Messrs. Grosvenor and Campbell to the extent of £100,000 for a few
reliable emeralds.

But the emeralds in stock were mostly small and shop-soiled and Neepy
Thang had to set out at once before he had had as much as a week in
London. I will briefly sketch his project. Not many knew it, for where
the form of business is blackmail the fewer creditors you have the
better (which of course in various degrees applies at all times).

On the shores of the risky seas of Shiroora Shan grows one tree only
so that upon its branches if anywhere in the world there must build
its nest the Bird of the Difficult Eye. Neepy Thang had come by this
information, which was indeed the truth, that if the bird migrated to
Fairyland before the three eggs hatched out they would undoubtedly all
turn into emeralds, while if they hatched out first it would be a bad
business.

When he had mentioned these eggs to Messrs. Grosvenor and Campbell
they had said, "The very thing": they were men of few words, in
English, for it was not their native tongue.

So Neepy Thang set out. He bought the purple ticket at Victoria
Station. He went by Herne Hill, Bromley and Bickley and passed St.
Mary Cray. At Eynsford he changed and taking a footpath along a
winding valley went wandering into the hills. And at the top of a hill
in a little wood, where all the anemones long since were over and the
perfume of mint and thyme from outside came drifting in with Thang, he
found once more the familiar path, age-old and fair as wonder, that
leads to the Edge of the World. Little to him were its sacred memories
that are one with the secret of earth, for he was on business, and