Lilliput Legion

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"Go on, ask him about the little people," said Pontack, grinning and nudging Addison in the side.

"The little people?" said Joseph Addison, taking a small pinch of snuff and then sneezing prodigiously into a Mechlin lace handkerchief. "You mean the leprechauns?"

"Leprechauns?" said Richard Steele, who together with Addison published The Spectator, a daily periodical of news, essays, philosophy and gossip that was very influential among the citizens of 18th century London. "What's this about leprechauns?"

Pontack, the proprietor of the fashionable French eating house that bore his name, shook his head and chuckled. "No. not quite leprechauns, exactly," he said.

"Something a bit more original than that, near as I can tell. Something even smaller, on the order of six inches."

"Six inches?" Steele said, frowning. "What, you don't mean six inches tall, surely?"

"The very thing," said Pontack. as he conducted them to a table in the back around which a small crowd had gathered. "Six inches tall. Or so the man insists. And he swears that every word of it is true. I thought perhaps it might make for an interesting story for your paper.

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