The next trick in the game of Mumbledy Peg was to twirl the knife from the tip of the first finger, then from the second, and so on. When Marmaduke tried it from the third finger, the knife fell on its point, quivered feebly as if it were sick, then fell over on its side, only part way up in the air.
"Can you get two fingers under it--between the blade and the ground?" said the Toyman eagerly. "If you can, it's all right."
"You try?" said Marmaduke.
"What--with these fingers?" laughed the Toyman, "you'd better try yours--you'd have more of a chance."
So Marmaduke tried, and just managed to squeeze his two smallest between the blade and the ground. But when he tried twirling it from his last finger he failed. The knife fell over on its side, and he couldn't squeeze any two of his fingers, even the smallest, between the grass and the blade.
"Oh dear!" he exclaimed, "I always miss with my 'pinky.'"
However, the Toyman missed with his fourth finger, and Marmaduke was still ahead.
"I'm off my game," the Toyman explained a little later, as he threw the knife over his left shoulder and failed, "and you're in rare form!"
Now this was strange, for the Toyman was so good at work and games and everything, but I'm thinking it was like that time they played marbles--he did it on purpose, just to let the little boy have the fun of winning. That would have been like the Toyman.
Anyway, the last time Marmaduke threw the knife through the air, and it made its last somersault and stuck up in the ground, straight as straight as could be and quivering like a jews-harp, the Toyman said,--