and a thick slice of
meat off the plate to the floor. As they fell, they hit Stubby on the
nose and made him jump, it was so unexpected, and at first he thought
some one was throwing things at him. While he ate the meat, Button
helped himself to fried chicken and Billy came over and baaed to him
not to be so greedy but to throw him down some lettuce.

"Why don't you go over into that corner and eat those carrots and
other vegetables?" meowed Button.

"Because I am not such a goose as to eat cold, dirty potatoes and
cows' food when I can get my favorite nice, crisp lettuce."

The three ate and ate, for they were very hungry after their long
tramp on the road all day. After Button had pushed all the food onto
the floor he did not want for himself, and had licked the plate, he
said, "I wish I had a nice drink of milk now, to quench my thirst. If
I had that, I could go to sleep and sleep until daylight without
waking, even if a rat chewed my tail and a mouse bit my ear."

"A pail of clean, cool water would please me better," said Billy.

"Me too," said Stubby. "Listen! I hear water running somewhere," he
added.

"It sounds to me as if it were in the kitchen upstairs," said Billy.
"I don't hear any one stirring around up there, so let us go and get a
drink and then turn in for the night."

Billy walked to the cellar stairs and was half way up, while Stubby
and Button were just behind him, when they heard some one exclaim,
"Chester, come quick! Come quick! The water is running in the sink,
and the cellar floor is flooded."

This was followed by the loud laughter of two people.

"Whatever shall we do?" said a girl's distressed voice.

"Get a mop and mop it up!" replied a boy.

"But the mop is in the cellar and I'll get my feet wet if I cross the
floor to go to the cellar. Besides, I have on my best white shoes."

"Where do you keep the broom? That will do."

"Behind the kitchen door usually, but with the house all torn up with
housecleaning, I don't know where it is."

"I'll find it. You stay out of the room so you won't get wet."

"Who ever would have thought that just because I happened to set that
coffee pot over the hole in the sink that it would stop it up so tight
that the water when it overflowed the coffee pot would fill the sink
and make it overflow?"

"No one would," answered the boy. "And here is all this mess just
because we hadn't any sense and tried to cool a bottle of ginger ale
by setting it