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"I would not want to be up in that bleak North Pole Land, unless I were with Santa Claus, and of course one cannot stay long in his workshop. I think I shall have much more fun here. There is so much light and happiness." It was nearly midnight when Mr. Mugg and his daughters finished unpacking the toys. All about the floor wrapping paper and the covers of boxes were scattered.
He had been the prey of all sorts of swindlers, adventurers, visionaries and even lunatics. Wrapping himself up in deep and imbecile secrecy he had gone in for the most fantastic schemes: a harbour and docks on the coast of Patagonia, quarries in Labrador such like speculations. Fisheries to feed a canning Factory on the banks of the Amazon was one of them.
Day was about to break, so I crouched down among the heather upon the top of one of those small hills which abound in that country, with the intention of hiding myself until nightfall. It was no new thing for me to sleep in the wind and the rain, so, wrapping myself up in my thick warm cloak, I soon sank into a doze. But it was not a refreshing slumber.
There was no difficulty for Clerambault, he shone in these eloquent contests. For he had the fatal gift of verbal and rhythmical facility which separates poets from reality, wrapping them as if in a spider's web. In times of peace this harmless web hung on the bushes, the wind blowing through it, and the good-natured Arachne caught nothing but light in her meshes.
At length, while the injured wing was still in bandage, the hunter took the bird in spite of all protest, tucked the long neck and troublesome head under his arm, and attached to one leg a little leather wrapping and a long, strong cord. Then he opened the pen. The big gander strode forth with more haste than quite comported with his dignity.
Elspeth conveyed the gift to Tommy in a brown paper wrapping, and when it lay revealed as an aging volume of Mamma's Boy, a magazine for the Home, nothing could have looked more harmless. But, ah, you never know. Hungrily Tommy ran his eye through the bill of fare for something choice to begin with, and he found it. "The Boy Pirate" it was called.
In the inmost chambers of intricate and embowered houses it woke like a domestic explosion, littering the floor with some professor's papers till they seemed as precious as fugitive, or blowing out the candle by which a boy read "Treasure Island" and wrapping him in roaring dark. But everywhere it bore drama into undramatic lives, and carried the trump of crisis across the world.
No marks of violence were to be seen upon the body; there was nothing to indicate that it had been intentionally killed; it had been drowned by misadventure at birth, that was all. The most natural explanation in the world. His learned colleague had made some mention of a cloth or wrapping, considering it something of a mystery why she should have taken half a shirt with her that day.
It was well-nigh more appalling, more terrible than the sound; for though we spoke thus, we did not believe the place was empty. Those whom we approached seemed to be wrapping themselves in silence, invisible, waiting to speak with some awful purpose when their time came.
"But she's a very accomplished imp. I'll tell you the joke afterwards, not now! Lispeth little knows where her string comes from, and she's wrapping up that parcel so placidly! Isn't the Snark looking quite pretty this afternoon? Never saw her with such a color! Well, if you're ready, Queenie, we'll go over to the hostel and get my things. We can just catch the four o'clock train, if we're quick.
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