The garden was on the side of the palace opposite to the Forest of Mystery; it was called the Garden of Delight. It was full of flowers, pink, white, and blue; and there were birds, and fountains, in the marble basins of which gold-fishes glowed and swam. In the centre of the garden was a round green lawn for the children to play on; but at the end of the garden was a tall thick hedge, on which no blossoms ever grew, and which was prickly with sharp-pointed leaves and thorns. This hedge also had a name, but the children did not know what it was. It was impossible either to get round the hedge, or to get over it, or to get through it--except in one place, where a small opening had been made. But through that opening no one might pass, for the land on the other side belonged to a dwarf, whose name was Rumpty-Dudget, and whose only pleasure lay in doing mischief. An ugly little dwarf he was, all grey from head to foot. He wore a broad-brimmed grey hat, a thick grey beard, and a grey cloak that was so much too long for him that it trailed on the ground like a grey tail as he walked. On his back was a grey hump, which made him look even shorter than he was--and he was not much over a foot high at his tallest. He lived in a large grey tower, whose battlements the three children could see rising above the hedge as they played on the round lawn; and over the tower there hung, even in the brightest weather, a dull grey cloud. Inside the tower was a vast room with a hundred and one corners to it; and in each of the corners stood a little child, with its face to the wall and its hands behind its back. Who were the children, and how came they there? They were children, whom Rumpty-Dudget had caught trespassing on his grounds, and had therefore carried away with him to his tower. In this way he had filled up one corner after another, until only one corner was left unfilled; and that one, curiously enough, was the one-hundred-and-first. Now, it was a well-known fact that if Rumpty-Dudget could but catch a child to put it in that one empty corner he would become master of all the country round about. And since he loved nothing that was not of the same colour and temper as himself, the noble palace would in that case disappear, the garden would be changed into a desert covered with grey stones and brambles, and the dull grey cloud that now hung above the tower would sullenly spread itself over all the heavens. The mighty Forest of Mystery, too, would be cut down and sold for firewood; and the elves and fairies would fly westward in pursuit of the flying sun. You may be sure, therefore, that Rumpty-Dudget tried with all his might to get hold of a child to put into that hundred-and-first corner. But by this time the inhabitants of the country had begun to realise their danger; and all the mothers were so careful, and all the children were so obedient, that, for a long time, the hundred-and-first corner remained empty. CHAPTER II.