It was awfully tiresome waiting for those people to get through dinner. It seemed as if they could never eat enough, and when they were not eating, they were all talking at once. It taught me a lesson against gluttony, and nobody will ever find me sitting for hours and hours at the dinner-table. Finally I made up my mind that I must have some amusement, and as Mr. Martin's cork-leg was close by me, I thought I would have some fun with that.
There was a big darning-needle in my pocket, that I kept there in case I should want to use it for anything. I happened to think that Mr. Martin couldn't feel anything that was done to his cork-leg, and that it would be great fun to drive the darning-needle into it, and leave the end sticking out, so that people who didn't know that his leg was cork would see it, and think that he was suffering dreadfully, only he didn't know it. So I got out the needle, and jammed it into his leg with both hands, so that it would go in good and deep.
WASN'T THERE A CIRCUS IN THAT DINING-ROOM!WASN'T THERE A CIRCUS IN THAT DINING-ROOM!
Mr. Martin gave a yell that made my hair run cold, and sprang up, and nearly upset the table, and fell over his chair backward, and wasn't there a circus in that dining-room! I had made a mistake about the leg, and run the needle into his real one.
I was dragged out from under the table, and— But I needn't say what happened to me after that. It was "the old, old story," as Sue says when she sings a foolish song about getting up at five o'clock in the morning—as if she'd ever been awake at that time in her whole life!