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“Maybe I can help you to escape from here,” said Jackie Tar, “and maybe I can’t, but I can try.  I’ve had a plan in my mind for a long time but I’ve had no one to help me but these Japs, and they’re not worth the paint on their faces.  Are you brave enough to risk it with me?”

Kernel Cob swelled out his chest and showed his medals, and told Jackie Tar how he had fought the savages single handed.

“You’ll do,” laughed the sailor, and he told them his plan.  “Do you see that red box over there in the corner?

“Well, that’s a Japanese kite.  It goes up into the air very quickly.  What I say to do is to climb into the kite, and go up with it.  It’s a big one and will carry us all.”

“Where’ll we go to?” asked the Villain.

“What care we, as long as we get out of here,” and he hitched his trousers as real sailors do.

“Will you do it?”

“You bet,” said Kernel Cob.

So it was agreed that they would go up in the kite, and they moved over to it and tugged at it till they had it in the center of the room.  Then a great clatter of talk arose from all the Japanese dolls, which sounded like a lot of chickens calling for their dinner; but Kernel Cob and Jackie Tar and the Villain and Sweetclover paid no heed to them, but only tugged the harder till they had the kite out into the middle of the road.

“There are just four of us,” said Jackie Tar.  “Each man tar to a corner.  Quick!  All aboard,” and it was all they could do to hold down the kite.

“Stand by to get the ship under way.  Up anchor.  Heave ho, lads.  Heave ho.”

But at that moment....

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CHAPTER XIII

The little Japanese girl returned, pulling her father down the road.

The little old man was waving his arms about fiercely and shouting, “Zaca sakasaka,” and before the kite had risen from the ground he had reached it, and the next moment Kernel Cob, Sweetclover, the Villain and Jackie Tar were being carried into the toy-shop.

“Did you ever see such luck in all your life?” grumbled Kernel Cob.

“I might have known it was Friday,” said Jackie Tar, for sailors are very superstitious.

“Never mind,” said the Villain, “we’ll get away another day.”

“Oh, let us hope so,” said Sweetclover, “for I don’t want to be ripped apart by that bad Japanese.”

“Well, that’s what the toy-maker will do if you don’t escape him,” said Jackie Tar, and his eyes would have bulged if they had been real ones instead of just painted.

“Why doesn’t he rip you apart?” asked Kernel Cob.

“Because I’m made of wood.  I haven’t got any stuffings,” said Jackie Tar.

By this time the four had been laid upon the floor, and the Japanese dolls had started a great clatter of talk.  The little girl picked up Sweetclover and was smoothing out her ruffled dress when the Toy-maker took up a pair of scissors and grabbed up Kernel Cob, before he could draw his sword.