Presently, while the whole party from the boat was gazing at him with
mingled affection and disgust, he suddenly arose, and, in a somewhat
plumdomphious manner, hurried off towards the setting sun,--his steps
supported by two superincumbent confidential Cucumbers, and a large number
of Waterwagtails proceeding in advance of him by three and three in a
row,--till he finally disappeared on the brink of the western sky in a
crystal cloud of sudorific sand.
[Illustration]
So remarkable a sight, of course, impressed the four children very deeply;
and they returned immediately to their boat with a strong sense of
undeveloped asthma and a great appetite.
Shortly after this, the travellers were obliged to sail directly below some
high overhanging rocks, from the top of one of which a particularly odious
little boy, dressed in rose-colored knickerbockers, and with a pewter plate
upon his head, threw an enormous pumpkin at the boat, by which it was
instantly upset.
[Illustration]
But this upsetting was of no consequence, because all the party knew how to
swim very well: and, in fact, they preferred swimming about till after the
moon rose; when, the water growing chilly, they sponge-taneously entered
the boat. Meanwhile the Quangle-Wangle threw back the pumpkin with immense
force, so that it hit the rocks where the malicious little boy in
rose-colored knickerbockers was sitting; when, being quite full of
lucifer-matches, the pumpkin exploded surreptitiously into a thousand bits;
whereon the rocks instantly took fire, and the odious little boy became
unpleasantly hotter and hotter and hotter, till his knickerbockers were
turned quite green, and his nose was burnt off.
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