ill-board is the rear wall of
my shop," said he. "And those eyes are wall-eyes."

She flushed with pleasure. "That's _exactly_ what I thought!" she
declared.

She began to walk up and down, one hand in the patch-pocket--to make
sure it was really there. For this was all too good to be true. Here, in
this Land so new to her, and so wonderful, were things about which she
had pondered, and puzzled, and asked questions--the tongues, for
instance, and the lime-lights, and the soda-water. How simply and
naturally each was now explained!--explained as she herself had
imagined each would be. She felt a sudden pride in herself. So far had
anything been really unexpected? As she went back to pause in front of
the little old gentleman, it was with a delightful sense of
understanding. Oh, this was one of her pretend-games, gloriously come
true!

Now she felt a very flood of questions surge to her lips. She pointed to
a deep yellow bowl set on the table beside him. "Would you mind telling
me what that is?" she asked.

"That? That's a sauce-box." And he smiled.

"Oh!--What's it full of, please?"

"Full of mouths,"--cheerily.

It was her turn to smile. She smiled into the sauce-box. At its center
was a queer object, very like a short length of dried apple-peeling.

"I s'pose that's part of a mouth?" she ventured.

He picked up the object and balanced it across his thumb. "You've
guessed it!" he declared. "And it's a fine thing to carry around with
one. You see, it's a stiff upper lip." He tossed it back.

"My!" She took a deep breath. "Once I asked and _asked_ about a stiff
upper lip."

He went on with his polishing. "Should think you'd be more interested in
these," he observed, giving a nod of the ragged hat toward a shallow
dish at his elbow. "Little girls generally are."

She looked, and saw that the dish was heaped high with what seemed to be
_white peanuts_--peanuts that tapered to a point at one end. She
puckered her brows over them.

"Can't guess?" said he. "Then you didn't drink enough of that
soda-water. Well, ever hear of a sweet tooth?"

At that she clapped her hands and jumped up and down. "Why, I've _got_
one!" she cried.

"Oh?" said the little old gentleman. "Thought so. I _always_ keep a
supply on hand. Carve 'em myself, out of cube sugar."

"Oh, aren't they funny!" She leaned above the shallow dish.

"Funny?" repeated the Man-Who-Makes-Faces. "Not when they get into the
wrong mouth!--a wry mouth,