Chapter V

9 min read

AN INSPIRATION

I was so tired that even my fears were not able to keep me awake long.

When I next came to myself, I seemed to have been asleep a very long time. My first thought was, “Well, what an astonishing dream I've had! I reckon I've waked only just in time to keep from being hanged or drowned or burned or something.... I'll nap again till the whistle blows, and then I'll go down to the arms factory and have it out with Hercules.”

But just then I heard the harsh music of rusty chains and bolts, a light flashed in my eyes, and that butterfly, Clarence, stood before me! I gasped with surprise; my breath almost got away from me.

“What!” I said, “you here yet? Go along with the rest ofthe dream! scatter!”

But he only laughed, in his light-hearted way, and fell to makingfun of my sorry plight.

“All right,” I said resignedly, “let the dream go on; I'm in no hurry.”

“Prithee what dream?”

“What dream? Why, the dream that I am in Arthur's court--a personwho never existed; and that I am talking to you, who are nothingbut a work of the imagination.”

“Oh, la, indeed! and is it a dream that you're to be burnedto-morrow? Ho-ho--answer me that!”

Chapter V

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