Chapter XI
It took them an hour to tell each other where they had been and what they did there, and where they were going and what they expected to do, and you may well believe Maida was glad to see all of them again. Especially Billy, for Billy was the very nicest boy. Maida was not very fond of the boys at home. They were always throwing snowballs, or fighting, or pulling the cat’s tail, or tying tin cans to the poor dogs. Billy wasn’t a bit like that. The Man with the Growly Voice had been delayed because he didn’t know the Arctic Circle was an imaginary line so he had to get a ladder and climb over it, but he had managed to preserve his can of climate through all his travels and Maida was delighted to learn she would have his company the rest of the journey. As for Santa Claus, he was anxious to reclaim Jack-in-the-Box and the Candy Kid, but they flatly refused to go home until they had finished the trip with Maida; so Santa decided to take Billy and go too, which was very nice of him.
“Do you know,” said Jack-in-the-Box, as they all sat about the hotel office planning the journey, “there is something wrong with my knee.”
“Rheumatism,” said Maida wisely.
“Nonsense,” replied Jack, “how can one have rheumatism in a ball-bearing? It’s a hot box.”
“What is a hot box?” inquired the Candy Kid, “I never had one.” “Of course not,” Jack answered, “if you had one you’d melt.”
“I know what a hot box is,” said Maida. “I was on a train once and it stopped so we all got out to see what was the matter, and we found one of the axles had got dry and set fire to things, and it was smoking dreadfully.”
“You’d better go to a doctor,” said Billy solicitously.
“Doctor,” snapped Jack, “what good could he do?” “You’d better send for a plumber,” advised the Candy Kid.