"Tar and tobaccy jack! What are you tellin' me?" Roger almost toppled off the sea chest. "Do you mean to sit there like a dumb image and tell me you've never had any fun? Never felt so bursting full of ginger and happiness you could sing or do a sailor's horn pipe?"
"It is not seemly—" began the boy in a staid voice. "It is—"
"Seemly! Great goosefeathers, are you alive or aren't you?" gasped Roger. "What in paint did you do in that cussed country of yours before you got carried off and penned up like a pig in the jungle?"
Considering Roger's question, Tandy clasped and unclasped his hands nervously. "Well, you must know," he began in a very grown-up voice, "the King of Ozamaland is not allowed to mingle with the common people. In all things he is alone and set apart. So it was with my father and mother before they disappeared. So it is with me. Furthermore, it being prophesied that I would be carried off by an aunt in the middle years of my youth, it was deemed expedient and necessary to keep me locked away from danger in the White Tower of the Wise Men."
"Hurumph!" grunted the Read Bird, who had not heard so many long words since the voyage began. "And what did you do in this precious tower?"
"I studied," sighed Tandy, reclining wearily back on his pillows, "for there are many things a King must learn. But one hour of every evening I was permitted to walk about the garden on top of the tower and look down upon my Kingdom. On very great occasions I was allowed to come out and ride the white elephant in the grand processions of state."
"Humph!" grunted Roger again, looking at Tandy with round dismayed eyes. "And with whom did you play?" he asked after a little silence.
"Play?" Again Tandy's voice was politely inquiring.
