Bangs John Kendrick - Half-Hours with Jimmieboy стр 17.

At first Jimmieboy did not know how to address him. He had often spoken to the figures in the pictures, but they had never replied to anything he had said. However, he made a beginning.

"Ahem!" he said.

The effect was pleasing, for as he said this Jack stopped sharpening his blade and turned to see who had spoken.

"Ah, Jimmieboy!" said the small warrior. "Howdy do. Haven't seen much of you this week. You've been paying more attention to Hop o' My Thumb than to me lately."

"Well, I love you just the same," said Jimmieboy. "I've just seen the Giant that lives up in the castle with the dragon on the front stoop."

"He's a good fellow," said Jack. "I'm very fond of him. He never gives me any trouble, and dies just as easy as if he were falling off a log, and out of business hours we're great chums. He's had something on his mind lately, though, that I don't understand. He says being killed every day is getting monotonous."

"That's what he said to me," said Jimmieboy.

"Well, I hope he doesn't resign his position," said Jack, thoughtfully.

"I know it isn't in every way a pleasant one, but he might go farther and fare worse. The way I kill him is painless, but if he got into that Bean-stalk boy's hands he'd be all bruised up. You can't fall a mile without getting hurt, you know, and I like the old fellow too well to have him go over to that Bean-stalk cousin of mine."

"He likes you, too," said Jimmieboy, pleased to find that there was so much good feeling between the two creatures. "But he thinks he ought to get a chance to win once in a while. He said if he could arrange it with you to have him kill you once a week Saturday nights, for instance he'd be perfectly contented."

"That's reasonable enough," said Jack, nodding his head approvingly. "Did he say how he would like to do it?"

"No, only that he'd kill you tenderly, so that you wouldn't suffer," said Jimmieboy.

"Oh, I know that!" said Jack, softly. "He's too tender-hearted to hurt anybody. I'm very much inclined to agree to the proposition, but he must let me choose the manner of the killing. He hasn't had much practice killing people, and if he were to do it by hitting me on the head with a stick of wood I'd be likely to wake up with a headache next day; neither should I like to be smothered because while that doesn't bruise one or break any bones its awfully stuffy, and if there's one thing I like it is fresh air."

"Perhaps he might eat you," suggested Jimmieboy.

"He isn't big enough to do that comfortably," said Jack, shaking his head. "He'd have to cut me up and chew me, because his throat isn't large enough for him to swallow me at one gulp. But I'll tell you what you can do. You go back to him, and tell him that I'll agree to his proposition, if he'll have me cooked in a plum-pudding four hundred feet in circumference. I'm very fond of plum-pudding, and while he is eating it from the outside I could be eating it from the inside, and, of course, I shouldn't be burned in the cooking, because in the middle of a pudding of that size the heat never could reach me."

"But when he reached you," said Jimmieboy, "you'd have the same trouble you said you'd have if he ate you up. He'd have to cut you to pieces and chew you."

"Ah!" said Jack, "don't you see my point? By the time he reached me he would have eaten so much plum-pudding that he wouldn't have room for me, so I'd escape."

"But, then, you wouldn't be killed," said Jimmieboy.

"That wouldn't make any difference," said Jack. "We'd stop the story before I escaped and everybody would think I'd been eaten up, and that's all he wants. He just wants to seem to win once. He doesn't really care about killing me dead. Don't you see."

"Yes, I think I do," said Jimmieboy, "and I'll go back and tell him what you say."

"Thank you," said Jack. "And while you are there give him my love, and tell him I'll be around to kill him as usual after tea."

All of which Jimmieboy did and the Giant readily agreeing to the plum-pudding scheme, said good-night to his little visitor, and retired into the castle, closing the door after him.

Then Jimmieboy went to bed in a great hurry, because he knew how sleep made time seem shorter than it really was, and he was very anxious to have Saturday night come around so that he could see how the new ending to the story of Jack the Giant Killer worked.

As yet that Saturday night has not turned up, so that I really cannot tell you whether or not the arrangement was a success.

IX. JIMMIEBOY AND THE FIREWORKS

"I'll have to tell papa about this," he said; and then, realizing that his papa was not at home, and that his mamma was up stairs trying to convince his small brother that it

would be impossible to get the moon into the nursery, although it looked much smaller even than the nursery window, Jimmieboy resolved that he would take the matter in hand himself.

"A boygler wouldn't hurt me, and maybe if I talk gruff and keep out of sight, he'll think I'm papa and run," he said.

Then he tried his gruff voice, and it really was tremendously gruff about as gruff as the bark of a fox-terrier. After he had done this, he tip-toed softly down the stairs until he stood directly opposite the door of the room where the fire-works were.