"Keep away! Silence!" cried the king, sternly. "Wistik!" called Johannes. "Ay!" sounded the voice, now very fine, and far away. And they kept falling, falling. Through a long, narrow passage they went to the next number. It did not smell very fresh there, and Johannes soon noticed that this stale-smelling apartment corresponded with what they usually called at home "the best room." In the middle of the white-wood floor stood an overturned waste-water pail. A puddle of thick, offensive fluid lay trickling around it. "Under this," said King Waan, "sits one of the most remarkable specimens in my collection. It is a little creature having the habit of describing precisely everything it sees. His watchword is: '_Truth Above Everything_!' He could not have a finer one. I make very interesting experiments with him. Sometimes I put him here, sometimes there. Just now he is under this pail. Listen to him!" A light little voice came monotonously out from under the pail: "A rich, soft greyish violet shading off through brown into cream-white, clot-curdling stripe coagulations; long flittery-fluttery down-trickling welter-whirls filtering through pale-yellow toned-down dully shining topazy vaults; faint phlegmy greyish-green dozing off...." And thus the voice went on until Johannes began to get quite qualmish and drowsy. "Is not that nice? Lately, I had him in a cuspidor. You should have heard him then. Here is his label." And he pointed to a trim little tag on which was marked: _Division, Fine Arts. Naturalist, var. Word-Artist. Locality: Terra Firma of Europe. Rather rare._ "Is Van Lieverlee here, also?" asked Johannes. "To be sure! I have him a few centuries farther on, composing sonnets," said the Wicked One. "This is a very large place although you might not think so. I can show you only a small part of it." Then they came to a division called "Sciences," and the Devil said: "Look! That concerns you, Wisdom-Seeker!" And he had Johannes look through the crack of the door, into a little room brightly lighted, cram-full of books. Professor Bommeldoos was there, standing on his head. "Pluizer taught him that," said the Devil. "And do you see that clever contrivance he has made of mirrors and copper tubes? That is to look into his own brains with. He thinks to become still wiser." The professor was utterly absorbed in his intricate apparatus, and gazed and gazed, with all his might, into an odd sort of twisted tubing, the end of which was attached to the back part of his head. Johannes heard a low rushing and roaring, as if made by a gust of wind. "Silence!" cried the Devil, testily. But the roaring sound continued and grew louder. "What is that?" asked Johannes. "That is Death," said the Devil, spitefully. "He is called an ally of mine, but he often muddles up my affairs here, and he steals by the thousand the choicest specimens in my collection--especially the crack-brained." "Here they are all crack-brained," said Johannes.