Mr. Popper's Penguins

oxblood shoes. He had got out of the cedar chest his old black evening tailcoat, that he had been married in, and brushed it carefully, and put it on, too.
    He did indeed look a little like a penguin. He turned and strutted like one now, for Mrs. Popper.
    But he did not forget his duty to Captain Cook.
    “Can I have a few yards of clothesline, please, Mamma?” asked Mr. Popper.
     

Chapter VIII

Penguin’s Promenade
     
    R. POPPER soon found that it was not so easy to take a penguin for a stroll.
    Captain Cook did not care at first for the idea of being put on a leash. However, Mr. Popper was firm. He tied one end of the clothesline to the penguin’s fat throat and the other to his own wrist.
    “Ork!” said Captain Cook indignantly. Still, he was a very reasonable sort of bird, and when he saw that protesting did him no good, he recovered his customary dignity and decided to let Mr. Popper lead him.
    Mr. Popper put on his best Sunday derby and opened the front door with Captain Cook waddling graciously beside him.
    “Gaw” said the penguin, stopping at the edge of the porch to look down at the steps.
    Mr. Popper gave him plenty of clothesline leash.
    “ Gook!” said Captain Cook, and raising his flippers, he leaned forward bravely and tobogganed down the steps on his stomach.
    Mr. Popper followed, though not in the same way. Captain Cook quickly got up on his feet again and strutted to the street ahead of Mr. Popper with many quick turns of his head and pleased comments on the new scene.
    Down Proudfoot Avenue came a neighbor of the Poppers, Mrs. Callahan, with her arms full of groceries. She stared in astonishment when she saw Captain Cook and Mr. Popper, looking like a larger penguin himself in his black tailcoat.
    “Heavens have mercy on us!” she exclaimed as the bird began to investigate the striped stockings under her house dress. “It isn’t an owl and it isn’t a goose.”
    “It isn’t,” said Mr. Popper, tipping his Sunday derby. “It’s an Antarctic penguin, Mrs. Callahan.”
    “Get away from me,” said Mrs. Callahan to Captain Cook. “An anteater, is it?”
    “Not anteater,” explained Mr. Popper. “Antarctic. It was sent to me from the South Pole.”
    “Take your South Pole goose away from me at once,” said Mrs. Callahan.
    Mr. Popper pulled obediently at the clothesline, while Captain Cook took a parting peck at Mrs. Callahan’s striped stockings.
    “Heaven preserve us!” said Mrs. Callahan. “I must stop in and see Mrs. Popper at once. I would never have believed it. I will be going now.”

    “So will I,” said Mr. Popper as Captain Cook dragged him off down the street.
    Their next stop was at the drugstore at the corner of Proudfoot Avenue and Main Street. Here Captain Cook insisted on looking over the window display, which consisted of several open packages of shiny white boric crystals. These he evidently mistook for polar snow, for he began to peck at the window vigorously.
    Suddenly a car wheeled to the near-by curb with a shriek of its brakes, and two young men sprang out, one of them bearing a camera.
    “This must be it,” said the first young man to the other.
    “It’s them, all right,” said the second young man.
    The cameraman set up his tripod on the sidewalk. By this time a small crowd had gathered around, and two men in white coats had even come out of the drugstore to watch. Captain Cook, however, was still too much interested in the window exhibits to bother to turn around.
    “You’re Mr. Popper of 432 Proudfoot Avenue, aren’t you?” asked the second young man, pulling a notebook out of his pocket.
    “Yes,” said Mr. Popper, realizing that his picture was about to be taken for the newspaper. The two young men had, as a matter of fact, heard about the strange bird from the policeman, and had been on their way to the Popper house, to get an interview, when they saw Captain Cook.
    “Hey, pelican, turn around and see the pretty birdie,” said the photographer.
    “That’s no pelican,” said the other, who was a reporter. “Pelicans have a pouch in their bills.”
    “I’d think it was a dodo, only dodos are extinct. This will make an elegant picture, if I can ever get her to turn around.”
    “It’s a penguin,” said Mr. Popper proudly. “Its name is Captain Cook.”
    “ Gook! ” said the penguin, turning around, now that they were talking about him. Spying the camera tripod, he walked over and examined it.
    “Probably thinks it’s