And though we'd try and try and try
He'd say that he was right,"

interrupted the Lefthandiron.

"And wasn't he?" asked Tom.

"That isn't a part of the story," snapped the Righthandiron, "and if you
don't stop interrupting me I'll never speak to you again."

"I didn't mean to," said Tom apologetically.

"That's just the worst part of it," snapped the Andiron. "You are an
interrupter by nature, and that is the most incurable kind. But, as I was
telling you, Ebenezer was bound to be a boy, and no amount of talk on our
part could convince him that he was a Weasel. Well, Lefty and I were very
young then, and up to the time of which I am speaking we had always made
our little trips in the Fairy Country or in Giantland all by ourselves,
and we had lots of fun together I can warrant. This time, however, we
decided to take Ebenezer with us to Giantland, which was a place he had
often heard us tell about, and concerning which he was very curious. We
told him that it would never do for him to visit Giantland, because the
Giants were always very hungry, and liked nothing better to eat than a boy
like himself. It would be dangerous for him to go, we said, unless he
would promise to obey us in everything we told him to do, and to admit
that he was whatever we chose to call him."

"You see, my dear Tom," said the Lefthandiron in explanation, "the Giants
had such confidence in us that they accepted as true anything we said, so
that if we should happen to meet a hungry ogre and he should want to eat
Ebenezer because he was a boy, all that would be necessary for us to do to
save Ebenezer was to say, 'Hold on. He is not a boy. He is a Weasel.' Then
Ebenezer would be all right, because Giants do not eat Weasels."

"I see," said Tom, nodding his head.

"Ebenezer promised that he would obey us and wouldn't deny that he was a
Weasel if we told the Giants he was one, and we took him off with us,"
resumed the Righthandiron. "We went straight to Giantland and had a
perfectly lovely time until about an hour before it was time to return,
when we encountered a huge Giant named Skihigh--and my, how hungry he was!
He was hungrier than Lefty's friend, who went into a restaurant and
ordered

"'Thirty-seven pounds of cake,
Sixty-four lamb chops,
Eighteen portions of beefsteak,
Forty ginger pops;
Seventeen vanilla puffs,
Twenty fresh-caught dabs,
Thirty-eight rich raisin duffs,
Ninety sof