THE SEVEN SLEEPERS 205 
“Butternutly yours,” quoted Alice-Palace as they 
hurried down the long hill. 
Have you ever dreamed of writing a wonderful 
poem, and then waked up and found that you had 
forgotten it; or, worse still, that it was n’t wonderful 
at all? That is what happened to me the other 
night. All that was left of the lost masterpiece was 
the following alleged verse:— 
After dark everybody’s house 
Belongs to the little brown Flittermouse. 
I admit that the mystery and pathos and beauty 
which that verse seemed to have in dreamland have 
some way evaporated in daylight. So as I can’t give 
to the world any poetry in praise of my friend the 
Flittermouse, I must do what I can for him in prose. 
In the first place, his everyday name is Bat. Our 
forebears knew him as the flying or “‘flitter’’ mouse. 
Probably, too, he is the original of the Brownie, that 
ugly brown elf that used to flit about in the twilight. 
He is perhaps the best equipped of all of our mam- 
mals, for he flies better than any bird, is a strong 
though unwilling swimmer, and is also fairly active 
on the ground. In addition, he has such an ex- 
quisite sense of feeling, that he is able to fly at full 
speed in the dark, steering his course and instantly 
avoiding any obstacle by the mere feel of the air- 
currents. In fact, the bat’s whole body, including 
the ribs and edges of its wings, may be said to be 
full of eyes. These are highly developed nerve-end- 
