e the pussy cat doesn't wash the puppy dog's face with the
cork from the ink bottle and make his nose black, I'll tell you on the
next page about Bully playing marbles.

STORY VII

BULLY N

It happened one day that, as Bully No-Tail, the frog boy, was walking
along with his bag of marbles going clank-clank in his pocket, he met
Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels.

"Hello, Bully!" called the two brothers. "Do you want to have a game of
marbles?"

"Of course I do," answered Bully. "I just bought some new ones. 'First
shot agates!'"

"First shot!" yelled Billie, right after Bully.

"First shot!" also cried Johnnie, almost at the same time.

"Well, I guess we're about even," spoke Bully, as he opened his marble
bag to look inside. "Now, how are we going to tell who will shoot
first?"

"I'll tell you," proposed Billie. "We'll each throw a marble up into the
air, and the one whose comes down first will shoot first."

Well, the other two animal boys thought that was fair, so they tossed
their marble shooters up into the air. Billie only sent his up a little
way, for then he knew it would come down first, but Johnnie and Bully
didn't think of this, and they threw their shooters up as high as they
could. And, of course, their marbles were so much longer coming down to
the ground again.

"Oh, ho! Here's mine!" cried Billie. "I'm to shoot first."

"And here's mine," added Johnnie, a little later, as his marble came
down.

"Yes, but where's mine?" asked Bully, and they all listened carefully to
tell when Bully's shooter would fall down. But the funny part of it was
that it didn't come.

"Say, did you throw it up to the sky?" asked Billie surprised like.

"Because, if you did, it won't come down until Fourth of July," added
Johnnie.

"No, I didn't throw it as high as that," replied the frog boy. "But
perhaps Dickie Chip-Chip, the sparrow boy, is flying around up there,
and he may have taken it in his bill for a joke."

So they looked up toward the clouds as far as they could, but no little
sparrow boy did they see.

"Well, we'll have a game of marbles, anyhow," said Bully at length. "I
have another shooter."

So he and Billie and Johnnie made a ring in the dirt, and put some
marbles in the centre.

Then they began to play, and Billie shot first, then Johnnie, and last
of all Bully. And all the while the frog boy was wondering what had
happened to his first marble. Now, a very queer thing