[Illustration]

And the boys ran away, still mocking them. You could hear their shouts
dying away in the distance:--

"Chinky, chinky Chinaman,
Bow, wow, wow!"

Not long after this the Toyman came out from Trennery's and climbed on
the seat; and he and Marmaduke and Old Methusaleh jogged along towards
home. All the way, Marmaduke couldn't help thinking of the three
little men in their blue pajamas and their black pigtails; and he
asked the Toyman a lot of questions, even more than you will find in
his arithmetic, I guess, all about what those letters on the packages
of shirts meant, and if the Chinamen braided their pigtails every
night and morning just like girls, and if they really did eat "ole
rats," and bird's-nest puddings, and all that.

The Toyman could hardly keep up with the questions; and he hadn't
answered them all, either, by the time they reached the White House
with the Green Blinds by the Side of the Road.

On the afternoon of that same day, Marmaduke was sitting like a
hoptoad, watching the Toyman dig post-holes in the brook pasture. The
sun shone so soft and warm, and the cedar posts smelled so nice and
fragrant, that he began to feel drowsy. He didn't sit like a hoptoad
any more, but lay on his elbow, and his head nodded--nodded----nodded.

Rather faintly he heard the Toyman say: