"Only what you hear," replied the voice. "I am a voice. Jack Frost froze the rest of me and carted it away, and left me here for the rest of my life."
"What were you?"
"I cannot remember," said the voice. "I may have been anything you can think of. You could stand there and call me all the names you chose, and I couldn't deny that I was any of them.
"Sometimes I think I may have been
A piece of apple pie;
Perhaps a great and haughty queen,
Perhaps a gaily dressed marine,
In former days was I.
"I may have been a calendar,
To tell some man the date;
I may have been a railway car,
A rocket or a shooting star,
Or e'en a roller skate.
"I may have been a jar of jam,
Perhaps a watch and chain;
I may have been a boy named Sam,
An oyster or a toothsome clam,
Perhaps a weather vane.
"I may have been a pot of ink,
A sloop or schooner yacht;
I may have been the missing link,
But what I was I cannot think—
For I have quite forgot.
"All I know is that I was something once; that Jack Frost came along and caught me and added me to his collection of curiosities, where I have been ever since. They call me the invisible chatter-box, and tell visitors that I escaped from the National Vocabulary at Washington."
"I am very sorry for you," said Jimmieboy, sympathetically.
"You needn't be," said the voice. "I'm happy! I'm the only curiosity here that can be impudent to King Jack. I can say what I please, you know, and there's no way of punishing me; I'm like a newspaper in that respect. I can go into any home, high or low, say what I please, and there you are. Nobody can hurt me at all. Oh, it's just immense. I play all sorts of tricks on Jack, too. I get right up in front of his mouth and talk ridiculous nonsense, and people think he says it. Why, only the other night a Snow Man I don't like went in to see Jack, and Jack liked him tremendously, too, and was really glad to see him; but before the King had a chance to say a word I hallooed out: 'Get out of here, you donkey. Go make snow-balls of your head and throw them at yourself;' and the Snow Man thought Jack said it, and, do you know, he went outside and did it. He's been laid up ever since."
"I think that was a very mean thing to do," said Jimmieboy.
"I'd agree with you if I had any conscience, but alas! they've deprived me of that too," sighed the voice. "But look out," it added, hastily. "Throw yourself into that snow-bank or you'll fall into the river."