V.
JIMMIEBOY IN THE LIBRARY.
"I'm going to sit in this comfor'ble arm-chair by the fire," saidJimmieboy, climbing up into the capacious easy-chair in his father'slibrary, and settling down upon its soft cushioned seat. "I've had mysupper, and it was all of cold things, and I think I ought to get 'emwarmed up before I go to bed."
"Very well," said his papa. "Only be careful, and keep your feet awake.It wouldn't be comfortable if your feet should go to sleep just aboutthe time your mamma wanted you to go to bed. I'd have to carry you upstairs, if that should happen, and the doctor says if I carry you muchlonger I'll have a back like a dromedary."
"Oh, that would be lovely!" said Jimmieboy. "I'd just like to see youwith two humps on your back--one for me, and one for my littlebrother."
"Dear me!" said a gruff voice at Jimmieboy's side--"Dear me! The idea ofa boy of your age, with two sets of alphabet picture blocks and adictionary right in the house, not knowing that a dromedary has only onehump! Ridiculous! Next thing you'll be trying to say that the one-eyedcatteraugus has two eyes."
Jimmieboy leaned over the arm of the chair to see who it could be thatspoke. It wasn't his father, that much was certain, because his fatherhad often said that it wasn't possible to do more than three things atonce, and he was now doing that many--smoking a cigar, reading a book,and playing with the locket on the end of his watch-chain.
"Who are you, anyhow?" said Jimmieboy, as he peered over the arm, andsaw nothing but the Dictionary.
"I'm myself--that's who," was the answer, and then Jimmieboy wasinterested to see that it was nothing less than the Dictionary itselfthat had addressed him. "You ought to be more careful about the way youtalk," added the Dictionary. "Your diction is airy without beingdictionary, if you know what that means, which you don't, as the Roseremarked to the Cauliflower, when the Cauliflower said he'd be a finerRose than the Rose if he smelled as sweet."
"I'm very sorry," Jimmieboy replied, meekly, "I forgot that thedromedary only had one hump."
"I don't believe you'd know a dromedary from a milk dairy if they bothstood before you," retorted the Dictionary. "Now would you?"
"Yes, I think I would," said Jimmieboy. "The milk dairy would have creamin bottles in its windows, and the dromedary wouldn't."
"Ah, but you don't know why!" sang the Dictionary. "You don't even beginto know why the dromedary wouldn't have cream in bottles in itswindows."
"No," said Jimmieboy, "I don't. Why wouldn't he?"
"Because he has no windows," laughed the Dictionary; "and between youand me, that's one of the respects in which the dromedary is like abase-drum--there isn't a solitary window in either of 'em."
"You know a terrible lot, don't you?" said Jimmieboy, patronizingly.
"Terrible isn't the word. I'm simply hideously learned," said theDictionary. "Why, I've been called a vocabulary, I know so many words."
"I wish you'd tell me all you know," said Jimmieboy, resting his elbowson the arms of the chair, and putting his chin on the palms of his twohands. "I'd like to know more than papa does--just for once. Do you knowenough to tell me anything he doesn't know?"
"Do I?" laughed the Dictionary. "Well, don't I? Rather. Why, I'm tellinghim things all the time. He came and asked me the other night whatraucous meant, and how to spell macrobiotic."
"And did you really know?" asked Jimmieboy, full of admiration for thiswonderful creature.
"Yes; and a good deal more besides. Why, if he had asked me, I couldhave told him what a zygomatic zoophagan is; but he never asked me.Queer, wasn't it?"
"Yes," said Jimmieboy. "What is one of those things?"
"A zygomatic zoophagan? Why that's a--er--let me see," said theDictionary, turning over his leaves. "I like to search myself prettythoroughly before I commit myself to a definition. A zygomatic zoophaganis a sort of cheeky animal that eats other animals. You are one, thoughI wouldn't brag about it if I were you. You are an animal, and at timesa very cheeky animal, and I've seen you eat beef. That's what makes youa zygomatic zoophagan."
"Do I bite?" asked Jimmieboy, a little afraid of himself since he hadlearned what a fearful creature he was.
"Only at dinner-time, and unless you are very careless about it and eattoo hastily you need not be afraid. Very few zygomatic zoophagans everbite themselves. In fact, it never happened really but once that I knowof. That was the time the zoophagan got the best of the eight-wingedtallahassee. Ever hear about that?"
"No, I never did," said Jimmieboy. "How did it happen?"
"This way," said the Dictionary, as he stood up and made a bow toJimmieboy. And then he recited these lines:
THE CALIPEE AND THE ZOOPHAGAN.]
"THE CALIPEE AND THE ZOOPHAGAN."
"The yellow-faced Zoophagan Was strolling near the sea, When from the depths of ocean Sprang forth that dread amp-hib-ian, The mawkish Calipee.
"The Tallahassee bird sometimes The Calipee is called. His eyes are round and big as dimes, He has eight wings, composes rhymes, His head is very bald.
"Now if there are two creatures in This world who disagree-- Two creatures full of woe and sin-- They are the Zo-oph, pale and thin, And that bad Calipee.
