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The next event I can chronicle was opening my eyes on a scene at once so beautiful and strange that I started to my feet in amaze. This was not my study, and I beheld nothing of the magazine which was the last thing I remembered seeing before I went to sleep. I was in a glorious garden, gay with brilliant hued flowers, the fragrance of which filled the air with a subtle and delicate perfume; around me were trees laden with luscious fruits which I can only compare to apples, pears, and quinces, only they were as much finer than the fruits I had hitherto been familiar with as Ribstone pippins are to crabs, and as jargonelles are to greenbacks. Countless birds were singing overhead, and I was about to sink down again, and yield to a delicious languor which overpowered me, when I was recalled to the necessity of behaving more decorously by hearing someone near me exclaim in mystified accents, “By Jove! But isn’t this extraordinary? I say, do you live here, or have you been taking hasheesh too?”

I looked up, and saw, perched on the limb of a great tree, a young man of about thirty years of age, who looked so ridiculously mystified at the elevated position in which he found himself, that I could not refrain from smiling, though I did not feel able to give an immediate satisfactory reply to his queries.

“Oh, that’s right,” he commented. “It makes a fellow relieved to see a smile, when he wasn’t at all sure whether he wouldn’t get sent to Jericho for perching up an apple tree. But really, I don’t know how the deuce I came to be up here, that is, I beg your pardon, but I can’t understand how I happen to be up this apple tree. And oh! by Jove! It isn’t an apple tree, after all! Isn’t it extraordinary?”

But I could positively do nothing but laugh at him for the space of a moment or two. Then I gravely remarked that as I supposed he was not glued to the tree, he had better come down, whereat he followed my advice, being unfortunate enough, however, to graze his hands, and tear the knees of his trousers during the process of disembarkation.

When at last he had relieved himself of a few spare expletives, delivered in a tone which he vainly flattered himself was too low for me to hear, he stood revealed before me, a perfect specimen of the British masher. His height was not too great, being, I subsequently ascertained five feet three, an inch less than my own, but he made the most of what there was of him by holding himself as erect as possible, and as he wore soles an inch thick to his otherwise smart boots, he looked rather taller than he really was.

His proportions were not at all bad, and I have seen a good many very much worse looking fellows who flattered themselves that they were quite killing. His face had lost the freshness of early youth, and looked as though it spent a great deal of its time in the haunts of dissipation. The moustache, however, was perfect—so golden, so long, so elegant was it, that it must have been the envy of countless members of the masher tribe, and I was not surprised to notice presently that its owner found his pet occupation in stroking it.

Just now, however, he was chiefly employed in lamenting the accident which had occurred to his nether garment, this being, by the way, one portion of a tweed suit of the most alarmingly demonstrative pattern and colour.

“By Jove!” he muttered, disconsolately, “it’s awful! you know. When I was so careful, too! What on earth ever possessed me to mount that tree? Isn’t it extraordinary?”

This time I was about to attempt a reply, when I was struck dumb with awe and astonishment, and my companion, who had found his own eyes sufficiently powerful to take in my appearance, hastily fixed a single eyeglass into position, and gazed in open-mouthed wonder at an apparition which approached us.

And he might well gaze, for of a surety the creature which we saw was something worth looking at, and a specimen of a race the like of which we had never seen before. “It is a woman,” I thought. “A goddess!” the masher declared, and for a time I could not feel sure that he was mistaken.

She was close upon seven feet in height, I am sure, and was of magnificent build. A magnified Venus, a glorified Hebe, a smiling Juno, were here all united in one perfect human being whose gait was the very poetry of motion.

She wore a very peculiar dress, I thought, until I saw that science and common sense had united in forming a costume in which the requirements alike of health, comfort, and beauty had reached their acmé.

A modification of the divided skirt came a little below the knee, the stockings and laced boots serving to heighten, instead of to hide, their owner’s beautiful symmetry of limb. A short skirt supplemented the graceful tunic, which was worn slightly open at the neck, and partially revealed the dainty whiteness of a shapely bust. The whole costume was of black velvet, and was set off by exquisite filmy laces, and by a crimson sash which confined the tunic at the waist, and hung gracefully on the left side of the wearer.

She was wearing a silver-embroidered velvet cap, which she courteously doffed on beholding us, and I noticed that her hair, but an inch or two long, curled about her head and temples in the most delightfully picturesque fashion imaginable.

She was surprised to see us, that was quite apparent, but she evidently mistook our identity for awhile. “What strange children!” she exclaimed, in a rich, sonorous voice, which was bewitchingly musical. “Why are you here, and for what particular purpose are you masquerading in this extraordinary fashion?”

“Yes, it is extraordinary, isn’t it?” burst forth the masher, “but you are slightly mistaken about us. I can’t answer for this lady, and I really don’t know what the deuce she is doing here, but I am the Honourable Augustus Fitz-Musicus. I daresay you have heard of me. My ancestor, you know, was King George the Fourth. He fell in love with a very beautiful lady, who, until the first gentleman in Europe favoured her with his attentions, was an opera singer. She subsequently became the mother of a family, who were all provided for by their delighted father, the king. The eldest son was created Duke of Fitz-Musicus, and he and his family were endowed with a perpetual pension for ‘distinguished services rendered to the State, you know.’ ”

“Then you are not a little boy?” queried the giantess. “But of course you must be. Come here, my little dear, and tell me who taught you to say those funny things, and who pasted that queer little moustache on your face.”

