"Perhaps if the rhyme always brings about the answer you want, it would be better for me to ask the question that way first, and not bother him with the other twelve ways," suggested Jimmieboy. "That's very thoughtful of you," said the Imp. "I think very likely it would be better to do it that way. Just you tiptoe softly up to him and say, "If you loved me as I love you, And I were you and you were me, What you asked me I'd surely do, And let you have that silver key." "I think that's just the way," said Jimmieboy, repeating the verse over and over again so as not to forget it. "I'll go to him at once." And he did go. He tiptoed into the library, at one end of which his papa was sitting writing; he kissed him on his cheek, and whispered the verse softly in his ear. "Why, certainly," said his papa, when he had finished. "Here it is," taking the key from the end of his chain. "Don't lose it, Jimmieboy." [Illustration: BEFORE HIM STOOD THE IMP.] "No, I'll not lose it. I've got too much use for it to lose it," replied Jimmieboy, gleefully, and then, sliding down from his papa's lap, he ran headlong into the back hall to where the telephone stood, inserted the key in the key-hole of the little door over the receiver and turned it. The door flew open, and before him stood the Imp. II _IN THE IMP'S ROOM_ "Dear me!" ejaculated Jimmieboy, as his eye first rested upon the Imp. "That's you, eh?" "I believe so," replied the Imp, standing on his left leg, and twirling around and around until Jimmieboy got dizzy looking at him. "I was me when I got up this morning, and I haven't heard of any change since. Do I look like what I told you I looked like?" "Not exactly," said Jimmieboy. "You said you had lilac-colored hair, and it's more like a green than a lilac." "You are just like everybody else naming your colors. People are very queer about things of that sort, I think. For instance," said the Imp, to illustrate his point, "you go walking in the garden with one of your friends, and you come to a rose-bush, and your friend says, 'Isn't that a pretty rose-bush?' 'Yes,' say you; 'very.' Then he says, 'And what a lovely lilac-bush that is over there.' 'Extremely lovely,' say you. 'Let's sit down under this raspberry-bush,' says he. Well, now you think lilac is a delicate lavender, rose a pink, and raspberry a red--eh?" "Yes," said Jimmieboy. "That's the way they are." "Well, maybe so; but that lilac-bush and rose-bush and raspberry-bush are all the same color, and that color is green, just like my hair; you must have thought I looked like a rainbow or a paint shop when I told you about myself?" "No," said Jimmieboy. "I didn't think that, exactly. I thought, perhaps, you were like the pictures in my _Mother Goose_ book. They have lots of colors to 'em, and they are not bad looking, either." "Well, if they are not bad looking," said the Imp, with a pleased smile, "they must be very much like me. But don't you want to come in?"