CHAPTER XXVIII
THE OLD TOBACCO SHOP
The next morning, when Freddie awoke, his mother and father were standing over his bed.
"I think he had better not go there anymore," his father was saying.
"Oh, I don't think it will do him any harm now," said his mother.
"It all comes of his staying away so long," said his father. "I always told him to hurry back, and just see how long he stayed this time. If he can't come back in less than six months or six years or heaven knows how long, he'd better not go at all."
"Oh," said his mother, "I'm sure he'll come back promptly after this."
"I couldn't," said Freddie. "It took such a long time to get to the Island, and there was all the trouble with the pirates, and it was a terrible long journey before we got to the palace, and of course we couldn't run away from the queen after we'd gone all that long way with her, and the queen's children didn't want me to go anyway, and there wasn't any way to get back, except for finding out how to get to the top of the tower, and maybe I wouldn't have got back at all if I hadn't met the Old Man of the Mountain, and got sick and cured again by Mr. Punch's father, and I might have got drowned when the ship disappeared, or I might have had my head cut off by the pirates, and then you wouldn't have seen me any more, and you'd have been sorry."