In the midst of my rapture I would wake; all the glass toys vanished, and I could have cried to find them gone. In the morning it would be impossible to recall these new figures. I remembered them dimly and more dimly as the hours of the day blurred my dream. The iridescent creatures turned to formless things of gray and drab, and then lost themselves, to be found again only in another dream. But not all my sleeping experiences were so happy. Sometimes I would seem to approach the chest only to have Jimmy's great-aunt rise from behind it, shaking a broom. At other times I would lift the lid and find inside the chest the crouching figure of the long-departed great-uncle. He would jump out, gibbering frightfully, and I would scream and wake up. Thus the chest became surrounded by terrors even when viewed by daylight. Jimmy's great-aunt was like another dragon set over the golden apples. She kept watch by day, while at night the goblin uncle came on duty. So we began to steer clear of the green chest and to confine our activities to other parts of the basement. Much has been written of the joy that dwells in old garrets. The basement is neglected. Yet, if dry and well lighted, it may have its points. In this one much importance was attached to a plate of sand set on a table. This, so Jimmy solemnly averred, was for the purpose of discovering the presence of mice in the basement. If they ran over the sand, their footprints would betray them, and traps might be set. It did not occur to me to marvel at the obliging nature of mice who should be at such great pains to record their arrival. Observing that Jimmy's great-aunt often inspected the plate of sand and smoothed its surface over after each inspection, we looked to it that she should never be disappointed. It is not hard to counterfeit small footprints, such as might be made by a scurrying mouse. In an adjoining room there was a steam-boiler--part of the heating apparatus of the house. The existence of this boiler, the discovery of clay in Davenport's field, and the always present need of marbles, these conditions led to the foundation of an enterprise that occupied a number of days. The clay was brought from "Davenport's," and rolled into balls of the proper size. These were placed on shingles and set to bake beneath the boiler. Visions of revolutionizing the marble industry spurred us on. We calculated that we could undersell the regular dealers and that profits would accrue. But although the clay balls were duly left beneath the boiler all night, there were defects in the finished product. The part that had rested on the shingle obstinately remained flat. We found no way of giving our marbles the glaze necessary to the real thing; so the dealers continued to ask the exorbitant sum of a cent for ten, and did not have to break prices to meet our competition. It is possible that the fact that there was no heat in the boiler had something to do with this fiasco.