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Half-Past Seven Stories by Robert Gordon Anderson
page 190 of 215 (88%)
"Oh you do, do you!" said the robber chief, "and why, pray, do you
want to see China?"

"I wanted to see if the people stood upside down on the other side of
the world," explained Marmaduke, hoping that this explanation would
please Choo Choo Choo.

"So," said he very sarcastically, "that's silly--immeasurably silly, I
call it. Look out or you'll go back without a head yourself. But first
tell me,--have you any ancestors, _honorable_ ancestors?"

"What _are_ ancestors, honorable ancestors, sir?" Marmaduke
inquired. He thought that if he said "sir"--very politely--it might
help matters a bit.

"Oh, people in your family who lived long before you, and who have
long beards and are very honest," returned the robber chief.

Marmaduke thought it was odd, his mentioning that honorable ancestors
must be honest, when he was a robber himself, but anyway he was
relieved as he thought of "Greatgrandpa Boggs."

"Yes," he told Choo Choo Choo, "if that's what it is, I have an
honorable ancestor--Greatgrandpa Boggs. He was very old before he
died. He was so old his voice sounded like a tiny baby's, and he had a
beard--a long and white one--that nearly reached to the bottom button
of his vest, and he must have been honest, 'cause Mother said he might
have been rich if he hadn't been so honest."

"But wait a minute," roared Choo Choo Choo, "did he have fingernails
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