“I am the Dragon of Wantley.”
And they all cried, again and again: “Let us in! Let me in! Let me in!”
The strain of listening for the names and calling out “I don’t know you!” when they didn’t, and saying nothing when they did, became almost unbearable. It was like that horrid game with the corners of the handkerchief, “Hold fast” and “Let loose,” and you have to remember to do the opposite. Sooner or later an accident is bound to happen, and the children felt a growing conviction that it would be sooner.
“What will happen if they do get in?” Cathay asked a neighboring Porpoise.
“Can’t say, miss, I’m sure,” it answered.
“But what will you do?”
“Obstruct them in the execution of our duty,” it answered. “You see, miss, they can’t kill; they can only stupefy, and they can’t stupefy us, ’cause why? We’re that stupid already we can’t hold no more. That’s why they trust us to defend the golden gate,” it added proudly.
The babel of voices outside grew louder and thicker, and the task of knowing when to say “I don’t know you,” and so wound the vanity of the invaders, grew more and more difficult. At last the disaster, foreseen for some time, with a growing plainness, came upon them.
“I am the Great Seal,” said a thick, furry voice.
“I don’t know you,” cried Cathay.