either plunged into deep thought, or possibly listening for some anxiously expected signal. At any rate, accustomed as I was to meet all sorts of people on my travels in the four corners of the globe, I determined to make bold enough to interrupt the gentleman's meditations and wish him good-morrow.
"Whom have I the pleasure of meeting in this beautiful section of the World within a World?"
The man looked at me in a dazed sort of way and replied,—
"I really don't know. I'm happy to say."
"But, sir, thy name!" I insisted.
"Forgot it years ago," was his remarkable answer.
"But surely, sir," I exclaimed rather testily,' "thou art not the sole inhabitant of this beautiful under world,— thou hast kinsman, wife, family?"
Ay, gentle stranger," he replied in low and measured tones, "there are people farther along the shore, and they are good, dear souls, although I have forgotten their names, and I have, too, a very faint recollection that two of those people are sons of mine. Stop! names are gone from me too, I forgot them the day my own name slipped from my mind!" and as he uttered these words he threw his head back with a sudden jerk and I heard a strange click inside of it, as if something had slipped from its place, and that instant a mysterious expression used by that Master of Masters, Don Fum, flashed through my mind.
Rattlebrains! Yes, that was it; and now I felt sure that I was standing in the presence of one of the curious folk inhabiting the World within a World, to whom Don Fum had given the strange name of Rattlebrains, or Happy Forgetters.
I was so delighted that I could barely keep myself from rushing up to this gentle-visaged and mild-mannered person, whose head had just given forth the sharp click, and grasping him by the hand. But I feared to shock hiim by such a friendly greeting, and so I contented myself with crying out,—
"Sir, thou seest before thee none other than the famous trav-
