were delightfully mischievous and confiding; and he was covered with the most beautiful snow-white, curly hair.  But he had one drawback; and Sara discovered that when she started to pick him up.  It was a sort of little window in the exact middle of his back, with an ising-glass cover, like the slide-cover of some boxes.  The minute you touched him, this little slide drew back, and from within there escaped an odor of castor oil.  It, too, was distinctly perceptible; Sara could even smell it.  As soon as she did so, she herself drew back, and contented herself with looking admiringly at the confiding, playful little Snoodle.

As she stood watching his pretty antics she became aware that the Snimmy’s wife had stopped her work and was watching them with a grim smile.  Sara saw that she had just unscrewed the knob of the prose-bush, and was still holding the doorknob and the corkscrew in her hand.  As far as Sara could tell, the doorknob seemed as neatly hemmed as ever; so, overcome by curiosity, she asked the Snimmy’s wife what she was going to do with it.

“This is the day to unhem it,” she answered rather glumly.  “I unhem it every Pinkday, and hem it every Lilyday.  I used to hem it only oncet a month, but Avrillia said that wasn’t civilized, and whatever she says, goes.  At least,” she added, glancing up at the Plynck, who was still circling beautifully around the fountain, “she thinks so.  And as long as I live neighbor to her it’s sort-of up to me to respect her standards.”

Avrillia!  Ah, now Sara remembered!  She had meant to go straight to find Pirlaps and Avrillia!  She glanced around to see if she could find the curly little path; but she could not really start until she had asked a few questions about the darling little Snoodle.

“Is—­isn’t he lovely?” she began, aware of a vague necessity of pleasing the wife of the Snimmy, if one wanted to find out anything.  However, she was quite honest; she really did think the Snoodle was lovely—­except for his drawback.

“You think so?” answered the Snimmy’s wife, trying hard not to show how foolishly pleased she really was.  “He’s the only child we have.”

If Sara had thought a minute, she would not have asked the next question—­certainly not of so formidable a person as the Snimmy’s wife.  But she didn’t think.  She just asked, eagerly,

“Is he a—­a sort of—­dog?”

“A sort of dog?” echoed the Snimmy’s wife, in the most outraged italics.

“A—­kind of—­puppy?”

“A kind of—­puppy?” said the Snimmy’s wife, in perfectly withering small capitals.  Then she said, in the loftiest large capitals Sara had ever seen,

“His mother was A snail—­she held the world’s Record for slowness.  And his father was A pedigreed noodle.”

Sara looked at him in awe; now she understood the cap, and the prongs, and the extreme length.  But, in spite of the Snimmy’s wife’s indignant mood, she had to ask one more question.