the boat forward very quickly.

28

"Mamma, mamma," cried Zuzu, "we are sinking! Look! We are going down!"

Lulu also was very much excited, but the Private Secretary smilingly reassured them.

"Of course," he said. "Did you suppose the Gee-Whiz Express would run upon the top of the water like any ordinary steamboat? Any one can build a boat like that."

"But we'll all be drowned," cried the Widow Pickle.

"Not in the least," said the Private Secretary. "We are five hundred feet beneath the surface of the sea at this present moment, and if we were going to be drowned we should have begun to feel strange long ago. Evidently, madam, you forgot the glass which covers us over. We can see through it distinctly, but it won't let any water in. I am sure we shall enjoy our voyage very much. Moreover, we have with us the Enchanted Banjo, and it will play for us whenever the Royal Heirs are so good as to assist it."

The Banjo seemed to be in a jolly mood as well as the Royal Heirs, for as soon as the Twins grasped it together it rattled off at once into the following jingle:

29SONG OF THE ENCHANTED BANJO

29

Once I was but a banjo of the ordinary sort

Until a minstrel played me for the pleasure of the court,

And quite by accident he struck the sweet and simple tune

The Fairies love the dearest when they dance beneath the moon.

Oh, it was most amazing, when to every one's surprise

The Queen of all the Fairies came to view before their eyes!

They gazed upon the Fairy Queen, and she smiled back at them

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