“Say,” says I, “quit it. You give me the shivers.”
“If you ’ain’t got enough shivers,” says he, “I’ve got a stock I can turn over to you without missin’ ’em.”
“Motu,” says Mark, “do you calc’late they know w-w-where you are? Do you think they know you’re here?”
“I do not believe they have found me yet. They have traced me to this lake, but they do not know I am still here. It was The Man Who Will Come who traced me. They will find me.”
“But it gives us a little time to p-plan,” says Mark. “If we can keep you hid for a couple of d-d-days it’ll make a heap of difference.”
“What good’ll a couple of days do? I wish they’d get at it and have it over with,” says Plunk.
“There’s goin’ to be a siege,” says Mark, “and we got to see that our castle’s p-provisioned, and the moat full of water and the arms and armor in shape. They’ll come with batterin’-rams and catapaults to knock breaches in our walls, and we’ve got to heat p-pitch to pour down on their heads. Hain’t you ever read about any battles and sieges of castles like Froissart tells about in his chronicles?” He was off imagining again, and I knew there wasn’t any use trying to get sense out of him while he was that way. Might as well try to play checkers with a bullfrog.
“Motu’s a foreign prince,” says he, “that’s sought our p-p-protection. His enemies is comin’ for him. They’ve got to tear our castle down about our ears to g-get him.”
“All right,” says I, “but when those real Japanese without anything imaginary about them get here I hope you’ll have somethin’ to stop ’em besides castles that you read about in some book. If it comes to a rumpus I’d rather have a pile of stones to throw than all the imagination in the public library.”
Mark sort of squinted at me. “Hold your horses, Tallow. Before we’re out of the woods you may be m-m-mighty glad I’ve read books, and gladder that I’ve got an imagination.”