'
Lance and Robin roared with merriment, and after one glance at
Clement's half virtuous, half offended countenance, Felix and Cherry
fell into like convulsions; while Alice exclaimed, 'But who is it?'
and Angel shouted the sufficiently evident answer, 'Clement, oh! the
howler, the black preaching monkey in a natural surplice!'
'I can't think how you do it!' exclaimed Alice.
'I object to the mantis,' Cherry struggled to say. 'Nasty
hypocritical creature that eats things up.'
'Praying for its living, eh, Cherry?' said wicked Edgar. 'If you had
ever seen the long thin animal, with head back, hands joined, and
pious attitude, you couldn't doubt.'
And as he spoke he sketched his mischievous likeness, at which the
mirth grew more furious; while Cherry, always the most easily
excited, uttered in a strangled voice, 'A parsnip, a barn-door hen, a
dilapidated Guernsey cow, an old mother whale.'
'O Cherry, Cherry, you've immortalised yourself!' shouted Lance. 'How
did you hit off the parsnip? the very thing that had stumped me.'
'The colour, and the odd sort of sweetness,' said Cherry.
'Won't we have fun with it when I go back!' cried Lance.
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