"I haven't decided," replied Sally thoughtfully. "I'll be deciding while I go up." She turned and began to climb the tree, skillfully. She had got no farther than the lower branches when she stopped. "Oh, I'll tell you, Charlie," she cried. "It's just the thing. I'll be father's little lizard."
"What lizard?" Charlie demanded.
"Father's little lizard, that he's got the skeleton of, up in his room."
"Isn't any little lizard," Charlie returned, very positively. "That's a croc."
"It is, too, a lizard, Charlie. Father said so."
"Lizards are little weenty things," Charlie objected. "'Sides, they don't live in trees."
Sally did not feel sure on this point, so she evaded it.
"That little lizard lived millions of years ago." What were a few million years, more or less, to her? "And father said that it could fly like a bat. It used to fly right up into the coal trees and—and eat the coal that grew on them." Sally was giggling at the recollection. "Now, this is a coal tree and I'm that little lizard, and this is millions of years ago."
Charlie had been paralyzed into momentary silence by the information poured into him so rapidly. The silence was but momentary, but Sally took advantage of it and climbed swiftly.
"Sally!"