The Imp rushed to the button-board, and soon had two handsome little cups in response to his summons; and then casting them into the funnel he turned on the electric current, while Jimmieboy watched carefully for the resulting custards. In two minutes by the clock they appeared below, both at the same time, one a creamy strawberry in hue, and the other brown. [Illustration: THE ELECTRIC CUSTARD.] "It's wonderful!" said Jimmieboy, in breathless astonishment. "I wish I had a stove like that in my room." "It wouldn't be good for you. You'd be using it all day and eating what you got. But how is the custard?" "Lovely," said Jimmieboy, smacking his lips as he ate the soft creamy sweet. "I could eat a thousand of them." "I rather doubt it," said the Imp. "But you needn't try to prove it. I don't want to wear out the stove on custard when it has my dinner still to prepare. What do you say to listening to my library a little while? I've got a splendid library in the next room. It has everything in it that has ever been written, and a great many things that haven't. That's a great thing about this electric-button business. Nothing is impossible for it to do, and if you want to hear a story some man is going to tell next year or next century you can get it just as well as something that was written last year or last century. Come along." IV _THE LIBRARY_ The Imp opened a small door upon the right of the room, and through it Jimmieboy saw another apartment, the walls of which were lined with books, and as he entered he saw that to each book was attached a small wire, and that at the end of the library was a square piece of snow-white canvas stretched across a small wooden frame. "Magic lantern?" he queried, as his eye rested upon the canvas. "Kind of that way," said the Imp, "though not exactly. You see, these books in this room are worked by electricity, like everything else here. You never have to take the books off the shelf. All you have to do is to fasten the wire connected with the book you want to read with the battery, turn on the current, and the book reads itself to you aloud. Then if there are pictures in it, as you come to them they are thrown by means of an electric light upon that canvas." "Well, if this isn't the most--" began Jimmieboy, but he was soon stopped, for some book or other off in the corner had begun to read itself aloud. "And it happened," said the book, "that upon that very night the Princess Tollywillikens passed through the wood alone, and on approaching the enchanted tree threw herself down upon the soft grass beside it and wept." Here the book ceased speaking.