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un to laugh, "if you wished to make matters unpleasant for us, why did you send us the box which contained everything we wanted?" "A box?" answered William W. Kolderup. "What box? I never sent you a box! Perhaps by chance--" And as he said so he looked towards Phina, who cast down her eyes and turned away her head. "Oh! indeed!--a box! but then Phina must have had an accomplice--" And Uncle Will turned towards Captain Turcott, who laughingly answered,-- "What could I do, Mr. Kolderup? I can sometimes resist you--but Miss Phina--it was too difficult! And four months ago, when you sent me to look round the island, I landed the box from my boat--" "Dearest Phina!" said Godfrey, seizing the young lady's hand. "Turcott, you promised to keep the secret!" said Phina with a blush. And Uncle William W. Kolderup, shaking his big head, tried in vain to hide that he was touched. But if Godfrey could not restrain his smiles as he listened to the explanations of Uncle Will, Professor Tartlet did not laugh in the least! He was excessively mortified at what he heard! To have been the object of such a mystification, he, a professor of dancing and deportment! And so advancing with much dignity he observed,-- "Mr. William Kolderup will hardly assert, I imagine, that the enormous crocodile, of which I was nearly the unhappy victim, was made of pasteboard and wound up with a spring?" "A crocodile?" replied the uncle. "Yes, Mr. Kolderup," said Carefinotu, to whom we had better return his proper name of Jup Brass. "Yes, a real live crocodile, which went for Mr. Tartlet, and which I did not have in my collection!" Godfrey then related what had happened, the sudden appearance of the wild beasts in such numbers, real lions, real tigers, real panthers, and then the invasion of the snakes, of which during four months they had not seen a single specimen in the island! William W. Kolderup at this was quite disconcerted. He knew nothing about it. Spencer Island--it had been known for a long time--never had any wild beasts, did not possess even a single noxious animal; it was so stated in the deeds of sale. Neither did he understand what Godfrey told him of the attempts he had made to discover the origin of the smoke which had appeared at different points on the island. And he seemed very much troubled to find that all had not passed on the island according to his instructions, and that the programme had been seriousl
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