Fig. 26.—Captain Bruce Appeals to Madame Breeze.
"Now to business!" Madam Breeze sobered down just one moment as she spoke. "How did you come here? On the ponies, hey? Call Blythe."
Bruce blew his bugle. Presently Blythe clambered up the ladder and saluted the Elf.
"How are the ponies, Blythe? Pretty well done out, hey? Not fit for the journey back? In a pinch are you? So I thought. Well, you Brownies do miss it sometimes, you must confess." Madam ran on asking and answering her own questions without giving Blythe a chance to speak a word. However, she seemed, through, some mysterious news agency of her own, to know everything without information from the Brownies.
"Need fresh horses? Just as I supposed. Here, here—Whirlit,—wheeze,—hoogh! (Confound that cough!) Blythe, call Whirlit for me. The rascal!—he's always out of the way when I want him."
Notwithstanding the bad character given him by his mistress, Whirlit was at the window in a moment.
"There, keep still now, and listen!" Madam herself was quite as restless as the frisky Whirlit while she gave her orders, bouncing back and forth all the time among the leaves. "Still, I say! Put Swallowtail and Blythe's pony in the stable, and get out my Goldtailed matches. Order all hands to be ready to leave immediately. Quick! Off with you!"