"Me, too," echoed Billy. "I'd rather play Noah and the flood. Oh, Betty, let's play that, and then my dog Hero can be the lion,—no, Betty no, I didn't mean it; he can be the elephant, I mean, and your cat can be a—a—what other animal is white 'sides a polar bear? And, oh, Gerald, your bluest pigeon can be the dove."
"But why don't you want to play Grace Darling?" interrupted Betty. "I'll let you take my dolls for the shipwrecked children, and I'll live in the lighthouse."
"If you want to know what's fun," put in Gerald, "just listen to me. Let's play—"
"But I want to play get the animals out of the ark," insisted Billy.
"And I say," Betty argued, "that you don't know whether you like to play Grace Darling or not until you try it. Who's going to be captain of the shipwrecked boat, you, Billy, or Gerald? Now, this rug is the Northumberland coast."
"No, sir," shouted Billy, "it's Mt. Ararat."
"Why, children, what's going on?" asked Aunt Florence, who was passing the doorway.
"We all want to play different things," explained Betty.
"Why don't you make signal-flags, like the ones on the chart?" suggested Aunt Florence. "You know what I mean, Betty, the chart I saw you looking at yesterday in your father's office, the one with the pictures of signal-flags on it. I'll find sheets of red and blue and yellow and white paper, and I believe you can have a nice time making tiny paper flags. I'll get some paste ready for you, too."