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Now the warped and twisted tongue began to chant past-participially: “I done! I done!! I done!!!”

“‘Elp!” implored the King’s English, fairly wan. “Friends, this—this fellow ‘as treated me houtrageously for—for yaaws!”

“Oh, worser and worser and worser,” pursued Thomas, changing suddenly to adverbs.

“Rawly now—!” The King’s English tottered to his knees.

“I did,” prompted Gwendolyn, eager to help him.

“I did,” repeated the King’s English—but the polished tongue slipped from his grasp!

“I seen!” followed up Thomas. “I sung!” Crack! Crack!

It was the last fatal onslaught.

The scarlet-coated figure fell forward. Yet bravely he strove again to give tongue-lash for tongue-lash—by reaching out one palsied hand toward his weapon.

“I—I—s-a-w!” he muttered; “I s-s-s-ing!”—And expired, with his last breath gasping good grammar.

Instantly Thomas leaped the prostrate figure and strode to the Gate. He was breathing hard, but looking about him boldly. “Now I come through,” he boasted.

“O-o-o!” It was Gwendolyn’s cry. “Officer, don’t let him! Don’t!“

In answer to her appeal, the Policeman seized Thomas by a lower ear and shoved him against a gate-post. “You’ve committed murder!” he cried. “And I arrest you!”

“Tongue-tie him!” shouted the little old gentleman, springing to jerk Thomas’s weapon out of his hand, and to snatch up the nicked and splintered weapon of the vanquished soldier.

Under the great blazing sign of the Zoo entrance the capture was accomplished. And in a moment, from his feet to his very ears, Thomas was wrapped, arms tight against sides, in the scarlet toils of the tongues.

“So!” exclaimed the little old gentleman as he tied a last knot. “Thomas’ll never bother my little girl again.” And taking Gwendolyn by the hand, he led her away.

It was not until she had gone some distance that she turned to take a last look back. And saw, there beside the wide Gate, a rubber-plant, its long leaves waving gently. It was Thomas, bound securely, and abandoned.

Yet she did not pity him. He had murdered the King’s English, and he deserved his punishment. Furthermore, he looked so green, so cool, so ornamental!

CHAPTER XIII

So far, the Piper had seemed to be no one’s friend—unless, perhaps, his own. He had lagged along, surly or boisterous by turns, and careless of his manners; not even showing respect to the Man-Who-Makes-Faces and the Policeman! But now Gwendolyn remarked a change in him. For as he spoke to her, he took his pipe out of his mouth—under the pretext of cleaning it.

“Say!” he began in a cautious undertone: “I’ll give you some advice about Jane.”

Gwendolyn was looking about her at the Zoo. Its roofs seemed countless. They touched, having no streets between them anywhere, and reached as far as she could see. They were all heights, all shapes, all varieties—some being level, others coming to a point at one corner, a few ending in a tower. One tower, on the outer-most edge of the Zoo, was square, and tapered.

“Jane?” she said indifferently. “Oh, she’s only a top.”

“Only a top!” It was the little old gentleman. “Why, that makes her all the more dangerous!”

“Because she’s spinning so fast”—the Policeman balanced on one arm while he shook an emphatic finger—”that she’ll stir up trouble!”

“Well, then, what shall I do?” asked Gwendolyn. For, elated over seeing Thomas disposed of so completely—and yet with so much mercy—she was impatient at hearing that she still had reason to fear the nurse.

The Piper took his time about replying. He sharpened one end of a match, thrust the bit of pine into the stem of his pipe, jabbed away industriously, threw away the match, blew through the stem once or twice, and turned the bowl upside down to make it plop, plop against a palm. Then, “Keep Jane laughin’,” he counseled, “—and see what happens.”

Jane was alongside, spinning comfortably on her shoe-leather point. Now, as if she had overheard, or guessed a plot, sudden uneasiness showed on both her countenances, and she increased her speed.

“You done up Thomas, the lot of you,” she charged, as she whirled away. “But you don’t git me.”

“And we won’t,” declared Gwendolyn, “if we don’t hurry up and trip her.”

“A good idear!” chimed in the Piper.

“If we only had some string!” cried the little old gentleman.

“String won’t do,” said the Policeman. “We need rope.”

There was a high wind sweeping the roofs. And as the three began to run about, searching, it fluttered the Policeman’s coat-tails, swelled out the Piper’s cap, and tugged at the ragged garb of the Man-Who-Makes-Faces.