"This is it," said Laddie. "I didn't make it up, but I asked one of the sailors on the steamer for a good riddle, and he told me this one. It's, 'What can you put in your left hand that you can't put in your right hand?' That's the riddle."
"Pooh! there can't be any answer to that," said Russ. "If you can put anything in your left hand you can put it in your right, too. Look!"
He took his knife from his pocket, and put it first in his right hand and then in his left.
"But I don't mean a knife," said Laddie. "'Tisn't what you can put in both hands, it's what you can't."
"Let me hear the riddle again," begged Aunt Jo.
"What can you put in your left hand that you can't put in your right?" asked Laddie. "It's awful hard—you'll never guess it," he went on, laughing at the puzzled look on Aunt Jo's face.
They all tried to guess the riddle—that is all except the smallest children—Mun Bun and Margy, and they were too much taken up with loving the dog Alexis. Aunt Jo tried several things, but she found she could put them in one hand as easily as she could in the other, so that couldn't be the answer.
"Do you give up?" asked Laddie.
"Yes," said his father, "we all give up. Tell us the answer."
"It's your right elbow," said the little boy with a laugh.