nd when it measured six times the length of the room he had to
cover his mouth again.

"I'm not laughing," he said to me, quite fiercely. He even managed not
to laugh (though he did gulp) when we discovered on the mantelpiece a
photograph of Joey in ordinary clothes, the garments he wore before he
became a clown. You can't think how absurd he looked in them. But David
didn't laugh.

Suddenly Joey was standing beside us, it could not have been more
sudden though he had come from beneath the table, and he was wearing his
pantomime clothes (which he told us afterward were the only clothes he
had) and his red and white face was so funny that David made gurgling
sounds, which were his laugh trying to force a passage.

I introduced David, who offered his hand stiffly, but Joey, instead of
taking it, put out his tongue and waggled it, and this was so droll that
David had again to save himself by clapping his hand over his mouth.
Joey thought he had toothache, so I explained what it really meant,
and then Joey said, "Oh, I shall soon make him laugh," whereupon the
following conversation took place between them:

"No, you sha'n't," said David doggedly.

"Yes, I shall."

"No, you sha'n't not."

"Yes, I shall so."

"Sha'n't, sha'n't, sha'n't."

"Shall, shall, shall."

"You shut up."

"You're another."

By this time Joey was in a frightful way (because he saw he was getting
the worst of it), and he boasted that he had David's laugh in his
pocket, and David challenged him to produce it, and Joey searched his
pockets and brought out the most unexpected articles, including a duck
and a bunch of carrots; and you could see by his manner that the simple
soul thought these were things which all boys carried loose in their
pockets.

I daresay David would have had to laugh in the end, had there not been a
half-gnawed sausage in one of the pockets, and the sight of it reminded
him so cruelly of the poor dog's fate that he howled, and Joey's heart
was touched at last, and he also wept, but he wiped his eyes with the
duck.

It was at this touching moment that the pantaloon hobbled in, also
dressed as we had seen him last, and carrying, unfortunately, a
trayful of sausages, which at once increased the general gloom, for he
announced, in his squeaky voice, that they were the very sausages that
had lately been the dog.

Then Joey seemed to have a great idea, and his excitement was so
impressive that we stood gazing at him. F