rain and I'd take my beaver-skin hood. Wouldn't Mummy be surprised!'
Tegumai got up and danced. (Daddies didn't mind doing those things in those days.) 'More than that! More than that!' he said. 'S'pose I wanted to tell you it wasn't going to rain much and you must come down to the river, what would we draw? Say the words in Tegumai-talk first.'
'Shu-ya-las, ya maru. (Sky-water ending. River come to.) What a lot of new sounds! I don't see how we can draw them.'
'But I do—but I do!' said Tegumai. 'Just attend a minute, Taffy, and we won't do any more to-day. We've got shu-ya all right, haven't we? but this las is a teaser. La-la-la!' and he waved his shark-tooth.
'There's the hissy-snake at the end and the carp-mouth before the snake—as-as-as. We only want la-la' said Taffy.
'I know it, but we have to make la la. And we're the first people in all the world who've ever tried to do it, Taffimai!'
'Well,' said Taffy, yawning, for she was rather tired. 'Las means breaking or finishing as well as ending, doesn't it?'
