at home and help hang up hides to dry on the big drying-poles
outside their Neolithic Cave, but Taffy slipped away down to her
Daddy quite early, and they fished. Presently she began to
giggle, and her Daddy said, 'Don't be silly, child.'

'But wasn't it inciting!' said Taffy. 'Don't you remember how the
Head Chief puffed out his cheeks, and how funny the nice
Stranger-man looked with the mud in his hair?'

'Well do I,' said Tegumai. 'I had to pay two deerskins--soft ones
with fringes--to the Stranger-man for the things we did to him.'

'We didn't do anything,' said Taffy. 'It was Mummy and the other
Neolithic ladies--and the mud.'

'We won't talk about that,' said her Daddy, 'Let's have lunch.'

Taffy took a marrow-bone and sat mousy-quiet for ten whole
minutes, while her Daddy scratched on pieces of birch-bark with a
shark's tooth. Then she said, 'Daddy, I've thinked of a secret
surprise. You make a noise--any sort of noise.'

'Ah!' said Tegumai. 'Will that do to begin with?'

'Yes,' said Taffy. 'You look just like a carp-fish with its mouth
open. Say it again, please.'

'Ah! ah! ah!' said her Daddy. 'Don't be rude, my daughter.'

'I'm not meaning rude, really and truly,' said Taffy. 'It's part