We had seen the Moon Man at last! “Well, for pity’s sake!” squawked Polynesia, breaking the awed silence. “You may be a frightfully important person here. But my goodness! It has taken you an awfully long time to come and call on us!” Serious as the occasion was in all conscience, Polynesia’s remarks, continued in an uninterrupted stream of annoyed criticism, finally gave me the giggles. And after I once got started I couldn’t have kept a straight face if I had been promised a fortune. The dusk had now settled down over the strange assembly. Starlight glowed weirdly in the eyes of the moths and birds that stood about us, like a lamp’s flame reflected in the eyes of a cat. As I made another effort to stifle my silly titters I saw John Dolittle, the size of his figure looking perfectly absurd in comparison with the Moon Man’s, rise to meet the giant who had come to visit us. “I am glad to meet you—at last,” said he in dignified well-bred English. A curious grunt of incomprehension was all that met his civility. Then seeing that the Moon Man evidently did not follow his language, John Dolittle set to work to find some tongue that would be understandable to him. I suppose there never was, and probably never will be, any one who had the command of languages that the Doctor had. One by one he ran through most of the earthly human tongues that are used to-day or have been preserved from the past. None of them had the slightest effect upon the Moon Man. Turning to animal languages however, the Doctor met with slightly better results. A word here and there seemed to be understood. But it was when John Dolittle fell back on the languages of the Insect and Vegetable Kingdoms that the Moon Man at last began to wake up and show interest. With fixed gaze Chee-Chee, Polynesia and I watched the two figures as they wrestled with the problems of common speech. Minute after minute went by, hour after hour. Finally the Doctor made a signal to me behind his back and I knew that now he was really ready. I picked up my notebook and pencil from the ground. [Illustration: “‘_Look!_—the right wrist—_look!_’”] As I laid back a page in preparation for dictation there came a strange cry from Chee-Chee. “Look!—_The right wrist!_—Look!” We peered through the twilight. . . . Yes, there _was_ something around the giant’s wrist, but so tight that it was almost buried in the flesh. The Doctor touched it gently. But before he could say anything Chee-Chee’s voice broke out again, his words cutting the stillness in a curious, hoarse, sharp whisper. “_The blue stone beads!_—Don’t you see them? . . . They don’t fit him any more since he’s grown a giant. But he’s Otho Bludge the artist. That’s the bracelet he got from Pippiteepa the grandmother of the Fairies!—It is he, Doctor, Otho Bludge, who was blown off the Earth in the _Days Before There Was a Moon_!” THE TWENTIETH CHAPTER The Doctor and the Giant