“Now, Dunce,” said the General, “I’m going to try to see if I can help you do a little thinking.”

“Y-y-yes, s-s-s-sir,” answered the Dunce.

“I’m going to make you wear that thimble for the rest of the day and that ought to help you to remember that you have spoiled a perfectly good cooking pot, just because you didn’t happen to think.”

All day long the poor Dunce was forced to walk up and down in front of the General’s tent, wearing the heavy thimble. It was a warm day and the thimble grew quite hot in the sunshine, so his punishment was pretty hard, but there is no doubt it did him a great deal of good.

Chapter Eighteen CONSULTING AN ENGINEER

The General studied the map of the wild men’s island which the Turk had drawn, in the hope that he could figure out a way to attack the Saboes without storming their fort. In storming the fort, the General felt sure that many of his soldiers might be injured and he wished to rout the enemy with as little damage as possible.

“I have it! I have it!” exclaimed the General one morning as he sat studying the tiny map. “We can hire a mole to tunnel under the wild men’s fort and then we can blow it up with a firecracker.”

“Bully!” shouted the Old Soldier. “And before they get over the surprise of the explosion we can charge through the destroyed fort into the village.”

“That’s the idea,” smiled the General. “We’ll go over to-morrow and engage the old mole who lives down by the river.”

“Moles are great engineers,” said the Doctor, “and what they don’t know about underground digging isn’t worth knowing.”

The next day the General and the Doctor, with an escort of four soldiers, set out on the journey to the mole’s home.

“S-s-say, what is a m-m-mole anyhow?” asked the Dunce as the little party marched along.

“A mole? Why, a mole—let’s see, a mole—why a mole is a mole,” answered Gogo.

“I’ll tell you what a mole is like,” laughed the Doctor, who had overheard the Dunce’s question. “A mole is an animal almost the size of a rat and he lives under the ground. He has very small eyes and ears, and he very seldom comes out in the day time, for it is pretty hard for him to see in the bright sunlight. He has very short 

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