It was one of those lions you blow up. You can carry it in your pocket when you haven't any wind in it. Then you take it out, unfold it, blow it up, fasten up the blow-hole and it looks real terrible, stands up alone and does everything but gnash his teeth and growl. Chesterfield was sleeping in the desert one night, when a real lion came his way and was about to devour him, when, with a sudden perspiration, he remembers the toy lion in his pocket, takes it out, blows it up, sets it down before the real lion, who, reckonizing his match retreats, but immediately returns. Of course the oil-silk lion remains cool. He hasn't got any nerves to get excited on. The real lion roars. The oil-silk lion says nothing. The real lion advances. The oil-silk lion doesn't say a word. The real lion gets mad. The oil-silk lion stays cool. The real lion hits him with one paw. The oil-silk lion just bounces and does nothing. The real lion hits him with his other paw and the oil-silk lion just bounces again and does nothing. But then the real lion hits him with both paws a tremenjus whack and the oil-silk lion busts like a blown-up grocer's bag with a report like a caution, which so scares the real lion that he's running yet. Eh? How would you like a toy like that? [Illustration] It's getting so late now that Pop says I must go to bed, but to-morrow I'll write again and tell you how we got up to London and what I've seen so far. Yours ever, BOB. End of Project Gutenberg's Harper's Round Table, March 10, 1896, by Various