Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: skip, in such beautiful order; it seemed like an exercise. It was so comical that we shrieked with laughter. The stolid Orientals didn't laugh; they had been told to catch those ducks, and they continued to try; without a smile. Every time the ducks turned, they did the same, over and over again, till we had to sit down on the bank, too weak, from laughing, to stand. Now the snake-catching fox-terrier arrived on the scene. "Ah," he said, "I'll catch them for you," and into the water he dashed after them. The coolie at once followed suit, and now we thought the end was near. At any rate they would get them out of the water. There were the ducks, swimming for dear life, followed by the coolie and Nous. Near the end, the coolie made a grab under the water, at the legs of one duck. It instantly dived; so did the coolie, so did Nous, and all the other ducks; and on the surface of the water was nothing. In a minute up came the coolie and Nous, empty-handed, and spluttering; at the far end the ducks, flapping their wings and quacking triumphantly. Victory was to the ducks, for when they had had enough of CANARY 17 this new game, they quietly walked up the bank and went home. The coolie had tea-and-sugar administered unto him, and was ordered to go and change his small garment, but he took fever and leave the next day, and we saw him no more. Four of those ducks were only on a visit to us. They belonged to a friendly chummery near by, and came to be taken care of while their owners were away. They were fine white birds, and Unda called each by its owner's name. I don't know how she knew one from the other, but she did. When the chummery returned, she took the four ducks up to her room, and gave them a beautiful bath, with Pears' soap; then tied blue ribbon round their necks...