“Oh, please don’t,” wailed Monkey. “I didn’t mean to be rude when I asked about the balloons.”
“I’m not going away,” the Lady laughed back. “I’m just combing my hair, and the mane and the tail of my White-White Horse.”
And around the great circle the two of them sped; then stopped in front of the animals again.
“You see,” said the Lady, as she tossed back her curls, “combs and brushes are so much bother that we never carry them, but just let the rush of the wind take their place. But now that is done, pray tell me why you sent for me and what I’m to do?”
“Tell us a story,” cried Ostrich.
“About Too-Bo-Tan,” suggested Little Black Bear.
“Yes, yes!” chimed all the rest, “about Too-Bo-Tan.”
“Very well,” nodded the Lady; and, leaning forward on the back of the White-White Horse, with her chin cupped in one hand, she began:
“Many years ago—so very many that there are not enough stripes on Zebra’s sides, nor yet on his ears, to count them—there lived in far-away Jungleland a very wise monkey, named Vargu. In those days the different animals mingled not at all, each being content to keep solely to the company of his very own kind. Now, one day, this monkey named Vargu was seated in the fork of a tree, quite lost in deep thought, when a leopard trotted by underneath. Spying the leopard—”
“Pretty Lady, Pretty Lady,” Diggeldy Dan interrupted.