“Say good-bye, friends,” cried Ban-Ban, brightly. “Ods Bobs, you’ll have to try to look still more like me, so they won’t miss me! Good-bye, Wutz-Butz; keep the town safe! Good-bye, ’Clipsy, you fine fellow! Good-bye, Tommy Traddles, and good luck to your mayoring! Good-bye, kind Madam Laura, and good-bye, clever, charming Bidelia! Good-bye, three kittens, Puttel, Dolly, Nugget—keep your mittens; remember you are three little kittens! And we shall never be gone long. Good-bye.”
Kiku-san silently took each paw in turn as it was proffered by the Purrers. He was much moved, but did not for a moment lose sight of the fact that where Lois was he must be. The children kissed every cat in the city between the ears, and renewed their promises to protect Purrington.
Then the party of four passed out of the city gates.
“I hope you will never be sorry, Ban,” said Rob. Ban-Ban looked up in his face.
“Mew,” he said, and Rob remembered that, until their return, this was all that Ban-Ban and Kiku-san would say to Lois and him.
Looking back, the children and their cats saw gathered on the walls of the city all the Purrers, just as they had seen them when they arrived. Again they were singing, and though as Rob and Lois walked down the road they could no longer understand the words of the song, Ban-Ban and Kiku-san understood them, and they were these, sung to the air of “My Lady Lou:”
“We watch two shadows wav’ring down the roadway—
Our Bannie-Ban and Kiku-san;
How heavy on our homeless hearts their load lay
When they showed us where the home road ran!