“Beg parding, your Majesty,” said Cap’n Bill, “but you’re takin’ a good deal for granted.  We’ve tried to be friendly and peaceable, an’ we’ve ‘poligized for hurtin’ you, but if that don’t satisfy you, you’ll have to make the most of it.  You may be the Boolooroo of the Blues, but you ain’t even a tin whistle to us, an’ you can’t skeer us for half a minute.  I’m an ol’ man, myself, but if you don’t behave, I’ll spank you like I would a baby, an’ it won’t be any trouble at all to do it, thank’e.  As a matter o’ fact, we’ve captured your whole bloomin’ blue island, but we don’t like the place very much, and I guess we’ll give it back.  It gives us the blues, don’t it, Trot?  So as soon as we eat a bite of lunch from our basket, we’ll sail away again.”

“Sail away?  How?” asked the Boolooroo.

“With the Magic Umbrel,” said Cap’n Bill, pointing to the umbrella that Button-Bright was holding underneath his arm.

“Oh, ho!  I see, I see,” said the Boolooroo, nodding his funny head.  “Go ahead, then, and eat your lunch.”

He retreated a little way to a marble seat beside the fountain, but watched the strangers carefully.  Cap’n Bill, feeling sure he had won the argument, whispered to the boy and girl that they must eat and get away as soon as possible, as this might prove a dangerous country for them to remain in.  Trot longed to see more of the strange blue island, and especially wanted to explore the magnificent blue palace that adjoined the garden and which had six hundred tall towers and turrets; but she felt that her old friend was wise in advising them to get away quickly.  So she opened the basket, and they all three sat in a row on a stone bench and began to eat sandwiches and cake and pickles and cheese and all the good things that were packed in the lunch basket.

They were hungry from the long ride, and while they ate they kept their eyes busily employed in examining all the queer things around them.  The Boolooroo seemed quite the queerest of anything, and Trot noticed that when he pulled the long curl that stuck up from the top of his head, a bell tinkled somewhere in the palace.  He next pulled at the bottom of his right ear, and another faraway bell tinkled; then he touched the end of his nose, and still another bell was faintly heard.  The Boolooroo said not a word while he was ringing the bells, and Trot wondered if that was the way he amused himself.  But now the frown died away from his face and was replaced with a look of satisfaction.

“Have you nearly finished?” he inquired.

“No,” said Trot, “we’ve got to eat our apples yet.”

“Apples?  Apples?  What are apples?” he asked.

Trot took some from the basket.  “Have one?” she said.  “They’re awful good.”

The Boolooroo advanced a step and took the apple, which he regarded with much curiosity.

“Guess they don’t grow anywhere but on the Earth,” remarked Cap’n Bill.