'Tears are a strong magic,' Mr. Noah had said. And at the thought the tears stopped. Still there _was_ a tear, the one on his hand. He rubbed it on the pillar of the porch. And instantly a queer tight thin feeling swept through him. He felt giddy and shut his eyes. His boots, ever sympathetic, shuffled on the carpet. Or was it the carpet? It was very thick and---- He opened his eyes. His feet were once more on the long grass of the illimitable prairie. And in front of him towered the gigantic porch of a vast building and a domino path leading up to it. 'Oh, I am so glad,' cried Philip among the grass. 'I couldn't have borne it if she'd been lost for ever, and all my fault.' The gigantic porch lowered frowningly above him. What would he find on the other side of it? [Illustration: The gigantic porch lowered frowningly above him.] 'I don't care. I've simply got to go,' he said, and stepped out bravely. 'If I can't _be_ a hero I'll try to behave like one.' And with that he stepped out, stumbling a little in the thick grass, and the dark shadow of the porch received him. . . . . . . . 'Bother the child,' said the nurse, coming into the drawing-room a little later; 'if he hasn't been at his precious building game again! I shall have to give him a lesson over this--I can see that. And I will too--a lesson he won't forget in a hurry.' She went through the house, looking for the too bold builder that she might give him that lesson. Then she went through the garden, still on the same errand. Half an hour later she burst into the servants' hall and threw herself into a chair. 'I don't care what happens now,' she said. 'The house is bewitched, I think. I shall go the very minute I've had my dinner.' 'What's up now?' the cook came to the door to say. 'Up?' said the nurse. 'Oh, nothing's _up_. What should there be? Everything's all right and beautiful, and just as it should be, of course.' 'Miss Lucy's not found yet, of course, but that's all, isn't it?' 'All? And enough too, I should have thought,' said the nurse. 'But as it happens it's _not_ all. The boy's lost now. Oh, I'm not joking. He's lost I tell you, the same as the other one--and I'm off out of this by the two thirty-seven train, and I don't care who knows it.' 'Lor!' said the cook. . . . . . . . Before starting for the two thirty-seven train the nurse went back to the drawing-room to destroy Philip's new building, to restore to their proper places its books, candlesticks, vases, and chessmen. There we will leave her. CHAPTER IV THE DRAGON-SLAYER