t looking carefully first at the hands of the clock. He
wished he knew how to smoke; only not cigarettes; he shivered when he
thought of the terrible consequences.

When he came to the street-car track, the horse-car was going past; at
least, it was coming down the street, and he did not want to be run over
by that horse; he had better wait, for the horse was trotting; his
mother had warned him about it; he sat down on the curb. He had quite a
moment or two to wait, and there would be time to give a hasty glance at
the gingerbread. He laid the tobacco-sack beside him on the curb, and
opened the other package; the car-horse had dropped into a walk and his
bell was hardly jingling; there was no hurry after all; it would never
do to cross in front of that horse even though he was walking. He looked
at the gingerbread; it was fresh and soft, and its smell, when held
close to the nose, was nothing less than heavenly; it was a pity it had
to be hidden away again in the sack, but the horse was going by and the
danger would soon be past. He held the gingerbread under his nose,
merely to smell it; the edge of it touched his upper lip by chance, and
there was something peculiar about the feel of it, he couldn't tell
exactly what; it was very interesting; he touched it with the tip of his
tongue, to see if it felt the same to his tongue as to his lip; it was
just the same; perhaps teeth would be different; his teeth sank into it,
just for a trial. The horse was going by now, and the driver was looking
at him. He forgot what he was about, in watching the horse and his
driver, as they went on past him; the gingerbread completely slipped his
mind, and when he turned his head back from the horse-car and came to
himself he found, to his amazement, that his mouth was full of
gingerbread. He wondered at first how it got there, but there was no use
in wondering; there it was, and it had to be swallowed; his mother would
never approve of his spitting it out; and so, to please his mother, he
swallowed it. The horse-car was nearly a square away; he could cross the
track at any time now; there was no hurry.

When he came into the fine two-story brick house where he lived, with
only one package in his hand, his mother threw up her hands and said:

"Why, Freddie! Where on earth have you been? Did you get lost? Are you
hungry?"

"No'm. Yes'm," said Freddie.

"Frederick," said his father, looking at him with that look, "where have
you been?