“And when all the beasts and beastesses had promised to do just as the white polar bear should tell them, he roared at them in a perfectly dreadful voice: ‘You must all say with me, “I’ll scrunch your heads off if you don’t give me those pantry keys.”’ So they all said it after him, the crocodile weeping great tears that ran over his cheeks as he repeated the words. And then every animal went to bed; and the next night the company came to the big house under the vines, and Adolphus’s father sent for all the beasts and beastesses.”
“And did they scrunch their heads off?” screamed Joel.
“Hush—you’ll scare Phronsie again,” cried Polly.
“Did they, did they?” cried Joel, lowering his voice—“oh, make them, Polly, do, scrunch all their heads, every single one!”
“You must wait and see,” said Polly; “and don’t interrupt, or I never will get a chance to tell the story. Well, all the animals went up to Adolphus’s house, two by two; and there, in the long hall, sat all the company in tall chairs, and Adolphus in the middle. And the first thing that anybody knew, before one of them was asked to perform a single thing, the white cat that lived up at the big house, and always slept on a white satin cushion, and drank from a silver bowl, sprang into the centre of the hall, and made a bow and a curtsey. She had a green ribbon embroidered in silver tied under her chin, and she looked too perfectly splendid for anything.
“‘My master wishes me to say,’ she announced, with another low bow down to the ground, ‘that you are asked over to-night, not to show off, but to eat mince-pies.—Behold!’ And there right at her elbow were twenty-five boys dressed in green and scarlet, and all with big trays full of mince-pies, with plums sticking out all over them, and”—
“Ugh!” grunted Joel, and kicking his heels in great disgust. “Now the white polar bear can’t scrunch those people’s heads off. Hoh! that’s no story, Polly Pepper!”