"Glad to see you aroused, sir. Are you, too, going to favor us with a story?" The Man From Nowhere laughed: "It's hardly a story," he said, "but, in listening to the brief discussion as to the degree in which we are appreciated in this world, I was involuntarily reminded of the bitter experience of a young friend or rather of five young friends of mine. They were not appreciated, and took steps accordingly. What they did was merely to segregate themselves. You will readily perceive that by segregating yourself you may avoid all the annoyance of non-appreciation. That the experiment did not, in this instance, result at once in a permanent remedy for all oppressive circumstances was, I think, due, not to any lack of proper conception in the minds of my young friends, but rather to their inexperience in certain matters of detail. In some of its aspects it was a sad affair, but I will relate the whole thing to you just as it was told me by the principal actor. It is but the simple story of THE SWISS FAMILY ROBERTSON When I look back across the years--I am nearly thirteen now--the vision which arises of trying adventure with my sister and three brothers seems like what I have seen somewhere alluded to as the baseless fabric of a dream, or, if not that, at least some freak of the waking imagination. Yet certain it is that the five of us, John, Mary, Francis, Herbert and Elwyn Robertson, aged respectively eleven, nine, eight and six years--Herbert and Elwyn being twins--had such strange experiences in a strange land as can never be forgotten by any of us. Hard indeed to undergo were some of our vicissitudes, and always thankful am I, when the memory of that time returns, that my greater age and possibly greater force of character enabled me to become guide and mentor when certainly a counselor was needed.