"You mean Bah! for China," said Swayny, angrily. "I'm not going to China, Mr. William G. Swanny and that's all there is about that. Last time I was there a Chinaman captured me and tied me to his pig-tail and I vowed I'd never go again."
"And when I was in Egypt last time, I was stolen by a mummy, who wanted to broil and eat me because he hadn't had anything to eat for two thousand years. So I'm not going to Egypt."
Whereupon the two strange birds became involved in a dreadful quarrel, one trying to run the sled off toward China, the other trying, with equal vim, to steer it over to Egypt. The runners creaked; the red back groaned and finally, there came a most dreadful crash. Swanny flew off with his runner to the land of Flowers, and Swayny, freed from his partner, forgetting Jimmieboy completely, sped on to Egypt.
And Jimmieboy.
Well, Jimmieboy, fell in between and by some great good fortune, for which I am not at all prepared to account, landed in a heap immediately beside his little bed in the nursery, not dressed in his furs at all but in his night gown, while out of doors not a speck of snow was to be seen, and strangest of all, when he was really dressed and had gone down stairs, there stood Magic and the two swan heads, as spick and span as you please, still waiting to be tried.