shut up Wheezy," interrupted the Poker angrily. "Of course you can go
on like that forever, once somebody gives you the idea, but to have the
idea in the beginning was the big thing. Columbus was a great man for
coming to America, but every foreigner who has come over since isn't, not
by a long shot. As I say in my celebrated rhyme on "Greatness":

The greatest man in all the world, by far the greatest one,
Is he who goes ahead and does what no one else has done.
But he must be the first if he would rank as some "potaters,"
For those who follow after him are merely imitators.

[Illustration: "COLUMBUS WAS A GREAT MAN."]

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the Bellows. "You are a great chap, Pokey--you, with
your poetry. I hope Tom isn't going to be affected by the lessons you
teach. The idea of saying that a man is the greatest man in the world
because he does what no one else has done! I guess nobody's never eaten
bricks up to now. Do you mean to say that if Tom here ate a brick he'd be
the greatest man in the world?"

"No; he'd be a cannibal," put in the Righthandiron, desirous of stopping
the quarrel between the rivals.

"How do you make that out?" demanded the Bellows.

"Because Tom is a brick himself," explained the Righthandiron; and just
then slap! bang! the party plunged head first into what appeared to
be--and in fact really was--a huge snowbank.

"Hurrah! Here we are!" cried Lefty, gleefully.

"Wh-where are we?" Tom sputtered, blowing the snow out of his mouth and
shaking it from his coat and hair and ears.

"Hi, there! Look out!" roared Righty, grabbing Tom by the coat sleeve and
yanking him off to one side. A terrible swishing sound fell upon the lad's
ears, and as he gazed doggedly about him to see what had caused it he saw
a great golden toboggan whizzing down into the valley, and then slipping
up the hill on the other side.

"You had a narrow escape that time," said Righty, as they excitedly
watched the toboggan speeding on its way, and which, by the way, was
filled with a lot of little youngsters no bigger than Tom himself,
children of all colors, apparently, red, white and blue, green, yellow and
black. "If I hadn't yanked you away you'd have been run over."

"But where are we?" Tom asked, bewildered by the experience.

"We're on the Crescent Moon at last," said Lefty. "It's the boss toboggan
slide of the universe."

"A toboggan slide?" cried Tom.

"The very same," said the Poker. "D