Then, when he had
retired to his own private room, he decided to send for the umbrella
he had stolen from Button-Bright and test its magic powers. But the
umbrella, in his hands, proved just as common as any other umbrella
might be. He opened it and closed it, and turned it this way and
that, commanding it to do all sorts of things, but of course the
Magic Umbrella would obey no one but a member of the family that
rightfully owned it. At last the Boolooroo threw it down and stamped
upon it and then kicked it into a corner, where it rolled underneath
a cabinet. Then he sent for Ghip-Ghisizzle.
"Do you know how to work that Magic Umbrella?" he asked the
Majordomo.
"No, your Majesty, I do not," was the reply.
"Well, find out. Make the Whiteskins tell you so that I can use it
for my own amusement."
"I'll do my best, your Majesty," said Ghip-Ghisizzle.
"You'll do more than that, or I'll have you patched!" roared the
angry Boolooroo. "And don't waste any time, either, for as soon as
we find out the secret of the umbrella I'm going to have the three
strangers marched through the Arch of Phinis, and that will be the
end of them."
"You can't do that, your Majesty," said the Majordomo.
"Why can't I?"
"They haven't lived six hundred years yet, and only those who have
lived that length of time are allowed to march through the Arch of
Phinis into the Great Blue Grotto.
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