that was perfectly useless; and he grew old early, as men do in
cities. And at last, when melancholy brought only regret and the
uselessness of his work gained round him with age, he decided to
consult a magician. So to a magician he went and told him his
troubles, and particularly he told him how he had heard the song. "And
now," he said, "it is nowhere in the world."

"Of course it is not in the world," the magician said, "but over the
Edge of the World you may easily find it." And he told the man that he
was suffering from flux of time and recommended a day at the Edge of
the World. Jones asked what part of the Edge of the World he should go
to, and the magician had heard Tong Tong Tarrup well spoken of; so he
paid him, as is usual, in opals, and started at once on the journey.
The ways to that town are winding; he took the ticket at Victoria
Station that they only give if they know you: he went past Bleth: he
went along the Hills of Neol-Hungar and came to the Gap of Poy. All
these are in that part of the world that pertains to the fields we
know; but beyond the Gap of Poy on those ordinary plains, that so
closely resemble Sussex, one first meets the unlikely. A line of
common grey hills, the Hills of Sneg, may be seen at the edge of the
plain from the Gap of Poy; it is there that the incredible begins,
infrequently at first, but happening more and more as you go up the
hills. For instance, descending once into Poy Plains, the first thing
that I saw was an ordinary shepherd watching a flock of ordinary
sheep. I looked at them for some time and nothing happened, when,
without a word, one of the sheep walked up to the shepherd and
borrowed his pipe and smoked it--an incident that struck me as
unlikely; but in the Hills of Sneg I met an honest politician. Over
these plains went Jones and over the Hills of Sneg, meeting at first
unlikely things, and then incredible things, till he came to the long