ave
peculiar ideas of his own, shouted out "Philopene!" as he caught sight
of her, and then laughed uproariously as if this were the finest joke in
the world; but Dorothy, very properly, took not the slightest notice of
his remark.

"How did you ever get into _this_ scrape?" said she, addressing the
Admiral as the head of the family.

"It was easy enough to get into," said the Admiral, peevishly; "we just
fell into it through the hole in the top. But there wasn't any scrape
about it until we tried to get out again. _Then_ we got scraped like
anything."

"Needles was nothing to it," added Sir Walter, solemnly.

"Nor cats," put in the Highlander.

"I'm very sorry," said Dorothy, compassionately; "and are you really
going to be made into a pie?"

"Oh, dear, no!" said the Admiral. "We got excused."

"Excused?" exclaimed Dorothy, very much surprised.

"Well, it was something like that," said Sir Walter, confusedly. "You
see, Bob Scarlet didn't exactly like to come in here after us--"

"Unconquerabubble awersion to cages," explained the Admiral.

"And so he goes off after hooks to pull us out with," continued Sir
Walter--

"And we inwents this way of going about, and comes away!" added the
Admiral triumphantly.

"And where are you going now?" said Dorothy; for by this time they were
running so fast that she could hardly keep up with them.

[Illustration: "BY THIS TIME THEY WERE RUNNING SO FAST THAT SHE COULD
HARDLY KEEP UP WITH THEM."]

"We're going to the Ferry," said the Admiral, "and these pelicans are
showing us the way"; and as he said this the whole party hurried through
a little archway and came out at the waterside.

An old stage-coach without any wheels was floating close up against the
river-bank, and quite a little party of the dancing animals was
crowding aboard of it, pushing and shoving one another, and all talking
in the most excited manner; and as Dorothy found herself next to her old
friend the Sheep, in the crowd, she inquired anxiously, "Where are you
all going?"

"We don't know exactly," said the Sheep, "but we've all taken tickets to
different places so as to be sure of getting _somewhere_"; and with this
remark the Sheep disappeared in the crowd, leaving Dorothy very much
bewildered.

By this time the Caravan had, by great exertions, climbed up on top of
the coach and were sitting there in the cage, as if it had been a sort
of cupola for purposes of observation; and, indeed, the Ad