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before in my life. Somebody's bitten off the anchor-rope.'
    We looked at each other in mute reproach.
    'You know my teeth aren't big enough,' I said.

    'And I've got a knife, so it wouldn't have been very practical to gnaw at the rope, would it?' said the Joxter.
    'It wasn't me!' cried the Muddler. We always took the Muddier at his word, because nobody had ever heard him tell a fib (not even about his collection). I expect he hadn't the imagination.
    Just then we heard a little cough behind us, and when we turned round a small Nibling was sitting under the sun-tent.
    'I see,' Hodgkins said grimly. 'That explains the logbook. But why the anchor-rope?'
    'I'm teething,' the little Nibling answered shyly. 'I had to gnaw at something.'
    'But why the anchor-rope?' Hodgkins repeated.
    'It looked so old and worn so I thought you wouldn't mind, 'said the Nibling.
    'Why did you stow away when the other Niblings left?' I asked.
    'I couldn't say,' answered the Nibling. 'I'm often having ideas that I can't explain.'
    'And where did you hide?' the Joxter wondered.
    'In your excellent binnacle,' said the Nibling. (Yes; the binnacle was quite sticky, too.)
    'Nibling,' I said a little severely. 'Whafll your mother say when she sees that you've run away?'
    'She'll cry, I suppose,' said the Nibling.



CHAPTER 4
    In which the description of my Ocean voyage culminates in a magnificent tempest and ends in a terrible surprise.
    S TRAIGHT across the Ocean The Oshun Oxtra ploughed her lonely wake. One day after another went bobbing by, each one as sunny and sleepy and blue as the next. Schools of sea spooks crossed our course, and now and then a tittering trail of mermaids appeared in our wake. We fed them with oatmeal.
    I liked to take my turn at the helm sometimes at night fall. Often I could see the Joxter's pipe aglow in the dark when he came astern and sat down by my side.
    'You'll have to admit that it's fun to be lazy,' he said one night, and knocked the ashes from his pipe against the railing.
    Who's lazy?' I asked. 'I'm steering. And you're smoking.'
    'Wherever you're steering us,' said the Joxter.
    'That's quite another matter,' I replied (I've always had a logical mind). 'Don't say you're having Forebodings again.'
    'No,' said the Joxter. 'It's all the same to me where we go. All places are all right. G'night.'
    'See you tomorrow,' I said.
    When Hodgkins relieved me at dawn I asked him if he didn't think it strange that the Joxter should take so little interest in things in general.
    'I don't know about that,' said Hodgkins. 'Perhaps he's interested enough in everything. Only he doesn't overdo it. To us there's always something that is very important. When you were small you wanted to know. Now you want to become. I want to do. The Muddler likes his belongings. The Nibling likes other people's belongings.'
    'And the Joxter likes to do forbidden things,' I reminded him.
    'Yes,' said Hodgkins. 'But even they're not very important to him. He's just living.'
    'Mm,' I replied.
    It was the first time Hodgkins had talked about anything but practical matters. But soon he became himself again.
    Later in the day the Muddler came up with the idea that we should send a wire to the Nibling's mother.
    'No address. No telegraph office,' Hodgkins said.
    'Oh, no, sure,' said the Muddler. 'How stupid of me! Excuse me!' And he disappeared in his tin again. Although he was a little pink we could see that he blushed.
    'What's a telegraph office?' asked the Nibling, who now shared the tin with the Muddler. 'Can you eat it?'
    'Don't ask me!' said the Muddler. 'It's something big and intricate. It's where you can send all kinds of little signs to other places from.... And then they change into words.'
    'How do you send them?' asked the Nibling.
    'Through the air!' said the Muddler gesticulating. 'Not a single one gets lost on the way!'
    'Dear me,' said the Nibling.
    After that he sat for the rest of the day craning his neck to catch sight of some telegraph signs.