‘I don’t believe you’ve brought my Daddy’s black-handled spear after all,’ said Taffy. ‘And what are you doing to my nice Stranger-man?’ They were thumping him by twos and threes and tens till his eyes turned round and round. He could only gasp and point at Taffy. ‘Where are the bad people who speared you, my darling?’ said Teshumai Tewindrow. ‘There weren’t any,’ said Tegumai. ‘My only visitor this morning was the poor fellow that you are trying to choke. Aren’t you well, or are you ill, O Tribe of Tegumai?’ ‘He came with a horrible picture,’ said the Head Chief,--‘a picture that showed you were full of spears.’ ‘Er-um-Pr’aps I’d better ‘splain that I gave him that picture,’ said Taffy, but she did not feel quite comfy. ‘You!’ said the Tribe of Tegumai all together. ‘Small-person-with-no-manners-who-ought-to-be-spanked! You?’ ‘Taffy dear, I’m afraid we’re in for a little trouble,’ said her Daddy, and put his arm round her, so she didn’t care. ‘Explain! Explain! Explain!’ said the Head Chief of the Tribe of Tegumai, and he hopped on one foot. ‘I wanted the Stranger-man to fetch Daddy’s spear, so I drawded it,’ said Taffy. ‘There wasn’t lots of spears. There was only one spear. I drawded it three times to make sure. I couldn’t help it looking as if it stuck into Daddy’s head--there wasn’t room on the birch-bark; and those things that Mummy called bad people are my beavers. I drawded them to show him the way through the swamp; and I drawded Mummy at the mouth of the Cave looking pleased because he is a nice Stranger-man, and I think you are just the stupidest people in the world,’ said Taffy. ‘He is a very nice man. Why have you filled his hair with mud? Wash him!’ Nobody said anything at all for a longtime, till the Head Chief laughed; then the Stranger-man (who was at least a Tewara) laughed; then Tegumai laughed till he fell down flat on the bank; then all the Tribe laughed more and worse and louder. The only people who did not laugh were Teshumai Tewindrow and all the Neolithic ladies. They were very polite to all their husbands, and said ‘Idiot!’ ever so often. Then the Head Chief of the Tribe of Tegumai cried and said and sang, ‘O Small-person-with-out-any-manners-who-ought-to-be-spanked, you’ve hit upon a great invention!’ ‘I didn’t intend to; I only wanted Daddy’s black-handled spear,’ said Taffy. ‘Never mind. It is a great invention, and some day men will call it writing. At present it is only pictures, and, as we have seen to-day, pictures are not always properly understood. But a time will come, O Babe of Tegumai, when we shall make letters--all twenty-six of ‘em,--and when we shall be able to read as well as to write, and then we shall always say exactly what we mean without any mistakes. Let the Neolithic ladies wash the mud out of the stranger’s hair.’