`A small saucer of chopped carrots,' replied the Professor. `In giving birthday-presents, my motto is-- cheapness! I should think I save forty pounds a year by giving--oh, what a twinge of pain!'

`What is it?' said Sylvie anxiously.

`My old enemy!' groaned the Professor. `Lumbago--rheumatism--that sort of thing. I think I'll go and lie down a bit.' And he hobbled out of the Saloon, watched by the pitying eyes of the two children.

`He'll be better soon!' the Elfin-King said cheerily. `Brother!' turning to the Emperor, `I have some business to arrange with you to-night. The Empress will take care of the children.' And the two Brothers went away together, arm-in-arm.

The Empress found the children rather sad company. They could talk of nothing but `the dear Professor', and `what a pity he's so ill', till at last she made the welcome proposal `Let's go and see him!'

The children eagerly grasped the hands she offered them: and we went off to the Professor's study, and found him lying on the sofa, covered up with blankets, and reading a little manuscript-book. `Notes on Vol. Three!' he murmured, looking up at us. And there, on a table near him, lay the book he was seeking when first I saw him.

`And how are you now, Professor?' the Empress asked, bending over the invalid.

The Professor looked up, and smiled feebly. `As devoted to your Imperial Highness as ever!' he said in a weak voice. `All of me, that is not Lumbago, is Loyalty!'

`A sweet sentiment!' the Empress exclaimed with tears in her eyes. `You seldom hear anything so beautiful as that--even in a Valentine!'

`We must take you to stay at the seaside,' Sylvie said, tenderly. `It'll do you ever so much good! And the Sea's so grand!'

`But a Mountain's grander!' said Bruno.

`What is there grand about the Sea?' said the Professor. `Why, you could put it all into a teacup!'

`Some of it,' Sylvie corrected him.

`Well, you'd only want a certain number of teacups to hold it all. And then where's the grandeur? Then as to a Mountain--why, you could carry it all away in a wheel-barrow, in a certain number of years!'

`It wouldn't look grand--the bits of it in the wheel-barrow,' Sylvie candidly admitted.

`But when oo put it together again--' Bruno began.

`When you're older,' said the Professor, `you'll know that you ca'n't put Mountains together again so easily! One lives and one learns, you know!'

`But it needn't be the same one, need it?' said Bruno. `Wo'n't it do, if I live, and if Sylvie learns?'

`I ca'n't learn without living!' said Sylvie.

`But I can live without learning!' Bruno retorted. `Oo just try me!'

`What I meant, was--' the Professor began, looking much puzzled, `--was--that you don't know everything, you know.'