sion, and he smiled as he looked about
him.

A pile of empty sacking-bags lay on the ground beside him, and from
time to time he caught up one of these, ran his eye over the crowd,
chose one of them, and popped him, or it, as it happened to be, into
the sack which he then swung on his shoulder and heaved into the open
doorway in the big rock, where it disappeared from sight. He would
then taken another sack and make a fresh selection, looking about him
all the while with sleepy good humor, and paying little if any
attention to the cries, questions, and complaints with which he was
attacked on all sides.

What a funny lot they were--this crowd that surrounded the little man!
The children could hardly smother their excitement at the sight of
them. Not people or animals only were they, but all kinds of odd
objects also, such as no one could expect to see running about loose.
A Birthday Cake was there, with lighted candles; a little pile of
neatly darned socks and stockings, a white-cotton Easter Rabbit with
pink pasteboard ears, a Jolly Santa Claus, a smoking hot Dinner, a
Nice Nurse who rocked a smiling baby, a brown-faced grinning
Organ-Man, his organ strapped before him, his Monkey on his shoulder.
There were too many by far for the children to take in all at once,
but at the sight of one particular member of the crowd, the children
gasped with astonishment; and Peter's excitement nearly betrayed
them. There, lounging by the side of a mild-faced School-Mistress
Person, still smoking his chocolate cigarette, was--the False Hare!

"Look alive now!" the little man was crying out. "Who's next, who's
next?"

"Me, me, me--take me next, Sandy!" A dozen little voices cried this at
one and the same time. There was a scramble, bursts of laughter,
followed by a sharp rebuke from Sandy. "No, you don't either. Stand
back, you small fry. No shoving!"

When Peter had seen and recognized the False Hare he had been so
excited that it had been almost impossible for Rudolf and Ann to keep
him quiet. Now, as he watched the scramble and the rush and the fuss
the funny crowd was making about the little man, he laughed out so
loud that it was too late even to pinch him. The children's presence
was discovered, and two, tall, silver candlesticks jumped from a
satin-lined box and ran to draw them into the middle of the glade.
Sandy, as the little man appeared to be called, paused in his
business, turned round, and smiled at the children.