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Nearby a kite flew high in the air, its string tied to a tea-bush. Choo Choo Choo’s servant hauled in the kite and the twine, and one by one the soldiers strung all those pennies, those pennies with holes in them, on the twine, like beads on a string.

When they had finished, the string of pennies looked like a great shiny bronze snake coiling back in the road for almost a mile.

By this time the great robber chief Choo Choo Choo had begun to notice Marmaduke.

“Come here!” he commanded, crooking a fingernail. It was funny how Ping Pong, Sing Song, and Ah See, who were quite honest, spoke broken or Pigeon English, while Choo Choo Choo talked correctly and very politely. Robbers, and burglars too, frequently do that. So you can’t always tell a man by his fine language.

Marmaduke obeyed. He drew near the palanquin and waited, his heart banging against his ribs.

“What are you doing here?” asked Choo Choo Choo.

“I want to see China.”

“Oh you do, do you!” said the robber chief, “and why, pray, do you want to see China?”

“I wanted to see if the people stood upside down on the other side of the world,” explained Marmaduke, hoping that this explanation would please Choo Choo Choo.

“So,” said he very sarcastically, “that’s silly–immeasurably silly, I call it. Look out or you’ll go back without a head yourself. But first tell me,–have you any ancestors, honorable ancestors?”

“What are ancestors, honorable ancestors, sir?” Marmaduke inquired. He thought that if he said “sir”–very politely–it might help matters a bit.

“Oh, people in your family who lived long before you, and who have long beards and are very honest,” returned the robber chief.

Marmaduke thought it was odd, his mentioning that honorable ancestors must be honest, when he was a robber himself, but anyway he was relieved as he thought of “Greatgrandpa Boggs.”

“Yes,” he told Choo Choo Choo, “if that’s what it is, I have an honorable ancestor–Greatgrandpa Boggs. He was very old before he died. He was so old his voice sounded like a tiny baby’s, and he had a beard–a long and white one–that nearly reached to the bottom button of his vest, and he must have been honest, ’cause Mother said he might have been rich if he hadn’t been so honest.”

“But wait a minute,” roared Choo Choo Choo, “did he have fingernails as long as mine?”

“No,” replied Marmaduke, “they were short like these,” and he showed him his own hands.

“Pss-ss-iss-sst!” said Choo Choo Choo in disgust, “he couldn’t have been so very honorable then. I guess we’d better behead you without any more argument.”

He looked around at the sky and so did Marmaduke. It was very pretty and blue, and the road looked very white and inviting, the tea-bushes very lovely and green.

“It’s just the right weather for beheading,” remarked Choo Choo Choo, “soldiers, are your swords very sharp?” and he patted the snake made of pennies that curved up the white road.

Marmaduke was certainly in danger now, but he kept his head so as not to lose it. And he found an idea in it.

The idea was this:–

Before he had left the Coal-Giant in the Pit in the centre of the earth, the Giant had told him, if he ever needed an earthquake to help him out, to call on him. All Marmaduke was to do was to tap on the earth three times with his right foot, three times with his left, and three times more, standing on his head. Then he was to run away. The Giant had promised to allow five minutes so that Marmaduke and his friends could get to safety.

So this Marmaduke did, just as he had been told. He tapped on the ground three times with his right foot, three times with his left, and three times more, standing on his head, and all under Choo Choo Choo’s very nose, for, of course, that was the very place where Marmaduke wanted the earthquake to come.