Page:The Enchanted Castle.djvu/130

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126
THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

"'Where the lips of Johnson smile,
 There's the land of Cherry Isle.
 Other fish, other fish,
 Fish I fry.
 Stately Johnson, come and buy!'"


"How can you," asked Kathleen, "be so aggravating?"

"I don't know," said Gerald, returning to prose. "Want of sleep or intoxication—of success, I mean. Come where no one can hear us.


"Oh, come to some island where no one can hear,
 And beware of the keyhole that's glued to an ear,"


he whispered, opened the door suddenly, and there, sure enough, was Eliza, stooping without. She flicked feebly at the wainscot with a duster, but concealment was vain.

"You know what listeners never hear," said Jimmy severely.

"I didn't, then—so there!" said Eliza, whose listening ears were crimson. So they passed out, and up the High Street, to sit on the churchyard wall and dangle their legs. And all the way Gerald's lips were shut into a thin, obstinate line.

"Now," said Kathleen. "Oh, Jerry, don't be a goat! I'm simply dying to hear what happened."

"That's better," said Gerald, and he told his story. As he told it some of the white mystery and magic of the moonlit gardens got into his voice and his words, so that when he told of the