The eagles resenting his possession of their home kept flying threateningly at him, but every time they came near he menaced them with the bow and drove them away. Finally they alighted on another limb of the tree, where they all sat in a row viewing him with silent moody protest. Worn by fatigue and excitement Florimel closed his eyes in sleep, with an arm bared to the elbow hanging from the nest. When at last he was awakened by a confused babel of voices from below, dusk had fallen, and a crescent moon hung low in the sky. The eagles young and old in agitated manner once more were circling the darkening sky, and leaning over the nest and looking down Florimel was astounded by what he saw. And no less astounded than he was were a band of little people who had caught a glimpse of that rounded human arm sticking from an eagles' nest with consequent and complete mystification to all. In a ring and with characteristic postures they stood gabbling among themselves and pointing up--a queer, very queer race, all males, with round fat little pot-bellies, thin, spindling shanks, long, tapering feet, and babyish-looking heads set on their shoulders apparently without connecting necks. And these heads had large ears, wide mouths, and pop eyes--a combination that ordinarily would make the possessor of them ugly, but which in their case contributed general results that made them unusually winning and attractive. As Florimel looked down he could note that there were many of one type--tiny fellows who wore the same kinds of caps and jackets. But there were others too--one of each kind--a Policeman with a club, a Sailor with a spy-glass, an Indian, a Cowboy, and a single representative from every country of importance in the world. England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Portugal, China, Japan, the United States, Canada, and other lands had their delegates whom Florimel could distinguish by means of a strange human picture-book in the museum of the kingdom from which he had flown, and which often he had been permitted to see. And, while he marveled and wondered thereat, his keen eye alighted on another too--a tiny chap with high-topped, bell-crowned hat, black clothes with swallow-tail, a wide expanse of spotless white shirt-bosom, spats, and glistening patent-leather shoes--a pompous, vain, conceited, immaculate-looking little fellow who carried a cane that seemed a part of him, and who wore a round piece of glass over one of his eyes. [Illustration] In order to obtain a better view Florimel leaned further over, and so disturbed the architecture of the nest, from which the sticks began to fall, until he felt the whole foundation going. But so suddenly did this occur that he did not have a chance to grasp a saving branch, and in a trice plunged through the bottomless structure down--down--down--