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We showed the one-eyed beetle and the four-leaved clover, and the Garuly immediately hit the gate a ringing blow with his club, and shouted, "Beetle! beetle! beetle!" in a wonderfully sharp and squeaking voice, while the Pickaninny on top jerked a little bell rope, and sung out "Clover." Then we could see through the gate a Joblily lifting his head up out of a pond, inside the enclosure.
"Now fetch three blades of dry grass from the lining of the kingfisher's nest," he said; and immediately two others were gone. When the four returned, the leader dropped the grains of sand in Larkin's eyes, saying, "Three grains of silver sand, From the Joblily's hand! Where shall the Joblily lie, When the young owl learns to fly?"
While we were examining these, a Garuly came in to say that the she-bear had brought the soap, and that the barber was waiting. The Great Panjandrum, in a state of flustration, hurried past us, and we, not knowing what else to do, stood looking at each other. Just then a Joblily went by with a cabbage leaf. "What is that?" asked one of the little girls of our party.
"You have an easy time of it, no doubt," said Larkin, to one of these fish. "Easy time of it, indeed! I have rather a happy time of it, because I have plenty to do; but you are a strange Joblily if you do not know that I have anything but an easy time of it.
And then the whole party set up such a cry of "tu-whoo! tu-whoo!" that Larkin was frightened beyond measure; and they caught him and rolled him over rapidly, until he found himself falling with a great splash into the water. On rising to the surface, he saw that he was changed into a Joblily himself. Then the whole party broke out singing,
Together they took them into the house, and a Joblily came out in a moment to tell us that the Great Panjandrum was having his little round button-at-the-top brushed up, and that if we chose we could wait for him in the museum. The museum was a queer place. It was just inside the seventy-seventh gable of the house. There was an old Garuly who acted as showman.
"Ah! you little mink," I said, "how did you get hold of my secret?" "Why, I knew it all the time." Now, you see, the case was this; I did not know that the children understood where the names of the Garuly and the Joblily, and the Pickaninny came from.
I was just going to inquire of him which was the true version of that story, whether the wolf really ate Little Red Ridinghood up, or whether she ate the wolf; but before I got a chance, a Joblily came in to say that the Great Panjandrum himself was coming, and soon the queerest little, old, round, fat man came in, puffing like a porpoise, and rolling from side to side as he walked.
Immediately the Joblilies leaped into the air, and the whole hundred of them dashed into the water like so many bull-frogs, crying, as they came down, "What will the Joblily do, When the great owl cries tu-whoo?" Larkin looked around suddenly to see whither they had gone, but could discover no trace of them.
Poor Larkin was used to being laughed at, but it was provoking to be laughed at by these queer-looking folk, sitting on the lilies in the water. Soon he saw that there were nearly a hundred of them gathered. "Come on, Joblilies!" cried one of them, who carried a long fish-bone, and seemed to be leader; "let's make a Joblily of him." Upon that the whole swarm of them came ashore.
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