“Would you mind giving me a demonstration?”

“Not me. I did once, and I almost got killed.”

“Ah! Is it dangerous?”

“It is and it ain’t. You’d be safe, Ajax.”

“Will you teach me?”

Ajax stops in front of Magpie and holds out his hands like Magpie had something to give him.

“Teach you? Man, you’re born to it. No, I can’t tell you how to do it, but the proper note is in your voice every little while, only you don’t know it.”

“Is it a gift?” asks Ajax.

“Merry Christmas!” explodes Magpie. “If it is I hope nobody knows when my birthday is, and that Sandy Claws goes blind.”

“Interesting but vague,” says Ajax, and goes back to his book.

Yes, Ajax slept with his feet in the air again.

Me and Magpie talks over the events of the day, but we can’t figure it out. We can’t figure why Mighty wishes to hold us up, and why he sends Scenery up there with blood in his eye. We asks Ajax the next morning if he’s done anything wrong, but he shakes his head.

“I never have done anything wrong,” says he.

“This is a great little country to establish a precedent,” says Magpie. “A herder of goats comes here yesterday and shoots a bean-pot out of my hands. Later on the sheriff comes up—but you know that. Do you know why they comes here?”

“I haven’t an idea.”

“I know you ain’t, but I thought maybe you had a hunch.”

Ajax got himself a rope this time. He hunted around until he found an old sack, and then he sets down to look in his little book.

“Today,” says he, “I am going to make a supreme effort to secure valuable data, and I wish to ask a few questions. Is the hipwiggler a vegetarian or of the carnivora, and what is its habitat?”

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