"Hush, Todd. Well, I didn't like kraal because ito puts you in mind of Hottentots, and Daddy Pop there said an igloo was the house the Eskimos lived in, and as this whale must have come from there I thought I——"
"Oh, I see now!" Frank interrupted. "Good idea too."
Toddie was looking very much absorbed. At last she turned to Eean.
"Daddy," she said, "oo don't think, does oo, that the whale will ever tome alive adain?"
Then her bright eyes sparkled with merriment as she clapped her wee pink hands.
"Oh, what fun," she cried, "if the whale would tome alive adain dust now, and do [go] away to sea wi' us all sittin' here!"
Frank laughed and Fred too. The idea was even too much for Bunko's gravity, so he gave vent to a loud guffaw; and Tip took the opportunity of barking for another piece of buttered scone, and got it too.
Then, tea being over, they all sat round the fire, and the bard took out his pipe.
"I'se dust wonderin'," said Toddie, looking wisely at the blazing peats, "wherever this poor whale tame from. Plaps," she added sadly, "he had no mammy Mop to look after him."
"Oh, yes!" said Daddy, "he had a mother, Toddie."