"I'm going to sit in this comfor'ble arm-chair by the fire," said Jimmieboy, climbing up into the capacious easy-chair in his father's library, and settling down upon its soft cushioned seat. "I've had my supper, and it was all of cold things, and I think I ought to get 'em warmed 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 about the time your mamma wanted you to go to bed. I'd have to carry you up stairs, if that should happen, and the doctor says if I carry you much longer I'll have a back like a dromedary."
"Oh, that would be lovely!" said Jimmieboy. "I'd just like to see you with two humps on your[Pg 61] back—one for me, and one for my little brother."
"Dear me!" said a gruff voice at Jimmieboy's side—"Dear me! The idea of a boy of your age, with two sets of alphabet picture blocks and a dictionary right in the house, not knowing that a dromedary has only one hump! Ridiculous! Next thing you'll be trying to say that the one-eyed catteraugus has two eyes."
Jimmieboy leaned over the arm of the chair to see who it could be that spoke1. It wasn't his father, that much was certain, because his father had often said that it wasn't possible to do more than three things at once, 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, and saw nothing but the Dictionary.
"I'm myself—that's who," was the answer, and then Jimmieboy was interested to see that it was nothing less than the Dictionary itself that had addressed him. "You ought to be more careful about the way you talk," added the Dictionary. "Your diction is airy without being dictionary, if you know what that means, which[Pg 62] you don't, as the Rose remarked to the Cauliflower, when the Cauliflower said he'd be a finer Rose than the Rose if he smelled as sweet."
"I don't believe you'd know a dromedary from a milk dairy if they both stood before you," retorted the Dictionary. "Now would you?"
"Yes, I think I would," said Jimmieboy. "The milk dairy would have cream in bottles in its windows, and the dromedary wouldn't."
"Ah, but you don't know why!" sang the Dictionary. "You don't even begin to know why the dromedary wouldn't have cream in bottles in its windows."
"No," said Jimmieboy, "I don't. Why wouldn't he?"
"Because he has no windows," laughed the Dictionary; "and between you and me, that's one of the respects in which the dromedary is like a base-drum—there isn't a solitary3 window in either of 'em."
"You know a terrible lot, don't you?" said Jimmieboy, patronizingly.
"Terrible isn't the word. I'm simply hideously4 learned," said the Dictionary. "Why, I've been called a vocabulary, I know so many words."
[Pg 63]
"I wish you'd tell me all you know," said Jimmieboy, resting his elbows on the arms of the chair, and putting his chin on the palms of his two hands. "I'd like to know more than papa does—just for once. Do you know enough to tell me anything he doesn't know?"
"Do I?" laughed the Dictionary. "Well, don't I? Rather. Why, I'm telling him things all the time. He came and asked me the other night what raucous5 meant, and how to spell macrobiotic."
"And did you really know?" asked Jimmieboy, full of admiration6 for this wonderful creature.
"Yes; and a good deal more besides. Why, if he had asked me, I could have 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 the Dictionary, turning over his leaves. "I like to search myself pretty thoroughly7 before I commit myself to a definition. A zygomatic zoophagan is a sort of cheeky animal that eats other animals. You are one, though I wouldn't brag8 about it if I were you. You are an animal, and at times a very cheeky[Pg 64] animal, and I've seen you eat beef. That's what makes you a zygomatic zoophagan."
"Do I bite?" asked Jimmieboy, a little afraid of himself since he had learned what a fearful creature he was.
"Only at dinner-time, and unless you are very careless about it and eat too hastily you need not be afraid. Very few zygomatic zoophagans ever bite themselves. In fact, it never happened really but once that I know of. That was the time the zoophagan got the best of the eight-winged tallahassee. 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 to Jimmieboy. And then he recited these lines:
"THE CALIPEE AND THE ZOOPHAGAN."
"The yellow-faced Zoophagan
Was strolling near the sea,
When from the depths of ocean
"The Tallahassee bird sometimes
The Calipee is called.
He has eight wings, composes rhymes,
[Pg 65]His head is very bald.
"Now if there are two creatures in
This world who disagree—
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,
"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
"''Twas but his strategy,' then cried
The friends of little Zoo;
Ran twenty feet off to one side,
And bit himself in two.
"'And then, you see, the Calipee
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 know that I really believe it, though. It's too great a tale for any dog to wag, eh?"
"Yes," said Jimmieboy. "I don't think I believe it either. If the zoophagan bit himself in two, I should think he'd have died. I know I would."
"No, you wouldn't," said the Dictionary; "because you couldn't. It isn't a 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 in the 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 is forty-five inches long.[Pg 67]
[Pg 68] Here's another. What letter does a Chinaman wear on his head?"
"Double eye!" cried Jimmieboy.
"That's pretty good," said the Dictionary, with an approving nod; "but you're wrong. He wears a Q. And I'll tell you why a Q is like a Chinaman. Chinamen don't amount to a row of beans, and a Q is nothing but a zero with a pig-tail. Do you know why they put A at the head of the 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 in the Dictionary. "Tell me something more," he said.
"Let me see. Oh, yes," said the Dictionary, complacently18. "How's this?
'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 pray,' said the boy in drab,
Just what's a Thelphusi-an?'
Whatever the owner desires to grab—
A crusty crustace-an."
As he slowly moved away.
'Will you tell me, sir, ere I go to work—
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 was a very mean boy, too. He went about telling people that there were a great many things I didn't know, which was very true, only he never said what they were, and his friends thought they were important things, like the 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 of peanuts, and how are the fish biting to-day, and is your mother's seal-skin sack plush or velvet23, that I didn't know, they'd not have thought it disgraceful. Oh, it was awfully24 mean!"
"Particularly after you had told him what those other things were," said Jimmieboy.
[Pg 70]
"Yes; but I got even with him. He came to me one day to find out what an episode was, and I told him it was a poem in hysterical25 hexameters, with a 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 made to subtract two apples from one lunch every recess26."
"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 he doesn't know?"
"Tell him that a sasspipedon is a barrel with four sides, and is open at both 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 his clothes."
"Good!" said Jimmieboy, peering across the room to where his father still sat smoking. "I think I'll tell him now. Say, papa," he cried sitting up, "what is a sasspipedon?"
"I don't know. What?" answered Jimmieboy's father, laying his paper down, and coming over to where the little boy sat.
"It's a—it's a—it's an ash-barrel," said the[Pg 71] little fellow, trying to remember 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 the subject, the disagreeable old book hadn't a thing to say about the sasspipedon, and Jimmieboy went up to bed wondering what on earth it all meant, anyhow.
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1
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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2
meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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3
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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4
hideously
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| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
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5
raucous
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| adj.(声音)沙哑的，粗糙的 | |
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6
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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7
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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8
brag
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| v./n.吹牛，自夸；adj.第一流的 | |
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9
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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10
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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11
mawkish
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| adj.多愁善感的的；无味的 | |
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12
dimes
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| n.（美国、加拿大的）10分铸币( dime的名词复数 ) | |
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13
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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14
whacked
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| a.精疲力尽的 | |
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15
foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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16
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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17
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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18
complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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19
yak
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| n.牦牛 | |
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20
crab
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| n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气 | |
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21
smirk
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| n.得意地笑；v.傻笑；假笑着说 | |
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22
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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23
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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24
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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25
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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26
recess
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| n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处） | |
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