"It is splendid, just as you said," returned Jimmieboy, with a broad smile. "Those are my favorite colors."
"You like those colors better than you do chocolate cream color?" asked the valentine.
"Oh, my yes," said Jimmieboy. "Probably you wouldn't be so good to eat as a chocolate cream, but for a valentime, you're much better. I don't want to eat valentimes, I want to keep 'em."
"You don't know how glad you make me," said the pathetic little valentine, its voice trembling with happiness. "Now, if you like my verses as well as you do my picture, I will be perfectly content."
"I guess I'll like 'em," said Jimmieboy. "Can you recite yourself to me?"
"I'm not written—didn't I tell you?" returned the valentine. "That's the good part of it. I can tell you what I might have been and you can take your choice."
"That's good," said Jimmieboy. "Then I'm sure to be satisfied."
"Just so," said the valentine. "Now let me think what I might have been! Hum! Well, what do you think of this:
"If I had a cat with a bright red tail,
And a parrot whose voice was soft and low
I'd put 'em away in a water pail,
And send 'em to where the glowworm's glow.
"And then I would sit on an old whisk broom
And sail through the great, soft starlit sky,
To where the bright moonbeams gaily froom
Their songs to the parboiled Gemini.
"And I'd say to the frooming moonbeams that,
I'd come from the home of the sweet woodbine,
Deserting my parrot and red-tailed cat,
To ask if they'd be my valentine."