difficult. Every few hundred yards they were halted and subjected
to curt inquiry. Men and women who had heard of their gallant
struggle against fearful odds pressed forward in an attempt to
seize their hands, to embrace and applaud them, but these
evidences of enthusiasm were sternly repressed by the chuffs.

Bleak was frankly nervous as they approached the Chuff Building.

"What line of talk are we going to adopt?" he asked.

"Like any self-respecting line," replied Quimbleton, "Ours will be
the shortest distance between two points. The first point is that
we want to obtain something from Chuff. The second is that we have
some information to give him which will be of immense value to
him. This we shall hold over him as a club, to force him to
concede what we want."

"And what is this club?" asked Bleak, somewhat suspicious of his
friend's sanguine disposition.

"The admirable plan," said Quimbleton, "is Theodolinda's idea. She
knows her father better than we do. She says that his passion is
for prohibiting things. He thinks he has now prohibited everything
possible. We are in a position to tell him something that still
remains unprohibited. His eagerness to know what that may be will
make him yield to our request."

Bleak pondered gloomily. As far as he could recall, the
Prohibition Government had overlooked nothing. The quaint part of
it was that some of its prohibitions, carried to their logical