Tom began to be very curious to know where Ellie went on Sundays, and why he could not go, too.

“Those who go there,” said Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, “must first learn to go where they do not want to go, and to help someone they do not like.”

And Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby said the same.  Tom was very unhappy now.  He knew the fairy wanted him to go and help Grimes; he did not want to go, and was ashamed of himself for not going.  But just when he was feeling most discontented Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid encouraged him until he was quite anxious to seek for Grimes.

“Mr. Grimes is now at the Other-end-of-Nowhere,” said the fairy.  “To get there you must go to Shiny Wall, and through the White Gate which has never yet been opened.  You will then be at Peacepool, where you will find Mother Carey, who will direct you to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.”

Tom immediately set out to find his way to Shiny Wall, asking the way of all the birds and beasts he met.  He at length received help from the petrels, who are Mother Carey’s chickens, and so reached Shiny Wall.  He was dismayed to find that there was no gate, but taking the birds’ advice, he dived underneath the wall, and went along the bottom of the sea for seven days and seven nights, until he arrived in Peacepool.  There sat Mother Carey, a marble lady on a marble throne—­motionless, restful, gazing down into the depths of the sea.

Following Mother Carey’s directions, Tom at length arrived at the Other-end-of-Nowhere, after meeting with many strange adventures.  He had not long arrived in this strange land when he was overtaken by several policemen’s truncheons, one of which conducted him to the prison where Grimes was quartered.  Here, on the roof, his head and shoulders just showing above the top of chimney No. 343, was poor Mr. Grimes, with a pipe that would not draw.

He thought Tom had simply come to laugh at him until he assured him that he had only come to help.  Suddenly Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid appeared.  She reminded Grimes that he was only suffering now what he had inflicted on Tom.  She told him, too, how his mother had gone to heaven, and would no more weep for him.  Gradually Grimes’s heart softened, and when Tom described her kindness to him at Vendale, Grimes wept.  Then his tears did for him what his mother’s could not do, for as they fell they washed the soot off his face and his clothes, and loosened the mortar from the bricks of the chimney.

“Will you obey me if I give you a chance?” said Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.

“As you please, ma’am.  For I’m beat, and that’s the truth,” said he.

“Be it so, then—­you may come out.  But remember, disobey me again, and into a worse place still you will go.”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am, but I never disobeyed you that I know of.  I never set eyes upon you until I came to these ugly quarters.”

“Never saw me?  Who said ’Those that will be foul, foul they will be’?”