He went
straight to La Citadelle----'
And then collided violently with the Lamplighter, whose pole of office
caught her fairly in the middle and sent her spinning like a
conjurer's plate till they feared she would never stop. She kept on
laughing the whole time she spun--like a catherine wheel that laughs
instead of splutters. The place where the pole caught her, however--it
was its lighted end--shines and glows to this day: the centre of her
little heart.
'Do let's be careful,' pleaded Jimbo, hardly approving of these wild
gyrations. He really did prefer his world a trifle more dignified. He
was ever the grave little gentleman.
They stooped to enter by the narrow opening, but were stopped again--
this time by some one pushing rudely past them to get in. From the
three points of the compass to which the impact scattered them, they
saw a shape of darkness squeeze itself, sack and all, to enter. An
ordinary man would have broken every bone in his body, judging by the
portion that projected into the air behind. But he managed it somehow,
though the discomfort must have been intolerable, they all thought.
The darkness dropped off behind him in flakes like discarded clothing;
he turned to gold as he went in; and the contents of his sack--he
poured it out like water--shone as though he squeezed a sponge just
dipped in the Milky Way.
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