"He'll be later than usual," said Jimmieboy's mamma. "The postman always is late on Valentine's Day. He has so many valentines to leave at people's houses." "Well, I wish he'd hurry," said Jimmieboy, "because I want to see what my valentimes look like." Jimmieboy always called valentines valentimes, so nobody paid any attention to that mistake--and then the front door bell rang. "I guess, maybe, perhaps that's the postman--though I didn't hear his whistle," said Jimmieboy, rushing to the head of the stairs and listening intently, but no one went to the door and Jimmieboy became so impatient that he fairly tumbled down the stairs to open it himself. "Howdy do," he said, as he opened the door, and then he stopped short in amazement. There was no one there and yet his salutation was returned. "Howdy do!" something said. "I'm glad you came to the door, because I mightn't have got in if the maid had opened it. People who don't understand queer things don't understand me, and I rather think if the girl had opened that door and had been spoken to by something she couldn't see she'd have started to run and hide, shrieking Lawk, meanwhile." "I've half a mind to shriek Lawk, myself," said Jimmieboy, a little fearfully, for he wasn't quite easy about this invisible something he was talking to. "Who are you, anyhow?" "I'm not a who, I'm a what," said the queer thing. "I'm not a person, I'm a thing--just a plain, homely, queer thing. I couldn't hurt a fly, so there's no reason why you should cry Lawk." "Well, what kind of a queer thing are you?" asked Jimmieboy. "Are you the kind of a queer thing I can invite into the house or would it be better for me to shut the door and make you stay outside." "I don't like to say," said the queer thing, with a pathetic little sigh. "I think I'm very nice and that anybody ought to be glad to have me in the house, but that's only my opinion of myself. Somebody else might think differently. In fact somebody else has thought differently. You know rhinoceroses and crocodiles think themselves very handsome, and that's why they sit and gaze at themselves in the water all the time. Everybody else though knows that they are very ugly. Now that's the way with me. As I have said, I'm sure in my own mind that I am perfectly splendid, and yet your Uncle Periwinkle, who thought of me, wouldn't write me and send me to you." "You must be very wise if you know what you mean," said Jimmieboy. "I don't."