And Uncle Will turned towards Captain Turcott, who laughingly answered,—
"What could I do, Mr. Kolderup? I can sometimes resist you—but Miss Phina—it was too difficult! And four months ago, when you sent me to look round the island, I landed the box from my boat—"
"Dearest Phina!" said Godfrey, seizing the young lady's hand.
"Turcott, you promised to keep the secret!" said Phina with a blush.
And Uncle William W. Kolderup, shaking his big head, tried in vain to hide that he was touched.
But if Godfrey could not restrain his smiles as he listened to the explanations of Uncle Will, Professor Tartlet did not laugh in the least! He was excessively mortified at what he heard! To have been the object of such a mystification, he, a professor of dancing and deportment! And so advancing with much dignity he observed,—
"Mr. William Kolderup will hardly assert, I imagine, that the enormous crocodile, of which I was nearly the unhappy victim, was made of pasteboard and wound up with a spring?"
"A crocodile?" replied the uncle.
"Yes, Mr. Kolderup," said Carefinotu, to whom we had better return his proper name of Jup Brass. "Yes, a real live crocodile, which went for Mr. Tartlet, and which I did not have in my collection!"