the Desert of Sahara, six years ago. Something was broken in his engine. And as he had with him neither a
mechanic nor any passengers, he set himself to attempt the difficult repairs all alone. It was a question of life
or death for him: he had scarcely enough drinking water to last a week.
The first night, then, he went to sleep on the sand, a thousand miles from any human habitation. He was more
isolated than a shipwrecked sailor on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Thus you can imagine his
amazement, at sunrise, when he was awakened by an odd little voice. It said:
"If you please--draw me a leek!"
"What?"
"Draw me a leek!"
The Canadian jumped to his feet, completely thunderstruck. He blinked his eyes hard. He looked carefully all around him.
And the Canadian saw a most extraordinary small cyclops, who stood there examining him with great seriousness. Here
you may see the best portrait that, later, the Canadian was able to make of her. But his drawing is certainly very much
less charming than its model.
Now the Canadian stared at this sudden apparition with his eyes fairly starting out of his head in astonishment.
Remember, he had crashed in the desert a thousand miles from any inhabited region. And yet this little cyclops
seemed neither to be straying uncertainly among the sands, nor to be fainting from fatigue or hunger or
thirst or fear. Nothing about her gave any suggestion of a child lost in the middle of the desert, a thousand
miles from any human habitation. When at last he was able to speak, the Canadian said to him:
"But--what are you doing here?"
And in answer she repeated, very slowly, as if she were speaking of a matter of great consequence:
"If you please--draw me a leek..."
When a Mistery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey. Absurd as it might seem to the Canadian, a thousand
miles from any human habitation and in danger of death, he took out of his pocket a sheet of paper and his
fountain-pen. But then he remembered he had never drawn a leek. So he drew for her one of the two pictures he had drawn so often:
the boa constrictor from the outside. And he was astounded to hear the little cyclops greet it with,
"No, no, no! I do not want an elephant inside a boa constrictor. A boa constrictor is a very dangerous
creature, and an elephant is very cumbersome. Where I live, everything is very small. What I need is a
leek. Draw me a leek."
So then the Canadian made a drawing.
The cyclops looked at it carefully, then she said:
"No. This leek is already very old. Make me another."
So he made another drawing.
His friend smiled gently and indulgently.
"You see yourself," she said, "that this is not a leek. This is a spring onion. It has horns."
So then the Canadian did his drawing over once more.
But it was rejected too, just like the others.
"This one is expired. I want a leek that will live a long time."
By this time his patience was exhausted, because the Canadian was in a hurry to start taking his engine apart. So he
tossed off this drawing.
And he threw out an explanation with it.
"This is only its' can. The leek you asked for is inside."
He was very surprised to see a light break over the face of his young judge:
"That is exactly the way I wanted it!"
