none of us said anything till we were in the dinghy, except for one
gasp of astonishment.

"But how _could_ you be?" Jerry and I asked together when we all
were safely aboard, with our man in the stern holding Greg
carefully.

"But how did you get un-oldened?" Greg asked.

"We thought you were a very old gentleman," I explained giddily.

"_I am_," said the Bottle Man. "Ancient."

"But what about your gray hairs?" Jerry demanded, tugging away at
the oars.

"If you've more than one gray hair you've gray hairs," said our man.
"I have eleven."

He ducked down his nice, dark, rumpled-up head for us to look, but I
must say I couldn't see more than one little one all buried among
the black.

"You're grown up, but you're not old at all," I said. "We've been
imagining you as an aged old man with a long white beard."

"I never mentioned a long white beard," the Bottle Man said.

"Yes; but what about your tottering along on two sticks?" Jerry said
suddenly.