"Do I wish I had? Why I have got two youngsters like you," the Baron replied. "I've got 'em right here too."
"Where?" asked the Twins, looking curiously about them for the other two.
"On my knees, of course," said he. "You are mine. Your papa gave you to me--and you are as like yourselves as two peas in a pod."
"I--I hope you aren't going to take us away from here," said the Twins, a little ruefully. They were very fond of the Baron, but they didn't exactly like the idea of being given away.
"Oh no--not at all," said the Baron. "Your father has consented to keep you here for me and your mother has kindly volunteered to look after you. There is to be no change, except that you belong to me, and, vice versa, I belong to you."
"And I suppose, then," said Diavolo, "if you belong to us you've got to do pretty much what we tell you to?"
"Exactly," responded Mr. Munchausen. "If you should ask me to tell you a story I'd have to do it, even if you were to demand the full particulars of how I spent Christmas with Mtulu, King of the Taafe Eatars, on the upper Congo away down in Africa--which is a tale I have never told any one in all my life."
"It sounds as if it might be interesting," said the Twins. "Those are real candy names, aren't they?"
"Yes," said the Baron. "Taafe sounds like taffy and Mtulu is very suggestive of chewing gum. That's the curious thing about the savage tribes of Africa. Their names often sound as if they might be things to eat instead of people. Perhaps that is why they sometimes eat each other--though, of course, I won't say for sure that that is the real explanation of cannibalism."
"He didn't say cannon-ballism," said Diavolo, scornfully. "It was candy-ballism."
"Well--you've both come pretty near it," said the Baron, "and we'll let the matter rest there, or I won't have time to tell you how Christmas got me into trouble with King Mtulu."
The Baron called for a cigar, which the Twins lighted for him and then he began.
"You may not have heard," he said, "that some twenty or thirty years ago I was in command of an expedition in Africa. Our object was to find Lake Majolica, which we hoped would turn up half way between Lollokolela and the Clebungo Mountains. Lollokolela was the furthermost point to which civilisation had reached at that time, and was directly in the pathway to the Clebungo Mountains, which the natives said were full of gold and silver mines and scattered all over which were reputed to be caves in which diamonds and rubies and other gems of the rarest sort were to be found in great profusion. No white man had ever succeeded in reaching this marvellously rich range of hills for the reason that after leaving Lollokolela there was, as far as was known, no means of obtaining water, and countless adventurous spirits had had to give up because of the overpowering thirst which the climate brought upon them.