The Project Gutenberg EBook of John Whopper, by Thomas March Clark

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Title: John Whopper
The Newsboy

Author: Thomas March Clark

Release Date: November 13, 2009 [EBook #30463]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN WHOPPER ***

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Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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[Illustration: JOHN WHOPPER IN CHINA, By the _Air-Line_ Route.]

[Illustration: JOHN WHOPPER AT THE NORTH POLE.]

JOHN WHOPPER

THE NEWSBOY.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1871.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by

ROBERTS BROTHERS,

In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

Stereotyped and Printed by
ALFRED MUDGE & SON,
Boston, Mass.

CHAPTER I.

HOW JOHN WHOPPER DISCOVERED THE AIR-LINE TO CHINA.

Two years ago last February, I think it was on a Tuesday morning, I
started as usual very early to distribute my papers. I had a large
bundle to dispose of that day, and thought that if I took a short cut
across the fields, instead of following the road from Roxbury to Jamaica
Plain, I could go my rounds in much less time. I do not care to tell
precisely where it was that I jumped over the fence; but it is a rough,
barren kind of spot, which nobody has ever done any thing to improve.

After walking about a third of a mile, I began to think that I had
better have kept to the turnpike; for I found that I was obliged to
clamber over an uneven, rocky place, among trees and bushes and shrubs,
that grew just thick enough to bother me, so that I hardly knew where to
put my feet. All at once I lost my balance, and felt that I was sliding
down the side of a smooth, steep rock; while underneath, to my horror, I
saw what looked like a circular cave, or well, some five or six feet in
diameter. I tried to grasp the rock with my hands, and ground my heels
as hard as I could against the surface, but it was of no use; down I
slipped, faster and faster, until at