“Shakespeare must have traveled by rail, if only in a dream: 'perturbed Spirit' is such a happy phrase.” “'Perturbed' referring, no doubt,” she rejoined, “to the sensational booklets peculiar to the Rail. If Steam has done nothing else, it has at least added a whole new Species to English Literature!” “No doubt of it,” I echoed. “The true origin of all our medical books--and all our cookery-books--” “No, no!” she broke in merrily. “I didn't mean our Literature! We are quite abnormal. But the booklets--the little thrilling romances, where the Murder comes at page fifteen, and the Wedding at page forty--surely they are due to Steam?” “And when we travel by Electricity if I may venture to develop your theory we shall have leaflets instead of booklets, and the Murder and the Wedding will come on the same page.” “A development worthy of Darwin!”, the lady exclaimed enthusiastically. “Only you reverse his theory. Instead of developing a mouse into an elephant, you would develop an elephant into a mouse!” But here we plunged into a tunnel, and I leaned back and closed my eyes for a moment, trying to recall a few of the incidents of my recent dream. “I thought I saw--” I murmured sleepily: and then the phrase insisted on conjugating itself, and ran into “you thought you saw--he thought he saw--” and then it suddenly went off into a song:-- “He thought he saw an Elephant, That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. 'At length I realise,' he said, “The bitterness of Life!'” And what a wild being it was who sang these wild words! A Gardener he seemed to be yet surely a mad one, by the way he brandished his rake--madder, by the way he broke, ever and anon, into a frantic jig--maddest of all, by the shriek in which he brought out the last words of the stanza! {Image....The gardener} It was so far a description of himself that he had the feet of an Elephant: but the rest of him was skin and bone: and the wisps of loose straw, that bristled all about him, suggested that he had been originally stuffed with it, and that nearly all the stuffing had come out. Sylvie and Bruno waited patiently till the end of the first verse. Then Sylvie advanced alone (Bruno having suddenly turned shy) and timidly introduced herself with the words “Please, I'm Sylvie!” “And who's that other thing?', said the Gardener. “What thing?” said Sylvie, looking round. “Oh, that's Bruno. He's my brother.” “Was he your brother yesterday?” the Gardener anxiously enquired. “Course I were!” cried Bruno, who had gradually crept nearer, and didn't at all like being talked about without having his share in the conversation. “Ah, well!” the Gardener said with a kind of groan. “Things change so, here. Whenever I look again, it's sure to be something different! Yet I does my duty! I gets up wriggle-early at five--”