cases when you get a thing you find that you didn't really want it, after all. It proves to be not quite what you thought it; or else it came too late."

This statement was completed in so mournful a tone that Everychild felt constrained to say, "Why shouldn't you throw the lamp away, if it makes you unhappy?"

"It isn't possible," was Aladdin's rejoinder. "There is only one way in which I can be rid of it, and I haven't been able to find that way as yet."

Everychild was so greatly puzzled by this statement that Aladdin explained: "I can never be rid of the lamp save on one condition. When I have wished for the best thing of all the lamp will disappear and I may rejoice in the thought that it will never be mine again."

"The best thing of all?" mused Everychild.

"You see how difficult it is. Who can tell what is the best thing of all? And so I must go on owning the lamp and being unhappy."

But Everychild found much of this simply bewildering. "Just the same," he said after a pause, "it must be very nice to have a lamp to rub, so that you may have so many things you really want."

He immediately regretted having said this; for Aladdin took up his lamp. "Very well," he said, placing the lamp in Everychild's hands. And there was a malicious gleam in his slanting eyes as he added, "Suppose you make a wish. But I charge you!—think twice before you wish."

Everychild could not take back his words; and besides, he was tempted. He touched the lamp with trembling fingers. He rubbed it, hoping that Aladdin would not laugh at him for being awkward or inexperienced. And sure enough, the genie of the lamp appeared.

Everychild became quite dumb. He cast an appealing glance at Aladdin. "Won't you make a wish?" he begged. "After all, it's very hard, knowing what to wish for."

"It is," admitted Aladdin. "No, I'll not make a wish. It was you who summoned the genie. You shall make your own wish!"

At this Everychild glanced at the genie as if in search of assistance. But he received no encouragement at all. The genie really looked like a person who had come to bring evil rather than good. And Everychild felt his heart pounding painfully, and his head throbbing. But at last a happy thought occurred to him. He might make a very little wish!

"It is getting dark," he said to the genie, trying to speak as if he were thoroughly experienced in making wishes, "I wish I had a nice place to sleep, here in the forest."

He had scarcely spoken when he realized that he was all alone: Aladdin with his Oriental rug and his lamp was gone; the genie was gone. His hand was resting upon something very soft and cool. It seemed like a carpet, though finer than any carpet he had ever seen. And he remembered how his mother had scolded him more than once for lying on the carpet at home.

"But no one will scold me for lying here," he reflected.

So it came about that on his first night away from home he slept on the beautiful green carpet, with the Road of Troubled Children hard by.

And he could not know that the thing he had wished for, and which had been given him was the very thing which poor beggars, beloved of God, are granted every tranquil summer night.

CHAPTER IV

EVERYCHILD IS JOINED BY HANSEL AND GRETTEL

In the morning he went on his way along the Road of Troubled Children; and it seemed to him that he had gone a very great distance when he heard voices by the roadside. They were the voices of children, and it was plain to Everychild that they were in trouble.

He waited until they came close, and then his heart bounded, because he recognized them. He had often seen their pictures. They were Hansel and Grettel.

Hansel was saying sorrowfully, "I am afraid they are all gone, Grettel, and we shall never be able to find our home again."

It was then that Everychild stepped forward. "I know you," he said, trying to seem really friendly. "You are Hansel and Grettel. Your parents lost you in the woods to be rid of you—because there wasn't enough to eat at home."