A Mysterious Tomb

"I do not like that Golliwog," breathed Mrs. Jasher to her host, when
Cockatoo was at the sideboard. "He gives me the creeps."

"Imagination, my dear lady, pure imagination. Why should we not have a
picturesque animal to wait upon us?"

"He would wait picturesquely enough at a cannibal feast," suggested
Archie, with a laugh.

"Don't!" murmured Lucy, with a shiver. "I shall not be able to eat my
dinner if you talk so."

"Odd that Hope should say what he has said," observed Braddock
confidently to the widow. "Cockatoo comes from a cannibal island, and
doubtless has seen the consumption of human flesh. No, no, my dear lady,
do not look so alarmed. I don't think he has eaten any, as he was taken
to Queensland long before he could participate in such banquets. He is a
very decent animal."

"A very dangerous one, I fancy," retorted Mrs. Jasher, who looked pale.

"Only when he loses his temper, and I'm always able to suppress that
when it is at its worst. You are not eating your meat, my dear lady."

"Can you wonder at it, and you talk of cannibals?"

"Let us change the conversation to cereals," suggested Hope, whose
appetite was of the best--"wheat, for instance. In this queer little
village I notice the houses are divided by a field of wheat. It seems
wrong somehow for corn to be bunched up with houses."

"That's old Farmer Jenkins," said Lucy vivaciously; "he owns three or
four acres near the public-house and will not allow them to be built
over, although he has been offered a lot of money. I noticed myself,
Archie, the oddity of finding a cornfield surrounded by cottages. It's
like Alice in Wonderland."