Then Mother Dear laughed, and when Mother laughs Father always laughs, too. It really is quite funny to see Mother laugh. She is becoming just the least bit stout. Well, when Father laughed, the children jumped on him, too, and tied him to another leg of the table. Father tried to look scandalized, but you could see a laugh lurking out of the corner of his mouth.
Said he, “I consider this very undignified.”
“No,” said Walter, “it is jail. You have to give bail before you can get out.”
“And may I ask how much the bail is?” asked Father, digging his hand into his money pocket.
“It’s not that kind of a bail,” said Edward Lee. “Mother Dear, what shall the bail be?”
Mother Dear had a splendid idea. “We’ll punish Father,” she said, “by making Flip sing, and punish Flip by making Father sing.”
Father did not want to, but the children would not let him go, so he sang in an awful, awful voice:
“There once was a silly old whale
Who drowned himself in a pail.
Amongst folks it is said