Ransey didn’t feel quite comfortable after all, especially with shoes on. To go racing through the woods in such a rig as this would be quite out of the question. The only occupation that suggested itself at present was culling wild flowers, and stringing them to put round Bob’s neck.
But even gathering wild flowers grew irksome at last, so Ransey got his New Testament, and turning to Revelation, read lots of nice sensational bits therefrom.
Babs was not so well pleased as she might and ought to have been; but when her brother pulled out “Jack the Giant Killer,” she set herself to listen at once, and there were many parts she made Ransey read over and over again, frequently interrupting with such questions as,—
“So Jack killed the big ziant, did he? ’Oo’s twite sure o’ zat?”
“And ze axe was all tovered wi’ blood and ziant’s hair? My! how nice!”
“Six ’oung ladies, all stlung up by ze hair o’ zer heads? Boo’ful! ’Oo’s twite sure zer was six?”
“An’ the big ziant was doin’ to kill zem all? My! how nice!”
Ransey was just describing a tragedy more ghastly than any he had yet read, when from the foot of the slope came a stentorian hail:—
“Hangman’s Hall, ahoy! Turn out the guard!” The guard would have turned out in deadly earnest—Bob, to wit—if Ransey hadn’t ordered him to lie down. Then, picking up Babs, he ran down the hill, heels first, lest he should fall, to welcome his visitors.
Miss Scragley was charmed at the change in the lad’s personal appearance, and Eedie frankly declared him to be the prettiest boy she had ever seen.