“And so you children chased after this toy ship, when it went floating down the gutter, did you?” he asked.
“Yes,” answered Mary, and she told how they had been playing sail Tommy’s little boat on the porch roof in the rain, when it was blown off, just as I told you in the adventure before this.
“And so you got lost?” asked the sailorman.
“That’s the way it was,” replied Tommy; “but you will take us home, won’t you?”
“To be sure I will,” answered the jolly sailorman, stumping along on his wooden leg.
“But do you know where we live?” asked Mary.
“To be sure I do,” answered the sailorman, with another jolly laugh. “I can easily find your house. Why, I have sailed all over the world, and I have found countries where monkeys live in trees, and throw cocoanuts at you, and countries where there is gold, and other countries where there are diamonds, and I have even found countries where there are little fairies, so it won’t be any trouble for me to find your house—no trouble at all, I do assure you. On the contrary, it will be a pleasure for me,” and then he whistled a jolly tune, and stumped along on his wooden leg harder than ever.
“DID YOU SPEAK?” ASKED THE SAILOR OF THE ELEPHANT
And all at once, as the jolly sailorman was whistling a jolly tune, and singing a jolly song—all at once, I say—out from behind a big box jumped Jiggily Jig, the funny boy. He turned a somersault, and he didn’t mind the rain a bit, and when he was standing right side up again he made a low bow to the sailorman and said: