"You don't, eh?" said the Imp, in a tone of disappointment. "Well, I am surprised. You are the first little boy I have had anything to do with who couldn't ask for a thing, no matter what it was, in thirteen different ways. Why, it's as easy as falling up stairs."
"Tell me a few ways," suggested Jimmieboy.
"Well, first there is the direct way," returned the Imp. "You say just as plainly as can be, 'Daddy, I want the key to your cigar box.' He will reply, 'No, you are too young to smoke,' and that will make your mamma laugh, which will be a good thing in case your papa is feeling a little cross when you ask him. There is nothing that puts a man in a good humor so quickly as laughing at his jokes. That's way number one," continued the Imp. "You wait five minutes before you try the second way, which is, briefly, to climb upon your father's knee and say, 'There are two ends to your watch chain, aren't there, papa?' He'll say, 'Yes; everything has two ends except circles, which haven't any;' then you laugh, because he may think that's funny, and then you say, 'You have a watch at one end, haven't you?' His answer will be, 'Yes; it has been there fifteen years, and although it has been going all that time it hasn't gone yet.' You must roar with laughter at that, and then ask him what he has at the other end, and he'll say, 'The key to my cigar box,' to which you must immediately reply, 'Give it to me, won't you?' And so you go on, leading up to that key in everything you do or say for the whole day, if it takes that long to ask for it thirteen times. If he doesn't give it to you then, you might as well give up, for you'll never get it. It always worked when I was little, but it may have been because I put the thirteenth question in rhyme every time. If I wanted a cream cake, I'd ask for it and ask for it, and if at the twelfth time of asking I hadn't got it, I'd put it to the person I was asking finally this way—
"I used to think that you could do
Most everything; but now I see
You can't, for it appears that you
Can't give a creamy cake to me."
"But I can't write poetry," said Jimmieboy.
"Oh, yes you can!" laughed the Imp. "Anybody can. I've written lots of it. I wrote a poem to my papa once which pleased him very much, though he said he was sorry I had discovered what he called his secret."
"Have you got it with you?" asked Jimmieboy, very much interested in what the Imp was saying, because he had often thought, as he reflected about the world, that of all the men in it his papa seemed to him to be the very finest, and it was his great wish to grow up to be as like him as possible; and surely if any little boy could, as the Imp had said, write some kind of poetry, he might, after all, follow in the footsteps of his father, whose every production, Jimmieboy's mamma said, was just as nice as it could be.
"Yes, I have it here, where I keep everything, in my head. Just glue your ear as tightly as you can to the 'phone and I'll recite it for you. This is it:
"I've watched you, papa, many a day,
And think I know you pretty well;
You've been my chum—at work, at play—
You've taught me how to romp and spell.
"You've taught me how to sing sweet songs;
You've taught me how to listen, too;
You've taught me rights; you've shown me wrongs;
You've made me love the good and true.
"Sometimes you've punished me, and I
Sometimes have wept most grievously
That yours should be the hand whereby
The things I wished were kept from me.
"Sometimes I've thought that you were stern;
Sometimes I could not understand
Why you should make my poor heart burn
By scoldings and by reprimand.
"Yet as it all comes back, I see
My sorrows, though indeed most sore
In those dear days they seemed to me,
Grieved you at heart by far the more.
"The frowns that wrinkled up your brow,
That grieved your little son erstwhile,
As I reflect upon them now,
Were always softened by a smile
"That shone, dear father, in your eyes;
A smile that was but ill concealed,
By which the love that in you lies
For me, your boy, was e'er revealed."