But first I eagerly scanned what text there was in the middle, in
order to get a hint of what it was all about. Of course I was
not going to waste any time in reading. A clue, a sign-board, a
finger-post was all I required. To my dismay and disgust it was
all in a stupid foreign language! Really, the perversity of some
people made one at times almost despair of the whole race.
However, the pictures remained; pictures never lied, never
shuffled nor evaded; and as for the story, I could invent it
myself.

Over the page I went, shifting the bit of coal to a new position;
and, as the scheme of the picture disengaged itself from out the
medley of colour that met my delighted eyes, first there was a
warm sense of familiarity, then a dawning recognition, and then--
O then! along with blissful certainty came the imperious need to
clasp my stomach with both hands, in order to repress the shout
of rapture that struggled to escape--it was my own little city!

I knew it well enough, I recognized it at once, though I had
never been quite so near it before. Here was the familiar
gateway, to the left that strange, slender tower with its grim,
square head shot far above the walls; to the right, outside the
town, the hill--as of old--broke steeply down to the sea.
But to-day everything was bigger and fresher and clearer, the
walls seemed newly hewn, gay carpets were hung out over them,
fair ladies and long-haired children peeped and crowded on the
battlements. Better still, the portcullis was up--I could even
catch a glimpse of the sunlit square within--and a dainty company
was trooping through the gate on horseback, two and two. Their
horses, in trappings that swept the ground, were gay as