"Once," said Jimmieboy, wincing at the remembrance of his painful experience. "Well, pronouncing my name is to me worse than having all my teeth pulled and then put back again, and except when I get hold of a fine general like you I never make the sacrifice," said the Parallelopipedon. "But tell me, Jimmieboy, you are out after preserved cherries and pickled peaches, I understand?" "Yes," said Jimmieboy. "And powdered sugar, almonds, jam, and several other things that are large and elegant." "Well, just let me tell you one thing," said the Parallelopipedon, confidentially. "I'm so sick of cherries and peaches that I run every time I see them, and when I run there is no tin soldier or general of your size in the world that can catch me. Now what are we here for? I am here to be captured; you are here to capture me. To accomplish our various purposes we've got to begin right, and you might as well understand now as at any other time that you are beginning wrong." "I don't know what else to do," said Jimmieboy. "I'm obeying orders. The colonel told me to get those things, and I supposed I ought to get 'em." "It doesn't pay to suppose," said the Parallelopipedon. "Many a victory has been lost by a supposition. As that old idiot Major Blueface said once, when he tried to tell an untruth, and so hit the truth by mistake: 'Success always comes to The mortal who knows, And never to him who Does naught but suppose. For knowledge is certain, While hypothesees Oft drop defeat's curtain On great victories.'" "What are hypothesees?" asked Jimmieboy. "They are ifs in words of four syllables," said the Parallelopipedon, "and you want to steer clear of them as much as you can." "I'll try to," said Jimmieboy. "But how am I to get knowledge instead of hypotheseeses? I have to take what people tell me. I don't know everything." "Well, that's only natural," said the Parallelopipedon, kindly. "There are only two creatures about here that do know everything. They--between you and me--are me and myself. The others you meet here don't even begin to know everything, though they'll try to make you believe they do. Now I dare say that tin colonel of yours would try to make you believe that water is wet, and that fire is hot, and other things like that. Well, they are, but he doesn't know it. He only thinks it. He has put his hand into a pail of water and found out that it was wet, but he doesn't know why it is wet any more than he knows why fire is hot." "Do you?" queried Jimmieboy. "Certainly," returned the Parallelopipedon. "Water is wet because it is water, and fire is hot because it wouldn't be fire if it wasn't hot. Oh, it takes brains to know everything, Jimmieboy, and if there's one thing old Colonel Zinc hasn't got, it's brains. If you don't believe it, cut his head off some day and see for yourself. You won't find a whole brain in his head." "It must be nice to know everything," said Jimmieboy.