"Of course it does," laughed Carry-on-Merry. "Then perhaps I shall ask you to sing."
"Oh! Carry-on-Merry," faltered the Griffin in a broken voice, "you have touched my heart--that is the very thing I was waiting for somebody to ask me to do. To sing," rhapsodised the Griffin--"to be like one of those great singers out of the opera, to pour out one's heart tones, to be gazed at by every eye, to be listened to by every ear, to be the adored of all. How can I thank you? How can I repay you?"
"Don't, please," implored Carry-on-Merry, who appeared to be choking inwardly, "don't thank me any more now, I can't bear it--some other time."
"Yet stay," cried the Griffin, with unexpected and dramatic suddenness, "who is going to kiss me?"
"Kiss you?" echoed Carry-on-Merry blankly, "kiss you? Good gracious! I give it up."
"Yet," pondered the Griffin, "somebody had to kiss the Sleeping Beauty!"
"You won't find anybody to do it," said Carry-on-Merry decisively.
"I mean," amended Carry-on-Merry, "nobody could be found for the moment of sufficient importance."
"Oh, I see," replied the Griffin, "yet perhaps Boadicea would oblige."
"Out of the question," said Carry-on-Merry. "Besides you know she never takes part in any--any--er--_festivities_ at all."
"True," lamented the Griffin, "and yet assuredly I must be kissed for the thing to be natural."
Carry-on-Merry turned away his head, for Carry-on-Merry almost felt that he could not trust himself to speak at that moment. Then one of his many bright ideas occurred to him. "I know," rapidly explained Carry-on-Merry, "I have it; I will find some important personage present to give you a rap."
"Where?" moaned the Griffin, "not on my knuckles. You know I cannot stand anything of that nature on my knuckles."
"No--no----" grinned Carry-on-Merry. "I mean a tap, just a little tap."
"I see," agreed the Griffin. "Very well, one little tap, a tap as dainty as if a feather had brushed me in my sleep."
"Or a floating piece of thistledown," laughed Carry-on-Merry.
"Oh yes," said the Griffin. "Thistledown sounds more romantic, and then I shall wake from my dream."
"I don't think myself you ever will," observed Carry-on-Merry, quite as if he were thinking of something else.