“Oh, yes!  There it is now!” cried Lionel, running towards the edge of the Round Pond.  “What a jolly little yacht.  Why, it’s a perfect model,” and he regarded it with the greatest admiration.  He took it from the water and inspected it carefully.

“I say!” he cried excitedly, “wouldn’t it be ripping if we could become small enough to go for a sail in it!”

“It’s a very simple matter to arrange, if you wish it,” remarked Shin Shira composedly.

“D-do you really m-mean that it would be possible for you to make us as tiny as that?” stammered Lionel in his eagerness, his eyes bright with excitement.

“I couldn’t do it, but the fairies might,” said the Dwarf, taking up the little yellow book which I had restored to him after our last adventure.

“But should we be able to return to our proper size again?” I inquired carefully, for I remembered from previous experience that Shin Shira’s magical powers had an unfortunate habit of going wrong at times.

“Without the least doubt,” replied he; “in fact, from the time that you are reduced to the size which you desire to be, you very gradually increase, till your original size is reached.”

“Then there’s no danger?” I hazarded.

“None whatever,” was the reassuring reply.

“Then do, do please let us be ‘reduced,’” pleaded Lionel eagerly.

“Very well, then,” said I.  “And do you propose that we should go for a trip in the model yacht?”

“Of course!” declared Lionel.

“Put it in the water then,” said Shin Shira, “and I’ll see what I can do.”

Lionel quickly put down the boat, and stood watching Shin Shira to see what would happen.

The little Yellow Dwarf was busily gathering pebbles from the edge of the pond, examining each carefully, and then throwing them down again in what appeared to be an aimless and unintelligible manner.

Presently, however, he said, “There’s one,” and putting a stone carefully away in his belt, he continued to search till he had found another like it.

“And there’s the other,” he said, coming towards us.

“Now then, all you have to do is to swallow these two little white stones and wish to be—­let’s see—­an inch and a quarter high, and there you are.”

“It seems rather a venturesome proceeding,” I said, hesitatingly.

“Oh no! it’ll be all right!  Come along!  Let’s swallow them!” cried Lionel, suiting the action to the word and popping one of the stones into his mouth without further ado.

He immediately became so small that I had some difficulty in seeing him at all amongst the stones at the edge of the Pond.

“Are you not going to swallow one of the stones too?” I inquired of the Dwarf before swallowing mine.

“No, I think not,” was the reply.  “I’ll remain as I am, I think, in case you may require assistance of a kind which only a larger person than yourself could afford.”