Bangs John Kendrick - Half-Hours with Jimmieboy стр 10.

"You know a terrible lot, don't you?" said Jimmieboy, patronizingly.

"Terrible isn't the word. I'm simply hideously learned," said the Dictionary. "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 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 raucous meant, and how to spell macrobiotic."

"And did you really know?" asked Jimmieboy, full of admiration 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 thoroughly 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 brag about it if I were you. You are an animal, and at times a very cheeky 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:

"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, complacently. "How's this?