“Well, I see you have found the Trippertrot children. Some one is always finding them, for they are always getting lost. Don’t you want me to take them home for you?”
“Oh, no, thank you just the same, Jiggily Jig!” exclaimed Mary. “Every time you try to take us home we get lost worse than before. You are very kind, and you mean all right, but we had rather the jolly sailorman would take us home. Though you may come along, if you like.”
“Indeed, I will,” said Jiggily Jig, as he did a funny dance in the middle of the sidewalk, then he walked along with the three Trippertrots and the jolly sailor.
But they didn’t go along so fast now, because Jiggily Jig had to stop every once in a while to turn a somersault, or do one of his funny dances. But still they were in no hurry, and after a while, just as true as I’m telling you, they came to where Tommy and Johnny and Mary lived.
“Why, there’s our house!” exclaimed Johnny, in surprise.
“The very place!” added Tommy.
“How did you ever find it?” asked Mary.
“Oh, I told you I had sailed all over the world,” answered the jolly sailor, “and to find just one house is as easy for me as eating pie. Why, I once found a whole big city that was lost.”
“How could a whole city be lost?” asked Tommy.
“Well, the city wasn’t exactly lost,” explained the jolly sailor, “but maybe we were. We were on a ship, just like Tommy’s, only bigger, away out on the ocean, and we couldn’t find the city we wanted. It was very foggy, you know. Then I got up out of bed, and I sniffed and I smelled, and I says to the captain, says I, ‘I smell apple pies. They bake apple pies in the city that we can’t find, and so I know we must be close to it.’ And, sure enough, we were, for we hadn’t sailed on much farther before we came to the lost city, and surely enough, everybody in it was eating apple pies. So that’s how it was, and that’s how I found your house for you.”