slight fires.

As Mr. Martin approached Mr. Capper's store he heard loud laughter from
the crowd of men and boys in front of the show window.

"It can't be a fire, or they wouldn't laugh," said the father of the
Curlytops. "I wonder what it is?"

He hastened on, and as he came within view of the bakery window he
uttered an exclamation of surprise. For there, among the buns, eating
them and playing among the other cakes, were several large white rats and
mice.

"Look at that one big one stand up on his hind legs and nibble a bun just
like a squirrel!" said a man watching the antics of the white rats and
mice among Mr. Capper's buns. If this man had only known it, squirrels
and rats belong to the same family, that called "rodents," only a
squirrel has a much larger tail than a rat or a mouse.

"I wonder what in the world Mr. Capper lets those white rats stay in his
bakeshop window for?" thought Mr. Martin, as he ran up. "They are not
harmful, of course, but people will not like to eat bakery stuff after
rats and mice, even if they are white, have run around them. It's a poor
advertisement."

At that moment the baker himself, who had been out in his oven-room, came
running into the shop. He gave one look at his window, saw the white rats
and mice playing around in and nibbling his choice buns, and then the
baker cried:

"Oh, who did this? Who played this trick on me and spoiled my buns? Who
let those mice in there?"

"Didn't you do it yourself?" asked Mr. Martin, who knew the baker very
well, having traded with him for a number of years.

"Let those mice in my window? Never!" cried Mr. Capper. "Why should I do
a thing like that?"

"I thought maybe it was for an advertisement--to attract customers to
your store," said Mr. Martin. "Though I thought it was rather funny."

"It is too funny!" cried the baker. "All my buns are spoiled, and I just
baked them. As for customers--I have a crowd, yes, but they will not buy
what the mice have nibbled.

"Whose mice are they? Whose white rats are they? I ask you that!" cried
the baker, who was much excited. "A little while ago two boys come in to
buy cookies. I wait on them, and I go back to my oven. Then the next I
know I see a crowd and I come out to find--these!"

He pointed to the white rats and mice that were having a fine time among
the buns in the bakeshop window.

"You say two boys were here a little while ago?" asked Mr. Martin, and he
began to have a suspicio