hem dead.
Next, some of the tales you told when you came home from Japan after
being in the war between the Japanese and the Russians, and afterward
how you found yourself down in Mexico. Next you could tell what you
and your friends did along with Billy Junior, and your grandchildren,
to say nothing of the scrapes you were in when you went on that
memorable vacation and left Nannie at home. After that you could make
a whole lecture on your hairbreadth escape in an aeroplane, what you
saw in town and in Panama, on the Mississippi, in the West, at the
World's Exposition in San Francisco, and last but not least in Europe
during our Great War. And then you might end with our escape from
France and the return to America. There would be a wonderful chance
for a series of lectures and I bet before the audience heard them all
their hair would be standing on end and they would be holding their
breath from excitement at your many narrow escapes from death."

"There, Billy," said Stubby, "your life work is laid out for you. You
travel and lecture while Button and I will be your press agents and go
ahead and find a place for you to lecture in all the big cities and
towns. If you did this, then Nannie could travel with you all the
time. And I know you would both like that. Then too you would not grow
so restless as it would keep you on the move all the time, for we
would plan it so that you would give only three lectures in any one
place and then go on to the next."

"The more I think of it, the more the idea appeals to me," said
Button.

"Why not make our journey north into that kind of a trip right now?"
said Stubby. "We could send word to Nannie to journey south to meet
us."

"It _does_ sound rather attractive," admitted Billy.

"Of course it does!" seconded Button. "And you owe it to the poor
untraveled animals to give out some of your experiences to them, to
enliven their humdrum lives and tell them about the outside world.
Just see what a lot of pleasure the Dog and Cat Club give those
stay-at-homes who have never been outside the suburbs of New York
City--and most of them have never ventured ten blocks from where they
were born."

"Hark!" exclaimed Billy. "I hear the most peculiar whistling, whizzing
sound. It sounds up in the clouds, but I can't see a thing."

"It must be an aeroplane then, but I can't see a thing in the sky,"
said Button, but as he spoke a huge dirigible balloon poked its nose
out of a cloud over