"But we _have_ got to them," cried the first child. "We are at them now. I see the palm-trees waving, and the white sand glittering. Look! there are the natives gathering to welcome us on the beach. They have feather cloaks, and necklaces, and anklets of copper as red as gold. Oh! and there is an elephant coming straight toward us."
"I should think you would be ashamed," said the second child. "That is Widow Slocum."
"It's all the same," said the first child.
Presently the second child got down from the log.
"I am going to play stick-knife," he said. "I don't see any sense in this. I think you are pretty dull to play things that aren't really there." And he walked slowly away.
The first child looked after him a moment.
"I think _you_ are pretty dull," he said to himself, "to see nothing but what is under your nose."
But he was too well-mannered to say this aloud; and having taken in his cargo, he sailed for another port.
Little John Bottlejohn lived on the hill, And a blithe little man was he. And he won the heart of a pretty mermaid Who lived in the deep blue sea. And every evening she used to sit And sing on the rocks by the sea, "Oh! little John Bottlejohn, pretty John Bottlejohn, Won't you come out to me?"
Little John Bottlejohn heard her song, And he opened his little door. And he hopped and he skipped, and he skipped and he hopped, Until he came down to the shore. And there on the rocks sat the little mermaid, And still she was singing so free, "Oh! little John Bottlejohn, pretty John Bottlejohn, Won't you come out to me?"
Little John Bottlejohn made a bow, And the mermaid, she made one too, And she said, "Oh! I never saw any one half So perfectly sweet as you! In my lovely home 'neath the ocean foam, How happy we both might be! Oh! little John Bottlejohn, pretty John Bottlejohn, Won't you come down with me?"
Little John Bottlejohn said, "Oh yes! I'll willingly go with you. And I never shall quail at the sight of your tail, For perhaps I may grow one too." So he took her hand, and he left the land, And plunged in the foaming main. And little John Bottlejohn, pretty John Bottlejohn, Never was seen again.
One day a man was walking along the street, and he was sad at heart. Business was dull; he had set his desire upon a horse that cost a thousand dollars, and he had only eight hundred to buy it with. There were other things, to be sure, that might be bought with eight hundred dollars, but he did not want those; so he was sorrowful, and thought the world a bad place.