Ginger beckoned to the others, and they gathered round from the Weatherhouse. Gypsy brought the teapot with him, and the Night Watchman was given a cup across the barrier. “What do you have to watch the night for?” asked Ginger, putting in five lumps. “Enough o’ your sugar,” said the little man. “That’s _her_ dodge, too, sending out all her stars when a chap’s got to try to keep his senses steady. Too much stars and sugar goes to the heart. What do I have to watch her for, the jade? A pretty question! So as nothing gets stolen, for one thing.” Ginger put her face in her hands. “You may well!” said the Night Watchman. “Many and many a moon has you young folk tried to steal. Sometimes you’re too sharp even for me. But the moon’s not the worst of it. It’s keeping the constellations in order, especially in August when the shooting stars are about. It goes to the heads of the old ones when those young ones gets frisking, and it takes all my time to stop the Horse from kicking the Hunter in the belt, or the Twins from parting company. ‘Move on there!’ I tell them, till I’m hoarse. Comets are disorganizing too, in their way, but we’ve generally time to prepare for them, like the Lord Mayor’s Show. And then the fixed stars want watching; they’re liable to come un-fixed.” “Why shouldn’t they?” demanded Gypsy. “About time they did.” “Futurist!” said the Night Watchman. “But of course it isn’t only the stars. There’s plenty else to watch the night for.” “What?” asked Gypsy. “Ghosts,” said the Night Watchman. “And fairies.” He checked himself, and handed back his cup abruptly. “There’s all the sounds, too, that can’t be heard by day--such as the dust settling, and the pavement cracking, and the tide turning in the Thames. Ah, the pavement takes a lot of watching, and _still_ you can’t help the cracks coming. Sometimes one big square will split into half-a-dozen little ones before you can say Knife!” “Would that stop it?” asked Ginger. “It would stop anything if you said it quick enough,” said the Night Watchman, “but you never do. You may try again and again, and in the end be no better off than the fools who try to say Jack Robinson. And again, the night must be watched for the thoughts that won’t come out in the light. Some of them are too shy. But the boldness of them after dark! They take a lot of managing, for they’re a disorderly crew, bad _or_ good. Then on land you watch the night for its moths and bats, and on sea for its wrecks and its sails. But perhaps the best thing to watch the night for, on sea or land, is morning.” “Why?” said Gypsy. “Because then They come and take the rope away,” said the Night Watchman. Then he went into his box and sat on his stool and put his telescope to his eye and glared at the Pole Star. If the Pole Star had had any idea of side-slipping it abandoned it instantly, and kept as steady as the Rock of Gibraltar. “Who do you think he is?” asked Ginger. “Nobody knows,” said the P.A.