apple which showed above
the white necktie. She was trying to puzzle out the connection between
Mr O'Shaughnessy's throat and the Pied Piper, but the difficulty was
too great. She heaved a sigh, and hazarded another suggestion.

"You tell _me_ a story!"

"That would never do. I should be entertaining you, and it ought to be
the other way about."

"I'll tell you a story!"

"That's better. Go ahead, then. What is it to be about? Fairies?"

"No, it's not going to be about fairies,--fairies is silly. Giants are
more sensibler than fairies, because there was a giant once. There was
Golosher!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Golosher!"

"Don't know the gentleman."

"Oh, you naughty! And David killed him in the Bible. I'll tell you a
story about giants."

"I don't think I am interested in giants."

"Princesses, then, beautiful princesses, and cruel people trying to be
unkind to them, and princes running away and marrying them, and living
happily ever afterwards."

"That's the style for my money! Fire away, and let us have plenty of
adventure. I'll lean back in this chair and listen to you."

Viva moistened her lips, swallowed rapidly once or twice, and began her
story in a shrill, high-pitched voice.

"Once upon a long, long time ago, there was a princess, and she was the
most beautiful princess that was ever born. Everyone said so, and her
face was as white as snow, and her hair as yellow as--"

"Excuse me--brown!"

"No, it wasn't brown. Bright, curly, golden, down to her--"

"Then she couldn't have been the most beautiful princess in the world,
because I've seen the lady and her hair is brown."

Jack stroked his moustache with a look of lamb-like innocence, and
Sylvia could have shaken herself with annoyance because she could not
help blushing and looking stupid and self-conscious. Pixie's melodious
gurgle sounded from the background, and Viva cried severely--

"You couldn't have seen her, because she lived hundreds and hundreds of
years ago, when you were a teeny baby. Golden hair down to her feet,
and her teef were like pearls, and all the godfathers and godmuzzers
came to the christening and gave her nice presinks, only one wicked old
mugian who--"

"Pardon me! One wicked old--?"

"Mugian! He's a man what does things. They always have them in
stories--that the mamma had forgotten to ask, so he was angry and said
she should tumble downstairs when she was grown-up and be lame ever
aft