"Don't," cried the voice. "Don't try to see me, Jimmieboy, I haven't got my company clothes on, and you make me nervous."
"But I want to see who you are," said Jimmieboy.
"Well you needn't want that any more," said the voice. "I'll tell you why. Nobody knows what I am. I don't even know myself."
"But what do you look like?" asked Jimmieboy.
"I don't know that, either. I never saw myself," replied the voice. "I'm something, of course, but just what I don't know. It may be that I am a horse and wagon, only I don't think I am, because horses, and wagons don't get up in trees. I saw a horse sitting on a whiffletree once, but that was down on the ground and not up here, so, of course, you see the chances are that I'm not that."
"What do you think you are?" asked Jimmieboy.
"I haven't thought much about it. But I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll tell you what, perhaps, I am, and maybe that will help you to find out, and if you do find out I beg that you will tell me, because I've some curiosity on the subject myself."
"Go ahead," said Jimmieboy. "You give me the perhapses and I'll try to guess."
"Well," began the voice, slowly, as if, whatever it was, the thing was trying to think. Let me see.