ently, because it had been bottled up so long, Robin told him how
afraid she was for him--that Norris had as much as said he suspected him
and Adam Kraus, and that the constable might arrest them any moment and
wouldn't he please--go away--or--or something?

"He says you're disgruntled 'cause he wouldn't look at your 'toy.' He's
terribly mad about everything--I could see it in his horrid eyes. Oh, I
_hate_ him!" she finished.

They had left the village and were close to the bend in the road where
stood the House of Laughter. Dale stopped short and threw his head back
with a loud laugh. Robin had wondered in her heart with what courage her
Prince would take the news of his danger but she had not expected this!
However, his laugh softened the lines of his face until it looked boyish
and oh, so much like it had that night long ago when she had been lost.

"Well, here I am laughing away and forgetting to thank you for wanting
to help me. But you needn't be afraid for me, Miss Robin. There is still
a little justice in the world, in spite of men like Norris, and I can
prove to anyone that I was snug in my bed until my mother dragged me
out to go off up to the old village. I can't say I helped fight the
fire--what was the use? Nothing could have saved the old place. And I'd
rather like to shake hands with the man who set it on fire, though it
was sort of a low-down trick. Norris won't house anyone in that
rat-hole."

An immense relief shone in Robin's face. She knew Dale had not done the
"low-down trick." She wished she had made Norris believe it!

"About the toy--" Dale went on, soberly. "Maybe in the end it'll be a
good thing for me that Norris turned it down. Adam Kraus has taken it
and he's going to have some little metal contrivances made that it had
to have and then he'll take it to Grangers' and he feels pretty sure
that Granger will buy it. Only I had a sort of feeling that I wanted it
used here--you see these mills gave definite shape to this thing that
has been growing in my head for a long time, just like verses in a
poet's. I went to a technical night school for years, you know, and I
couldn't get enough of the machine shop. One of the teachers in the
school got this job for me here. I'd never been outside of New York
before and I thought this was Heaven, honest."

"Mr. Norris said you claimed it would--oh, something about efficiency,"
Robin floundered.

Dale nodded. "I not only claim, I know. That little th