he dog when Zip jumped off
the stove and grabbed the end of his long tail. Peter-Kins gave a jerk and
tried to run up the towel, leaving his bandage in Zip's mouth. While Zip
was trying to get the cloth out of his mouth, Peter-Kins dropped to the
floor and climbed up on the kitchen table. Seeing a basket of eggs the
grocery boy had left, he began throwing them at Zip, who was having a hard
time getting rid of the bandage, for the more he pulled, the tighter it
wedged itself between his sharp teeth.

Now Zip was in a pretty fix, for he could not bite with the wad of cotton
in his mouth, neither could he run and jump for in trying to get the
bandage from between his teeth, he had gotten it twisted around his legs
and fast between two of his toes, which made it only possible for him to
walk slowly.

[Illustration]

And all this time Peter-Kins kept pelting him with the eggs, which broke
and ran all over his back and down into his eyes, while Polly shrieked and
cried out all the names she had ever been taught without the least knowing
what they meant. Every time an egg would hit Zip, she would laugh and call
out, "Soak him, Jimmy!"

Then Zip would glare at her and make as if going for her, which would
cause her to cry out, "Help! Fire! Murder! Thieves! Buttons! Polly want
cup coffee! Naughty boy, spank, spank! Tee-dull, dee-tee-dull-dum!
Catchum! Catchum! Crackers, crackers, pretty Polly!" all in a jumble.

At last Zip managed to get his leg loose and he was working on the plug in
his mouth and not watching Peter-Kins when he had the surprise of his life
by getting a full dipper of water thrown all over him, for the monkey had
dipped it from the pail of water on the table.

The sudden twist Zip gave his head when the water hit him full force,
loosened the cotton in his mouth, and out it flew. With a bound Zip was
now on the chair, then on the table, snapping and barking, while the
monkey was trying to hit him with the empty dipper, when the kitchen door
unexpectedly opened and in the doorway stood Miss Belinda. Without a
second's thought Zip jumped past her and ran for dear life toward home,
never stopping to look back even once until he was safe in his own
barnyard, standing beside the watering trough preparatory to jumping in
and washing the eggs off his coat.

Again his encounter with the monkey had been unsatisfactory, and as for
what poor Miss Belinda thought when she saw the mess in her nice clean
kitchen it i