The curtain rose (if I may use the expression) upon Henry's humble home, where Henry was discovered partaking of breakfast (fir-cones). He complained bitterly to his mother of the hardship of _(a)_ early rising, _(b)_ going to school, and _(c)_ enduring chastisement when he got there. The next scene revealed him in class, where the schoolmaster (Dolly, assiduously prompted by Phillis) asked him a series of questions, which he answered so incorrectly as to incur the extreme penalty of "the muckle tawse." (Here what textual critics term "internal evidence of a later hand" peeped out unmistakably.) The punishment having been duly inflicted by Dolly with a rug-strap, Henry retired, suffused with tears, to "a mountain-top," where he gave vent to a series of bitter reflections on the hardness of his lot and the hollowness of life in general. He must have "gagged" unduly here, for presently he was cut short by a stern admonition to "wish for a fairy." "I wish for a fairy," said Henry dutifully. Phillis, given her cue at last, pirouetted before him with outstretched skirts. "Go on!" she whispered excitedly. "Say, 'I wish that all Pain was Pleasure and all Pleasure Pain.'" "Oh, sorry!" said Henry. "I wish that all Pain was Pleasure and Pleasure Pain." "Have then thy wish!" announced the fairy solemnly, and fluttered away. The drama thereafter pursued a remorselessly logical and improving course. Having got his wish, the luckless Henry found that his only moments of pleasure were those during which he was enduring the tawse, getting out of bed on a cold morning, or doing something equally unpleasant. On the other hand, his comfortable bed had become so painful that he could only obtain rest by filling it with stones; and his matutinal porridge was only made palatable by the addition of a handful of gravel. After a fruitless interview with the family physician (Captain Dermott), in which the patient's mother set forth her offspring's symptoms with embarrassing frankness, Henry was compelled, as a last resort, to pay one more visit to the mountain-top. The indulgent fairy kindly agreed to put things right, but only under penalty of an improving homily on contentment with one's lot and the fatuity of asking for what you do not really want. This was only half finished when the party returned from church, and Phillis, realising that the absolute despotism of the last few hours would now be watered down by an unsentimental mother into a limited monarchy at the best, retired within her shell and declared the revels at an end. II. "What was the church like?" I inquired at lunch.