Half-Hours with Jimmieboy. Bangs John Kendrick
any sort, except between the Glass Eater and the man who made Glass Steamboats, and that was smoothed over in a very short time by the Glass Eater saying that the Glass-blower made the finest crystal pies he had ever tasted. But contentment and peace could not last forever in an establishment where one attraction was growing richer and richer every day as the Dwarf was, while another, the Dude Giant, was no better off than the day he joined the show, and when finally the Dwarf began to come every morning in a cab of his own, drawn by a magnificent gray horse with a banged tail, and to dress better even than the proprietor of the Museum himself, the Dude Giant became very envious, and when the Dude Giant gets envious he is a very disagreeable person. For instance, when no one was looking he would make horrible faces at Tiny, contorting his four mouths and noses and eight cheeks all at once in a very terrifying manner, and when he'd look cross-eyed at the Dwarf with all eight of his eyes poor Tiny would get so nervous that he would try to eat the roller skates and picture books, instead of the cream cakes people brought him, and on one occasion he broke two of his prettiest teeth doing it, which marred his personal appearance very much.
"Tiny stood it as long as he could, and then he complained to his friend, the Whirlwind, about it, and the Whirlwind, who was a very sensible sort of a fellow, advised him not to mind it. It was only jealousy, he said, that led the Dude Giant to behave that way, and if Tiny had not been more successful than Forepate – as the Dude Giant was called – Forepate wouldn't have been jealous, so that his very jealousy was an acknowledgment of inferiority. So Tiny made up his mind he wouldn't pay any attention to the Dude Giant at all, but would go right ahead minding his own business and making all the money he could.
"This made Forepate all the more angry, and finally he resolved to get even with the Dwarf in some other way than by making grimaces at him. Now, it happened that Forepate's place was over by a window directly opposite to where the Dwarf sat, and so, to get near enough to Tiny to put his scheme against him into execution, he complained to the manager that there was a terrible draft from the window, and added that unless he could sit on the other side of the room he was certain he'd catch cold in three of his heads anyhow, if not in all of them.
"'Very well,' said the manager. 'Where do you wish to sit?'
"'You might put me next to Littlejohn, over there,' said the head with red hair.
"'But,' said the manager, 'what shall we do with that stuffed owl with the unicorn's horns?'
"'Put him by the window,' said another of the Dude Giant's heads.
"'Yes,' said the third head. 'No draft in all the world could give a stuffed owl a cold.'
"'That's so,' replied the manager. 'We'll make the change right off.'
"And then the change was made, though Tiny did not like it very much.
"To disarm all suspicion, the Dude Giant was very affable to the Dwarf for a whole week, and to see him talking to Tiny no one would have suspected that he hated him so, which shows how horribly crafty he was. Finally the hour for his revenge arrived. It was Monday morning, and Forepate and Tiny had taken their places as usual, when, observing that no one was looking, Forepate took his biggest beaver hat and put it over Tiny, completely hiding him from view. Poor Tiny was speechless with rage, and so could not cry out. Forepate kept him under his hat all day, and whenever any one asked where Littlejohn was, one of his heads would say, 'Alas! Poor Tiny, he has mysteriously disappeared!' And another head would shake itself and say 'Somebody must have left the door open and the wind must have whisked the dear little fellow out into the cold, cold world.' Then the other two heads would blubber, at which the Dude Giant would take out his handkerchiefs and wipe his eight eyes and shake all over as if he were inconsolable, and Tiny, overhearing it all, grew more and more speechless with indignation.
"That night, of course, Forepate had to release him, and Tiny hurried away fairly howling with anger. When he arrived at home he told his mother how he had been treated and how he had been done out of a whole day's cream cakes and picture books and roller skates, and she advised him to go at once to the Whirlwind and confide his woe to him, which he did.
"'Forepate ought to be ashamed of himself,' said the Whirlwind, when Tiny had told his story.
"'But he never does what he ought to do unless somebody makes him,' said Tiny, ruefully. 'Can't we do something to make him ashamed of himself?'
"'Well, I'll see,' said the Whirlwind, with a shake of his head that meant that he intended to do something. 'What does the Dude Giant do with himself on Sundays?'
"'Shows off his best hats on Fifth avenue," returned the Dwarf.
"'Very well then, I have it,' said the Whirlwind. 'Next Sunday, Tiny, we'll have our revenge on Forepate. You stand on one of the stoops at the corner of Fifth avenue and Thirty-fourth street at midday, and you'll see a sight that will make you happy for the rest of your days.'
"So, on the following Sunday the Dwarf climbed up on one of the front stoops on Fifth avenue, near Thirty-fourth street, and waited. He hadn't been there long when he saw Forepate striding down the avenue dressed in his best clothes, and wearing upon his heads four truly magnificent beavers, which he had just received from London, and of which he was justly proud.
"'I wonder where the Whirlwind is,' thought the Dwarf, looking anxiously up and down the avenue for his avenger. 'I do hope he won't fail.'
"Hardly were the words out of his mouth when Forepate reached the crossing of Thirty-fourth street, and just as he stepped from the walk into the street, bzoo! along came the Whirlwind, and off went Forepate's treasured hats. One hat flew madly up Fifth avenue. A second rolled swiftly down Fifth avenue. A third tripped merrily along East Thirty-fourth street, while the fourth sailed joyously into the air, struck a lamp-post, and then plunged along West Thirty-fourth street. And then! Dear me! What a terrible thing happened! It was perfectly awful – simply dreadful!"
"Hurry up and tell it," said Jimmieboy, jumping up and down with anxiety to hear what happened next.
"Then," said his papa, "when the Dude Giant saw his beloved hats flying in every direction he howled aloud with every one of his four voices, and craned each of his necks in the direction in which it's hat had flown.
"Then the head with the auburn hair demanded that the Giant should immediately run up Fifth avenue to recover its lost beaver, and the giant started, but hardly had he gone a step when the head with the black hair cried out:
"'No! Down Fifth avenue after my hat.'
"'Not at all!' shrieked the head without any hair. 'Go east after mine.'
"'Well, I guess not!' roared the head that had curly hair. 'He's going west after mine.'
"Meanwhile the Giant had come to a stand-still. He couldn't run in any direction until his heads had agreed as to which way he should go, and all this time the beautiful hats were getting farther and farther away, and the heads more frantic than ever. For five full minutes they quarreled thus among themselves, turning now and then to peer weepingly after their beloved silk hats, and finally, with a supreme effort, each endeavored to force the Giant in the direction it wished him to go, with the result that poor Forepate was torn to pieces, and fell dead in the middle of the street."
Here papa paused and closed his eyes for a minute.
"Is that all?" queried Jimmieboy.
"Yes – I believe that's all. The Dude Giant was dead and the Dwarf was avenged."
"And what became of Tiny?" asked Jimmieboy.
"Oh, Tiny," said his father, "Tiny – he – he laughed so heartily at the Dude Giant's mishap that he loosened the impediment to his growth, – "
"The what?" asked Jimmieboy, to whom words like impediment were rather strange.
"Why, the bone that kept him from growing," explained the story teller. "He loosened that and began to grow again, and inside of two weeks he was as handsome a six-footer as you ever saw, and as he had made a million and a half of dollars he resigned from the Exhibition and settled down in Europe for a number of years, had himself made a Grand Duke, and then came back to New York and got married, and lived happy ever after."
And then, as the getting-up bell rang down stairs, Jimmieboy thanked