gs? Can
my father's astrologer have really done it at last after all these
fruitless years? He must indeed have been busy since I rode forth to
battle. Eftsoons, do I dream or wake?' He touched the strange thing
cautiously, but it did not bite, and gradually there came upon him an
exceeding desire to fly. 'By my halidom,' he cried, 'I will e'en
inquire further into this mystery--'"

Next came Fizzy, who was bent on being funny at any cost. He wrote:

"--as the man said, sticking his fork into the German sausage. 'What
ho, my merry minions, help!' he cried; 'let us draw forth the areoplane
into the home meadow, for I would fain experiment with it. A lord is no
lord unless he can daunt the swallow and the pigeon. So saying, he rang
the alarm-bell, which was only kept for fires and burglaries, and
summoned the household. 'A murrain on ye for being so pestilent slow!'
he shouted. 'Gadsooth, ye knaves! let loose the petrol, or I soar not
into the zenith.'"

Then came Mary, who naturally had no patience with nonsense. She
ignored Fizzy's contribution completely, and got back to romance:

"Meanwhile, seated in her room in the home turret sat the lovely Lady
Elfrida, the picture of woe. Why did her lord tarry? Had she not heard
him ride into the courtyard and give his palfrey to the waiting serf?
Yet where was he? He was to spring up the stairs lightly as a roebuck
of the mountains to welcome her, and now where was he? Little did she
guess--"

Here Shrimp took the paper and wrote:

"--that a brand-new monoplane was blocking up the stairs, so big that
not a roebuck on earth could jump it. But what of the secret of the
castle? Was that the secret? No. Why did the wind shriek and the
deerhound moan? If you would know this, reader, come with me down the
dungeon steps and unbar yonder dark door. For there in the dark recess
of that terrible cell lay--"

The Shrimp, even although time had not been called, was very glad to
leave off here. Robert took the paper. He read the narrative as well as
he could, and added these words:

"But I cannot bring my pen to write the word. It was a secret; indeed,
the secret of the castle. No wonder that the dog moaned and the wind
howled and the Lady Elfrida grieved."

The Snarker, who, after all, had begun the wretched game, and whose
duty it was, therefore, to pull this ruin of a story together again,
ought to have played fair; but instead he went back to what Fizzy had
called an "areopl