United States or Chad ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Hortense thanked her Grandfather and went into the next room to bid her Grandmother good night. Lowboy, fat and smiling, grinned at her. The cat on the hearthrug turned his head and regarded her with a long stare from his yellow eyes. Hortense felt uncomfortable but stared back, and at last the cat turned away and pretended to wash himself.
"All you have to do is to eat your thirteen cookies," said Hortense, "all but a little piece of the last one which you must save and put in your pocket." "After twelve to begin with, I can do that," joked Lowboy. "If it kills me," said Highboy, "tell them I died a pleasant death." Then nobody said a word for a while, and all ate their cookies.
"Take care, Kris, that you don't get wall-eyed during the night." Still nobody laughed. "Surely you get that one!" said Lowboy. "It's very simple wall, wall-eyed, you see." "I appreciate you," said Highboy, "but you know I never laugh." "You'd grow fat if you did," said Lowboy. "Speaking of fat, let's see what's happened to Alligator. Three guesses, what has he done?"
"Alas," mourned Highboy. "Never again will I stand on a good Brussels carpet and see the sunshine pour in the south window. Many a sad year shall I weep for the last embraces of my brother Lowboy and the dull life of home." Hortense was struck to admiration by these moving words. "How lovely," said she. "I didn't know you wrote poetry." "I have a drawer full," said Highboy, perking up a bit.
"He has to keep up his reputation," said Highboy. "Ssh," said White Owl, "I hear the cat." Everybody became as still as a mouse. Coal and Ember crouched, ready to spring, and Highboy and Lowboy, rather frightened, took hold of hands and pressed against the wall. They could hear the soft pat-pat of padded feet in the hall. Two yellow eyes shone in the doorway, and the Cat entered.
Consequently, when all was still and Grandfather and Grandmother were safely in bed, Highboy went willingly enough with Hortense down the dark silent stairs and past Grandmother's sitting room. "May I not say a farewell to Lowboy?" said Highboy with tears in his voice. "Not at all," said Hortense briskly. "He might want to come, too."
Late that afternoon Fergus arrived home with Tom and Jerry, having had an awfully hard time getting them safely down the mountain side. It was so late that Fergus had no time to see to the drawers which refused to open in the lowboy and the highboy.
"You can't bite anything that hasn't a smell!" "Why can't you?" Hortense inquired sharply. "Because if it hasn't any smell it hasn't any taste, and how can you bite a thing if you can't taste it?" "You mean, how can you taste it if you don't bite it," said Hortense. "I mean what I say," said Coal. "How doggedly he speaks," said Lowboy, who burst into loud laughter.
"I believe," said Highboy, who had been looking around, "that these are raspberries on this bush. Um um good," and he began to eat as rapidly as he could pick them. With difficulty Lowboy dragged his brother away from the tempting fruit and after Andy and Hortense, who had gone down the path. The path wandered every which way and seemed to go on forever.
This contained an exquisite Colonial four-poster, with a lowboy and dresser to match, and was papered and carpeted in accordance with these, its chief ornaments. Newmark bathed in the adjoining bathroom, shaved carefully between the two wax lights which were his whim, and dressed in what were then known as "swallow-tail" clothes.
Word Of The Day