“Sh!” she whispered again. “Didn’t I hear you talking of a wicked man? Come and see if it is he; but remember, do not make the slightest noise or he will discover us!”
When all had peeped through the picture window, and the kind old lady had closed it again the Princess said, “It is indeed the wicked Strange Man who put me in the jar!”
“It is old Jingles, the Magician!” whispered the others.
Yes, it was old Jingles, the Magician, but he was a very sorry sight. His clothes were covered with black mud and the ink rain had soaked through his hat and had run down over his face so that it was as black as coal.
He stamped his feet to shake the ink from his clothes, and wiped his face with his handkerchief; but the more he wiped it the blacker it grew.
The Little Old Lady again motioned the rest to the window and turned out the light so that they could watch old Jingles.
“Just wait until I catch them!” he muttered to himself. “I will change all of them into pigs and never let them see a mud puddle! I should have been all right if Gran’ma and Gran’pa had not come along! It’s all their fault, and it was they who rescued the Princess from the Green Jar! Oh, just wait until I catch them! Then they will be sorry they ever came to the Magical Land of Noom!”
The wicked creature tried saying some of his magic rhymes to clean the ink from himself, but he did not succeed.
“I should have had all of them in my power by this time if the ink rain had not soaked my little Magic Whistle so that I cannot blow it!” And he took something from out of his pocket and wiped it with his handkerchief.
It was a Magic Whistle made of pig-skin and had little tassels hanging from it. Now the pig-skin was soaking wet and the tassels dripping ink. The more the Magician wiped the whistle, the wetter it seemed to become.