Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/17

 this artery of travel are a handful of native huts of bamboo-sticks, covered with leaves of the cocoanut palm, while in the environs of the burg poisonous pools of stagnant water fill the air with miasma, steaming thickly in the ninety-degree heat. Mazie Adams crept down to the baggage-deck and wept bitterly.

"Cheer up, little one,' encouraged Tiberius, soothingly. 'For every tear now shed you shall have a piece of ice to wear on those fairy fingers.'

"But as if the heavy atmosphere and sickening odors were not enough, the tin boiler in our little craft blew up near daybreak, and we were forced to go ashore in our night-clothes, where we shivered in rugs and old sails until the broiled sun relieved the situation. To our joy we found all of our stage trunks had been saved, but our every-day finery was naught.

"'Get busy,' cried Tiberius, in his merry bass. 'Unpack the trunks and slip into the calico of Act I. When we reach Guaty we'll have some nice, new linen suits. Remember, children, I'm all that ever was, multiplied by two.'

"And that's what we had to do, and a nice-looking lot we were. Mazie and the other fairies in pink tights and long, bespangled cloaks didn't go so bad with the furnishings, but the pirate, George Hanscom, and I, the Alpine shepherd, kind of