“WILL you get out of my way, lumbering elf? This is the third night I have tumbled over you.”

“Softly, good Father Sandman, softly! If you were not so blind you would have seen me. Have you put all your children to bed, old Father Sandman?”

“Go along for a teasing, impertinent imp!”

Pipistrello laughed shrilly as he swung himself to and fro on the branch of a low shrub, chanting—

“Close, little eyelids, close up tight, for the Sandman’s come to town!”

The old fellow had gone into his cave; it was nearly dark now. Boum! An old brown shoe came flying out, and, catching the elf as he swung, toppled him neatly on to the grass beneath. He was not hurt, for the Sandman goes very softly shod, that the children may not hear him. But he was extremely angry. “Very good!” he cried, shaking his morsel of a fist; “to-day you, Father Sandman, and to-morrow me! Mark my words, you will be sorry for it before the moon is many nights older.”

A chuckle was heard coming from the cave, and that was all. Pip went off, meditating revenge. In the middle of supper he snapped his fingers gleefully. “The very thing,” he cried; and he began to hum; “Close, little eyelids, close up tight, for the Sandman’s come to town!”

Old Father Sandman was hunting about his cave in a fine state of mind. “Ach! where is my bag of sand? Where can it have gone? It is the children’s bedtime; the Nurses and the Mammas will be wondering where I am! My sand-bag, my precious sand-bag—oh, if I could but find it!” The poor old gentleman trotted to and fro, and seemed nearly distracted.

“I wish I could help you,” said a bat, who generally shared his cave; “I have been asleep all day, you know, and have seen no one.”

“If you will let me ride on your back,” cried the old fellow eagerly, “I might catch my brother Sandman, who lives the other side of the wood, before he goes out. He would lend me some sand, perhaps.”

“Come along then,” said the bat.

But the second Sandman declined to help. Poor Father Sandman got back to his cave, and there was Pip swinging on the same branch as before, and looking very malicious. “I believe,” gasped the old gentleman, “that it is you that stole my sack!”

Pip laughed, and skipped out of reach, crying: “My turn to-day, Father Sandman.”

But although mischievous, he was not a bad-hearted sprite, and presently he went and fetched the sand-bag. Then he made a bargain. “Father Sandman, will you say you are sorry?”

“Pipistrello, I will say I am sorry,” was the reply.

“And you won’t bear malice?”

“I will not bear malice—give me my bag.”

“One thing more. Will you let all the children sit up half an hour longer in winter, and an hour in summer?”

“It can’t be done—well, perhaps, if I must—yes, then; but the babies must go to bed a quarter of an hour earlier all the year round.”

“Please yourself about the babies,” said Pip. “Catch, Father Sandman!”

The next minute the old fellow, with his sack on his back, and a smile on his face, was trotting off to the town.

Sheila.