"I'll do my best, your Majesty," said Ghip-Ghisizzle.
"You'll do more than that, or I'll have you patched!" roared the angry Boolooroo. "And don't waste any time, either, for as soon as we find out the secret of the umbrella I'm going to have the three strangers marched through the Arch of Phinis, and that will be the end of them."
"You can't do that, your Majesty," said the Majordomo.
"Why can't I?"
"They haven't lived six hundred years yet, and only those who have lived that length of time are allowed to march through the Arch of Phinis into the Great Blue Grotto."
The King looked at him with a sneer. "Has anyone ever come out of that Arch alive?" he asked.
"No," said Ghip-ghisizzle, "but no one has ever gone into the Blue Grotto until his allotted time was up."
"Well, I'm going to try the experiment," declared the Boolooroo. "I shall march these three strangers through the Arch, and if by chance they come out alive, I'll do a new sort of patching—I'll chop off their heads and mix 'em up, putting the wrong head on each of 'em. Ha, ha! Won't it be funny to see the old Moonface's head on the little girl? Ho, ho! I really hope they'll come out of the Great Blue Grotto alive!"
"I also hope they will," replied Ghip-Ghisizzle.
"Then I'll bet you four buttonholes they don't. I've a suspicion that once they enter the Great Blue Grotto that's the last of them."