Bob chuckled.
“It’s a green monkey,” opined a fourth.
Bob laughed outright.
And the peasants heard him, and cast their gaze aloft; and immediately began to gesticulate and vociferate excitedly.
“I’m a goblin, you fools!” croaked a familiar voice. “I’m a goblin, I tell you!”
Bob then saw his friend. The latter was confined in a parrot cage hanging upon a post in front of a building. The speaker—who, it was plain, was in authority—quieted the populace; and then he continued:
“As you will perceive, there’s another one of the strange beings up there in that balloon. Now, my opinion is that they’re moon-men from the moon. As you all know, the moon’s made of green cheese; and that would account for the color of them.”
“But the one up there isn’t green,” a woman objected; “he’s gray.”
“No doubt he’s old and faded,” the speaker explained.