"Whene'er they meet they're sure to fight, No matter where they are; Nor do they stop by day or night, Till one is beaten out of sight, Or safety seeks afar.
"And, sad to say, the Calipee Is stronger of the two; And so he'd won the victory At all times from his enemy, The slight and slender Zoo.
"But this time it went otherwise, For, so the story goes, As yonder sun set in the skies, The Calipee, to his surprise, Was whacked square on the nose.
"Which is the fatal, mortal part Of all the Calipees; Much more important than the heart, For life is certain to depart When Cali cannot sneeze.
"The world, surprised, asked 'How was it? How did he do it so? Where did the Zoo get so much wit? How did he learn so well to hit So fatally his foe?'
"''Twas but his strategy,' then cried The friends of little Zoo; 'As Cali plunged, our hero shied, Ran twenty feet off to one side, And bit himself in two.
"'And then, you see, the Calipee Was certainly undone; The Zo-oph beat him easily, As it must nearly always be When there are two to one.'
"Rather a wonderful tale that," continued the Dictionary. "I don't knowthat I really believe it, though. It's too great a tale for any dog towag, eh?"
"Yes," said Jimmieboy. "I don't think I believe it either. If thezoophagan bit himself in two, I should think he'd have died. I know Iwould."
"No, you wouldn't," said the Dictionary; "because you couldn't. It isn'ta question of would and could, but of wouldn't and couldn't. By-the-way,here's a chance for you to learn something. What's the longest letter inthe alphabet?"
"They're all about the same, aren't they?" asked Jimmieboy.
"They look so, but they aren't. L is the longest. An English ell isforty-five inches long. Here's another. What letter does a Chinamanwear on his head?"
"Double eye!" cried Jimmieboy.
"That's pretty good," said the Dictionary, with an approving nod; "butyou're wrong. He wears a Q. And I'll tell you why a Q is like aChinaman. Chinamen don't amount to a row of beans, and a Q is nothingbut a zero with a pig-tail. Do you know why they put A at the head ofthe alphabet?"
"No."
"Because Alphabet begins with an A."
"Then why don't they put T at the end of it?" asked Jimmieboy.
"They do," said the Dictionary. "I-T--it."
Jimmieboy laughed to himself. He had no idea there was so much fun inthe Dictionary. "Tell me something more," he said.
"Let me see. Oh, yes," said the Dictionary, complacently. "How's this?
"'Oh, what is a yak, sir?' the young man said; 'I really much wish to hear.' 'A queer-looking cad with a bushy head, A buffalo-robe all over him spread, And whiskers upon his ear.'
"And tell me, I pr
ay,' said the boy in drab, Just what's a Thelphusi-an?' 'A great big crab with nippers that nab Whatever the owner desires to grab-- A crusty crustace-an."
"'I'm obliged,' said the boy, with a wide, wide smirk, As he slowly moved away. 'Will you tell me, sir, ere I go to work-- To toil till the night brings along its murk-- How high peanuts are to-day?'
"And I had to give in, For I couldn't say; And the boy, with a grin, Moved off on his way."
"That was my own personal experience," said the Dictionary. "The boy wasa very mean boy, too. He went about telling people that there were agreat many things I didn't know, which was very true, only he never saidwhat they were, and his friends thought they were important things, likethe meaning of sagaciousness, and how many jays are there in geranium,and others. If he'd told 'em that it was things like the price ofpeanuts, and how are the fish biting to-day, and is your mother'sseal-skin sack plush or velvet, that I didn't know, they'd not havethought it disgraceful. Oh, it was awfully mean!"
"Particularly after you had told him what those other things were," saidJimmieboy.
"Yes; but I got even with him. He came to me one day to find out what anepisode was, and I told him it was a poem in hysterical hexameters, witha refrain repeated every eighteenth line, to be sung to slow music."
"And what happened?" asked Jimmieboy.
"He told his teacher that, and he was kept in for two months, and madeto subtract two apples from one lunch every recess."
"Oh, my, how awful!" cried Jimmieboy.
"But it served him right. Don't you think so?" said the Dictionary.
"Yes, I do," said Jimmieboy. "But tell me. What'll I tell papa that hedoesn't know?"
"Tell him that a sasspipedon is a barrel with four sides, and is open atboth ends, and is a much better place for cigar ashes than his lap,because they pass through it to the floor, and so do not soil hisclothes."
"Good!" said Jimmieboy, peering across the room to where his fatherstill sat smoking. "I think I'll tell him now. Say, papa," he criedsitting up, "what is a sasspipedon?"
"I don't know. What?" answered Jimmieboy's father, laying his paperdown, and coming over to where the little boy sat.
"It's a--it's a--it's an ash-barrel," said the little fellow, trying toremember what the Dictionary had said.
"Who said so?" asked papa.
"The Dictionary," answered Jimmieboy.
And when Jimmieboy's father came to examine the Dictionary on thesubject, the disagreeable old book hadn't a thing to say about thesasspipedon, and Jimmieboy went up to bed wondering what on earth it allmeant, anyhow.