"Oh, I'd have got you out somehow," muttered Samuel, smoothing back his hair sulkily. "And those stilts really saved your life. Suppose that animal had bitten your leg instead of your stilt? By the way, what's the name of this island, Mate?" Anxious to change the subject, Samuel turned to Ato's tremendous rescueress. "Mate?" repeated the hippopotamus, wiggling her ears inquiringly, "What may that mean?" "It is what a seaman calls his crew and his friends," explained Samuel, grinning in spite of himself. "Seaman? Mate?" mused the hippopotamus in a rapt voice. "How cozy, how beautiful!" Overcome with emotion, the mighty monster leaned forward and lapped up the picnic basket, Oz flags, lunch and everything. "I shall remember this as long as I live," she assured them with a gulp as one of the flags went sideways down her throat. "Nikobo, Little Daughter of the Biggenlittle River People, bids you welcome to Patrippany Island." "Little daughter!" exclaimed Ato in a smothered voice. "Ha, ha! Patrippany Island. Ho, ho! This is interesting. I knew there was a trip in it somewhere, a wet trip for us, eh, Samuel?" "But what I don't understand," said the Royal Explorer of Oz, briskly massaging his beard with his handkerchief, "is how you happen to speak our language. Do all the creatures on this Island talk? I don't mean that monkey chatter above." "No, none of the other creatures here speak the language of man," answered Nikobo solemnly. "I never knew I could speak it myself till five moons ago last Herb Day." "Herb Day? Dear, dear and dear! How confusing it all grows," sighed Ato, emptying the water out of his hat which had somehow survived his river ducking. "Do you suppose she means Thursday? Roger! ROGER! Keep away from those monkeys. Do you wish to lose all your tail feathers?" "Oh, it's all very simple," Nikobo rolled her eyes from side to side. "One day I eat herbs and that is Herb Day. One day I eat twigs and that is Twig Day, and one day I eat grass and that is Grass Day, and--" "And one day you eat lunch baskets and Oz flags, and I suppose that makes it Flag Day," chuckled Roger, coming down from a little excursion in the tree tops. "She's swallowed the Oz flags, Skipper, and if that doesn't make her a citizen of Oz, I'll eat my feathers." "Go ahead, if it will keep you any quieter," said Samuel Salt, who did not want this interesting conversation interrupted by Roger's nonsense. "So you only began to speak our language five moons ago last Herb Day? What made you do that?" "A boy," confided Nikobo with a ponderous wag of her head. "Ah, now we're getting somewhere." Feeling in his pocket, Samuel pulled out a small note book and pencil, still damp but usable. "Was it a native boy?" he asked eagerly.