United States or Bermuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Surely it must have been Fate that directed the Woggle-Bug's steps; for, as he walked disconsolately along, an intuition caused him to raise his eyes, and he saw just ahead of him his affinity carrying a large clothes-basket. "Stop!" he called our, anxiously; "stop, my fair Grenadine, I implore you!"
Then he put on the gorgeous vestment, and turned a deaf ear to the Woggle-Bug's agonized wails. But there were some scraps of cloth left, and to show that he was liberal and good-natured, the Shiek ordered these manufactured into a handsome necktie, which he presented Woggle-Bug in another long speech.
Springing toward him, with a scowl on his face and a long knife with a zig-zag blade in his uplifted hand, was that very Chinaman from whose body he had torn the Wagnerian plaids! The plundered Celestial was evidently vindictive, and intended to push the wicked knife into the Woggle-Bug's body.
For the wily widow, wishing to escape her admirer, had sprinkled the door-step and the front walk with insect Exterminator, and not even the Woggle-Bug's love for the enchanting checked gown could induce him to linger longer in that vicinity. Sick and discouraged, he returned home, where his first act was to smash the luckless hat and replace it with another.
Now the greatest aversion Arabs have is to be chewed by a crocodile, because these people usually roam over the sands of the desert, where to meet an amphibian is simply horrible; so at the Woggle-Bug's speech they set up a howl of fear, and the Shiek shouted: "Unbind him! Let not a hair of his head be injured!" At once the knots in the ropes were untied, and the Woggle-Bug was free.
Presently he came to a very fine store with big plate-glass windows, and standing in the center of the biggest window was a creature so beautiful and radiant and altogether charming that the first glance at her nearly took his breath away. Her complexion was lovely, for it was wax; but the thing which really caught the Woggle-Bug's fancy was the marvelous dress she wore.
The man in the moon laughed at him; the stars winked at each other as if delighted at the Woggle-Bug's plight, and a witch riding by on her broomstick yelled at him to keep on the right side of the road, and not run her down. But the Woggle-Bug, squatted in the bottom of the basket and hugging his precious parcel to his bosom, paid no attention to anything but his own thoughts.
But his wife had conceived a great dislike for the Wagnerian check costume that had won for her the Woggle-Bug's admiration. "I'll never wear it again!" she said to her husband, when he came in and told her that the Woggle-Bug was gone. "Then," he replied, "you'd better give it to Bridget; for she's been bothering me about her wages lately, and the present will keep her quite for a month longer."
Word Of The Day