what steps could be taken by talking to do
something. There were sixty-six representatives on the committee and
they decided to call it the Committee of Sixty Six. It was a
distinguished committee and when they all sat together holding their
mouths under their noses (just like a distinguished committee) and
blinking their eyes up over their noses and cleaning their ears and
scratching themselves under the chin looking thoughtful (just like a
distinguished committee) then anybody would say just to look at them,
"This must be quite a distinguished committee."

Of course, they would all have looked more distinguished if they had
had their tails on. If the big wavy streak of a blue tail blows off
behind a blue fox, he doesn't look near so distinguished. Or, if the
long yellow torch of a tail blows off behind a yellow flongboo, he
doesn't look so distinguished as he did before the wind blew.

So the Committee of Sixty Six had a meeting and a parleyhoo to decide
what steps could be taken by talking to do something. For chairman
they picked an old flongboo who was an umpire and used to umpire many
mix-ups. Among the flongboos he was called "the umpire of umpires,"
"the king of umpires," "the prince of umpires," "the peer of umpires."
When there was a fight and a snag and a wrangle between two families
living next door neighbors to each other and this old flongboo was
called in to umpire and to say which family was right and which family
was wrong, which family started it and which family ought to stop it,
he used to say, "The best umpire is the one who knows just how far to
go and how far not to go." He was from Massachusetts, born near
Chappaquiddick, this old flongboo, and he lived there in a horse
chestnut tree six feet thick half way between South Hadley and
Northampton. And at night, before he lost his tail, he lighted up the
big hollow cave inside the horse chestnut tree with his yellow torch
of a tail.

After he was nominated with speeches and elected with votes to be the
chairman, he stood up on the platform and took a gavel and banged with
the gavel and made the Committee of Sixty Six come to order.

"It is no picnic to lose your tail and we are here for business," he
said, banging his gavel again.

A blue fox from Waco, Texas, with his ears full of dry bluebonnet
leaves from a hole where he lived near the Brazos river, stood up and
said, "Mr. Chairman, do I have the floor?"

"You have whatever you get away wit