Stuart looked worried, and confessed that he could never gauge heights without the assistance of a giraffe: “Not high heights.”
“A giraffe?”
“I was once told that a giraffe measures twenty-five feet. So in my mind’s eye I always pile giraffe upon giraffe, until I get what I want. One giraffe, added to another ... and another....”
“There, there then, my beautiful,” Peter assured him soothingly, for the multiplicity of giraffe had caused a wild look to creep into his eyes; “you shall have a giraffe in the Room, of course you shall. Anyhow, Merle will want a domestic animal to cuddle on her lap. A giraffe will do nicely, besides being useful for measuring purposes.”
“We can tell the time by it, as well,” Stuart announced in eager defence of his pet. “The tide of the ceiling rises and falls about an inch every six hours; and when it falls, the animal’s head will be wet, and so he’ll always have a cold in his nose, and borrow all our handkerchiefs, and not return them. He says he can’t help it; people don’t realize what a struggle it is to keep one’s head below water.”
“But he’ll want a companion of some sort,” remarked Merle. And because she secretly hoped for a canary, she proposed a tortoise.
“What about a gift-horse? There’s something mysterious about a gift-horse, because nobody may look it in the mouth. No, not even a dentist.”
“But we will!” Stuart cried, in defiance of copy-book precept; “we’ll keep things in its mouth, for the sake of looking at them there; cigarette-cards and photograph albums.”
... A little wind flapped aside the blind, giving a momentary glimpse of sea-lapped rocks and battlements: a castle of enchantment aglow in the ebbing light. Merle immediately decided to have it transported to the Room, for her special use and benefit. Not to be outdone, Stuart and Peter ordered each a castle of like design and pattern; he stipulating, however, for a border of Norfolk Broads in lieu of the Atlantic. And because his manner was wont to become suddenly absent and remote whenever he chanced to speak of his Sailing Paradise, they quickly granted him his desire, and changed the subject, lest he should elude them altogether.