"Oh, do for pity's sake, stop them!" cried AGRICULTURA, struggling
hard to keep herself and her garments together. "It seems as though
the heavens have become one vast sluice, that keeps pouring down
water, as my predecessor, the Prince, put it. I have not a dry thread
about me. _Please_ put them in their Bags--_do_--whilst I have a
little talk with you about them, and the mischief they have been
doing."
Two prolonged chuckles, a deep stentorian one and a sharp staccato
one, came from the two Bags already hanging to the wall of the Cavern,
from whence subsequently protruded the round ruddy form of the North
and the pinched figure of the East Wind. "Ho! ho! ho!" chortled the
North Wind, chokingly. "Who says _I_ do all the damage?"
"He! he! he!" sniggered the East Wind, raspingly. "Who is the pickle
and spoil-sport _now_, I should like to know?"
"Shut up!" said the Mother of the Winds, sharply. "And as to you two,"
she added, turning to the South and West Winds, "if you don't stand
still and give an account of yourselves, I'll pop you into your
respective Bags in the twinkling of a hundred-ton gun!"
"Why, who is _she_, that she should call us over the clouds?" cried
the two Winds, stopping their blowing a bit, and pointing to the
Princess.
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