commenced to speak the skeleton had put into his mouth a
very large piece of turkey--very much larger in proportion than
himself--and when Toby had finished speaking he started to say something
evidently not very complimentary to Mr. Lord. But what it was the
company never knew; for just as he opened his mouth to speak, the food
went down the wrong way, his face became a bright purple, and it was
quite evident that he was choking.

Toby was alarmed, and sprung from his chair to assist his friend,
upsetting Mr. Stubbs from his seat, causing him to scamper up the
tent-pole, with the napkin still tied around his neck, and to scold in
his most vehement manner. Before Toby could reach the skeleton, however,
the Fat Woman had darted toward her lean husband, caught him by the arm,
and was pounding his back, by the time Toby got there, so vigorously,
that the boy was afraid her enormous hand would go through his
tissue-paper-like frame.

"I wouldn't," said Toby, in alarm; "you may break him."

"Don't you get frightened," said Mrs. Treat, turning her husband
completely over, and still continuing the drumming process. "He's often
taken this way; he's such a glutton that he'd try to swallow the turkey
whole if he could get it in his mouth, an' he's so thin that 'most
anything sticks in his throat."

"I should think you'd break him all up," said Toby, apologetically, as
he resumed his seat at the table; "he don't look as if he could stand
very much of that sort of thing."

But apparently Mr. Treat could stand very much more than Toby gave him
credit for, because at this juncture he stopped coughing, and his face
fast assumed its natural hue.

His attentive wife, seeing that he had ceased struggling, lifted him in
her arms, and sat him down in his chair with a force that threatened to
snap his very head off.

"There!" she said, as he wheezed a little from the effects of the shock,
"now see if you can behave yourself, an' chew your meat as you ought to!
One of these days when you're alone you'll try that game, and that'll be
the last of you."

"If he'd try to do one of my tricks long enough he'd get so that there
wouldn't hardly anything choke him," the sword-swallower ventured to
suggest, mildly, as he wiped a small stream of cranberry-sauce from his
chin and laid a well-polished turkey-bone by the side of his plate.

"I'd like to see him try it!" said the fat lady, with just a shade of
anger in her voice. Then turning to