“That’s all the luggage I brought, the rest’s on the ship,” he said, and pulled the brown paper off his parcel.
“Chirrup, chirrup!” said the fat little yellow bird, and sang at the sweet sun that the dark paper had hidden away.
“Get some water, Weenie, and a bit of green; all the voyage I couldn’t get any green,” said Alf.
In through the gate came the doctor’s bicycle, and once again the pansies suffered from the wild impetuosity of humans. Nobody in the least believed their eyes, but each waited for the other to discredit the apparition.
“Oh, I know we’re dreaming,” said Dolly; “in a minute we’ll all wake up.”
“Oh, will we!” said Weenie contentedly. There had been no standing-room for her in the general rush, and she had fallen on the grass, and was still sitting there embracing the wanderer’s legs.
“If we do wake up,” said Alf, and there was a note of almost hysterical gladness in his voice, “I’ll take a dose of your prussic acid, father.”
The father’s arm was round his little son’s shoulder; he knew that nothing—no gold or promise of fame—could ever make him willingly let the lad go again.
“You shall stop at home now,—there, old fellow, [310] ]you shall never go back again,” he said from time to time, and little Alf continued to blubber happily.
“Just don’t ask me anything yet,” he said in a low tone to his father; “just be as if I’ve only come in from school, will you?”