You’ll lay an egg——”
“If I once get hold of you, you young villain,” said Evan Henny-Penny.
He tried to hit me with his stick, time after time, while I kept on dancing round and round him and chanting, “You’ll lay an egg. You’ll lay——”
Without knowing it, I had danced to the very edge of the wharf and—splash! over I went, down into the black water.
Never to my dying day shall I forget that moment. To fall and fall, to feel the ice-cold water covering me, nothing to catch hold of, knowing myself sinking—— The water seemed to freeze my very heart. I tried to scream, but could not; the water thundered in my ears. I clutched with both hands—everything failed me—only ice-cold water—I sank—sank——
I came up again. Oh, there was the wharf! I gave a piercing shriek, then—what was that? Something was let down from the wharf, something that moved. I grabbed it, and recognized it as Evan Henny-Penny’s staff. Keeping tight hold with both hands, I felt the staff pulled from above. How little Evan managed it, I can’t understand. People who heard about it afterward said it was a perfect miracle, but up to the wharf he drew me, till I could catch hold of the edge. Then he grasped my arms, pulled and pulled with all his might, and there I was on the wharf.
“Oh, Evan—Evan! Don’t be angry, Evan,” were the first words I said.
“I got you up,” said Evan, with a sly smile. “You screamed horribly there by the wharf.”
“Come home with me, Evan,” I said. “Please do.”
