ky
gentleman he had seen on the New Haven local was not a "bull"--not really
a detective who had observed the little transaction in the subway; but the
very uncertainty annoyed The Hopper. In his happy and profitable year at
Happy Hill Farm he had learned to prize his personal comfort, and he was
humiliated to find that he had been frightened into leaving the train at
Bansford to continue his journey afoot, and merely because a man had
looked at him a little queerly.

Any Christmas spirit that had taken root in The Hopper's soul had been
disturbed, not to say seriously threatened with extinction, by the
untoward occurrences of the afternoon.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

II

The Hopper waited for a limousine to pass and then crawled out of his
hiding-place, jumped into the roadster, and was at once in motion. He
glanced back, fearing that the owner might have heard his departure, and
then, satisfied of his immediate security, negotiated a difficult turn in
the road and settled himself with a feeling of relief to careful but
expeditious flight. It was at this moment, when he had urged the car to
its highest speed, that a noise startled him--an amazing little chirrupy
sound which corresponded to none of the familiar forewarnings of engine
trouble. With his eyes to the front he listened for a repetition of the
sound. It rose again--it was like a perplexing cheep and chirrup, changing
to a chortle of glee.

"Goo-goo! Goo-goo-goo!"

The car was skimming a dark stretch of road and a superstitious awe fell
upon The Hopper. Murder, he gratefully remembered, had never been among
his crimes, though he had once winged a too-inquisitive policeman in
Kansas City. He glanced over his shoulder, but saw no pursuing ghost in
the snowy highway; then, looking down apprehensively, he detected on the
seat beside him what appeared to be an animate bundle, and, prompted by a
louder "goo-goo," he put out his hand. His fingers touched something warm
and soft and were promptly seized and held by Something.

The Hopper snatched his hand free of the tentacles of the unknown and
shook it violently. The nature of the Something troubled him. He renewed
his experiments, steering with his left hand and exposing the right to
what now seemed to be the grasp of two very small mittened hands.

"Goo-goo! Goody; teep wunnin'!"

"A kid!" The Hopper gasped.

That he had eloped with a child was the blackest of the day's calamities.
H