"Oh, shut up!" I remonstrated, when I saw Tilaana advancing toward me, fluttering her taa-taa in the same menacing way in which Kippy had attacked the wak-wak.
"I beg your pardon," I said. "I was wrong. I apologize."
We stood in a circle and chinned each other until peace was restored.
The view from the summit was, as authors say, indescribable. Nevertheless I shall describe it, or rather I shall quote Whinney who at this moment reached his highest point. We were then about three thousand feet above sea-level.
I wish I could give his address as it was delivered, in Filbertese, but I fear that my readers would skip, a form of literary exercise which I detest.
Try for a moment to hold the picture; our little group standing on the very crest of the mountain as if about to sing the final chorus of the Creation to an audience of islands. Far-flung they stretched, these jeweled confections, while below, almost at our very feet, we could see the Kawa and Triplett, a tiny speck, frantically waving his yard-arm! Even at three thousand feet he gave me a chill.... But let Whinney speak.
"It is plain," he said, "that the basalt monadnock on which we stand is a carboniferous upthrust of metamorphosed schists, shales and conglomerate, probably Mesozoic or at least early Silurian."
At this point our wives burst into laughter. In fact, their attitude throughout was trying but Whinney bravely proceeded.
"You doubtless noticed on the shore that the deep-lying metamorphic crystals have been exposed by erosion, leaving on the upper levels faulted strata of tilted lava-sheets interstratified with pudding-stone."
"We have!" shouted Swank.