“Not at all,” said the seal. “Nothing is wrong here—as long as you’re good. Let me teach you water-leapfrog—a most glorious game, so cool, yet so exciting. You try it.”
At last the seal said: “I suppose you wear man-clothes. They’re very inconvenient. My two eldest have just outgrown their coats. If you’ll accept them——”
And it dived, and came up with two golden sealskin coats over its arm, and the children put them on.
“Thank you very much,” they said. “You are kind.”
I am almost sure that it has never been your luck to wear a fur coat that fitted you like a skin, and that could not be spoiled with sand or water, or jam, or bread and milk, or any of the things with which you mess up the nice new clothes your kind relations buy for you. But if you like, you may try to imagine how jolly the little coats were.
Thomasina and Selim played all day on the beach, and when they were tired then went into a cave, and found supper—salmon and cucumber, and welsh-rabbit and lemonade—and then they went to bed in a great heap of straw and grass and fern and dead leaves, and all the delightful things you have often wished to sleep in. Only you have never been allowed to.
In the morning there were plum-pudding for breakfast, and roast duck and lemon jelly, and the day passed like a happy dream, only broken by surprising and delightful meals. The Ball woke up and showed them how to play water-polo; and they bounced him on the sand, with shrieks of joy and pleasure. You know, a Ball likes to be bounced by people he is fond of—it is like slapping a friend on the shoulder.
There were no houses in “Whereyouwantogoto,” and no bathing machines or bands, no nursemaids or policemen or aunts or uncles. You could do exactly what you liked as long as you were good.
“What will happen if we’re naughty?” Selim asked. The Ball looked very grave, and answered—
“I must not tell you; and I very strongly advise you not to try to find out.”