The model-room of the elves’ water-work department was a grotto of salt glittering, dazzling, sparkling, and flashing divided into two equal parts, or as if a huge shelf had been placed across it.

On the top of the shelf was a tiny park or forest, with all the natural differences of the ground exactly represented by grasses, plants, flowers, rocks, and trees, living and growing, but on a scale so small that Leo was forced to use a microscope to properly enjoy its beauty. Even the herbage was minute, and the trees no larger than small ferns, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the glass he was amazed to find the hills and dales of his home here reproduced in the most familiar manner.

It was truly an exquisite scene. Field upon field dotted with daisies, woodland as dense and wild as untrained nature leaves it, and hill upon hill clambering over one another, all so minute and yet so real, and dashing down from the tiny mountains was a stream of foaming water, winding about and gathering in from all sides other tributary brooks, so small that they would hardly have floated a good-sized leaf.

And now Leo understood the meaning of it all, as he looked underneath the shelf where tiny pumps and rams were forcing up the water for this stream.

Knops touched a spring and set a new series of wheels in motion, when, instantly, a gushing fountain flowed up in a small stone basin beneath a rustic cross; then a little lake appeared, on which were sailing small swans; and finally a rushing, roaring flood started some mill-wheels and almost threatened destruction to the tiny buildings upon its banks.

“This,” said Knops, “shows you how we use the power of our reservoirs, but it can give you no idea of the immense trouble we have in laying pipes for great distances. Some of our elves find it so difficult that they beg for other work, and many run off altogether and live above-ground, inhabiting the regions of springs and brooks, and so muddying them and filling them up with weeds that men let them alone, which is just what they desire.”

“Do fish ever clog your pipes?” asked Leo.

“Never. We have none in our lakes; the water is too pure and free from vegetable matter for fish. It is doubly distilled. Taste it.”

Leo took the glass which Knops offered, and confessed he had never tasted anything more delicious.

“We sometimes force carbonic gas into mineral springs, but that, as well as the salts considered so beneficial, is left to our chemists to regulate. Paz, do you know anything about this?”

“Not much, Master Knops. I have seen iron in various forms introduced, but think that is usually controlled by the earth’s formation.”

Leo sighed at his own ignorance, and vowed to study up these matters; but Knops, seeing his look of dejection, asked, “How would you like a bath?”

“Delightful. Where? Surely not in the lake; it looks so cold and glassy I should not dare.”

“Oh, no, no,” laughed Knops. “Do you think I’d let you bathe in a reservoir? Never! We are too cleanly for that, begging your pardon. Here is our general bath. It’s quite a tub, isn’t it?”

“I should think so,” said Leo, surveying quite a spacious apartment, about which were pipes and faucets, clothes-lines and screens.

Here his friend left him, and he was glad to doff his garments for a plunge. He found that he could make the water hot or cold at will, and so luxurious was it that he would have stayed in any length of time had not a crowd of elves come chattering in, and with whoop and scream surrounded him. Though they could not see him, they were conscious of some disturbing force in the water, and in an instant a lot of them had scrambled on his back, and were making a boat of him. They pulled his hair and his ears unmercifully, and because he swam slowly, with their weight upon him, they whacked and thumped him like little pirates. But he had his revenge, for with one turn he tumbled them all off, and sprang from the bath, leaving them to squirm and squabble by themselves.

Laughing heartily at their antics, he rejoined Knops and Paz, whom he found poring over some maps spread out before them.

“We have been discussing the length of a journey to the Geysers of Iceland, also to the hot springs of the Yellowstone, but I am afraid either would require too much time. Was your bath agreeable?”

“Very,” said Leo, describing how he had been pummelled.

“Those were the fellows from the steam-rooms stokers probably. Rough enough they are. Do you care to have a glance at them at work?”

“Don’t care if I do,” said Leo, in his old drawling manner; then, correcting himself, he added: “If it suits your convenience, I shall be very happy to take a look.”

“That is all it will be, I promise you,” said Paz; “the heat is awful.”

Leo thought as much when Knops, having tied a respirator over his mouth, opened another door. Such a cloud of vapor puffed out that he could but dimly discern what seemed to be a tank of boiling, bubbling water, resting on a bed of soft coal, about which stark little forms were dancing and poking with long steel bars until flames leaped out like tongues of fire.

“Oh,” said Leo, as he quickly turned from his place, “how do they endure it? It is dreadful!”

“They are used to it; they all came from Terra del Fuego,” replied Knops, calmly. “And now, as a contrast to them, look in here.”

A hut of solid ice presented itself. Long pendants of ice hung from the ceiling, snow in masses was being formed into shapes of statue-like grace by a company of little furry objects whose noses were not even visible, and others were tracing out, on a broad screen of lace-like texture, patterns of every star and leaf and flower imaginable.

Leo was so delighted that, although shivering, he could not bear to leave them, but begged Knops to lend him a wrap.

Taking from a pile of furs in a corner several small garments, Paz pinned them together and threw them over Leo’s shoulders, and as he continued to watch the beautiful work Knops explained its character.

“This is our place for working out designs for those who are unskilled in frost-work. Frostwork is something too delicate for human hands, but in it we excel. Have you never seen on your window-pane of a cold winter morning the picture of a forest of pines, or sheets of sparkling stars and crystals? I am sure you have. Well, we do all that work on your windows, not with artificial snow and ice such as you see here, but by dexterous management we catch the falling flakes and mould them to our will, sometimes doing nothing more than spangling a sheet of glass, and again working out the most elaborate and fantastic marvels of embroidery. But in art our productions are almost endless. We color the tiniest blades of grass and beds of strawberry leaves until the moss upon which they rest look like velvet with floss needlework. We polish the chestnuts till they appear as if carved of rosewood. We strip thistles of their prickly coat, and use the down for pillows. The milk-weed, as it ripens its silken-winged seeds, serves us for many beautiful purposes. We tint the pebbles of a brook till they compare with Florentine mosaics. We wreathe and festoon every bare old bowlder and every niche made barren by the winds. Indeed, the list of our works would fill a volume.”

Leo listened and looked, though his feet were getting numb and his fingers nearly frozen. Many a time he had seen just such cappings to gate-posts and projections as were here being moulded, and just such rows of pearly drops on a gable’s edge; but when, as if to specially please him, the busy workers carved a little snow maid winding a scarf about her curly locks, he clapped his hands in admiration, making such a noise that each little Esquimau dropped his tool in alarm.

“Gently! gently!” said Paz and Knops; “they are easily frightened. Though they do not see you, their instinct is so fine that they can nearly guess your presence.”

“I am sorry if I have frightened them,” said Leo. “Can’t you say something to soothe them? Tell them how lovely their things are. I long to try and imitate them.”

Knops said a few words in a language Leo did not comprehend, and the little people gathered up their trowels again. But it was time to go, and Leo had to follow his guides and leave the snow people with more reluctance than anything he had yet seen.