"Did the Poker write a poem on Sandwiches?" asked Tom.
"Eight of 'em," returned the Lefthandiron. "The first of them went this way:
"He sat upon a lofty hill,
And smoked his penny pipe.
'Ha!' quoth a passing whip-poor-will,
'The oranges are ripe.'"
"The other seven went like this," observed the Righthandiron:
"The day was over, and the six-
Teen little darkies then
Found they were in a dreadful fix,
Like several other men."
"There isn't anything about Sandwiches in those poems," said Tom, with a look of perplexity on his face.
"No. That's where the stupidity of it comes in. He wrote those poems and called 'em all Sandwiches just to be stupid, and it was stupid."
"But what did he want to be stupid for?" asked Tom.
"Just his vanity, that's all," said the Righthandiron. "The Poker is a very vain person. He thinks he is superior to everybody else in everything. If you say to him, 'the gas fixture is bright tonight,' he'll say, 'Oh, yes—but I'm brighter.' Somebody told him once that the kindling wood that started the fires was stupid, and he wouldn't even stop his bragging then. 'Oh, yes,' he said, 'but I'm a great deal stupider than the kindling wood and I'll prove it.' So he sat down and wrote those verses and called 'em all Sandwiches, and everybody agreed that he was the stupidest person going."