ONCE upon a time there lived a Tinkle-Tinkle. I cannot tell you what he was like, because no man knows, not even the Tinkle-Tinkle himself. Sometimes he lived on the ground, sometimes in a tree, sometimes in the water, sometimes in a cave; and I can't tell you what he lived on, for no man knows, not even the Tinkle-Tinkle himself.
One day the Tinkle-Tinkle was going through a wood, when he heard a piteous weeping. He stopped, for he was a kindly Tinkle-Tinkle, and found two small dormice sobbing under a tree because they had been cruelly deserted by their parents. He wiped their eyes tenderly and took them to his cave home; but I cannot tell you how he went, for no man knows, not even the Tinkle-Tinkle. However, when he got there he put the dormice to bed in his grandmother's boots, for which he had never found any use before, and fed them on periwinkles and tea, and was very kind to them; and when they grew older he bought them caps and aprons, and they became the Tinkle-Tinkle's housemaid and parlourmaid.
Now I must tell you that it was a great grief to the Tinkle-Tinkle not to know what he was, or how he lived, or where he was going to;and it often made him depressed, but he always concealed it from the dormice, appearing a most cheerful and contented creature.
One day he found a poor green bird lying on the ground with its leg broken. Fortunately Tinkle-Tinkle had his grandmother's black silk reticule with him which had never been of any service to him before. He gently placed the green bird in the bottom and carried it to the cave.
The dormice laid the poor sufferer on a soft bed and put the broken leg up carefully in plaster of Paris; and they nursed the green bird with the greatest attention so that it was soon well enough to hop about on crutches; and it sang so beautifully that all the inhabitants round gave it money, and its fame spread abroad; but it was so tenderly attached to the Tinkle-Tinkle and the dormice that it would not leave them.
Now it happened on a certain evening that the Tinkle-Tinkle was travelling over the sea, when suddenly in the depths he caught sight of a most beautiful Creature. It was all sorts of colours -white, rosy pink, and deep crimson, and pale blue fading into white and gold. It had no face but a bright light; and it had quantities of beautiful iridescent wings, like the rainbow; and the most lovely voice you ever heard, like the sighing of the waves in the hollow of the sea.
The Tinkle-Tinkle was so astonished and entranced that he stopped, and the beautiful Creature cried out to him, and its voice made Tinkle-Tinkle remember a dream he had once had of sunshine, and forest trees, and the song of birds; and the Creature said, "Ah, Tinkle-Tinkle! you are lonely and perplexed and sad, and you do not know whence you came nor why you are here; but the dormice know and the green bird knows, and I know, and we are glad for your being.
