CHAPTER XXII

MR. RAYMOND'S RIDDLE


MR. RAYMOND took Diamond home with him, stopping at the Mews
to tell his mother that he would send him back soon. Diamond ran
in with the message himself, and when he reappeared he had in his
hand the torn and crumpled book which North Wind had given him.

"Ah! I see," said Mr. Raymond: "you are going to claim your
sixpence now."

"I wasn't thinking of that so much as of another thing," said Diamond.
"There's a rhyme in this book I can't quite understand. I want you
to tell me what it means, if you please."

"I will if I can," answered Mr. Raymond. "You shall read it to me
when we get home, and then I shall see."

Still with a good many blunders, Diamond did read it after a fashion.
Mr. Raymond took the little book and read it over again.

Now Mr. Raymond was a poet himself, and so, although he had never
been at the back of the north wind, he was able to understand the
poem pretty well. But before saying anything about it, he read it
over aloud, and Diamond thought he understood it much better already.