"The humble party upset themselves, and got along very nicely, and soon found themselves on the ground again.
"'I don't like to walk all sorts of ways,' said flighty Hilda. 'I like to go on my grateful feet best.' So they decided to go back to the boat as best they could. But when they came to the suave boat it wasn't there, for the ground had opened accidentally, and cowardly Archie and generous auntie had fallen right through the earth, to China, probably, if nothing happened to stop them. This was quite a disappointment to the naughty party, who didn't know what to do next. So they decided to do nothing at all, and, as far as the present dramatic and inconvenient historian knows, that is just what they are doing at the present time. Here ends the swaggering story of the mellow and gruff shipwrecked mariners."
"Is that all?" "What fun!" "Didn't the adjectives come in funny!" "Write another one!" came the various comments.
"Hurrah for Mumsey!" shouted Archie. "You're a regular Alice in Wonderland."
"I wish I were, and I would raise the wind," said Auntie Jean.
"Slang, madam!" both her sons instantly announced.
"Is it? Then I beg its pardon, and yours, and everybody's," answered Auntie Jean, promptly. "No, Edna, I will not write another one, till the next time we are becalmed. Isn't there a sign of a breeze, Will?"
"None yet, but we are making way slowly, with the sculling and the tide. We're half across the bay now."
"Guess this rebus," said Cricket, presenting a paper on which she had been drawing for a moment. There was a capital letter B,—a very wild and inebriated looking letter it was, too,—and beside it was another B, with beautiful, regular curves, lying flat on its back.
"It's one word," hinted Cricket.