"Oh no," said the Brownie. "All these walls are made of slate and we use 'em to write on. It saves littering the house all up with paper, and every Tuesday we have a house-cleaning bee and rub all the writing off. It's a very good scheme and I wonder your grown-up people don't have it, particularly in your nurseries. I've noticed children writing things on nursery walls lots of times and then they've been scolded for doing it because their nurses said it spoiled the paper. I can't understand why they don't have slate walls instead that can't be spoiled. It's such a temptation to write on a wall, but it does spoil paper. But to come back to our animals, they're really lovely, and have such wonderfully sweet dispositions. There is the Brownie Elephant, for instance--he's the most light hearted creature you ever saw, and he has holes bored through his trunk like a flute and at night he plays the most beautiful music on it, while we Brownies sit around and listen to him." "What does he wear so many pairs of spectacles for?" asked Jimmieboy. "He has weak eyes," said the Brownie. "That is, he has at night. He can't see his notes to play tunes by when it is dark, and so we've provided him with those spectacles to help him out. Then the Bear is very self-sacrificing. If anyone of us wants to go out anywhere in the cold he'll let us have his robe just for the asking. The Pug-dog isn't much use but he's playful and intelligent. If you tell him to go to the post-office for your mail he'll rush out of the front door, down the road to the grocer's and bring you back an apple or an orange, because he always knows that there isn't any mail. One of your hired men wouldn't know that, but would waste his time going to the post-office to find it out if you told him to." Jimmieboy expressed his admiration of the intelligence of the Brownie Dog and the good nature of the other animals, and then asked if he mightn't go upstairs he was so curious to see the rest of the house. "Certainly," said the Dude Brownie, "only you'll have to slide up the banisters. We haven't any stairs." "Don't think I know how," said Jimmieboy. "I can slide down banisters, but I never learned to slide up 'em." "You don't have to learn it," returned the Brownie. "All you have to do is to get aboard and slide. It's a poor banister that won't work both ways. The trouble with your banisters is that they are poor ones. Climb aboard and let yourself go." The boy did as he was told, and pop! the first thing he knew he was in the midst of the Brownies on the second floor. Much to his surprise, while they were unquestionably snoring, they were all reading, or writing, or engaged in some other occupation. "Well this beats everything!" said Jimmieboy. "I thought you said they were asleep?"