"Oh, I've got to have this Clown!" went on the rude boy. "I don't care
for other toys. Does this fellow do anything?" he asked of the clerk,
while his mother looked on, hardly knowing what to say. Archibald had
just been to the dentist's to have a tooth pulled, so perhaps we
should forgive him for being a little rough.

"The Clown plays his cymbals when you touch him here," and the clerk
pointed to the spring hidden in the chest of the gay fellow, under his
speckled, striped and spotted calico jacket.

"Oh, I'll touch him all right! I'll punch him!" cried the boy, and he
jabbed the Calico Clown so hard in the chest that the cymbals rattled
together like marbles in a boy's pocket.

"He's dandy! I want him!" cried the boy. "What else does he do?" he
asked.

"He moves his arms and legs when you pull these strings," was the
answer, and the clerk showed the boy how to do it.

"Oh, he's a jolly toy!" cried Archibald. "I'll have some fun with him
when I show him to the other fellows. Hi! Look at him jig!" and he
pulled the strings so fast that it seemed as if the poor Clown would
turn somersaults.

"I can see what will happen to me," thought the Clown. "I shall come
to pieces in about a week, and be thrown in the ash can. Why can't he
be nice and quiet?"

But Archibald was not that kind of boy. He seemed to want to make a