Page:Ballinger Price--Us and the Bottle Man.djvu/170

Rh splendid it would be when he was our own uncle, and I laughed when I remembered how we'd imagined that he was an ancient old gentleman. The wind began to rise outside. I could hear it whisking around and bumping in the chimney, and I thought how glad I was—oh, how glad, glad I was—that we were all at home, and I listened hard to the 'cello and tried not to remember the horrible old Sea Monster.

Mother slipped in and sat down beside me, and when the music ended, she said:

"Greg wants to see the 'Bottle Man'."

We asked if we might come, too, because we had n't seen Greg since they carried him up to the house, all bloody and rumpled and dirty. So we all went up, and Mother tip-toed in first with the lamp. He looked almost quite like himself, with clean pajamas and his hair brushed and all the frightened, hurt look gone out of his face. 152