"No, I can't," said the Imp. "It's against the rules of the Library. It hurts a book to be turned back, just as much as it hurts your little finger to be turned back, and in nine cases out of ten turning back pages makes them dogeared; and dogs, or anything that even suggests dogs, are not allowed here. Why, if the other Imps who own this Library with me knew that I had even mentioned dogs they would suspend me for a week. But, my dear boy, we really must stop talking. This time we missed the Crab with the iron claw--why, that Crab can crack hickory nuts with that claw when he's half asleep; and when he's wide awake he can hold a cherry stone a hundred miles a minute, and that's holding mighty fast, I can tell you. Let's hear what the Book has to say now." "Bang!" said the Book. "Dear me!" cried the Imp. "Did you hear that!" "Yes," said Jimmieboy. "What does it mean?" "It means the circus is all over," said the Imp. "That was the shutting of the Book we heard. It's too bad; but there are other things quite as well worth seeing here. I'll tell you what we'll do--I'll find the Pixyweevil Poetry Book, and turn that on, and while you are listening, I'll see who that is ringing, for I am quite sure the bell rang a minute ago." VII _THE POETRY BOOK, AND THE END_ The Imp then arranged the wires so that the Poetry Book could recite itself to Jimmieboy, after which he went back to his office to see who it was that had been ringing the bell. "My first poem," said a soft silvery voice from the top shelf, towards which Jimmieboy immediately directed his attention--"my first poem is a perfect gem. I have never seen anything anywhere that could by any possibility be finer than it is, unless it be in my new book, which contains millions of better ones. It is called, 'To a Street Lamp,' and goes this way: "You seem quite plain, old Lamp, to men, Yet 'twould be hard to say What we should do without you when Night follows on the day; "And while your lumination seems Much less than that of sun, I truly think but for your beams We would be much undone. "And who knows, Lamp, but to some wight, Too small for me to see, You are just such a wondrous sight As old Sol is to me! "Isn't that just terribly lovely?" said the soft silvery voice when the poem was completed. "Yes; but I don't think it's very funny," said Jimmieboy. "I like to laugh, you know, and I couldn't laugh at that." "Oh!" said the silvery voice, with a slight tinge of disappointment in it. "You want fun do you? Well, how do you like this? I think it is the funniest thing ever written, except others by the same author: "There was an old man in New York Who thought he'd been changed to a stork; He stood on one limb 'Til his eyesight grew dim, And used his left foot for a fork." "That's the kind," said Jimmieboy, enthusiastically. "I could listen to a million of that sort of poems."