The Toyman picked up Hepzebiah, Marmaduke, and Jehosophat, hurried them into the candy-store, and shut the door tight.
It was full of beautiful candies,—chocolate creams and peppermint drops, snowy white cocoanut cakes, black and white licorice sticks, and cherry-red lollypops. But the three children never noticed those lovely candies at all. They just looked out of the glass door at that tiger, walking up and down the street, a-showing his teeth and a-swishing his tail.
The tiger looked at all the people behind the windows and doors. They were all shivering in their boots, and he didn't know which one to choose. Then he looked up at the man on the barber-pole, and he was shivering too.
Then all of a sudden the tiger stopped.
"Girrrrrrrrrrrhhh!"
He saw the butcher shop.
The door was open. Some nice red pieces of beef hung on the hooks.
He licked his chops and ran into the shop and jumped up at the first piece of beef and ate it all up. He never saw the stout butcher, who was hiding under the chopping block. The butcher's face was usually as red as the beef, but now it was as white as his apron, and his feet were shaking as fast as leaves in the wind.
But just as the tiger was gobbling the last morsel up, down the street galloped a cowboy on a swift horse. He stopped right in front of the butcher shop.
Out went his hand.