“He went and got Davy Bangs’s old dip-net, and was hurrying along the streets with it, when a ragged country-boy—who had come in to the circus, I suppose—cried out,—
“‘Halloo, little fisherman! The man that keeps the furniture-store wants you.’
“Bubby turned back and found the furniture-store, and went in; and there he stood, waiting, waiting, waiting, till at last a workman ordered him off. As he was walking away, he saw the country-boy grinning at him from around a corner, and shouted,—
“‘The man didn’t want me! Now, what did you say that for?’
“‘I thought he’d want your hair to stuff cushions with!’ cried the boy, and then ran off.”
“Now, I think that was mean enough!” said Annetta.
“Pray, Mr. Tompkins, go on,” said Mrs. Plummer. “I want to hear what happened to the little fisherman.”
“Plenty of things happened to him,” said Mr. Tompkins. “He had to run so fast, to make up for waiting, that he stumbled over cellar-doors, and tumbled down half a dozen times, besides bumping against everybody he met. When he came to Dutch Meadows, he turned down a lane, thinking there might be a short cut that way to Duck Swamp. This lane took him past the house of a Mr. Spleigelspruch.” Here the chuckling sound came into Mr. Tompkins’s throat again; and presently he burst into a hearty laugh.
“Now, do please tell us; then we can laugh; but now we can’t,” said Annetta.
“I will,” said he. “I’ll tell—I’ll tell—he, he, he, he, he!—I’ll tell right away. That Mr. Spleigelspruch was a Dutchman,—a short, fat, near-sighted, cross old Dutchman. His wife took in washing. His wife’s sister, and his wife’s sister’s sister-in-law Winfreda, lived in another part of the same house, and they took in washing too. Winfreda was poor, and the other woman made her do all the hardest jobs of work. Mr. Spleigelspruch got his living by selling eggs, poultry, and garden-stuff, and by raising the uncommon kinds of fowls,—fowls which brought high prices. He was troubled a good deal by boys coming around there, chasing his hens and stealing his eggs, and trampling on the clean clothes spread out on the grass. I suppose that was what made him so cross.”