walking around among them, now and then turning one over with his
foot. Of course there had never been an ounce of flesh and blood among
them; they were as dry as bones--which, indeed, they much resembled.

"I could make them into first-class rules," he said, picking up the
waist-line of an Improper Fraction and snapping it easily across his
knee. "They'd keep the Plynck supplied a whole winter."

The Plynck! In the excitement of victory they had all momentarily
forgotten the Plynck, though, when the fight was hottest, it had been
the sight of her tragic drooping plumes among the blighted leaves that
had nerved them to redoubled effort. Now Avrillia stepped softly under
the tree and called gently, "O Plynck, dear Plynck! They're all dead,
and Schlorge is going to make them into rules for you to break!"

A shiver ran through the soft, rosy plumes of the Plynck; she opened
her terrified eyes, and when she saw that the good tidings was indeed
true, she began to shine and smile down upon them again like a
convalescent rainbow. The Gunki had already formed a line to
Schlorge's smithy, and were briskly sending scuttlefuls of the hateful
fragments down the line.

"I--I'm sorry I was so useless," apologized the Plynck with deep
humility, looking down upon her faithful friends. But they one and all
began to protest that she had not been needed in the least. "It was
for you as we done it, ma'am," Schlorge assured her, looking up into
her tree with his shoe in his hand; and the poor Snimmy was so
overcome by emotion that he was compelled to lie down at the foot of
the Gugollaph-tree, with his debilitating nose on his little cold paws,
and sniffle frankly.