[Illustration: The biggest of birds without any wings. The oldest of kingdoms without any kings. GEO. R. HALM.] Tippie and Jimmie: [Illustration] TIPPIE AND JIMMIE. BY MARY L. FRENCH Tippie and Jimmie had come over to play with Ajax. Tip's whole name is Tippecanoe. The boys call him a black and tan, but Bessie calls him a darling. He has a little black shining nose that he is always sticking into everything, and a little smooth, tapering tail that he is always wagging. Jimmie's name is James Stuart; he is a little Maltese kitten, with gentle blue eyes, and soft fur that is always ready to be smoothed, and claws that are never used where they can hurt, and a purr that is always wound up. Tippie and Jimmie live together, and eat together, and are the best of friends. Ajax is the kitten that lives next door. He is jet black, excepting a little white spot where his cravat should have been tied. And he has a long black tail that often waves over his back like a banner. He has large green eyes that snap and shine when he plays, and he has just begun to look for mice. One day Tippie and Jimmie came around to the kitchen door of the house where Ajax lived, and looked in. They could not see Ajax, so Jimmie began to climb up the screen door, sticking his claws into the holes. He had not climbed far before the lady of the house saw him, and she said: "Here's Jimmie looking for Ajax. Come, Ajax, where are you?" Ajax was asleep on the lounge, but he jumped up and came running to the door, for he comes when he is called, "quicker than any of the other children," Mamie says. He touched noses with Jimmie, and then he took his visitors around to the front porch. There, he and Jimmie leaped upon a chair and shook their paws at Tippie, who was on the floor. Then Tippie got upon another chair, and Ajax ran under it and reached up to play with him. It really seemed as if they knew how pretty they looked. After a while, they all three had a good race up and down, over chairs, under chairs, and through chairs. Sometimes Ajax stood on the back of a chair and poked his paw at Tippie, and sometimes he ran to the top of a high rocking-chair and jumped down to the porch railing. Jimmie was not so venturesome, however. Soon they grew tired of such play, and then they rushed out-of-doors, and down upon the grass. There, Tippie began to tease Jimmie. He pushed him over, and stepped upon him, and nosed him, and even bit him gently, till Jimmie suddenly cried out, "Meow-ow-ow!" Ajax had been quietly looking on, with a shade of contempt on his handsome countenance; but when he heard that appeal, he rushed at Tippie and pushed him away from Jimmie and scratched him, and chased him from one end of the yard to the other, two or three times.