"No, dear," said the girl. "The Colonel did not mean hay; he meant asphodels and amaranth and moly."
"That sounds better," said Hugh.
"I say," whispered Gerald, who was beginning to recover from his alarm, "you know, I suppose, that asphodel is a kind of pigweed?"
"Hush! Yes! There is no need of the child's knowing it yet. How shall we get him home, Jack?"
"But I will walk home!" cried Hugh, hearing the last words. "I will perhaps trot home, only slowly."
He tried to rise, but sank back again.
"It appears as if there were wheels in my head," he murmured. "They go round too fast."
"Of course they do," said Jack, in the most matter-of-fact way. "I'm going to harness myself into them, and take you home that way. Put him up on my back, will you, Merryweather? So! there we are!"
Delighted to find himself in the once familiar position, Hugh looked up to smile at the anxious Colonel, who stood wiping his brow, and wishing for once that he were twenty and a giraffe.
"I'm all right now, Guardian!" he said. "All right, Beloved! My Jack is an ostrich again, and I am not Pegasus any more just now. I am only Hugh. Good-bye! Good hunting!"