"But I didn't see China, and I wanted to," said the boy.
"Can't help it," said the Comet. "You had your chance, but you preferred to talk about poetry and peanuts. It isn't my fault. Off with you, now."
And then the Comet bucked like a wild Western Broncho, and as Jimmieboy went over his head through the window and landed plump in his papa's lap, the queer creature with the fiery tail flew off into space.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
JIMMIEBOY AND JACK FROST—IN WHICH JACK GIVES OFFENCE.
Jimmieboy is the proud possessor of a small brother, who, to use one of Jimmieboy's own expressions, is getting to be a good deal of a man. That is to say, he is old enough to go out driving all by himself, being eleven months of age, and quite capable of managing the fiery untamed nurse that pushes his carriage along the street. Of course, if the nurse had not been warranted kind and gentle when the baby's mamma went to find her in the beginning, little Russ would have had to have somebody go along with him when he went driving—somebody like Jimmieboy, for instance, to frighten off big dogs and policemen, and to see that the nurse didn't shy or run away—but as it was, the baby had developed force of character and self-reliance enough to go out unattended, and, except on one occasion, he got back again safe and sound.
This one occasion was early in December, when Nature, having observed that the great big boys had got through playing football and were beginning to think of snow-balls, sent word to the Arctic Cold Weather Company that she desired to have delivered at once five days of low temperature for general distribution among her friends, which days were sent through by special messenger, arriving late on the night of December 1st, giving great satisfaction to everybody, particularly to those who deal in ice, ear-tabs, and skates. At first Jimmieboy's mamma thought that Nature was perhaps a little too generous with her frosty weather, and for two days she kept her two sons, Jimmieboy and Russ, cooped up in the house, laying in a supply of furnace and log-fire heat sufficiently large to keep them warm until the third day, when she thought that they might safely go out.
