"Right you are," said the Bellows. "Don't you bother, Tom. We'll come out all right in the end." [Illustration: "MY OWN PRIVATE ICEBERG."] "But what's the trouble, Mr. Man?" asked the Poker. "What's the Hippo's weight got to do with our going over the edge?" "Why, can't you see?" explained the Man in Charge. "His 6,000 pounds pushing the machine along from behind there gives us just so much extra speed, and all the brakes in the world won't stop us now we've got going unless he gets off." The announcement caused an immediate panic, and the Polar Bear began to cry like a baby. "Oh, why did I ever come?" he moaned as the tears trickled down his nose and froze into a great icicle at the end of it. "When I might have stayed home riding around on my own private iceberg?" "Stop your whimpering," said the Kangaroo. "Brace up and be a man." "I don't want to be a man," blubbered the bear, "I'm satisfied to be a poor, miserable little Polar Bear." "You've got to jump, Hippy," said the Flamingo. "That's all there is about it." "Sir," replied the Hippopotamus solemnly, "I shall not jump. It would ill comport with my dignity for me to try to jump as if I were merely a Kangaroo. No sir. Here I sit, firm as a rock. You might as well ask an elephant to dance a jig." "We'll put you off if you don't get off of your own accord," roared the Polar Bear, bracing up, and removing the icicle from his nose he shook it angrily at the Hippopotamus. "All right," said the Hippopotamus with a pleasant smile "All right. Has any gentleman brought a derrick along with him to assist in the operation? You don't happen to have a freight elevator in your pocket, do you, Mr. Kangaroo?" "Pry him off, Poker," cried the Kangaroo. "I would if I could," answered the Poker, mournfully. "But I'm not a crowbar." "Well, then, all together here," shouted the Man from Saturn. "Line up and we'll shove him off." There was a frantic rush at the stolid Hippopotamus in response to this suggestion, but they might as well have tried to batter down the rock of Gibraltar by hurling feathers against it, so firmly fixed in his seat was this passenger of outrageous weight. "Come again, gentlemen," said the Hippopotamus suavely. "There's nothing better for the complexion than a good rub, and I assure you you have placed me under an obligation to you." "Prod him with the icicle," said the Kangaroo to the Polar Bear. "I am not to be moved by tears, even if they are frozen and sharpened to a point," laughed the Hippopotamus, as the Polar Bear did as he was told, smashing the icicle without so much as denting the Hippo's flesh. "Well, if you won't jump, I will," said the Man from Saturn angrily. "If I'm hurt I'll take it out of your hide when we meet again." "All right," retorted the Hippopotamus. "You'll have to get a steam drill and blast it out. By-by."