ast five; he could easily see,
however, that the big hand was almost on top of the little hand. He
edged away further from the wooden figure on the box; he was almost sure
that the hand which held the cigars moved a little.

The hunchbacked man in the doorway stood up straight on his two feet and
took his hands out of his pockets.

"Look alive, young feller!" he said. "It's pretty near time! In another
minute! I can't help it if Mr. Punch's father comes out and--Quick, boy!
Come here to me, before it's too late! I'll see if I can save you!"

Freddie gave another look at the clock; the hands were surely almost
together, and quick as a flash he darted to the hunchback and hid behind
him and held on to his coat, peeping around him through the doorway. The
little man put his arm about Freddie and held him close; it was a strong
muscular arm, and Freddie felt quite safe. The little man could not have
been laughing, for his face was as solemn and wooden-looking as ever;
but Freddie could feel his body shaking all over, he couldn't tell why.

"You'd better come in and see Aunt Amanda," he said, "before it's too
late. You'll be safe in there."

He took Freddie by the hand and drew him into the shop.

The Old Tobacco Shop stands at the corner of two streets, as you surely
must know if you have ever been in the city that lies on the river
called Patapsco, which runs along ever so far out of a great bay where
ships sail from all over the world, called Chesapeake Bay. It is an old
brick house, and you go into the shop by the door that opens in the side
just round the corner, not in the front, for there isn't any door at the
front, but only a window with pipes and cigars and tobacco in it, and
the stuffed head of a bull-dog with a pipe in his mouth. The house is
only one story and a half high, and has a steep gabled roof, with two
dormer windows in the slope of the roof above the side of the house, and
one dormer window in the slope of the roof above the shop-window in
front, where the bull-dog is. All the other houses fronting in the row
are good high two-story houses; why this corner house never grew up like
the others, no one knows.

When Freddie was standing at the corner of the street, before he had
seen the wooden figure offering his bundle of wooden cigars there beside
the door, he looked down the street that runs along the side of the
shop, across the street that crosses it, and saw the masts of tall ships
in the harb