A backward glance at the steps puzzled her, for they had grown steeper than before and impossible to climb down again, or up, for the matter of that, and the door before which they stood was now at such a height from the ground as to make her feel giddy to look below. She hardly had time to think about it when Cyril raised the knocker and let it go. Instead of the usual sound a knocker makes, a loud laugh rang out, discordant and disconcerting. "You needn't be frightened," he remarked, for his little sister hung back and tightened her grasp of his arm. The next moment the door swung open and there stood on the threshold a very tall man with an enormous bald head. He was clad in a yellow satin dressing-gown, and wore great smoke-coloured spectacles. "So you've come to see the Wizard," he said blandly. "Pray walk in!" [Illustration: _"So you've come to see the Wizard," he said_] "I--I think we'd--we'd rather not, thank you very much," stammered Cyril, very red, whilst Dulcie looked up, pale and wondering. "We're not dressed for visiting," she urged in a loud whisper in her brother's ear. "But you require an answer, or why knock?" retorted the strange man. "_Pray_ walk in," he repeated. He was so polite. The door swung behind them, and the trembling twins found themselves alone with the Wizard in a very large cave, where the walls glowed with phosphorescent light, while the further end was hidden in deep gloom. CHAPTER II THE WIZARD AT HOME "How do you do?" said the Wizard, as if he remembered he had forgotten to ask. The Twins shyly shook hands with him and said they were quite well, thank him. They didn't want to a bit, but he seemed to expect it. "Let's talk matters over," he added with a smile. It was such a winning smile that the children began to feel less uncomfortable. "You're not always quite content, I believe," and he rubbed his hands cheerfully together. "That mother of yours interferes rather too much, eh?" With a rapid movement he pushed his spectacles away on to the top of his bumpy baldness, revealing a pair of small eyes with a red, slumbering glow in them. As Cyril didn't reply Dulcie ventured to remark, "If you please, my brother thinks she says 'don't' too often." "But how do you know that?" interrupted Cyril, who, though surprised, took a more practical view of the situation. "Because," slowly replied the Wizard, taking off his spectacles and scratching his big nose with them--"because I was an optician in my youth and made these glasses, through which I have only to look to see people as they really are and not what they appear to be. ["How clever!" broke in Dulcie under her breath.] I found out at a glance that you are discontented with your lot, and prefer to be free. You are tired of control, eh? Isn't that the state of Home Affairs?"