The bird just lifted up its head, and gave one shoot right out of the window of the pigeon-house. It went high up into the air; and Ting-a-ling, when he looked around and saw which way he ought to go, pulled his string this way and that way, and he found that he could steer the pigeon very well, and even make him keep up in the air, by pulling his tail-feather straight up. So on they went, and they got to the Giant's castle before the Giant himself. The pigeon flew over the castle, but Ting-a-ling steered him back again, and backward and forward, two or three times, until the bird thought he might as well stop there; and so he alighted on the roof, and off jumped Ting-a-ling. The first thing he saw there, after the pigeon had flown away again, was the green fairy! "Why, where did you come from?" cried Ting-a-ling. "O," said the other, laughing, and jumping up and down, "I thought I'd come too, and I hung on to his leg. It was nice, sitting up among his warm feathers, when his legs were curled up under him; a great deal better than being on top." Ting-a-ling was very glad to have his friend with him, and he took him down-stairs. When the Giant got home, there they were, both in the middle of the table in the great hall, ready to welcome him. Tur-il-i-ra did not ask where the green fairy came from; but he was glad to see him, and he ordered supper to be laid on a table out on the lawn; for he was warm with his long walk. After supper, the two fairies came down to the Giant's end of the table, and he told them all that had happened, and how fortunate it was that the bowstring of the Kyrofatalapynx had broken. "He did it!" cried the green fairy, pointing to Ting-a-ling; and then he told the whole story of their doings, and Ting-a-ling had to explain how he had gone with the Giant. Tur-il-i-ra listened until they had quite finished, and then exclaimed, "Well! I never saw such a little thing as you are, Ting-a-ling, for being in the right place at the right time. Never, never!" And he brought his hand down on the table with such an emphatic bang, that Ting-a-ling and the green fairy shot into the air like rifle-balls. Ting-a-ling went up, up, and up, until a high wind took him, and it blew him over a river, and a wood, and a high hill, and a wide plain; and then he fell down, down, down,--right into the middle of a soft powder puff-ball, with which a lady was powdering her neck. "Mercy on us!" cried the lady, when she saw a little fairy in the puff-ball that she was just going to put up to her throat. [Illustration] "It's only I, Nerralina," cried Ting-a-ling, who immediately recognized her; "wait a minute, until I get my breath."