"Now Moses is going to drive them all into the ark, and I am Moses," cried Fritz triumphantly; "and any that are stupid and won't go in for me, Aaron can pick up and push them in after Moses, as hard as he likes."
"But Moses did not drive the animals into the ark, nor Aaron either," said Violet smiling.
"Yes, yes," shouted Ella, kicking her toes against the underneath part of the table, so that several of the astonished animals suddenly leaped high into the air and then fell down on their sides—"yes, yes; Fritz is right. Moses drove them in, every one, into the ark; he whacked them with his rod, and off they galloped."
"For shame, Ella!" cried Violet, though she could not help laughing a little as she looked at the joyous round face opposite her, stretched in innocent smiles from ear to ear; "it was Noah who drove the animals into the ark; and besides, that story is in the Bible."
"But Fritz said it was Moses," repeated Ella, whose confidence in Fritz's veracity was not easily to be shaken.
"I know I did, but I was wrong. It was Noah of course—only, what does it matter? I never can remember the names of those very old men; and besides I don't much care for Bible stories—I like bits of them, that's all."
"Oh!" said Violet, with a sound of such unmistakable dismay in her voice that Fritz looked up surprised; "thou dost not care for Bible stories, Fritz?"
"No, he does not; only bits—bits the size of a crumb," chimed in Ella, who was busy crushing the heads of two stags together, to the total destruction of their antlers.
"Hold thy tongue, Ella," cried Fritz angrily; "I do like some Bible stories, of course: Daniel in the lions' den; and Gehazi, who was turned white for telling a lie—that's a grand story; and the little child who was standing in the corn in the sun and got a headache, and who was made alive after he was dead, and given back to his mother—I like that best of all."
"So do I," screamed Ella, whose mirth was momentarily becoming more irrepressible. "Get in, old humpy back, into thy box; get in, I say, old beast." This speech was addressed to a kind of violet-coloured camel which had stuck in the entrance to the ark and was now standing head downwards amongst its imprisoned comrades with its heels elevated in the air.