“There was a boy and he was fat.
He went and hunted for a cat.”
“Fine,” says I. “Go ahead.”
After a while Plunk scratched around in his head and dug up another line:
“It was a cat that didn’t stir,
And probably it didn’t purr.”
“Rotten,” says I, “but what can you expect of sich a crowd?”
“See what you can do, then,” says Plunk. “All right,” says I. “Listen to this:
“That was a funny kind of cat;
The boy was talking through his hat.”
“Good stuff,” says Tallow. “Best yet. Be careful, Binney, or you’ll git somethin’ printed if you don’t watch out.”
“Here he comes,” says Rock, and, sure enough, there was Mark coming toward us slow, waddling like a duck just before Thanksgiving. He came and sat down without saying a word, and anybody could see he was discouraged. Why, discouragement just oozed out of him. We snickered.
“Say, Mark,” says I, “we been improvin’ our time while you was gone. We made up a poem. Like to hear it?”