fletit
can fan itself in warm weather, thus keeping cool, calm, and collected.
Most marvelous thing of all about this marvelous creature is its diet.
For the whiffletit, my dear young friends, lives exclusively on imported
Brie cheese.

"Did I say exclusively? Ah, there I fell into error. It has been known
to nibble at a chiropodist's finger, but it prefers imported Brie
cheese, aged in the wood. The mode employed in catching it is very
interesting, and I shall now describe it to you. Selecting a body of
water wherein the whiffletit resides, you enter a round-bottomed boat
and row out to the middle of it. Then you take a square timber, and,
driving it into the water, withdraw it very swiftly so as to leave a
square hole in the water. Care should be taken to use a perfectly square
timber because the whiffletit being, as I forgot to tell you, shaped
like a brick, cannot move up and down a round hole without barking its
shins, much to the discomfort of the pretty creature.

"Pray follow me closely now, for at this juncture we come to the most
important phase of the undertaking. You bait the edges of the hole with
the cheese cut in small cubes and quietly await results. Nor do you have
long to wait. Far down below in his watery retreat the whiffletit
catches the alluring aroma of the cheese. He swims to the surface and
devours it to the last crumb. But alas for the greedy whiffletit!
Instantly the cheese swells him up so that he cannot change gears nor
retreat back down the hole, and as he circles about, flapping
helplessly, you lean over the side of the boat and laugh him to death!
And such, my young friends, such is the fate of the whiffletit."

"'Scuse me, suh."

The amateur aspirant for the robe of Munchausen paused from lighting a
fresh cigarette and lifted his eyes, and was aware of an
anthracite-colored face risen, like some new kind of crayoned full moon,
above the white skyline of the side fence.

"'Scuse me, suh, fur interruptin'," repeated the voice belonging to the
apparition, "but I couldn't he'p frum overhearin' whut you wuz tellin'
the boys yere. An' I got sort of interested myse'f."

"It's Judge Priest's Jeff, Uncle Dwight," explained the oldest nephew.
"Jeff makes us fluttermills out of corn-stalks, and he learned
us--taught us, I mean--to call a brickbat an alley-apple, and he can
make his ears wiggle just like a rabbit and everything. Don't you,
Jeff?--I mean, can't you, Jeff?"

"Ah, I see," said