Chapter XVIII
AND, NO DOUBT, DEAR friends, you would be glad to hear something about the early history of the Soodopsies: who they were, where they came from, and how they happened to find their way down into the World within a World.
At least, this was the way I felt after I had been presented to the learned Barrel Brow, and so the next time I called upon him I waited patiently for him to finish reading the four books in front of him, and then I said,—
“Be pleased, dear Master, to tell me something concerning the early history of thy people, and to explain to me how they came to make their way down into this underground world.”
“Ages and ages ago,” wrote the learned Barrel Brow, “my people lived upon the shores of a beautiful land with a vast ocean to the north of it, and in those day
