Didn't I tell you to hurry?"

"Yes, sir, to Mr. Punch's, and I didn't see his farver at all, but the
hands come'd right over on top of each other and he didn't get down off
of his perch, he didn't, so Mr. Toby took me in to see Aunt Namanda and
she eats pins, and it's cigarettes that gives you that hump on the back,
only tobacco's all right 'cause you smoke it in a pipe and it doesn't do
you any harm at all, and that's what Mr. Toby says and he ought to know
'cause he's got one on his back his own self, but you mustn't touch that
tobacco in the head 'cause it's magic and the sailor said so, and here's
the Cage-Roach Mitchner, and that's all."

You will notice that he said nothing about the gingerbread.

CHAPTER III

INTRODUCING THE CHURCHWARDEN

Every time Freddie visited the Old Tobacco Shop after that--and it was
pretty often, whether the tobacco box at home needed tobacco or not, for
there were a good many things that drew him there, and he hardly knew
which was the most fascinating: there was always a chance of
gingerbread, and you could usually depend on seeing Aunt Amanda eat
pins, and you could look through the two pieces of glass at the double
picture and make it all one picture with the people in it standing out
as if they were real, and Mr. Toby would often sing about his friends
the two old Codgers and talk about their mean ways, and Mr. Punch was
always waiting for his father outside the door, so that you had to keep
your eyes on the time, or at least the clock (which is different), and
sometimes Mr. Toby would let you in behind the counter and let you scoop
tobacco into a paper sack, and when his back was turned you could stand
under the Chinaman's head with the magic tobacco in it, and look up at
it and wonder what would happen if you took just one or two little teeny
whiffs--But I forget what I started to tell you. Oh, yes. Every time
Freddie visited the Old Tobacco Shop, Mr. Toby would ask him his name,
in order to see if he was grown up yet.

"What's your name today?" Mr. Toby would say.

"Fweddie," would be the Little Boy's answer.

"Not yet," Mr. Toby would say, shaking his head sadly. "You ain't grown
up yet. I'm very sorry to have to tell you, son, but you've got to wait
a while before you're grown up. I'll tell you what; I'll give you six
months more," said Mr. Toby on one occasion. "If you ain't grown up by
that time, there's no hope for you; I hate to have to say it, but you
migh