in addition to his baton. He came alone. "Gentlemen," said he in his mechanical way, "your names have been entered and tagged. In accordance with the information secured through the indexograph, a task has been set for you. Perform that task faithfully and you are to have the freedom of the realm." "What is the task, Mr. Ocou?" inquired the professor. "You are to restore the sacred Bolla to his majesty, the king of Baigol." "And what is the Bolla?"