f you could hear them," says he. "Anastasia is just
as enthusiastic."

"You ain't gettin' jealous, are you?" says I.

Purdy unreefs the sickliest kind of a grin you ever saw. "I was as
pleased as anyone," says he, "until I found out the whole of Aunt
Isabella's plan."

And say, it was a grand right and left that she'd framed up. Matin'
Stashy up with Valentine instead of Purdy was only part. Her idea was
to induce Vally to settle down with her, and ship Purdy off to look
after the iv'ry job.

"Only fancy!" says Purdy. "It's a place called Bombazoula! Why, you
can't even find it on the chart. I'd die if I had to live in such a
dreadful place."

"Is it too late to get busy and hand out the hot air to Stashy?" says
I. "Looks to me like it was either you for her, or Bombazoula for you."

"Don't!" says Purdy, and he shivers like I'd slipped an icicle down his
back. Honest, he was takin' it so hard I didn't have the heart to rub
it in.

"Maybe Valentine'll renig--who knows?" says I. "He may be so stuck on
Africa that she can't call him off."

"Oh, Aunt Isabella has thought of that," says he. "She is so provoked
with me that she will do everything to make him want to stay; and if I
remember Valentine, he'll be willing. Besides, who would want to live
in Africa when they could stop in New York? But I do think she might
have sent some one else after those snakes."

"Oh, yes!" says I. "I'd clean forgot about them. Where do they figure
in this?"

"Decoration," says Purdy. "In my old rooms too!"

Seems that Stashy and aunty had been reading up on Bombazoula, and
they'd got it down fine. Then they turns to and lays themselves out to
fix things up for Valentine so homelike and comfortable that, even if
he was ever so homesick for the jungle, like he wrote he was, he
wouldn't want to go any farther.

First they'd got a lot of big rubber trees and palms, and filled the
rooms full of 'em, with the floors covered with stage grass, and half a
dozen grey parrots to let loose. They'd even gone so far as to try to
hire a couple of fake Zulus from a museum to come up and sing the
moonrise song; so's Vally wouldn't be bothered about goin' to sleep
night. The snakes twinin' around the rubber trees was to add the
finishin' touch. Course, they wanted the harmless kind, that's had
their stingers cut out; but snakes of some sort they'd just got to
have, or else they knew it wouldn't seem like home to Valentine.