Sally hesitated, not quite certain which side it devolved upon her to defend. She certainly had been somewhat impressed by D. Tablet. Had she not seen him come tumbling, frog-like, out of Bedelia’s throat? For aught that she could prove to the contrary, he had, perhaps, gone tumbling back again. Being thus cruelly torn between her fondness for Bedelia and her sense of justice, she wisely held her peace, while Bedelia, by this time well on the way with the second banana, mentally hurled defiance at her pink advisor.
“He was damp all over. He looked as if somebody had licked him!” she finally ejaculated, throwing away her banana skin and standing up preparatory to suggesting that they resume their journey.
At the same moment her face stiffened, while her eyes fairly bulged out of her head with amazement. Hurrying straight down the road toward them, and advancing by leaps and bounds was a long, lithe figure that they both recognized as it came nearer as the Talking Sign Post. It now came up at a brisk gallop, and exclaimed breathlessly as soon as within hailing distance,
“I was so afraid you would get lost without me!”
Thereupon it threw itself comfortably down on the greensward and beamed amiably at Sally. She felt very much like replying that if he had been a little more communicative in the beginning, the danger of going astray would have been smaller. However, she refrained, being dreadfully afraid of offending the Sign Post, who after all appeared to be very good-hearted. Not so Bedelia, who cocked her sharp, little, black eyes in a most inquisitive manner and hastily retorted,
“No thanks to you if we did get lost, with your ‘Five miles to the Palace’ and nothing else. How should we know which turning to take next?” And then she added hurriedly, “Why don’t you have things painted on you as they do in civilized countries?”
“If by things you mean directions,” replied the Sign Post gravely, “it would be altogether superfluous in a land where everything can talk. And as for turnings,” he added severely, “there aren’t any. All the roads in Toyland lead to the Palace, so you are sure to get there some time or other. To be sure, some roads are longer than others. In the event of your taking the longest one, you might consider yourselves lost.”
All out of patience with what she considered an extremely round-about explanation, Bedelia did not trouble herself to reply, but Sally hastened to smooth things over by offering the Sign Post some luncheon out of the paper bag, which they had managed to repair with some pins, and which now contained the remnants of their repast. This, however, he politely refused, having already lunched copiously on his usual diet of shavings which curious regimen agreed best with his wooden constitution. Sally was rather disappointed at this. She recollected once having been taken to the Zoo and having seen the ostriches fed with oranges. And she remembered how very queer it had appeared to her to watch the fruit as each piece traveled down the birds’ long, red throats, one chasing another until they finally vanished in the feathery region below. She could not help thinking that the Sign Post was very like the throat of an ostrich, only the resemblance continued all the way down. She could not but wonder where the luncheon would finally have located itself, as there were apparently no facilities for expansion in the general make-up of the Sign Post.
There was a short silence, during which Bedelia made ostentatious preparations for moving on.