"Then what is it?" asked Mr. Kinkytail.
"It's going to be an airship, to sail up in the air as the birds do," replied the little green monkey boy.
"Oh, my! You never can make that!" said his papa, and he went off laughing. "Is Jacko helping you?" he asked.
"No, Jacko has gone off in the automobile to give Grandfather Goosey Gander a ride," said Jumpo.
"That is very kind of Jacko," spoke Mr. Kinkytail, "but I hope he doesn't upset and spill out the old gentleman duck. But you be careful not to fall out of your airship, Jumpo."
So Jumpo said he would, and he went right on making it. I suppose you know what an airship is? It's something like two tablecloths fastened over some sticks, and one end is a thing like the tail of a goose, and on the other end is something like the tail of a bird, and in the middle there is a thing like a pinwheel, which goes around buzzity-buzz, and there's an engine to make the buzzity-buzz thing go. Then there are wheels like on a baby carriage, only they are blown up with air like a big bologna sausage, and that's an airship.
And that is what Jumpo was making. He had two old umbrellas, and he had fastened them together, one over the other, with some strings. He had a big palm leaf fan for one tail and another fan for the other tail, and four wheels he took off an old pair of roller skates. Then he had a little toy locomotive, and he used that for the engine, and it was very good, for it went whizzing around very fast when he wound up the spring. And for the buzzity-buzz thing he had a green paper pinwheel.
"Do you think your airship will sail, Jumpo?" asked Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck boy, as he came along just then.
"I'm sure it will," said the green monkey boy. "You see I get in it and sit on this seat. It's made from an old washboard that mamma didn't want. Then I start the engine and I will go rolling along over the ground. Pretty soon I will get going so fast that I'll sail up in the air, and then I'll be like a bird. Don't you want to sail with me?"
"Are you going up pretty soon?" asked Jimmie, "because my dinner is nearly ready and I don't want to miss it."