I'm told--but mind I don't say it is so, for I don't know--that when we fall asleep, a troop of angels very like ourselves, only quite different, goes round to all the stars we have discovered, and discovers them after us.

I suppose with our shovelling and handling we spoil them a bit; and I daresay the clouds that come up from below make them smoky and dull sometimes.

They say--mind, I say they say--these other angels take them out one by one, and pass each round as we do, and breathe over it, and rub it with their white hands, which are softer than ours, because they don't do any pick-and-spade work, and smile at it, and put it in again: and that is what keeps them from growing dark." "How jolly!" thought Diamond.

"I should like to see them at their work too .-- When do you go to sleep ?" he asked the captain.
"When we grow sleepy," answered the captain.

"They do say--but mind I say they say--that it is when those others--what do you call them?
I don't know if that is their name; I am only guessing that may be the sort you mean--when they are on their rounds and come near any troop of us we fall asleep.