ays: 'Oh, yes; lots of
places they could drownd--cricks and rivers and lakes and ponds and
tanks--any number of places they could fall into and never come up
again.' Say, he made that whole neighbourhood sound like Venice, Italy.
You wondered how folks ever got round without gondolas or something.
'One of Dr. George F. Maybury's two kids was nearly drownded last
Tuesday--only the older one saved him; a wonder it was they didn't have
to drag the river and find 'em on the bottom locked in each other's
arms! And a boy by the name of Clifford Something, only the other day,
playing down by the railroad tracks--'

"I shut him off, you bet! I told him to get out quick and go to his home
if he had one.

"'I certainly hope I won't have to read anything horrible in to-morrow's
paper!' he says as he goes down the back stoop. 'Only last week they was
a nigger caught--'

"I shut the door on him. Rattled good and plenty I was by then. Back
comes this silly old gardener--he'd gone with his hoe and was still
gripping it. The neighbours down that way hadn't seen the kids. Back
comes Tillie. One neighbour where she'd been had seen 'em climb on to a
street car--only it wasn't going downtown but into the country; and this
neighbour had said to herself that the boy would be likely to let some
one have it in the eye with his gun, the careless way he was lugging it.

"Thank the Lord, that was a trace! I telephoned to the police and told
'em all about it. And I telephoned for a motor car for me and got into
some clothes. Good and scared--yes! I caught sight of my face in the
looking-glass, and, my! but it was pasty--it looked like one of these
cheap apple pies you see in the window of a two-bit lunch place! And
while I'm waiting for this motor car, what should come but a telegram
from Mr. W.B. himself saying that the aunt was worse and he would go to
New Jersey himself for the night! Some said this aunt was worth a good
deal more than she was supposed to be. And I not knowing the name of
this town in Jersey where they would all be!--it was East Something or
West Something, and hard to remember, and I'd forgot it.

"I called the police again and they said descriptions was being sent
out, and that probably I'd better not worry, because they often had
cases like this. And I offered to bet them they hadn't a case since
Yonkers was first thought of that had meant so much spot cash to 'em as
this one would mean the minute I got a good grip on t