antly objected Carry-on-Merry, "the dance is
nearly over, and the children are all going there immediately; you
would only be in the way, but," added Carry-on-Merry, with a wicked
twinkle in his eyes, "I have a much finer idea than that."

"Really?" inquired the Griffin. "Really a fine idea?"

"Ripping," responded Carry-on-Merry, as he mysteriously produced from
an inside pocket of his royal scarlet coat a big white damask dinner
napkin.

"What _can_ it be for?" simpered the Griffin; "and will it help to show
me off to advantage?" he anxiously inquired.

"Rather," said Carry-on-Merry. "Listen! Put this dinner napkin over
your face, sit in a corner and go to sleep. Now the _most_ remarkable
thing you could do in an assembly like this to attract attention, would
be to go to sleep."

The Griffin for a moment looked dubious. "Then," said Carry-on-Merry
with a still more wicked gleam in his mischievous eyes, "I will tell
every one that you are 'The Sleeping Beauty' and everybody will
immediately want to see you."

"How lovely," sighed the Griffin, "and I shall look the part and be the
part; in fact," added the Griffin, "I shall be _the_ thing of the
evening."

"_You will_," rejoined Carry-on-Merry enigmatically, "but that is not
all. When I wake you up at last, of course all the children will
laugh."

"What at?" inquired the Griffin suspiciously.

"Why, for joy at the discovery."

"Humph!" debated the Griffin, "only joy--not admiration?"

"Oh, yes," glibly replied Carry-on-Merry, "admiration, of course, and
the sheer beauty of the thing. Ha! ha! ha!"

"Yes, yes," eagerly interrupted the Griffin, "sheer beauty sounds
better, sounds more like me."

"Of course it does," laughed Carry-on-Merry. "Then perhaps I shall ask
you to sing."

"Oh! Carry-on-Merry," faltered the Griffin in a broken voice, "you
have touched my heart--that is the very thing I was waiting for
somebody to ask me to do. To sing," rhapsodised the Griffin--"to be
like one of those great singers out of the opera, to pour out one's
heart tones, to be gazed at by every eye, to be listened to by every
ear, to be the adored of all. How can I thank you? How can I repay
you?"

"Don't, please," implored Carry-on-Merry, who appeared to be choking
inwardly, "don't thank me any more now, I can't bear it--some other
time."

"Yet stay," cried the Griffin, with unexpected and dramatic suddenness,
"who is going to kiss me?"

"Kiss you?" ech