"No?" said the Dodo, innocently. "I thought it was a kind of piano. I was singing to you, you know."

"Oh! were you?" remarked the gentleman. "Well, don't do it again, please. I can see you won't do for us as typewriter," he added; "but perhaps I can get you a good situation at the Zoological Gardens. What do you say to that, eh?"

The Dodo, who during the first part of the speech looked very crestfallen, brightened up considerably.

"Yes, I should think that would do," he said; "I'll just go and ask the others."

"What others?" demanded the gentleman.

And the Dodo explained about Marjorie, and d.i.c.k, and Fidge, who had been waiting in the cab all this time.

The children were at once sent for, and the whole party were shown into the private room, where Marjorie and d.i.c.k related their marvelous adventures, as well as the continual interruptions of the Dodo would permit them to do.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE DODO DEPARTS.

"It seems to me," said the gentleman, kindly, when the children had finished the story of their adventure, and had given him their names and addresses, "it seems to me that the first thing to be done is to get some suitable clothes for you."

"Oh! we never thought of that," cried Marjorie, looking down at her bare feet in dismay. "You see, there have been such a lot of strange things happening lately that we quite forgot how we all looked. Of course," she laughed, glancing at the others, "we must appear very funny indeed, dressed in this fashion."

"Ah! I fancy we can soon put that right," was the kind reply. "I have some boys and girls of my own, you know, and I think, if I send a note to my wife, she will be able to find some garments that you can wear for the time being. And the next thing is, to let your father and mother know that you are here. I expect they must be very anxious about you by this time."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Oh, Papa! Papa!' cried Marjorie."]

"Dear me!" exclaimed d.i.c.k, looking greatly troubled, "that's another thing we never thought of, Marjorie."

"I want to see my Daddy!" announced Fidge, suddenly and decidedly.

But on being a.s.sured that he should soon do so he sat down with the others, and looked through the picture books which Perkins found for them, while the gentleman sent home for the clothes, and telegraphed to their father.

In the middle of the day some luncheon was brought in for them from a neighboring restaurant, and soon afterwards the clothes arrived.

An Eton suit for d.i.c.k, the jacket of which was just a trifle short; a pretty, simple dress for Marjorie; and a sailor suit for Fidge.

When the children had donned these, after having had a good wash, they looked as different as possible; and when, a little later on, they were led into another room with the mysterious statement, "That somebody wanted to see them," they were all eagerness to know who it possibly could be.

As soon as the door opened, however, there could be no doubt as to who it was, for with a delighted cry of "Oh, Papa! Papa!" Marjorie rushed into the arms of a gentleman standing in the middle of the room, and seemed half undecided whether to cry or to laugh, while Fidge and d.i.c.k crowded around and joined in the excitement.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Dodo was moved to tears.]

The Dodo, who had come into the room at that moment, thought that he, too, ought to have a share in the welcoming, and, in grotesque imitation of Marjorie, he tried to jump up into the gentleman's arms, crying excitedly, "Oh, Papa! Papa!" just as she had done.

"Good gracious!" exclaimed the children's father, drawing back in dismay, and gazing at the clumsy bird. "What on earth is this?"

And then, when they tried to explain--all speaking at once--they made such a confusion that he was glad to put his hands to his ears, and to cry out that they must reserve the story till they reached home. And after thanking the gentleman for all his kindness, the children and their father said good-by, and went down to the carriage which was waiting at the door to drive them away.

It had been decided, despite the children's pleading, that the Dodo had better _not_ go home with them; and so, with many promises to write and invite him soon, they took an affectionate farewell of their old friend; and the last view they had of him, as he stood at the window, meekly flourishing a limp glove, showed that he was moved to tears at having to part from them. What happened to him after the children had gone I have never been able quite to find out.

It _is_ said that, later on in the day, a curious-looking bird was seen by the people in the Strand, clumsily flying away over the tops of the houses, clutching a roll of papers in one claw. And from away down in the country comes a weird story of two countrymen, walking across a field, being--to use their own description--"flabbergasted!" at seeing a great bird flying over their heads, screaming out a lot of aggravating personal remarks as he pa.s.sed, and finally dropping, from the end of one of his pinions, a soiled white kid glove, the loss of which seemed to cause him great uneasiness; but whether--as I shrewdly suspect--this was the Dodo, or not, I have never actually discovered.

The people at Suffolk House, including Perkins, maintain a most mysterious silence on the subject, and will afford me no information whatever; and the only consolation which I can find, in my endeavors to ascertain whether these things really happened or not, is the fact that, on the island of the lake at the Crystal Palace, _all the curious animals which the Amba.s.sador is said to have turned into stone, are really there_--you may see them for yourself--and I hope, when next you go to Sydenham, you will hunt them up. And if so, you will notice--what struck me as being a very conclusive proof of the truth of the narrative--that the Palaeotherium's tail really looks as if it were broken off, about four or five inches from the end; and decidedly as though he _might_ have worn a false one while he was alive.

THE END.