e it
up all hisself, and he's goin' to teach it to us."

"That's right," said Fandy, approvingly, as Charity Cora hastily lifted
her three-year-old sister from the floor; "take her 'way off. It's a
awful dang'rous game. She might get killed!"

Very naturally, Cora, with little Isabel in her arms, stood near the
door to see what was going to happen.

"Now, chil'ren," cried Fandy, "take your places all over. Pete, you're a
lion; Sammy, you're a big wolf; Helen, you're a wild cat; Gory, you're a
elephant; and Tommy, you'll have to be,--let's see, what other animal is
there? Oh! yes; you must be a kangaroo! and I'm a great big hunter-man,
with a gun an' a soword!"

So saying, the great big hunter-man took a small brass-handled shovel
and poker from the brass stand by the open fireplace, and struck an
attitude.

"Now, chil'ren, you must all go 'round, a-howling and going on like
what you all are, and I'll pounce on you fass as I can, an' kill you.
When I shoot, you must fall right down; and when I chop off your heads
with my big soword, you must roar awful."

"Hah! Where's the game in that?" cried Gory, scornfully.

"Why--let's see," said Fandy, rather puzzled. "Oh! yes; the one I kill
first is _it_--that's the game."

"All right," exclaimed Tommy Budd, "and then that one takes the gun and
sword and hunts. That's first-rate. Let's begin."

But Fandy objected to this.

"No, no," he said, "I've got to do all the killin', 'coz it's my game.
I'll tell you what! The ones that gets killed are dead animals; and all
the dead animals can go under the bed!"

"That'll do," they shouted; and the game began. Such roaring and baying,
growling and shouting, were never heard in human habitation before.

Baby Isabel, who must have been born to be a lion-tamer, looked on in
great glee; and Cora tried not to feel frightened.

Fandy made a capital hunter; he shot right and left, and sawed off the
heads of the slain like a good fellow, until at last there were four
dead animals under the bed, all lying curled up just as still as mice.

There was only one more animal to kill, and that was Tom, the kangaroo.

Bang! went Fandy's gun--the shovel end pressed in style against his
shoulder. Bang!

But the kangaroo didn't fall.

Fandy took more careful aim, and fired again.

Bang!

Still the kangaroo hopped about, as frisky as ever.

"Bang! I tell you! Don't you hear me say 'bang'? Why don't you go dead?"

"You haven't hit me