Giants! Here was something for him to attend to! There were not a great many giants left on the banks of the Rhine, but the few that were there were capable of doing a great deal of mischief; and king Rhine had been hearing bad reports of them for a long time. But he had been so busy with men and their affairs that he had neglected looking after anything else. It was high time that these giants were taught better manners. But who was to teach them? Who should he employ to subdue these giants, who were as tall as oak trees? Men could do nothing against them. Since the death of Jack the Giant-Killer no man had ever been known to conquer a giant. In his perplexity he summoned a wise woman, who lived on the highest peak of the highest mountain on the river, and who always gave wise counsel; but would never leave her rocky home except when some one was in great need of good advice. She came to the king at his bidding and this is what she said: “Good dwarfs can conquer bad giants.” Not another word would she utter. She made this same answer to every question the king put to her, until, finally, he flew into a rage, and shook his reedy sceptre at her. Whereupon this wise woman disappeared. The king spent several days thinking about this matter. He could not fight the giants himself, for that would be beneath the dignity of a king. As for what the wise woman had said about the dwarfs, that was ridiculous. A little creature, scarcely a foot high, to conquer a mighty giant! But, after considering the matter a good while, it did not seem quite so absurd. He recalled to mind something the gnomes had done some years before. Now a gnome is as small a being as a dwarf, and his home is under the ground, so that he seldom sees the light of day. Consequently he is not as bright and quick-witted as a dwarf. And yet a few of these creatures had first astonished all the civilized nations on the globe, and then set them all to quarreling. In order to make you understand how this was I must go back for a minute to the world before the Flood. [Illustration: THE GNOMES AT WORK.] A long time before the Flood, before man was created, the world was inhabited by beasts, fishes, and reptiles of enormous size; very much larger than any at present upon the earth. We know this because parts of the skeletons of these animals have been found in various places; and the learned men of different countries have written a great deal about them.