Muffs shook her head. “I’m ’fraid not. There aren’t many wise people, you know. I don’t believe I ever saw one.”
“Most little girls think their fathers are wondrous wise,” said the headless man.
“Hers wasn’t,” Tommy put in. “He ran off to the ends of the earth just because she broke some of his things. That wasn’t wise.”
“But the things might have meant a great deal to him,” the man said with a queer look at Muffs. “What is your name, little girl?”
“Miss Muffet.”
“But I mean your real name, the name your mother gave you.”
“My father gave me my name,” said Muffs. “Madeline, after my mother. I guess he used to love her.”
But the headless man had turned and seemed not to be listening. Without speaking to the children again he started toward the workshop.
“He’s going to tell on us,” cried Muffs. “I didn’t think he would!”