Page 57 - Lulu and Bob in Verbo City

“‘Made extensive efforts for tiny gain’. Now we’ve only got four
more,” said Lulu, thinking about just one more animal cracker.
Bob was locked into the rebus, a very quizzical expression frozen
on his face.
“This is an hourglass, anyone can see that; but why is it linked to an
‘E’? I know that people change nouns into verbs and adjectives right
and left, but ‘hourglassy’?”
“You should have looked ahead again, dear brother: the next little
item is two letter ‘I’s. The ineluctable conclusion is that the complete
phrase is ‘our glassy eyes’.”
“Oh.” He watched her remove an Okinawa flying fox from the jar.
“Well, next we have a small wardrobe: shirts, a pair of trousers, and a
dress. Which is clothing. ‘Our glassy eyes clothing?’ No, don’t tell me:
Uncle Bunster made another approximation: ‘clothes’ for ‘close’.
Then the word ‘we’. I guess he didn’t want to try drawing a
Frenchman saying ‘yes’.”
Lulu had been chewing and analyzing the rest of the line. “Indeed.
He is a poor enough draftsman as it is. Here he has a couple of
female deer—like the ewe, no antlers—so they are does. That could
be ‘doze’. Then an ampersand and a bizarre little group: two human
figures, one pointing both at himself and his companion, plus
another character jumping through space. This is starting to look like
charades.”
“Well,” said Bob, as she bit the bat. “Charades are a lot like
rebuses, aren’t they? But I can figure this one out. The first one
means ‘you and me’, or ‘us’. The second half is ‘jump’ or ‘skip’ or
‘leap’ or even ‘hurdle’ or ‘soar’. But only ‘leap’ fits with ‘us’: ‘asleep’.”

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