"What junction?" inquired his nephew.
"Why!" exclaimed Uncle Jack. "The junction? You don't know? It is at the corner where the Congo River crosses the Ganges. It is very near the point where the Ural Mountains pour down into the Red Sea."
Ned was not entirely caught and mystified, this time, for he promptly replied: "Oh, I know where that is! I've been to Grammar School Sixty-eight. I know! It's down near the custom house."
"I declare!" said his uncle. "Boys know too much, anyhow, nowadays. You would learn a great deal more, though, if you'd take an army and a steamer, and go and conquer England. Your mother has dozens of cousins there, too. But you had better buy return excursion tickets before you start. That's what I did, and it helped me to get back home. Let's go to dinner."
"It's about dinner-time," said Ned; and his uncle talked along as they went.
"I like the English for one thing," he said. "They cook good dinners. I hate 'em for another thing, though: if you go to an English dinner-party, you have to wait till the last man gets there before they will give you anything to eat. I conquered them a little on that, anyhow, for I always went two hours late, myself. So I generally had to wait only about half an hour or so."
Ned studied that matter until he thought he understood it. Afterward, however, he was glad to be an American, when his own dinner came to the table exactly on time. So did he and his uncle.
A long walk, and sightseeing, combined with plans for the conquest of England, will surely prepare a healthy sixteen-year-old boy for his dinner, especially if he is somewhat tall for his age and burly in build. Ned was not quite prepared, nevertheless, for some things which were coming upon him. He could not have expected, reasonably, that his entire family would set him up for a mark and shoot at him. That is what they did, and they fired at him from all around the table, hitting him.
"Ned," began Uncle Jack, "I heard you! Where on earth did you learn to speak Norwegian? Not at the grammar school."
"Why," said Ned, "I got it from old Erica. She has been in the house since before I was born. She began with me when I was doing my first words of any kind."