"That little duck there."
"Like you!" Jehosophat shouted. "Why he doesn't look like you at all!"
The Toyman puffed away on his corncob pipe before he answered:
"Oh inside he's the same. I was just like him when I was a kid. I had a step-mother, too, and she and all the step-uncles and aunts scolded and scolded, and whipped me besides, because I wanted to go to sea on a great big ship."
"What did you do?"
They didn't really need to ask that question, for hadn't the Toyman been most everywhere, and hadn't he told them many a story about the great sea and the ships?
"Yes, they all said I would drown or become a wicked bad man."
Marmaduke thought he would like to do something to those step-uncles and aunts who treated the Toyman so badly.
"They don't know what they're talking about," he shouted. "You're good as anybody in the world."
"Thank you, little feller," replied the Toyman, patting his head. "But they said I would, just the same. They talked just like those old Wyandottes there.