Tommy Twister’s Discovery 265

And now, while the ark is getting down to
the sea, I will reveal to you Tommy’s great
idea for keeping warm at the North Pole.

Have you ever been rash enough to bite
a jam-tart without waiting for it to cool a
little? If you have—and most of us have,
though oxdy once—you will remember that
you were a long time before you decided to
leave off regretting your haste. How long
a mouthful of hot jam will continue scalding
one I do not know—and I do not intend
to try.

At any rate I know that the longer you
keep it in your mouth and dance about and
make faces, the scaldinger and scaldinger it
seems to get; and I know that you don't
forget it for days. Nobody has ever in-
vented anything that will retain heat longer
than jam; and, if any one ever does, don’t
take a bite at it until you have walked round
it one hundred times, and then sat and
watched it for an hour or two.

Very well—Tommy had found out how
jam retains its heat. He had howled a
good deal—as well as the jam would let him