“What are they for?” inquired the wax lady, simply.

“W’y, ter read, o’ course.  All the news, you know.”

She shook her head and glanced at a paper.

“It looks all speckled and mixed up,” she said.  “I’m afraid I can’t read.”

“Ever ben to school?” asked the boy, becoming interested.

“No; what’s school?” she inquired.

The boy gave her an indignant look.

“Say!” he cried, “ye’r just a dummy, that’s wot ye are!” and ran away to seek a more promising customer.

“I wonder that he means,” thought the poor lady.  “Am I really different in some way from all the others?  I look like them, certainly; and I try to act like them; yet that boy called me a dummy and seemed to think I acted queerly.”

This idea worried her a little, but she walked on to the corner, where she noticed a street car stop to let some people on.  The wax lady, still determined to do as others did, also boarded the car and sat down quietly in a corner.

After riding a few blocks the conductor approached her and said: 

“Fare, please!”

“What’s that?” she inquired, innocently.

“Your fare!” said the man, impatiently.

She stared at him stupidly, trying to think what he meant.

“Come, come!” growled the conductor, “either pay up or get off!”

Still she did not understand, and he grabbed her rudely by the arm and lifted her to her feet.  But when his hand came in contact with the hard wood of which her arm was made the fellow was filled with surprise.  He stooped down and peered into her face, and, seeing it was wax instead of flesh, he gave a yell of fear and jumped from the car, running as if he had seen a ghost.

At this the other passengers also yelled and sprang from the car, fearing a collision; and the motorman, knowing something was wrong, followed suit.  The wax lady, seeing the others run, jumped from the car last of all, and stepped in front of another car coming at full speed from the opposite direction.

She heard cries of fear and of warning on all sides, but before she understood her danger she was knocked down and dragged for half a block.

When the car was brought to a stop a policeman reached down and pulled her from under the wheels.  Her dress was badly torn and soiled.  Her left ear was entirely gone, and the left side of her head was caved in; but she quickly scrambled to her feet and asked for her hat.  This a gentleman had already picked up, and when the policeman handed it to her and noticed the great hole in her head and the hollow place it disclosed, the poor fellow trembled so frightfully that his knees actually knocked together.

“Why—­why, ma’am, you’re killed!” he gasped.

“What does it mean to be killed?” asked the wax lady.

The policeman shuddered and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

“You’re it!” he answered, with a groan.