R.N.P.

    Answer:  Hip-Po-pot-a-mus, hippopotamus.

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    Wilmette, Ills.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS:  I have been taking your book two years.  I think it is splendid.  Some of the stories are so funny.  I go to a private school, and I am in the Fourth Reader.  The girls play on one side of the grounds and the boys on the other; the cherry-trees are on our side, and I like it the best.  We have lots of fun.  I am nine years old.  I have two little sisters, Belle and Marion, and a little brother, Bobo.  When we get big we may write some stories for your book.  We are little now, but everybody was little once.—­Your friend,

    KITTY GRIFFITHS.

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    Philadelphia, Pa.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS:  I do like you so much, and I wish you would tell me something.  I see pictures and read books in which are the names Penelope, Juno, Achilles, Hercules, and so on.  The dictionary tells but little about these names, and I want to know all about them.  Can you tell me how to find out?—­Truly your friend,

    CARRIE H.

You can learn a good deal about the personages you mention from Bulfinch’s “Age of Fable,” from Alexander S. Murray’s “Manual of Mythology,” and from Mrs. Clement’s “Handbook of Legendary and Mythological Art”; but the poems of Homer,—­the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey,”—­of both of which there are good English translations,—­are the chief sources of the information.

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    Chicago, Ills.

    MY DEAR ST. NICHOLAS:  I send you an Enigma to publish in your
    magazine.  The answer to the Enigma is “Washington.”—­Yours truly,

    WILLIE M.

        My 1, 9, 10, is the same as one. 
        My 8, 1, is two-thirds of two. 
        My 6, 5, 10, is three-fourths of nine. 
        My 10, 9, 8, 4, 5, 6, 9, is nothing. 
        My 3, 2, 1, is what my 5 did. 
        My 8, 9, 10, is very heavy; but
        My 10, 9, 8, is not. 
        My 6, 5, 7, 4, 8, is always somewhere, but not here to-day.

* * * * *

THE BOY ENGINEERS:  WHAT THEY DID, AND HOW THEY DID IT, is an illustrated book published by Messrs. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.  It seems to have been written for readers living in England, but young amateur machinists anywhere would find it an entertaining book.  It gives good practical hints about the management of tools, and explains how to turn and carve in wood and metal, how to make a clock, an organ, a small house, and how to set up a steam-engine.  The type is large, and the style easy and pleasant.

THE RIDDLE-BOX.

VERY EASY SQUARE-WORD.

1.  A pointed implement of brass or wood. 2.  Wrath. 3.  Not old.