“But, you know, don’t you?” persisted Ananias.
“Well, I did,” said the Baron; “but, really I
have had to remember so many other things that I have forgotten that. All that I know is that they were named from the fact that they were infested by Amphibious animals, which are animals that can live on land as well as on water.”
“How strange!” said Sapphira.
“It’s just too queer for anything,” said Ananias, “but on the whole I’m not surprised.”
And the Baron said he was glad to hear it.
XI
THE BARON AS A RUNNER
The Twins had been on the lookout for the Baron for at least an hour, and still he did not come, and the little Imps were beginning to feel blue over the prospect of getting the usual Sunday afternoon story. It was past four o’clock, and for as long a time as they could remember the Baron had never failed to arrive by three o’clock. All sorts of dreadful possibilities came up before their mind’s eye. They pictured the Baron in accidents of many sorts. They conjured up visions of him lying wounded beneath the ruins of an apartment house, or something else equally heavy that might have fallen upon him on his way from his rooms to the station, but that he was more than wounded they did not believe, for they knew that the Baron was not the sort of man to be killed by anything killing under the sun.
“I wonder where he can be?” said Angelica, uneasily to her brother, who was waiting with equal anxiety for their common friend.