her heart
that her table had never looked better.

After the company had had the edge taken off their appetites--which
effect was produced on the sword swallower only after he had been helped
three different times, the conversation began by the fat woman asking
Toby how he got along with Mr. Lord.

Toby could not give a very good account of his employer, but he had the
good sense not to cast a damper on a party of pleasure by reciting his
own troubles; so he said, evasively:

"I guess I shall get along pretty well, now that I have got so many
friends."

Just as he had commenced to speak the skeleton had put into his mouth
a very large piece of turkey--very much larger in proportion than
himself--and when Toby had finished speaking he started to say something
evidently not very complimentary to Mr. Lord. But what it was the
company never knew; for just as he opened his mouth to speak, the food
went down the wrong way, his face became a bright purple, and it was
quite evident that he was choking.

Toby was alarmed, and sprang from his chair to assist his friend,
upsetting Mr. Stubbs from his seat, causing him to scamper up the tent
pole, with the napkin still tied around his neck, and to scold in his
most vehement manner. Before Toby could reach the skeleton, however, the
fat woman had darted toward her lean husband, caught him by the arm, and
was pounding his back, by the time Toby got there, so vigorously that
the boy was afraid her enormous hand would go through his tissue paper
like frame.

"I wouldn't," said Toby, in alarm; "you may break him."

"Don't you get frightened," said Mrs. Treat, turning her husband
completely over, and still continuing the drumming process. "He's often
taken this way; he's such a glutton that he'd try to swallow the turkey
whole if he could get it in his mouth, an' he's so thin that 'most
anything sticks in his throat."

"I should think you'd break him all up," said Toby, apologetically, as
he resumed his seat at the table; "he don't look as if he could stand
very much of that sort of thing."

But apparently Mr. Treat could stand very much more than Toby gave him
credit for, because at this juncture he stopped coughing, and his face
fast assumed its natural hue.

His attentive wife, seeing that he had ceased struggling, lifted him in
her arms and sat him down in his chair with a force that threatened to
snap his head off.

"There!" she said, as he wheezed a little from the