For , as the vapours came up out of the hole , the bogy smelt them with his nostrils , and combed them and sorted them with his combs ; and then , when they steamed up through them against his wings , they were changed into showers and streams of metal . From one wing fell gold-dust , and from another silver , and from another copper , and from another tin , and from another lead , and so on , and sank into the soft mud , into veins and cracks , and hardened there . Whereby it comes to pass that the rocks are full of metal . But , all of a sudden , somebody shut off the steam below , and the hole was left empty in an instant : and then down rushed the water into the hole , in such a whirlpool that the bogy spun round and round as fast as a teetotum . But that was all in his day 's work , like a fair fall with the hounds ; so all he did was to say to Tom - `` Now is your time , youngster , to get down , if you are in earnest , which I do n't believe . '' `` You 'll soon see , '' said Tom ; and away he went , as bold as Baron Munchausen , and shot down the rushing cataract like a salmon at Ballisodare . And , when he got to the bottom , he swam till he was washed on shore safe upon the Other-end-of-Nowhere ; and he found it , to his surprise , as most other people do , much more like This-End-of - Somewhere than he had been in the habit of expecting And first he went through Waste-paper-land , where all the stupid books lie in heaps , up hill and down dale , like leaves in a winter wood ; and there he saw people digging and grubbing among them , to make worse books out of bad ones , and thrashing chaff to save the dust of it ; and a very good trade they drove thereby , especially among children . Then he went by the sea of slops , to the mountain of messes , and the territory of tuck , where the ground was very sticky , for it was all made of bad toffee -LRB- not Everton toffee , of course -RRB- , and full of deep cracks and holes choked with wind-fallen fruit , and green goose-berries , and sloes , and crabs , and whinberries , and hips and haws , and all the nasty things which little children will eat , if they can get them . But the fairies hide them out of the way in that country as fast as they can , and very hard work they have , and of very little use it is . For as fast as they hide away the old trash , foolish and wicked people make fresh trash full of lime and poisonous paints , and actually go and steal receipts out of old Madame Science 's big book to invent poisons for little children , and sell them at wakes and fairs and tuck-shops . Very well . Let them go on . Dr. Letheby and Dr. Hassall can not catch them , though they are setting traps for them all day long . But the Fairy with the birch-rod will catch them all in time , and make them begin at one corner of their shops , and eat their way out at the other : by which time they will have got such stomach-aches as will cure them of poisoning little children . Next he saw all the little people in the world , writing all the little books in the world , about all the other little people in the world ; probably because they had no great people to write about : and if the names of the books were not Squeeky , nor the Pump - lighter , nor the Narrow Narrow World , nor the Hills of the Chattermuch , nor the Children 's Twaddeday , why then they were something else . And , all the rest of the little people in the world read the books , and thought themselves each as good as the President ; and perhaps they were right , for every one knows his own business best . But Tom thought he would sooner have a jolly good fairy tale , about Jack the Giant-killer or Beauty and the Beast , which taught him something that he did n't know already . And next he came to the centre of Creation -LRB- the hub , they call it there -RRB- , which lies in latitude 42.21 degrees south , and longitude 108.56 degrees east . And there he found all the wise people instructing mankind in the science of spirit-rapping , while their house was burning over their heads : and when Tom told them of the fire , they held an indignation meeting forthwith , and unanimously determined to hang Tom 's dog for coming into their country with gunpowder in his mouth . Tom could n't help saying that though they did fancy they had carried all the wit away with them out of Lincolnshire two hundred years ago , yet if they had had one such Lincolnshire nobleman among them as good old Lord Yarborough , he would have called for the fire-engines before he hanged other people 's dogs .
But it was of no use , and the dog was hanged : and XXXXX could n't even have his carcase ; for they had abolished the have-his-carcase act in that country , for fear lest when rogues fell out , honest men should come by their own .
Ballisodare Munchausen President Squeeky Tom Waste-paper-land Yarborough centre fire-engines spirit-rapping