"_Why it_ is, _a large fried egg," said Billy, excitedly_. --Page 47....Frontispiece. PAGE "I _can't tell you where Bogie Man lives, it's against the rules_." 14 _"Now," said Mr. Gas, "be careful not to sit on the ceiling."_ 17 "_Come, now, don't give me any of your tomato sauce._" 39 _Billy never wanted for plenty to eat._ 64 _"He-he-ho-ho, oh! what a joke," cried the Scally Wags._ 82 _"That's my black cat-o-nine tails," said the old woman._ 90 _The Night Mare and the Dream Food Sprites._ 101 _"Get off, you're sinking us," cried Billy._ 134 _He saw flying to meet him several shaggy bears._ 141 _"Talking about me, were you?" said Boreas, arriving in a swirl of snow._ 172 _"Me feyther," cried she, in a tragic voice, "the light, the light."_ 187 "_Come up to the house and spend an unpleasant evening._" 217 _Billy shot a blast of hot air from his pump full in Bumbus's face._ 263 "_Allow me to present Bogie Man._" 271 Preface OUR PURPOSE.--Fun for the "children between the ages of one and one hundred." AND INCIDENTALLY--the elimination of deceit and gore in the telling: two elements that enter, we think, too vitally into the construction of most fairy tales. AS TO THE MORAL.--That is not obtrusive. But if we can suggest to the children that fear alone can harm them through life's journey; and to silly nurses and thoughtless parents that the serious use of ghost stories, Bogie Men and Bugbears of all kinds for the sheer purpose of frightening or making a child mind is positively wicked; we will admit that the tale has a moral. CHAPTER I. DARK PLOT OF NICKEL PLATE, THE POLISHED VILLAIN. Nickel Plate, the polished Villain, sat in his office in the North South corner of the first straight turning to the left of the Castle in Plotville. "Gadzooks," exclaimed he with a heavy frown, "likewise Pish Tush! Methinks I grow rusty--it is indeed a sad world when a real villain is reduced to chewing his moustache and biting his lips instead of feasting on the fat of the land." So saying he rose from his chair, smote himself heavily on the chest, carefully twirled his long black moustache and paced dejectedly up and down and across the room. "I wonder," he began, when ting-a-ling-a-ling the telephone rang.