As she spoke she actually stooped, kissed the Honourable Augustus Fitz-Musicus on the forehead, and patted him playfully on the cheek with one shapely finger. This was, however, an indignity not to be borne patiently, and the recipient of these well-meant attentions indignantly sprang on one side, his face scarlet, and his voice tremulous with humiliated wrath.

“How dare you?” he gasped. “How dare you insult me so? You must know that I am not a child. Your own hugeness need not prevent you from seeing that I am a man.”

“A man! never! O, this is too splendid a joke to enjoy by myself.” Saying this, and laughing until the tears came into her eyes, the goddess raised her voice a little, and called to some companions who were evidently close at hand, “Myra! Hilda! Agnes! oh, do come quickly. I have found two such curious creatures.”

In response to this summons three more girls of gigantic stature came from the further end of the garden, and completed our discomfiture by joining in the laugh against us.

“What funny little things! Wherever did you find them, Dora?” queried one of the new comers, whereat Dora composed her risible faculties as well as she was able, and explained that she had just found us where we were, and that one of us claimed to be a man.

Myra and Agnes were quite as amused at this as Dora had been, but Hilda took the situation somewhat more seriously. She had noted how furious the Honourable Augustus Fitz-Musicus looked, and observed my vain attempt to assume a dignified demeanour in the presence of such a formidable array of playful goddesses, who now all plied us with questions together.

I did not feel much inclined to converse, for I was terribly afraid of being ridiculed. But Hilda questioned me so much more sensibly, in my opinion, than the others, that I was disposed to be more communicative to her than to them.

“Where do you come from?” she questioned gently, as if she were afraid of injuring me by using her normal voice.

“I am English,” I replied proudly, feeling quite sure that the very name of my beloved native land would prove a talisman of value in any part of the globe. But although the beautiful quartette refrained from laughing, they listened to me in mystified astonishment, partly, I perceived, because my small voice was a revelation to them, and partly because my answer conveyed no understandable meaning to them.

“English,” at last said Agnes. “What do you mean by English? There is no such nation now. I believe that centuries ago Teuto-Scotland used to be called England, and that it used to be inhabited by the English, a warlike race which is now extinct.”

“My dear Agnes,” interposed Hilda, “You surely forget that we are ourselves descended from this great race. But suppose we go on with our questions. Not so fast my little man; here, I will take care of you for the present.”

The last exclamation was evoked by an attempt on the part of the Honourable Augustus to escape while the attention of the party was concentrated upon myself. He was, however, foiled in his attempt, and Hilda coolly seated him upon a tall garden seat, as if he were a baby, and kept a detaining hand on his wrist, while she listened to the replies I now made to my tormentors. “What is your name?” was the next interrogatory to which I was subjected. I did not consider it necessary to go into details, so merely gave my name. Other questions were now asked me, but I was so determined to give no food for ridicule, if I could help it, that I was rather obstinate in refusing information, and at last took refuge in the remark, delivered as quietly as my tingling nerves would permit, “That in my country people were polite to strangers, and did not interrogate them as if they were so many wild beasts.”

Even while giving utterance to this remark, I remembered several scenes which proved that it was far from true. But the goddesses did not know this much, and my reproof served to convince them that the Honourable Augustus and myself were not monkeys that had learnt the art of speech, and been dressed for exhibition, but actual, though very queer, specimens of the human race divine.

Apologies for their rudeness were now freely tendered by the giantesses, and one of them proposed to take us into the house at once and supply us with refreshments. No sooner said than done, and I hardly know whether I was most amused or humiliated to find myself led by the hand, as if I were only just learning to walk, and must be carefully guarded from stumbling.

It was some consolation to observe that the Honourable Augustus was served likewise, and that he was lifted up the huge steps which must be ascended to enter the house just as easily as I was. We were taken into a large hall, which seemingly served as a refectory, for I observed a table in the centre, upon which many covers were laid.

Just at this juncture a great bell was rung somewhere in the building, and about fifty other individuals entered the room, but crowded round us instead of round the table, as was evidently their first intention. They were, however, upon the whole, quite as polite as a room full of English people would be, were our respective positions reversed, and Hilda constituted herself our protector from bothering questions until dinner was served. The seats and table were on a somewhat larger scale than I had been hitherto used to, but a cushion considerately brought for me made me comfortable enough.

While being quizzed by such a number of eyes, I diligently used my own, and noted that all these magnificent creatures, except six, were apparently young students, and that they were all habited in somewhat similar fashion to Dora, such difference as there was consisting, not in shape or cut, but in variety of material and colouring.

The six exceptions were perfectly beautiful women, all approaching middle age, and with less exuberance of spirit, but more dignity of manner than the others. Their dress also was slightly different, their tunics being ornamented with rich facings, and their sashes, worn on the right side, being composed of a gorgeous material something like cloth of gold, but so soft in texture as to drape gracefully.

A number of attendants served the meal, and these were all attired in the national garb, with the exception of the sashes, while their clothes were, for the most part, composed of washing materials, in which they looked very pictures of neatness and cleanliness.

As soon as the meal had begun, we were less scrutinised than we had been, and I now discovered myself to be very hungry, and disposed to do full justice to the appetising viands set before me. There was a variety of dainty dishes to choose from, and much fruit, all of which was marvellously sweet and luscious. But there was no dish that I could see prepared from animal food, and I resolved to discover later whether such a strange omission was of regular or only occasional occurrence.