him. It will tone you up wonderfully to sit there and watch him."

"Very likely," said the Languid Youth; "but I would rather stay
outside and let you go up in the corner. The performance in that way
will be more interesting to me."

"You are dreadfully hard to please," said the Very Imp. "I have
offered them to you loose, and I have offered them fastened to a
wall, and now the best thing I can do is to give you a chance at one
of them that can't move at all. It is the Ghastly Griffin and is
enchanted. He can't stir so much as the tip of his whiskers for a
thousand years. You can go to his cave and examine him just as if he
were stuffed, and then you can sit on his back and think how it would
be if you should live to be a thousand years old, and he should wake
up while you are sitting there. It would be easy to imagine a lot of
horrible things he would do to you when you look at his open mouth
with its awful fangs, his dreadful claws, and his horrible wings all
covered with spikes."

"I think that might suit me," said the Languid Youth. "I would much
rather imagine the exercises of these monsters than to see them
really going on."

"Come on, then," said the Very Imp, and he led the way to the cave of
the Ghastly Griffin.

The Bee-man went by himself through a great part of the mountain, and
looked into many of its gloomy caves and recesses, recoiling in
horror from most of the dreadful monsters who met his eyes. While he
was wandering about, an awful roar was heard resounding through the