"You don't eat gas, do you?" asked the small passenger.
"I guess I do," ejaculated the Stove, with a smack of his lips. "As our Gas Poet Laureate said:
"Oh, kerosene
Is good, I ween,
And so is apple sass;
But bring for me,
Oh, chickadee,
A bowl of fuel gas!
"Some persons like
The red beefstike,
The cow just dotes on grass—
But to my mind
No one can find
More toothsome things than gas.
"And so I say,
Bring me no hay;
No roasted deep-sea bass.
Bring me no pease,
Or fricassees,
If, haply, you have gas."
"It's easy to eat, too," added the Stove. "In fact, I heard your papa say we consumed too much of it one day when he'd got his bill from the gas butcher."
"Do you chew it?" asked Jimmieboy.
"No, indeed. We take it in through a pipe. It isn't like soup or meat, though I sometimes think if people could take soup out of a pipe instead of from a spoon they'd look handsomer while they were eating. But the great thing about it is it's always ready, and if it comes cold, all you have to do is to touch a match to it, and it gets as hot as you could want."
"I should think you'd get tired of it," said Jimmieboy.
"Not at all. There's a great variety in gases. There's fuel gas, illuminating gas, laughing gas, attagas——"
"What's that last?" queried Jimmieboy.
"Attagas? Why, when we want a game dinner, we have attagas. If you will look it up in the dictionary you will find that it's a sort of partridge. It's mighty good, too, with a sauce of stewed gasberries, and a mug or two of gasparillo to wash it down."