y arm
being nearly broke. "Can you cook it for supper?" I says.

"Well," she says. "I guess I can. What is it? A mock turtle?"

"It's a pro-German alligator," I says. "And if you'll just kindly help
me instead of standing there staring at it, we'll intern it some place
so's I can leave my arm get a rest."

Well, we certainly had a fierce time finding something to put him in,
owing to us not being able to agree about what kind of a place he
belonged. Ma was all for the goldfish bowl, claiming it was his native
element; and Musette, who come in, thought the canary cage was better.
But, realizing he couldn't jump very high, I had them get a big hat-box,
and set him in that.

"And now what are you going to do with him?" says Ma as we all stood
'round looking at him; and my two fool dogs barking their heads off on
account of a mistaken idea they had that he was a new pet. "What are you
going to do with him?" says Ma.

"Unless you cook him, I don't know," I says--"except for one thing: I'm
going to take that gold-and-diamond collar offen that brute and sell it
and give the money to the American Red Cross; and I'm going to do it
now!"

Believe you me, I was mad at that alligator! And no wonder! Just look
at all the trouble he made me! So I didn't waste any time getting action
against him. First off, I persuaded Ma, who was real brave, to hold a
ice pick down on his nose good and firm, so's he couldn't open his face.
Then I managed, after a lot of trouble, to get that bejeweled sinful
collar off his neck. And was it a swell collar? It was!

As soon as I had it off we just left that alligator interned in the
hat-box and looked the collar over good. It was made all of a piece and
the jewels were certainly wonderful. I know quite a lot about them, me
and Ma always having invested that way when we had a little extra cash.

Well, as we was looking the stones over carefully, I happened to rub one
which was close to the snap, sort of sideways, and right off something
happened: That there collar parted--yes, sir; parted!--the lining from
the outside, and in the place between the setting and the inside frame
was a couple of thin slips of paper!

Well--believe you me--it didn't take me long to get the idea; not after
having a father and a mother which had been in the circus and had to
think quick, and me having been associated with dramatic stuff all my
life--do you get me? You do!

What with that collar having come off a all