He had long ago told them, with infinite and exaccurate detail,
of his journey to the garden and his rediscovery of the sprites,
forgotten during his twenty years of business life. And these sprites
were as familiar to them now as those of their own childhood. They
little knew that at night they met and talked with them. Daddy had put
them all into the Wumble Book, achieving mediocre success with the
rhymes, but amply atoning with the illustrations. The Woman of the
Haystack was evidently a monster pure and simple, till Jinny announced
that she merely had 'elephantitis,' and thus explained her
satisfactorily. The Lamplighter, with shining feet, taking enormous
strides from Neuchatel to a London slum, putting fire into eyes and
hearts _en route_, thrilled them by his radiant speed and ubiquitous
activity, while his doggerel left them coldly questioning. For the
rhymes did _not_ commend themselves to their sense of what was proper
in the use of words. His natural history left them unconvinced, though
the anatomy of the drawing fascinated them.
He walked upon his toes
As softly as a saying does,
For so the saying goes.
That he 'walked upon his toes' was all right, but that he 'walked
softly as a saying' meant nothing, even when explained that 'thus the
saying goes.
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