"Lots in that. If you don't know what to do," continued the voice, "don't do it."
"I won't," said Jimmieboy. "But do you know where we are?"
"Yes," said the voice. "I am here and you are there, and I think if we stay just as we are forever there is not likely to be any change, so why repine? We are happy."
Just then the golosh passed into a huge cavern, whose sides glistened like silver, and from the roof of which hung millions of beautiful and at times fantastically shaped icicles.
"This," said the voice, "is the gateway to the Kingdom of Frostland. At the far end you will see a troop of ice soldiers standing guard. I doubt very much if you can get by them, unless you have retained a great deal of that heat you had. How is it? Are you still lit?"
"I am," said Jimmieboy. "Just put your hand on my chest and see how hot it is."
"Can't do it," returned the voice, "for two reasons. First, I haven't a hand to do it with, and secondly, if I had, I couldn't see with it. People don't see with their hands any more than they sing with their toes; but say, Jimmieboy, wouldn't it be funny if we could do all those things—eh? What a fine poem this would be if it were only sensible:
"A singular song having greeted my toes,
I stared till I weakened the sight of my nose
To see what it was, and observed a sweet voice
Come forth from the ears of Lucinda, so choice.
"I cast a cough-drop in the lovely one's eyes,
Who opened her hands in a tone of surprise,
And remarked, in a way that startled my wife,
'I never was treated so ill in my life.'
"Then tears in a torrent coursed over her arms,
And the blush on her teeth much heightened her charms.
As, tossing the cough-drop straight back, with a sneeze,
She smashed the green goggles I wear on my knees."
Jimmieboy laughed so long and so loudly at this poetical effusion that he attracted the attention of the guards, who immediately loaded their guns and began to pepper the invaders with snow-balls.