your pants' pocket is," he said; and he put his hand into the pocket of
Frank's nankeen trousers and felt; and then, before Mrs. Baker could stop
him, he drew a roll of bank-notes out of his own pocket and pushed it into
Frank's. "There, it's just a fit! Do you think you'd lose it?"

"No, he wouldn't lose it," said his mother, "and that's just it! He'd
worry about it every minute, and I would worry about him!"

She tried to make the merchant take the money back, but he kept joking;
and then he turned serious, and told her that the money had to be put in
the bank to pay a note, and he did not know any way to get it to his
partner if she would not let Frank take it; that he was at his wits' end.
He said he would as lief trust it with Frank as with any man he knew; that
nobody would think the boy had any money with him; and he fairly begged
her to let Frank take it for him.

He talked to her so much that she began to give way a little. She felt
proud of his being willing to trust Frank, and at last she consented. Mr.
Bushell explained that he wished his partner to have the money that
evening, and she had to agree to let Frank carry it to him as soon as he
got home.

The Boy's Town was built on two sides of a river. Mr. Bushell's store was
across the river from where the Bakers lived, and she said she did not
want the child to have to go through the bridge after dark. Perhaps it was
her anxiety about this that began the whole trouble; for when the driver
came with the carriage, she could not help asking him if he was sure to
get home before sundown. That made him drive faster than he might have
done, perhaps; at any rate, he set off at a quick trot after Mr. Bushell
had helped put the two boys in. Mrs. Baker gathered her little girls
together and went back to the boat with her heart in her mouth, as she
afterwards said.

The driver got out of the city without trouble, but when he came to the
smooth turnpike road, it seemed to Frank that the horses kept going faster
and faster, till they were fairly flying over the ground. The driver
pulled and pulled at the reins, and people began to hollo, "Look out where
you're going!" when they met them or passed them, and all at once Frank
began to think the horses were running away. He had not much chance to
think about it, though, he was so busy keeping his little brother from
bouncing off the seat and out of the carriage, and in feeling if Mr.
Bushell's money was safe; and he w