"Oh, yes," glibly replied Carry-on-Merry, "admiration, of course, and the sheer beauty of the thing. Ha! ha! ha!"
"Yes, yes," eagerly interrupted the Griffin, "sheer beauty sounds better, sounds more like me."
"Of course it does," laughed Carry-on-Merry. "Then perhaps I shall ask you to sing."
"Oh! Carry-on-Merry," faltered the Griffin in a broken voice, "you have touched my heart—that is the very thing I was waiting for somebody to ask me to do. To sing," rhapsodised the Griffin—"to be like one of those great singers out of the opera, to pour out one's heart tones, to be gazed at by every eye, to be listened to by every ear, to be the adored of all. How can I thank you? How can I repay you?"
"Don't, please," implored Carry-on-Merry, who appeared to be choking inwardly, "don't thank me any more now, I can't bear it—some other time."
"Yet stay," cried the Griffin, with unexpected and dramatic suddenness, "who is going to kiss me?"
"Kiss you?" echoed Carry-on-Merry blankly, "kiss you? Good gracious!
I give it up."
"Yet," pondered the Griffin, "somebody had to kiss the Sleeping Beauty!"
"You won't find anybody to do it," said Carry-on-Merry decisively.
"Why not?" asked the Griffin sharply.