“WELL, you deserved to lose,” said the Pixie when he had heard the whole story, “answering right off like that on the spur of the moment. You have to think these things over a bit. Besides, the Hub has been moving slowly westward since Holmes’ time. It’s nearer Chicago, now, I believe. But what did I tell you about old White-Hairs? Isn’t he a back number? Trying to do business in the twentieth century the way he used to do it with those princes in slashed doublets! Why doesn’t he wake up and hear the birdies sing?”
“How’s the frog?” asked Wendell anxiously.
“An awful nuisance,” responded the Pixie frankly. “I think she’s thirsty but she won’t drink.”
“Oh, they can’t drink, you know,” explained Wendell. “They take it in through the skin. That mug is too small. Here, I’ll fill the basin and put her in.{53}”
That seemed to content the frog. It sat and soaked and absorbed and goggled at Wendell, who regarded it moodily.
“If I can’t do anything more for you,” said the Pixie, “I’ll move on. Hope you guess the riddle.”
“Thanks, old fellow,” said Wendell soberly. He was very sleepy and discouraged. But the frog looked a bit cheerier.
Hardly was Wendell in bed when he dropped off to sleep, and five minutes later, blop! the frog leaped from the basin and landed on the boy’s face, all wet and soggy and cold. Wendell, half asleep, struck out in self-defense, and landed a whacking blow on the poor reptile, that sent it halfway across the room. He realized instantly what he had done, and much ashamed of himself, he turned on the light, located the panting frog, and tucked it under the down quilt at the foot of the bed. Bitterly he regretted that he had not made an appointment with the Kobold to return the creature the very next morning.
When he left for school, he hid the frog away again in his stocking, in a chiffonier drawer, but even his preoccupation with the Boston riddle did not entirely obliterate his uneasy fear that the frog might escape or be turned out of the house in his absence, and thus plunge him into some other awful rescuing problem.
He had hoped that the geography or history or literature lesson might enlighten him on the definition of Boston, and his attention to study was so strict that his teachers thought best to watch him even more closely than usual, to forestall whatever mischief must be brewing. But no ray of light came to{54} him from any of his lessons. He went home despondently, assured himself that the frog was still safe, and went out to play with cheerful Sammy Davis and the other fellows. It seemed a long while since he, too, had been a care-free, whistling boy, with no greater anxiety than being kept after school for fractions, or being chased by Sammy’s cross janitor.
He had almost forgotten his troubles when he went in to dinner, but as soon as he ascended to his room to study they all came back, for there sat the frog on his table, popping its eyes out at him most unpleasantly.
“I guess I’ll study downstairs,” he thought. “I’ll have the library to myself to-night. Mother and Father have gone to the Symphony, and I guess Cousin Virginia’s out somewhere.”
He settled down comfortably in the library, and was getting on famously with his lessons when the bell rang and a masculine voice asked for his Cousin Virginia. She came down presently and a lively conversation began in the front room just out of sight but not out of sound of Wendell. He managed, however, to keep his mind on his work, for it was very silly talk and not at all interesting. The man was a Harvard student from New York, and they chattered on about strangers to Wendell whom they knew in common.
“Do you like Boston?” Wendell heard the man say, and Virginia’s clear and rather high-pitched voice answered,
“Of course I like Boston. I’ll put it more strongly, I thoroughly enjoy Boston. I never supposed any{55} place could be so—so historical, so absolutely, thoroughly, naively, unselfconsciously historical. Why, even little Wendell—”
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