llowing about without a thought of the
dignity which one expects from a canonical character. Billy had always
languished upon his memories of this diverting beast, and I stood ready
to see him plunge headlong the moment that he read the sign-board at the
head of the stairs. When he paused and hesitated there, not seeming at
all anxious to go down till he saw the pretty girl and the child
following after,--a sudden intuition flashed across me. Could it be
possible that Billy was caught in that vortex which whirled me down at
ten years,--a little boy's first love?

We were lingering about the elliptical basin, and catching occasional
glimpses between bubbles of a vivified hair trunk of monstrous compass,
whose knobby lid opened at one end and showed a red morocco lining, when
the pretty girl, in leaning over to point out the rising monster,
dropped into the water one of her little gloves, and the swash made by
the hippopotamus drifted it close under Billy's hand. Either in play or
as a mere coincidence the animal followed it. The other children about
the tank screamed and started back as he bumped his nose against the
side; but Billy manfully bent down and grabbed the glove not an inch
from one of his big tusks, then marched around the tank and presented it
to the lady with a chivalry of manner in one of his years quite
surprising.

"That's a real nice boy,--you said so, didn't you, Lottie?--and I wish
he'd come and play with me," said the little fellow by the young lady's
side, as Billy turned away, gracefully thanked, to come back to me with
his cheeks roseate with blushes.

As he heard this, Billy idled along the edge of the tank for a moment,
then faced about and said,--

"P'raps I will some day,--where do you live?"

"I live on East Seventeenth street with papa,--and Lottie stays there,
too, now,--she's my cousin. Where d' you live?"

"Oh, I live close by,--right on that big green square, where I guess the
nurse takes you once in a while," said Billy, patronizingly. Then,
looking up pluckily at the young lady, he added, "I never saw you out
there."

"No; Jimmy's papa has only been in his new house a little while, and
I've just come to visit him."

"Say, will you come and play with me some time?" chimed in the
inextinguishable Jimmy. "I've got a cooking-stove,--for real fire,--and
blocks and a ball with a string."

Billy, who belonged to a club for the practice of the great American
game, and was what A. W