So in her politest voice she called out, ‘Twinkle, I am in this box and my name is Polly Perkins. I belong to a little girl named Patty, and I want to talk to you. How did Jimmy break his leg?’
‘On roller skates. Bow-wow!’ answered Twinkle, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to be talking to a dolly wrapped up in a box.
And, come to think of it, Twinkle didn’t know that Polly Perkins was a doll. He only knew that he wanted to tell some one about his little master Jimmy.
‘He was roller skating in the park,’ called out Twinkle, ‘and he fell and broke his leg, and if I had been there it never would have happened.’
‘Why?’ asked Polly. ‘Why wouldn’t it have happened?’
‘Did he break his leg all last summer while he was playing with me in the country?’ demanded Twinkle. ‘Of course he didn’t. But no sooner does he go back to the city than he falls and breaks his leg. It all happened because I wasn’t there to take care of him.’
‘Why didn’t you go to the city with him?’ asked Polly next. You see, Patty wasn’t there to tell Polly it wasn’t polite to ask quite so many questions, and Polly was too young to be expected to know that, all by herself.
But Twinkle didn’t mind questions in the least.
‘Because his mother said the city was no place for a dog,’ he sniffed scornfully. ‘Just as if I couldn’t behave as well in the city as anywhere else. But they have had to send for me now, for Jimmy wants me. That is where I am going now on the train.’
‘I am going to Patty’s house,’ volunteered Polly Perkins. ‘That is where I am going. Patty couldn’t carry me home yesterday because of the rain.’