"I know she wouldn't," said the snowman. "She's like the woman mentioned in the poem, who "--hated flies and muddy shoes, As well as pigs and kangaroos; But most of all she did abhor, A melted snow-drift on the floor." "Do you live near here?" asked Jimmieboy as he trudged along at the snowman's side. "Well," replied the snowman, "I do, and I don't. When I do, I do, and when I don't, it's otherwise. This climate doesn't agree with me in the summer, and so when summer comes I move up to the North Pole. Ever been there?" "No," said Jimmieboy, "what sort of a place is it?" "Fine," returned the snowman. "The thermometer is always at least twenty miles below zero, even on the hottest days, and fire can't by any possibility come near us. Only one fire ever tried to and it was frozen stiff before it got within a hundred leagues of us. In winter, however, I come to places like this, and bring my little boys with me. We hire a convenient snow-drift and live in that. There's mine now right ahead of you." Jimmieboy peered curiously along the road, at the far end of which he could see a huge mound of snow like the one the famous blizzard had piled up in front of his father's house some time before Jimmieboy and the world came to know each other. "Do you live in that?" he asked. "Yes," said the snowman. "And I will say that it's one of the most conveniently arranged snow-drifts I ever lived in. The house part of it is always as cold as ice--it's cooled by a special kind of refrigerator I had put in, which consumes about half a ton of ice a week." Jimmieboy laughed. "It's a cold furnace, eh?" he said. "Precisely," answered the snowman. "And besides that the house is deliciously draughty so that we have no difficulty in keeping cold. Once in a while my boys run in the sun and get warmed through, but I dose 'em up with ice-water and cold cream and they soon get chilled again. But come, shall we go in?" The pedestrians had by this time reached the side of the snow-drift, and Jimmieboy was pleased to see a door at one side of it. This the snowman opened, and they entered together a marvelously beautiful and extensive garden glistening with frosty flowers and snow-clad trees. At the end of the garden was a little white house that looked like the icing on Jimmieboy's birthday cake. As they approached it, the door of the little house was thrown open and a dozen small-sized snow boys rushed out and began to pelt the snowman and Jimmieboy with tennis balls. "Hold up, boys," cried the snowman. "I've brought a friend home to see you."