"Tippie, Tippie, here's the gentry. Run and meet them, Tip."
Yes, there they come—Fred and Frank and Toddie, and the sturdy old weird-looking bard himself.
Bunko stood by the garden gate, pole in hand, as the party approached. "Shoulder arms," he shouted. "Present arms."
And in due military style he stood there at the present till they all filed past.
"Fancy taking tea in a whale!" cried Frank delightedly. "And such a tea! Crisp oat-cakes, scones, butter, and honey. Dear me, how mother would enjoy this!"
Eean took off his bonnet, and holding it before his face asked a humble blessing, and then the meal proceeded right merrily, Bunko waiting as sedately as a butler, and Tippetty sitting on a stool with a bib on him—Toddie's doings—as solemn as a judge.
Conversation never slackened all the time.
"What made you call it an igloo?" said Frank.
"Well, you know," Fred replied, "I wasn't sure what to call it at first. A wigwam puts you in mind of Red Indians, and there's no wild Indians here except Toddie there. A toldo is the tent that the Patagonian tribes dwell in."
"Big men the Patadonians," Toddie told Frank confidentially, "all diants, you know."