“Isn’t that a house?” said Girlie, pointing further down the road. “Perhaps they would let us stop there till the shower is over.”
“Oh yes, your Majesty; that is Madame Penguin’s shop. I daresay she would be quite pleased to see us. Let’s hurry on.”
So they hastened forward and soon reached the little shop which stood at the corner of four cross roads. It was a little, low, one-storied sort of cottage built of stone. In the windows were a number of odd-looking packages and envelopes, and over the doorway there swung a sign bearing the words:
Microscopist
Excuse Maker to the Wallypug and the Royal Family.
Elaborate Excuses prepared at the Shortest Notice.
The Wallypug opened the door, causing the little bell fixed to it to tinkle violently.
Madame Penguin (who turned out to be the same Penguin Girlie had seen at the Public Meeting) came hurrying out of a little room at the back of the shop.
“Oh! how do you do?” she said when she saw Girlie, “and how are you, Wallypug?”
“Quite well, your Majesty, thank you, quite well,” said the Wallypug. “We were caught in the shower, and thought that, perhaps, you wouldn’t mind us sheltering here for a little while.”