“Can you hear me now?” he said, like a man speaking from the bottom of the sea.
“Yes,” I called back. “What is it?”
“Get ready for good news,” said that thin but valorous voice that seemed to be speaking from the tip-top mountains of Mars. But the crackling and burring cut us off again. Then something must have 359 happened to the line, or we must have been switched to a better circuit. For, the next moment, Peter’s voice seemed almost in the next room. It seemed to come closer at a bound, like a shore-line when you look at it through a telescope.
“Is that any better?” he asked through his miles and miles of rain-swept blackness.
“Yes, I can hear you plainly now,” I told him.
“Ah, yes, that is better,” he acknowledged. “And everything else is, too, my dear. For I’ve found your Dinkie and––”
“You’ve found Dinkie?” I gasped.
“I have, thank God. And he’s safe and sound!”
“Where?” I demanded.
“Fast asleep at Alabama Ranch.”