At this he looked up the sides of the hole. It seemed as if he were at the bottom of a great round stove-pipe, or a well with brown sides. Far, far above him was a little circle of light blue, the top of the hole where he had fallen in.
After he had begged their pardon so nicely, the three little yellow men said, all together,--
"Little Mellican boy velly politely; he has honorable ancestors."
Marmaduke looked around again and saw that they were standing, not on the bottom of the hole, but on a little landing like that on a stairway. Below them the hole kept on descending into the darkness, curving round and round like a corkscrew or the stairways in old castles--down, down, down.
"Little Mellican boy like see China?" asked Ping Pong.
"Very much, thank you," replied Marmaduke, trying to be as polite as they were.
But the Toyman would miss him. He looked way up at the circle of light at the top of the hole and shouted:
"Say, Toyman, can I go to China--just for a little while?"
The Toyman's face appeared in the circle of light at the top.
"Sure, sonny, have a good time," he shouted back, and his voice coming way down that hole sounded hollow, as if he were hollering down a well.