t to offer you. Perhaps you'd like a lollipop,
and perhaps you have friends who would like lollipops, too?"

"Lollipops!" said the crocodile. "Why, that is a treat! How about it,
boys?"

A whole chorus of voices shouted, "Hurrah! Lollipops!" and my father
counted as many as seventeen crocodiles with their heads just peeping
out of the water.

"That's fine," said my father as he got out the two dozen pink
lollipops and the rubber bands. "I'll stick one here in the bank.
Lollipops last longer if you keep them out of the water, you know.
Now, one of you can have this one."

The crocodile who had first spoken swam up and tasted it. "Delicious,
mighty delicious!" he said.

"Now if you don't mind," said my father, "I'll just walk along your
back and fasten another lollipop to the tip of your tail with a
rubber band. You don't mind, do you?"

[Illustration]

"Oh no, not in the least," said the crocodile.

"Can you get your tail out of the water just a bit?" asked my father.

"Yes, of course," said the crocodile, and he lifted up his tail. Then
my father ran along his back and fastened another lollipop with a
rubber band.

"Who's next?" said my father, and a second crocodile swam up and began
sucking on that lollipop.

"Now, you gentlemen can save a lot of time if you just line up across
the river," said my father, "and I'll be along to give you each a
lollipop."

So the crocodiles lined up right across the river with their tails in
the air, waiting for my father to fasten on the rest of the lollipops.
The tail of the seventeenth crocodile just reached the other bank.

_Chapter Ten_

MY FATHER FINDS THE DRAGON

When my father was crossing the back of the fifteenth crocodile with
two more lollipops to go, the noise of the monkeys suddenly stopped,
and he could hear a much bigger noise getting louder every second.
Then he could hear seven furious tigers and one raging rhinoceros and
two seething lions and one ranting gorilla along with countless
screeching monkeys, led by two extremely irate wild boars, all
yelling, "It's a trick! It's a trick! There's an invasion and it must
be after our dragon. Kill it! Kill it!" The whole crowd stampeded down
to the bank.

As my father was fixing the seventeenth lollipop for the last
crocodile he heard a wild boar scream, "Look, it came this way! It's
over there now, see! The crocodiles made a bridge for it," and just as
my father leapt onto the other bank one of