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 BILL THE MINDER YOUNG TOOTH-CUTTERS FORGOT THEIR TROUBLES

but these were soon drowned by the cheers of the crowd and the music of the harmoniums.

The second event was the obstacle race, in which each competitor had to run with three babies in his arms along a course strewn with perambulators full of children. Over the latter he had to climb, and having placed his three babies in an empty perambulator stationed at the end of the course, wheel them back the same way and empty them into the arms of the Duke without a cry from the children.

The loud cheers of the crowd and the roar of the harmoniums this time hardly drowned the jeering of his rivals when it was proclaimed that Bill had also won this race; and when he secured the gold-mounted feeding-bottle, presented by the Duke, for minding seventeen tooth-cutters and three indigesters, and sending them all to sleep in three hours and forty-five minutes, their rage was almost beyond their control. The cheers, the hurrahs, and 11