"What is 'weconciled'?" asked Toady Lion, who must always ask something on principle.
"Oh, never mind now," whispered Prissy hastily; "keep your eyes on the top crack of the door and open your mouth wide."
"Don't know no more!" said Toady Lion obstinately.
"Oh yes, you do," said Prissy, almost in tears; "go on. Sing La-La, if you don't, and we'll soon be at the chorus, and you know that anyway!"
Then the voice of Prissy escaped, soaring aloft in the early gloom, and if any human music can, reaching the Seventh Sphere itself, where, amid the harmonies of the universe, the Eternal Ear hearkens for the note of sinful human praise.
The sweet shrill pipe of Toady Lion accompanied her like a heavenly lute of infinite sweetness. It was at this point that Janet made off in the direction of the paraffin barrel.
"Joyful all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies:
Universal nature, say,
'Christ the Lord is risen to-day!'"
The door opened, and the head of Hugh John appeared, his hair all on end and his pyjama jacket open at the neck. He was hitching up the other division of the suit with one hand.
"'Tain't Christmas, what's the horrid row? Shut it!" growled he sleepily. Prissy made him the impatient sign of silence so well understood of children, and which means that the proceedings are not to be interrupted.
"Your birthday, silly!" she said; "chorus now!" And Hugh John himself, who knew the value of discipline, lined up and opened his mouth in the loud rejoicing refrain:—