When Puss and Tom halted at the side of the Ark a kind-looking man stopped his hammering and said:
"It's going to rain for forty days and forty nights. There's going to be an awful deluge. You'd better stay in Arkville and get aboard the Ark as soon as it's finished. If you don't you'll get drowned."
"He speaks the truth, I'm thinking," answered Tom Thumb, peeping out of Puss, Junior's, pocket. "It looks to me as if the rain were never going to stop."
"My good sir," said Puss, turning to the man, "it seems to me your advice is good. We'll stay in Arkville for a few days. But where shall we stop? Is there a hotel near?"
"Over yonder is the Hotel Ark," said the man. "I'm the proprietor, and my name is Noah. Go in and make yourselves at home. My sons and I will follow you shortly. We have a few more nails to drive before we quit for the day."
HOTEL ARK
THE Hotel Ark was a comfortable sort of a place, not very up-to-date, but with enough conveniences to make the traveler perfectly at home. He felt even more so after meeting the proprietor's wife, Mrs. Noah, a motherly-looking woman, with kind blue eyes and red cheeks.
"Come right in," she said as Puss, Junior, and Tom Thumb, both wet to the skin, rapped on the door.