[Illustration]
What a Mistake.
Our doggy almost seems to talk,
He watches us so carefully,
And when we're going for a walk
Looks up as if to say—“take me!”
He'll carry books a long, long way,
But, this I feel I ought to own,
He _buried_ Auntie's glove one day,
He must have thought it was a bone.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
A Monkey.
Ostriches.
]
Charlie's Playthings.
[Illustration]
Charlie, tired out with play, fell asleep on the nursery rug one winters
afternoon. “Hullo, Charlie!” said his sister's biggest doll, walking up
and patting him familiarly on the back. “Look,” she said, “there goes
the omnibus to Fleet Street; let us go and see if there's room for us.”
[Illustration]
Charlie very soon found himself riding on the top of his toy omnibus,
with the conductor driving and shouting, and a wooden doll calling out
“Fare, sir; fare a penny!” He drove along too through his own toy
village. “_This_ isn't Fleet Street!” he said.
“No,” said the doll; “we are now driving to the Zoo.”
Charlie wondered more and more, but he said nothing until the omnibus
stopped and all the dolls got down. He found himself then hustled into a
tiny train, the engine of which whistled loudly, and had a piece of
cotton wool coming out of its funnel for smoke.
“Here is the Zoo,” said the doll; “and there are the animals going to
bed.”
Charlie looked. Why, the Zoo was his Noah's ark, and the animals
belonged to it! “_This_ isn't the Zoo!” said Charlie.
At this point up came a very grandly dressed gentleman doll with an
eye-glass.
“This gentleman would like a game of nine-pins, Lady Arabella,” he said;
“pray come this way,” and he led them to a lawn where a set of nine-pins
were.
“Those are my nine-pins,” cried Charlie.
“Nonsense!” said the doll. “They belong to this gentleman.”
“You are a very rude doll,” observed the possessor of the eye-glass to
Charlie. “How dare you say my things are yours!”
“So they are,” shouted Charlie; “and I'm not a doll, and you _are_ one,
and you belong to my sister, and you are made of wax, so there!”
The gentleman doll grew very angry at this. “How dare you!” he said
loudly. “Policeman! hi! Policeman!” and one came hurrying across the
street.
Charlie laughed; he recognised one of the little wooden policemen in his
toy box.
“Hush!” cried the doll; “the soldiers are coming!”
Marching down the street came Charlie's tin soldiers, all with drawn
swords, and most of them on horseback.
[Illustration]
Charlie boldly advancing laid his hand on the bridle of the general's
horse. Immediately there was a great clatter of arms, and Charlie would
have been cut to pieces if just then he had not woke up to find himself
on the nursery rug.