* * * * *

THE “PUFF PAPERS.”

CHAPTER II.

The Giant’s Stairs.

(Continued.)

“‘Well,’ says he, ’you’re a match for me any day; and sooner than be shut up again in this dismal ould box, I’ll give you what you ask for my liberty.  And the three best gifts I possess are, this brown cap, which while you wear it will render you invisible to the fairies, while they are all visible to you; this box of salve, by rubbing some of which to your lips, you will have the power of commanding every fairy and spirit in the world to obey your will; and, lastly, this little kippeen[1], which at your word may be transformed into any mode of conveyance you wish.  Besides all this, you shall come with me to my palace, where all the treasures of the earth shall be at your disposal.  But mind, I give you this caution, that if you ever permit the brown cap or the kippeen to be out of your possession for an instant, you’ll lose them for ever; and if you suffer any person to touch your lips while you remain in the underground kingdom, you will instantly become visible, and your power over the fairies will be at an end.’

    [1] A little stick.

“‘Well,’ thinks I, ‘there’s nothing so very difficult in that.’  So having got the cap, the kippeen, and the box of salve, into my possession, I opened the box, and out jumped the little fellow.

“‘Now, Felix,’ says he, ’touch your lips with the salve, for we are just at the entrance of my dominions.’

“I did as he desired me, and, Dharra Dhie! if the little chap wasn’t changed into a big black-looking giant, sitting afore my eyes on a great rock.

“‘Lord save us!’ says I to myself, ’it’s a marcy and a wondher how he ever squeezed himself into that weeshy box.’  ‘Why thin, Sir,’ says I to him, ‘maybe your honour would have the civilitude to tell me your name.’

“‘With the greatest of pleasure, Felix,’ says he smiling; ’I’m called Mahoon, the Giant.’

“‘Tare an’ agers! are you though?  Well, if I thought’—­but he gave me no time to think; for calling on me to follow him, he began climbing up the Giant’s Stairs as asy as I’d walk up a ladder to the hay-loft.  Well, he was at the top afore you could cry ‘trapstick,’ and it wasn’t long till I was at the top too, and there we found a gate opening into the hill, and a power of lords and ladies waiting to resave Mahoon, who I larned was their king, and who had been away from his kingdom for twenty years, by rason of his being shut up in the box by some great fairy-man.