e reason!) the _nurse_ would not be
able to get through.

For by now Jane was not only as _round_ as a barrel, but she was fully
as _large_--what with so much happy giggling over Thomas's arrival.
Moreover, having toppled sidewise, she _looked_ like a barrel--a barrel
upholstered in black sateen, with a neat touch of white at collar and
cuffs!

"He's been in trouble before," continued the Policeman, stormily. "But
_this_ time--!" And letting himself down flat upon his head, he shook
both neatly shod feet in the Piper's face.

It was now that Gwendolyn chanced, for the first time, to examine the
latter's bundle. And was surprised to discover that it was nothing less
than a large _poke-bonnet_--of the fluffy, lacy, ribbony sort. And she
was admiring it, for it was of black silk, and handsome, _when something
within it stirred!_

She retreated--until the night-stick and the kidnaper knife were between
her and the poke. "Hadn't we better be st-starting?" she faltered
nervously.

The Piper marked her manner, and showed instant resentment of it. "This
here thing was handed me once in part-payment," he explained. "And I
ain't been able to get rid of it since. Every single day it's harder to
lug around. Because, you see, he's growin'."

At that, the Policeman and the Man-Who-Makes-Faces exchanged a glance
full of significance. And both shrugged--the Policeman with such an
emphatic upside-down shrug that his shoulders brushed the ground.

Gwendolyn's curiosity emboldened her. "_He?_" she questioned.

"The pig."

_The pig!_ Gwendolyn's pink mouth opened in amazement. Here was the very
pig that she heard _belonged_ in a poke!

The Piper was glowering at Jane, who was rocking gently from side to
side, displaying first one face, then the other. "Well, _I_ call that
dancing," he declared. And pulling out a small, well-thumbed
account-book, jotted down some figures.

Gwendolyn tried to think of something to say--while feeling mistrust
toward the Piper, and abhorrence toward the poke and its contents. At
last she took refuge in polite inquiry. "When did you come out from
town?" she asked.

The Piper grunted rather ill-humoredly (or was it the pig?--she could
not be certain), and colored up a little. "I didn't _come_ out," he
answered in his surly fashion. Whereupon he fell to fitting a coupling
upon the ends of two pipes.

"No?"--inquisitively.

"I--er--got run out."

"Oh!"

Again the Policeman and the Man-Who-Ma