as well as some of their playmates, were
actors and actresses in the show, and Splash, the dog, did a trick also.
But Splash had run away, or been taken away, during the winter that had
just passed, and Bunny and Sue no longer had a dog.

Perhaps they thought they might induce the big one that had jumped into
the yard to come and live with them, after they had taken the pocketbook
away from him. He was not quite the same sort of dog as Splash, but he
seemed very nice. Bunny and Sue kept hoping Splash would return or be
brought back, but, up to the time this story opens, that had not come
about.

The show the two Brown children gave was talked about for a long time in
Bellemere. Of course, Bunny and Sue had had help in giving it, and the
show was also a means of helping others. Now winter had passed, spring
had come and gone, and it was early summer. Bunny and Sue had been
playing in the yard before going to the store for their mother when the
strange dog had sprung over the fence, snatched up the pocketbook, and
had run off with it, darting into the carpenter shop.

"I don't see anything of him," said Sue, as she and Bunny made their way
amid the piles of boards and lumber and over piles of sawdust and
shavings toward the door.

"You don't see anything of who?" asked Bunny. "Mr. Foswick or the big
dog?"

"The dog," answered Sue. "I couldn't see Mr. Foswick, 'cause he's
outside. He shut the door on us."

"Yes," agreed Bunny, "so he did. Well, maybe we can open it."

But, alas! when Bunny and Sue tried the door they found it locked tight.
Bunny had been afraid of that, for he thought he had heard a key turned
in the lock. But he had not wanted to say anything to Sue until he made
sure.

Rattle and pull at the door as the children did, and turn the knob,
which they also did several times, the door remained shut.

"We--we're locked in!" said Sue in a sort of gasping voice, looking at
Bunny.

"Yes," agreed her brother, and he tried to speak cheerfully, for he was
a year older than Sue, and, besides, boys oughtn't to be frightened as
easily as girls, Bunny thought. "But I guess we can get out," Bunny went
on. "Mr. Foswick thinks we're some of the bad boys that bother him.
We'll just yell and tell him we aren't."

"All right--you yell," suggested Sue.

So Bunny shouted as loudly as he could:

"Mr. Foswick! We didn't do anything! We didn't scatter your sawdust! You
locked us in by mistake! Let us out, please!"