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“Well, me, I never ‘ad time to, not exactly. But me uncle, Uncle ‘Ennery Bundock, now there’s a man, Terry, that’s after your own ’eart. Adventures? Why, Uncle ‘Ennery ‘as ‘ad more adventures than the Prince of Wales! ‘E was a cabin boy, ‘e was! Why, one time ‘e was out in the South Seas and the ship ‘e was on was wrecked, it was, it ran into a w’ale, a monstrous big w’ale, and it busted the forward keelson, and that wessel, it began to sink immejitly, oh, something shocking, and me uncle swam ashore, four miles it was, through them seas simply infected with sharks, and ‘e come ashore, only me own age, twelve, ‘e was then, but many’s the time ‘e’s told me, six foot ‘e stood in ‘is stocking feet.

“And there on shore was a fee-rocious band of nekked savages but— well, ‘e ‘ad a burning glass in ‘is clothes, and ‘e ‘eld it up, and them poor ignorant savages, they didn’t know what it was, and then ‘e acted like ‘e didn’t even see ’em, and ‘e stuck that burning glass over a pile of driftwood, and the wood caught fire, and them savages all gave one ‘orrible shriek, and they all ran away, and so that’s ‘ow ‘e got to be their king. ”

“Is he still their king?”

“‘Im? Uncle ‘Ennery? No fear! ‘E ‘ad other things to do, ‘e ‘ad, and when ‘e got tired of being king, ‘e up and made ‘isself a canoe out of a log and sailed away and—and ‘e stood for Parliament in the Sandwich Islands!”

“Tell me some more!” cried Terry.

But their ardor was interrupted by the return of the formidable Humberstone, and then Bessie whisked in with, “You can go now, Ginger. Terry! Wash your hands. Lunch. ”

“Mother! I want Ginger to come play with me every day!”

“Well, perhaps; we’ll see. Now be snappy. This afternoon we might—we might have some important visitors. Most important!”

For two days Bessie awaited a reply to her note to Queen Sidonie, but from the royal fastnesses she had no murmur.

London mildly discovered that the King of Boy Comedians was in town. A special writer from a newspaper which had been Americanized came to interview Terry on the contrasting spiritual values of baseball vs. cricket, his favorite poem, and the cooking of Brussels sprouts.

He addressed the Lads’ Brigade, and that was nothing to write about. And he received six hundred and eighteen letters from people who were willing to let him pay for their mortgages and their surgical operations.

But for most of the two days he sneaked into corners and tried to look inconspicuous while, in the living room of the suite, Bessie stalked and glared, and in his bedroom Humberstone the valet glared and stalked. Ginger was summoned to play, but Bessie so raged at their noise that the two infants made a pirates’ den behind Terry’s bed, where Ginger chronicled his uncle ‘Ennery Bundock’s adventures as steward and bartender to a celebrated arctic expedition—”‘Bring me a whisky-soda, me man,’ says Sir John Peary, and Uncle ‘Ennery brings it, and standing there Sir John drinks a toast to the North Pole, and ‘e says to me uncle, ‘‘Ennery, we’d never ‘ve discovered it but for your splendid service’”—and ‘Ennery’s astonishing experiences during the Great War when, as a British spy, he reached the Imperial Palace in Berlin and talked with the Kaiser, who, such was Uncle ‘Ennery’s cunning, took him for a Turkish ally.

If anything more than Ginger’s freckled grin had been needed to make Terry adore him, it would have been the privilege of meeting the relative of so spirited a hero as Uncle ‘Ennery Bundock.

With Terry in Ginger’s care, Bessie was able to give herself up whole-heartedly to worrying about failure to receive an answer from Queen Sidonie, to worrying about what Rabbit might be doing by his lone wicked self in Hollywood, and to being manicured, massaged, dress-fitted, hat-fitted, and generally enjoying herself. On the afternoon of the second day, she fretted only a little when Terry, with Ginger, seemed to be missing. But when they had been missing for two hours, she realized with sudden horror that Terry was lost in the wilds.