Chapter Four
"We never have," admitted Pompa, peering over Kabumpo's head and secretly wishing he had brought along his jeweled sword.
"Why haven't you?" asked the Cottabus, rolling up its eyes. "How frightfully ignorant!" It closed its fan tail with a snap and looked up at them disapprovingly. "Will you kindly tell me who you are, where you came from, when you came, what you are going for, how you are going to get it, why you are going and what you are going to do when you do get it!"
"I don't see why we should tell you all that," grumbled Kabumpo. "It's none of your affair."
"Wrong!" shrieked the creature hysterically. "It is the business of a Cottabus to find out everything. I live on other people's affairs, and unless"—here it paused, took a large handkerchief out of a pocket in its fur and began to wipe its eyes—"unless a Cottabus asks fifty questions a day it curls up in its porch rocker and d-d-dies, and this is my fifth questionless day."
"Curl up and die, then," said Kabumpo gruffly. But the kind-hearted Prince felt sorry for the foolish creature.
"If we answer your questions, will you answer ours?"
"I'll try," sniffed the Curious Cottabus, and leaning
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