"I forgot. But it's the Wishes that go off so quick."
"I say! Where was your bracelet, Dulcie, when you were an oyster?"
"Don't know," she answered, pondering. "I s'pose it must have melted. Oh yes, of course I remember—it had grown very small, and formed a sort of little boundary all round me inside my shell; it's here all right now. I can't think—let me see, what were we talking about before I went away? There was something I was going to tell you. What were we talking about, Cyril?"
"Sea-serpents."
"Oh yes. Well, I was going to tell you, there must be Sea-serpents, 'cos you remember it being in the papers and our seeing a picture of one."
"But that was all stuff and nonsense."
"No it wasn't."
"Well, look here, we'll soon find out, little Duffer. I wish I were a Sea-serpent!"
"I'm not a Duffer, after all," was Dulcie's first thought as Cyril vanished into what looked like the end of a wriggling tail—a tail so long that it stretched right out of view, and she realised this must be part of her own brother. It was slowly moving away.
"Don't go and leave me," she cried appealingly, clutching hold of the great scaly thing. But it moved quicker, dragging her along. So, in her anxiety she clambered on top of it, sat down, and found to her surprise that its undulating movement of progress formed a regular switchback, and that she was travelling along its back towards its head in a most pleasant and delightful manner.