"So I should think," remarked Dorothy, beginning to recover her good nature. "But of course _singles_ are much more select," said the Jack. "_We_ never come in dozens, you know." "I suppose not," said Dorothy, innocently. "I can't imagine anybody wanting twelve Dancing-Jacks all at the same time." "It wouldn't do any good if they did want 'em," said the Jack. "They couldn't get 'em,--that is, not in _this_ shop." Now, while this conversation was going on, Dorothy noticed that the various things in the shop-window had a curious way of constantly turning into something else. She discovered this by seeing a little bunch of yellow peg-tops change into a plateful of pears while she chanced to be looking at them; and a moment afterward she caught a doll's saucepan, that was hanging in one corner of the window, just in the act of quietly turning into a battledore with a red morocco handle. This struck her as being such a remarkable performance that she immediately began looking at one thing after another, and watching the various changes, until she was quite bewildered. "It's something like a Christmas pantomime," she said to herself; "and it isn't the slightest use, you know, trying to fancy what anything's going to be, because everything that happens is so unproblesome. I don't know where I got _that_ word from," she went on, "but it seems to express exactly what I mean. F'r instance, there's a little cradle that's just been turned into a coal-scuttle, and if _that_ isn't unproblesome, well then--never mind!" (which, as you know, is a ridiculous way little girls have of finishing their sentences.) By this time she had got around again to the toy livery-stable, and she was extremely pleased to find that it had turned into a smart little baronial castle with a turret at each end, and that the ornamental tea-cup was just changing, with a good deal of a flourish, into a small rowboat floating in a little stream that ran by the castle walls. "Come, _that's_ the finest thing yet!" exclaimed Dorothy, looking at all this with great admiration; "and I wish a brazen knight would come out with a trumpet and blow a blast"--you see, she was quite romantic at times--and she was just admiring the clever way in which the boat was getting rid of the handle of the tea-cup, when the Dancing-Jack suddenly stopped talking, and began scrambling over the roof of the castle. He was extremely pale, and, to Dorothy's alarm, spots of bright colors were coming out all over him, as if he had been made of stained glass, and was being lighted up from the inside. "I believe I'm going to turn into something," he said, glaring wildly about, and speaking in a very agitated voice. "Goodness!" exclaimed Dorothy in dismay; "what do you suppose it's going to be?"