"No," said the Blank-book, jumping off the table, and crossing over to Jimmieboy's crib, into which he climbed, much to the little fellow's delight. "No, I never wanted to be a fireman, or a policeman, or a car conductor, because I have always known that those were things I never could become. No matter how wise and great a Blank-book may be, there is a limit to his wisdom and his greatness. It sometimes makes us unhappy to realize this, but after all there is plenty in the world that a Blank-book can do, and do nobly, without envying others who have to do far nobler and greater things before they can be considered famous. Everything we have to do in this world is worth doing well, and everybody should be content to do the things that are given to his kind to accomplish. The poker should always try to poke as well as he can, and not envy the garden hose because the garden hose can sprinkle flowers, while he can't. The rake should be content to do the best possible rake's work, and not sigh because he cannot sing 'Annie Rooney' the way the hand-organ does." "Then why do you sigh because of the work they have given you to do?" "That's very simple," returned the Blank-book. "I can explain that in a minute. While I have no right to envy a glue-pot because it can hold glue and I can't, I have a right to feel hurt and envious when it falls to the lot of another Blank-book, no better than myself, to become the medium through which beautiful poems and lovely thoughts are given to the world, while I am compelled to do work of the meanest kind. "It has always been my dream to become the companion of a poet, of a philosopher, or of a humorist--to be the Blank-book of his heart--to lie quiet in his pocket until he had thought a thought, and then to be pulled out of that pocket and to be made the receptacle of that thought. "Oh, I have dreamed ambitious dreams, Jimmieboy--ambitious dreams that must now remain only dreams, and never be real. Once, as I lay with a thousand others just like me on the shelf of the little stationery shop where your mother bought me, I dreamed I was sold to a poet--a true poet. Everywhere he went, went I, and every beautiful line he thought of was promptly put down upon one of my leaves with a dainty gold pencil, contact with which was enough to thrill me through and through. "Here is one of the things I dreamed he wrote upon my leaves: "'What's the use of tears? What's the use of moping? What's the use of fears? Here's to hoping! "'Life hath more of joy Than she hath of weeping. When grief comes, my boy, Pleasure's sleeping. "'Only sleeping, child; Thou art not forsaken, Let thy smiles run wild-- She'll awaken!' "Don't you think that's nice?" queried the Blank-book when he had finished reciting the poem. "Very nice," said Jimmieboy. "And it's very true, too. Tears aren't any good. Why, they don't even wash your face."