"Then I can't see why you ask such silly questions," retorted the Lefthandiron. "What do we sit on? Why, you might just as well ask a dog what he barks with, or a lion what he eats his breakfast with--and that would be as stupid as the Poker's poem on Sandwiches." "Did the Poker write a poem on Sandwiches?" asked Tom. "Eight of 'em," returned the Lefthandiron. "The first of them went this way: "He sat upon a lofty hill, And smoked his penny pipe. 'Ha!' quoth a passing whip-poor-will, 'The oranges are ripe.'" "The other seven went like this," observed the Righthandiron: "The day was over, and the six- Teen little darkies then Found they were in a dreadful fix, Like several other men." "There isn't anything about Sandwiches in those poems," said Tom, with a look of perplexity on his face. "No. That's where the stupidity of it comes in. He wrote those poems and called 'em all Sandwiches just to be stupid, and it was stupid." "But what did he want to be stupid for?" asked Tom. "Just his vanity, that's all," said the Righthandiron. "The Poker is a very vain person. He thinks he is superior to everybody else in everything. If you say to him, 'the gas fixture is bright tonight,' he'll say, 'Oh, yes--but I'm brighter.' Somebody told him once that the kindling wood that started the fires was stupid, and he wouldn't even stop his bragging then. 'Oh, yes,' he said, 'but I'm a great deal stupider than the kindling wood and I'll prove it.' So he sat down and wrote those verses and called 'em all Sandwiches, and everybody agreed that he was the stupidest person going." "You only told me two of 'em," said Tom. "No--the whole eight were there. To make it more stupid the Poker said that the first one was number five and the second was the other seven." Tom smiled broadly at this and made up his mind to cultivate the acquaintance of the Poker. He was boy enough to like stupidity of that sort because it made him laugh. "I'd like to meet the Poker," he said. "He must be lots of fun." "He is," said the Lefthandiron. "Tenacre lots of fun. You'll meet him soon enough because we shall join him shortly. We never go off on any of our trips without him. He is a great help sometimes when we get into trouble just because he has so many sides. If we fall into a pit through some misstep the Poker comes along and pries us out of it. If we fall into the hands of some horrible creature that wants to hurt us, the Poker talks to that creature as stupid as he knows how, which makes the other so drowsy that he can't possibly keep awake, and then, of course, we escape." "There he is now," cried the Righthandiron, putting his right forepaw up to his ear and listening attentively. "I can hear him singing, can't you?"