to each say something that
will fit--yet won't make sense--with what went just before. Please!"

"Very well: 'Once upon a time and very good times they was, there was
a Mouse and a Grouse and a Little Red Hen and they all lived in the
one house together. So wan day, as she was swapin' the floor, they met
a grain o' cor-run.' 'Now, who'll take that to the mill?' 'I won't,'
says the Mouse. 'Nayther will I!' say the Grouse. 'Then I'll aven have
to do it mesel,' says the Little Red--Next!"

Irish Norah was in ecstasies of laughter over her mistress's imitation
of her own brogue, and all the company was smiling, as Helena's
serious voice took up the tale:

"'Twas in the dead of darksome, dreadful, dreary night, when the
Little Red Hen set forth on her long, lonely, unfrequented road to the
Mill. The Banshees howled, the weird Sisters of the Night made
desperate attempts to seize the Grain of Corn--Next!"

"Which, for safe keeping the fearless Little Red Hen had already
clapped into her own bill--just like this! So let the Banshees howl,
the Weird Sisters Dree their Weird--for Only Three Grains of Corn,
Alfy! Only Three Grains of Corn!" cried Monty, passing his empty
plate; "and I'll grind them in a mill that'll beat the Hen's all
hollow! while Jane Potter--next!"

"For the prisoner was terrified by the sounds upon the roof and after
brief deliberation and close investigation he came to the conclusion,
'twas a snare and a delusion to toy with imagination and fear
assassination till the hallucination became habituation and his mental
aberration get the better of his determination toward analyzation
of the sound upon the roof. Of the pat, pat, patter and the clat,
clat, clatter of small claws upon the roof! Then with loud
cachinnation--Next!"

"To drive the Little Red Hen off from the roof he sprang up and bumped
his head against it; and the act was so unexpected by said Hen that
she flew off, choked on her grain of corn and--Next!" cried Jim, while
everybody shouted and Mrs. Calvert declared that she had never heard
such a string of long words tied together and asked:

"How could you think of them all, Jane?"

"Oh! easily enough. I'd rather read the dictionary than any other
book. I've only a school one yet but I've most enough saved to buy an
Unabridged. Then----"

"Oh! then deliver us from the learned Jane Potter! Problem: If a small
school dictionary can work such havoc with a young maid's brain will
the Unabrid