“But aren’t you going to put the plumbing together again?” asked Wendell in dismay. “They can’t ever do it.”
“I guess they can do it as well as I can,” returned the Pixie. “I never took even a correspondence course in plumbing. So long.”
“But what about me?” protested Wendell.
“Well, here you are,” said the Pixie impatiently. “You said if I once got you in here, you’d be all right. I’ve got to be on the way.”
“Yes, but don’t you think the Giant may come?”
“I do, indeed,” said the Pixie, who was now at the top of the stairs. “In fact, I saw him only a moment ago coming down the street.”
With these words, he hurried down, opened and closed the front door, swiftly but cautiously, and before Wendell had recovered from the shock, there rose the purr of the motor, and the car was off.
Its sound had hardly died away, when there came a heavy tread on the piazza that shook the house, the door was violently thrown open, and a huge voice roared,
“Fee, fi, fo, fum!
I smell the blood of—”
The roar stopped short. Wendell heard the Stepmother’s voice.