"Oh, we're just the average family," he said thoughtfully; "mother, father, and 2.58 children—and, as I explained, I'm the .58." "It must be rather odd being only part of a person," Milo remarked. "Not at all. Every average family has 2.58 children, so I always have someone to play with.”

Milo struggled on for a while longer, until at last, completely exhausted, he collapsed onto one of the steps. "I should have known it," he mumbled, resting his tired legs and filling his lungs with air. "This is just like the line that goes on forever, and I'll never get there."

"No, that's not what I mean," objected Milo. "Can you show me the longest number there is?" "Surely," said the Mathemagician, opening another door. "Here it is. It took three carts to carry it here." Inside this closet was the longest 8 imaginable. It was just about as wide as the three was high.

"Can you show me the biggest number there is?" "I'd be delighted," he replied, opening one of the closet doors. "We keep it right here. It took four miners just to dig it out." Inside was the biggest 3 Milo had ever seen. It was fully twice as high as the Mathemagician.

He returned them as carefully as possible but, as he did, one dropped to the floor with a smash and broke in two. The Humbug winced and Milo looked terribly concerned. "Oh, don't worry about that," said the Mathemagician as he scooped up the pieces. "We use the broken ones for fractions."

He pulled out a small object, which he polished vigorously on his robe. When he held it up to the light, it sparkled brightly. "But that's a five," objected Milo, for that was certainly what it was. "Exactly," agreed the Mathemagician; "as valuable a jewel as you'll find anywhere.“

"My angles are many. My sides are not few. I'm the Dodecahedron. Who are you?" "What's a Dodecahedron?" inquired Milo, who was barely able to pronounce the strange word. "See for yourself," he said, turning around slowly. "A Dodecahedron is a mathematical shape with twelve faces."

"Let's travel by miles," advised the Humbug; "it's shorter." "Let's travel by half inches," suggested Milo; "it's quicker."

"You can never jump away from Conclusions. Getting back is not so easy. That's why we're so terribly crowded here."

"I'm as tall as can be and I'm as short as can be. I'm as generous as can be, and I'm as selfish as can be. I'm as strong as can be, and I'm as weak as can be. I'm as smart as can be, and I'm as stupid as can be," he admitted, putting both feet in one shoe.

"Nothing can possibly go wrong now," cried the Humbug happily and as soon as he'd said it he leaped from the car, as if stuck by a pin, and sailed all the way to the little island.

"It will take years to collect all those sounds again," she sobbed, "and even longer to put them back in proper order. But it's all my fault. For you can't improve sound by having only silence. The problem is to use each at the proper time."

Milo stood on tiptoe, leaned over into the cannon's mouth, and parted his lips. The small sound dropped silently to the bottom and everything was ready. In another moment the fuse was lit and sputtering.

"Do you know what a handclap looks like?" Milo shook his head. "Try it," she commanded. He clapped his hands once and a single sheet of clean white paper fluttered to the floor. He tried it three more times and three more sheets of paper did the very same thing.

"Isn't that lovely? It's my favorite program-fifteen minutes of silence-and after that there's a half hour of quiet and then an interlude of lull. Why, did you know that there are almost as many kinds of stillness as there are sounds? But, sadly enough, no one pays any attention to them these days.”

A small man, with his arms full of letters and messages, pushed through the crowd and offered them to Milo. Milo took one which read:

"HAVE YOU COME TO HELP US?" asked another, stepping forward with his question. "PLEASE!" added a third. Milo tried desperately to say who he was and where he was going, but to no avail. As he did, four more placards announced:

When the car had stopped, one of them held up a placard which said: "WELCOME TO THE VALLEY OF SOUND." And the others cheered as loudly as possible, which was not very loud at all.

Hardly noticing where they were going, they had driven into the midst of a large crowd of people marching along the road. Some of them were singing at the tops of their nonexistent voices and the others were carrying large signs which proclaimed:

"You mean you've never met the awful DYNNE before?" said Dr. Dischord in a surprised tone. "Why, I thought everyone had. When you're playing in your room and making a great amount of noise, what do they tell you to stop?" "That awful din," admitted Milo.

“There’s no such illness as lack of noise” "Of course not," replied the doctor, pouring a small glass of the liquid; "that's what makes it so difficult to cure. I only treat illnesses that don't exist: that way, if I can't cure them, there's no harm done-just one of the precautions of the trade."

"But who would want all those terrible noises?" asked Milo, holding his ears. "Everybody does," said the surprised doctor; "they're very popular today. Why, I'm kept so busy I can hardly fill the orders for noise pills, racket lotion, clamor salve, and hubbub tonic. That's all people seem to want."

“I am KAKOFONOUS A. DISCHORD, DOCTOR OF DISSONANCE," roared the man, and, as he spoke, several small explosions and a grinding crash were heard. "What does the 'A' stand for?" stammered the nervous bug, too frightened to move.

He tiptoed timidly up the three wooden steps to the door, tapped lightly, and leaped back in fright, for the moment he knocked there was a terrible crash from inside the wagon that sounded as if a whole set of dishes had been dropped from the ceiling onto a hard stone floor.

The cellos made the hills glow red, and the leaves and grass were tipped with a soft pale green as the violins began their song. Only the bass fiddles rested as the entire orchestra washed the forest in color. Milo was overjoyed because they were all playing for him, and just the way they should.

As everyone slept peacefully on, Milo stood on tiptoes, raised his arms slowly in front of him, and made the slightest movement possible with the index finger of his right hand. It was now 5:23 A.M.

And Milo, full of thoughts and questions, curled up on the pages of tomorrow's music and eagerly awaited the dawn.

"What are they playing?" asked Tock "The sunset, of course. They play it every evening, about this time. And they also play morning, noon, and night, when, of course, it's morning, noon, or night. Why, there wouldn't be any color in the world unless they played it.”

The story of what happened to the city of Reality is too long to fit in a single post, but too good not to post. Feels like an apt metaphor. Please read:

“As you can see, though, I'm neither tall nor short nor fat nor thin. In fact, I'm quite ordinary, but there are so many ordinary men that no one asks their opinion about anything. Now what is your question?"