The little fellow had found a box of jointed wooden animals and people. He was twisting the legs and arms and paws and wings into all manner of shapes, and then standing up the funny wry shapes, and laughing in high glee.
Allan noticed how quietly they all spoke and moved. Even when they laughed heartily, or called out, they did not make any loud noise. He wondered if it was being pictures so long had made them so still.
Presently Jessie took her lacquered box, full of small treasures, from the table to the sofa, where the two girls cozily seated themselves. All of the simple, pretty things seemed equally new and curious to the little stranger. Jessie tried to have the Princess Mary keep a few trifles which she seemed most to admire, but in vain; she only drew up her small quaint figure, and said, quietly, "A Princess may not accept gifts." Somehow, although she smiled graciously, this little speech troubled Jessie, who feared she had been rude, although she did not in the least know how.
Duke Jamie had in the mean time wearied of his wooden people, and went wandering about in his baby fashion, but never for a moment dropping Ning-Ping. Just then he spied his brother careering around on the velocipede, having learned from Allan how to manage it. Of course Jamie cried for a ride, and fortunately got it. While the Prince was whirling round, Allan had wound up his engine with the long train of passenger coaches, and sent it spinning across the floor in front of the fire. In a twinkling Prince Charlie jumped down to see the new wonder. The Princess at once lifted Jamie astride of the strange steed, and with one arm about him, walked in a motherly way by his side, pushing the curious vehicle.
"What is this long carriage?" asked young Royalty.
"Only a steam-engine and train of cars," was the reply.
"But where is the steam?" said the Prince.
"Oh, there is none here; this goes by wheels, like a clock; but the real cars that we travel on run by steam."
The long train began to creep slowly, and the wheels whirred and buzzed a little in running down. Allan handed the key to his guest, and Prince Charlie wound it up with a zest, and watched it awhile; then he turned to Allan with, "I say, how do they run by steam?"
"Why, the steam is made by the fire under the engine boiler, like a big tea-kettle," explained Allan, carefully, and feeling like a professor; "this turns the engine wheels somehow, and the cars being all fast to it, they go like lightning almost."