y will do you honor for your daring and
dauntless deed." I noticed that whenever he strung together a lot of words
they all began with the same letter. It sounded fine, too.

I said, "I know one thing, and that is I'd like to have a rich, red, rare,
racy, raspberry soda, just now."

"You will soon be able to regale your ravenous and rapacious capacity among
the freaks of two continents who will accord you a warm and wonderful
welcome," he said.

Gee, you couldn't beat him at it, that was one sure thing.

Illustration #2 "I gave them the scout salute."

CHAPTER XIX

JIB JAB, IS HE HUMAN?

Jiminy crinkums, I may be a nut (that's what the troop calls me anyway),
but I'm not a freak and, believe me, when I saw who I was going to have
dinner with that day--_good night!_

They all sat around a big mess board that stood on horses just like at
Temple Camp. It was in a side tent. Judge Dot sat right next to me, he was
a midget. I guess he was only about three feet high, and he had a special
chair. On the other side of me was Lieutenant Lemuel Long; he was the thin
man. He was about as fat as a clothes pole. He didn't eat much, but it
wasn't because he didn't have any appetite. He said he had a contract with
Mr. Costello not to eat much, because that would make him fat. He said he
had a contract not to weigh more than eighty pounds. Gee, you've got to
keep a contract if you make one, that's one thing.

But anyway, Madame Whopper could eat all she wanted to; she was the fat
lady. She was a marvelous mammoth-that's what it said under the picture.
She ate nine pieces of pie. I ate four, but anyway, she was a professional.
They kept bringing her more pie. Judge Dot said once she ate eleven pieces.
I liked Judge Dot, because he said he was sorry about Marshal Foch. He gave
me his picture with his name on. He said if it was anyone else but me, it
would cost a quarter.

Illustration #3 "He took the fur right off his head"

But anyway, the one I liked best was Jib Jab, is he human? He had fur just
like a bear, but a head like a man, only his face was brown and it had
long hair on it. His face didn't look exactly like a man and it didn't look
exactly like animal. First I was kind of scared, because in the pictures
he was in a cage and he was grabbing hold of the bars and glaring awful
fierce and wild. And, gee whiz, I didn't want to eat dinner with a wild
animal. Oh boy, didn't I have a good scare when I saw him coming to