You won't see the Once-ler. Don't knock at his door. He stays in his Lerkim on top of his store. He stays in his Lerkim, cold under the floor, where he makes his own clothes out of miff-muffered moof. And on special dank midnights in August, he peeks out of the shutters and sometimes he speaks and tells how the Lorax was lifted away. He'll tell you, perhaps... if you're willing to pay.
On the end of a rope he lets down a tin pail and you have to toss in fifteen cents and a nail and the shell of a great-great-great- grandfather snail.
Then he pulls up the pail, makes a most careful count to see if you've paid him the proper amount. Then he hides what you paid him away in his Snuvv, his secret strange hole in his gruvvulous glove. Then he grunts. I will call you by Whisper-ma-Phone, for the secrets I tell you are for your ears alone. from the Lorax by Dr. Suess
