"Oh, isn't it!" interrupted Tessie, her nose in the air. "I'll lend him to you, and you can see what fun it is to have him at your heels all the time."
"He wouldn't be lent!" declared Mr. Bill hastily, for in spite of his words, he did not want Ka-kee-ta at his heels for a minute. It was all right for Tessie to have a bodyguard, but it would be far from all right for the basement floorwalker of the Evergreen to be so attended. "What was your uncle afraid of in his islands that he trained a man to stand beside him with an ax in his hand?" he asked curiously.
"The people!" Tessie told him in a whisper. "That's another reason why I'm not so crazy over this queen business as I was. I never used to be afraid of anything, and now I'm afraid of almost everything!"
Mr. Bill laughed indulgently because he was not afraid of anything, and admiringly because Tessie was so adorable when she was afraid of almost everything. He took her hand and pressed it. Immediately Ka-kee-ta, who stood in the open door watching them with the wide questioning eyes of a child, gave another howl. Mr. Bill hastily jumped away from Tessie.
"The dickens!" he exclaimed.
"You see how it is!" Tessie shrugged her shoulders as she clasped the hand Mr. Bill had squeezed. "He is just impossible! Sometimes," she lowered her voice as if she would not for the world let Ka-kee-ta hear what she was going to say, "I have a mind to give the whole thing up!"
Mr. Bill stared at her in horrified astonishment. "Your kingdom?" he gasped.
She nodded.
"You couldn't do it!"