“Where is that situated, if you please?” I ventured to inquire.

Shin Shira gave me a quick glance.

“Do you mean to say that you actually don’t even know where the land of the Grand Panjandrum is?” he asked.  “H’m! well,” he continued as I shook my head, “I remarked a short time ago that you didn’t look very clever, but really, I couldn’t have believed that you were so ignorant as all that.  You’d better look it up in your atlas when I am gone, I can’t bother to explain where it is now—­but to resume my story.  I appeared there, as I said, and in the middle of the kitchen garden all amongst the cabbages and beans.

“I could at first see nobody about, but at last I heard somebody singing, and presently came upon a man carrying a basket in which were some cabbages that he had evidently just gathered.

“Although he was singing so cheerfully, his head was bound up with a handkerchief, and I could see that his face was badly swollen.

“When he had come a little nearer, I bowed politely and inquired of him what place it was, for my surroundings were quite strange to me, it being my first visit to the neighbourhood.

“He told me where I was, and explained that he was the Grand Panjandrum’s Chief Cook, and that he had been to gather cabbages to make an apple pie with.”

I was about to ask how this was possible, when I caught Shin Shira’s eye, and I could see by the light in it that he was expecting me to make some inquiry; but I was determined that he should not again have the opportunity of remarking upon my ignorance, so I held my tongue and said nothing, as though gathering cabbages in order to make an apple pie was the most natural thing in the world to do.

He waited for a moment and then continued—­

“I stood talking to the man for some time, and at last I asked what was the matter with his face.

“‘I’ve the toothache,’ he said ruefully, ’and that’s why I was singing; I’m told that it’s a capital remedy.’

“‘I’ll see if I can’t find a better one,’ said I, taking up this little book, which I always carry with me.”  And Shin Shira held out for my inspection a tiny volume bound in yellow leather, with golden clasps, which was attached to his girdle by a long golden chain.

“This,” he explained, “is a very remarkable book, and has been in our family for many hundreds of years.  It contains directions what to do in any difficulty whatsoever, with the aid of the fairy power, which, as I have told you, I inherit from my fairy ancestor.

“The only difficulty is that, as I am partly a mortal, sometimes (owing perhaps to my fairy great-great-great-grandmother being in a bad temper at the moment) the fairy spell refuses to work, and then I am left in the lurch.

“This time, however, it worked splendidly, for I had only to turn to the word ‘Toothache’ to discover that the fairy remedy was to ’rub the other side of the face with a stinging nettle, and the pain and swelling would instantly disappear.’