[Illustration: “EVERYTHING YOU SAY WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU,” SAID THE PUBLIC PERSECUTOR.] “It isn’t!” “It is!” “It is not!” The shouts rose louder and louder. “It is not poison, it is milk!” cried Tony, and suddenly seizing the mug of milk, which had been brought into the Court to give its evidence, he lifted it to his lips, and before the Jailer could prevent it, he drained the milk to the last drop and ran out of the Court. For every one was too astonished to stop him. The moment he was outside, he felt a sudden and awful change in himself. He was growing, growing, growing. He hurried out of the town. He felt that it would soon be too small to hold him. Outside he got bigger and bigger till the trees of the nearer forest were like grass under his feet, and the mug ran out of his hand like a little grain of rape-seed. And there beside him stood the Mountain—a little girl in a blue dress—and he was taller than she was. “Hullo!” said the Blue Mountain, “where did you spring from?” “From the town down there,” said Tony. “There?” said the Mountain, stooping, “that’s not a town, silly, you know it’s only an ant-heap, really.” “It is my town,” said Tony, “and its name is Antioch, and——” And then he told her the whole story. In the middle of it she sat down to listen better, crushing millions of trees as she sat. And Tony sat down, crushing other millions, only now it seemed to him that he had sat down on the grass. It makes a great deal of difference what size you are. “And that is where I used to live,” said Tony, pointing to the town, “and my name is Tony.” “I know that,” said the Blue Mountain, “but you live next door to us, you know you do, you always did, and that is only an ant-heap.” And when Tony looked down again it seemed to him that perhaps it really was only an ant-heap. All the same he knew the King when he saw him hurrying along the ramparts, and he picked the King up and put him on a cow’s ear. And the cow scratched its ear with its hind foot. And that was the end of the King. “Don’t tease the ants,” said the Blue Mountain. “People pour boiling water sometimes, or dig up the heaps, but I think it’s cruel.” [Illustration: HE WAS GROWING, GROWING, GROWING.] Tony remembered the hot rain and the earthquakes. “It is a nice story,” she said, “of course the grass is like a forest to the ants, and the big forest is the hedge. Your Sunday suit is silk velvet, your aunt told mother so. Yes, it is a nice story, and an ant did drop into my bread and milk yesterday, though I don’t know how you knew.” “You mayn’t believe it;” said Tony, “but I shall give them corn because it says so in Mr. Birkbeck’s prophecy, only I won’t ever give them any milk in case they grow big. They are too bad-tempered. Just think if the King had been our size!”