"I'll tell you what to do with him," spoke up Chunky. "Give him a tostie wostie—in other words, a petrified biscuit, and tuck him in his li'l crib where the little gnomes can't tickle his feet, and he'll be all right after he gets to sleep," suggested the fat boy without so much as the suggestion of a smile on his face.
"Guide, you must not take the jokes of these young men seriously. They were just fooling," began the Professor.
"They? You mean Stacy Brown," interrupted Ned.
"I wasn't fooling anyone. He saw them himself. Didn't you see the gnomes sitting on a rock, Chops, and didn't they make faces at you because you were running away?" persisted the fat boy.
Billy nodded weakly, moistening his lips with his tongue and swallowing a lump in his throat. Such a hopeless expression of fright appeared on his face that the boys, unable to contain their mirth longer, uttered shouts of laughter, in which the dignified Professor joined.
"You see! I told you so," nodded Stacy.
"Young man, I shall have to ask you to cease playing pranks on the guide. We can ill afford to be without a guide in this wilderness of trees and rocks."
"A guide?" laughed Tad.
"Yes, a guide."
"Too bad we haven't one," muttered Stacy.