"I don't wonder you are surprised," said he, with a gratified smile. "I know it must seem strange to you to be told that even we, Hardwoods--" "You are a Hardwood, then, are you?" asked Margaret in a polite tone of inquiry. For, while she did not understand what the little Admiral meant by calling himself a Hardwood, she did not wish to appear too inquisitive. "I have that honor," replied the Admiral. "In fact, all the officers of the army and navy are Hardwoods, as well as all the members of the Court circle, with the single exception of the Court Crier. He belongs to the Weeping Willow family. But as I was going to say," he went on, "even a Hardwood will swell if he stays in the water nine hours, as I did." [Illustration: _Picked up the little Admiral_] "Nine hours!" cried Frances. "Why, we only stay in twenty minutes twice a week, when we have our swimming lesson. What did you stay in so long for?" "It was not intentional, I beg to assure you," replied the Admiral. "Far from it. I fell into the sea, and as the tide was going out at the time I had to go with it; and when it did turn and washed me back again, I couldn't find the island." "The island! What island?" asked Frances. The little man cocked up his eyebrows in surprise at the question. "What island?" he repeated. "Why, the Floating Island, of course," pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. "Oh! So you come from the Floating Islands, do you!" exclaimed Margaret. "Yes. You will have noticed, I dare say, how the islands keep coming and going and breaking in pieces and changing their shapes. Well, that is what they did yesterday, and every time I thought I was going to land I found that the island had moved away and I had to begin all over again." "That was horrid," remarked Frances. "Weren't you afraid of being drowned?" At this question the little Admiral, in spite of his politeness, could not help laughing. "Drowned!" he cried. "We, Hardwoods, don't get drowned. Why, the Lord Chancellor was washed off the island once and floated about for three months. We all thought he was gone for good, but he turned up again one day none the worse except that his joints wouldn't work for a couple of weeks and nearly all his paint had washed off." "His paint!" cried Margaret, glancing at the little man's red cheeks. "What is he made of, then?" "He is one of the Quartered-Oaks--written with a hyphen--a very good family, very hard and very serviceable; though--Ahem!--not _quite_ of such quality as the Boxwoods." He said this with such a self-conscious air that Margaret ventured a guess. "You are a--" The little man laid his right hand on his heart, stuck out his left elbow and bent his body at the hips. With his eyes half closed and with a beaming smile, he said: "Your Royal Highness has guessed right. I am of the Boxwoods." "And the Boxwoods are harder than the Quartered Oaks, are they?" asked Margaret.