s we could,"
said Mr. Brown. "It was rather dark in there, and we could not see much.
But we found no pocketbook."

"Did you find the dog?" asked Sue eagerly.

"No, he had run out," said Mr. Brown. "We saw where he had scattered the
sawdust and shavings, though. Was it a dog you ever saw before, Bunny?"

"No, Daddy," answered the little boy. "He was a big, strange, new dog. I
wish we had him, 'cause we haven't any dog, now that Splash has run
away."

"I guess this dog has run away, also," said Mr. Brown. "There wasn't a
trace of him; nor of the pocketbook, either. But Mr. Foswick and I are
going to look in the shop again to-morrow by daylight. It may be the dog
dropped the pocketbook, and it got kicked under a pile of sawdust or
shavings."

"Did you see the place where I broke the window with the hammer?" asked
Bunny.

"Yes, the window was still broken," answered his father, who began to
eat his supper.

It was not at all a cheerful evening in the Brown home. Never before had
Bunny and Sue felt so unhappy--at least, they could not remember such a
time. They did not feel like playing as they generally did, though it
was a warm early summer night, and lovely to be out of doors.

"Never mind, dears," said Mrs. Brown, when she was putting them to bed.
"Perhaps we shall find the ring to-morrow."

"And the money, too," added Bunny. "Five dollars is a lot to lose."

"Maybe the dog ate it," suggested Sue.

"How could he?" asked her brother.

"Well, didn't Splash once chew up my picture-book? He ate one of the
paper leaves that had on it about Bo Peep and her sheep," said Sue. "A
five-dollar bill is paper, and so was my Mother Goose book, and Splash
ate that."

"No, I don't believe the dog ate the money," said Mrs. Brown. "It is
probably still in the pocketbook with my ring wherever the dog dropped
it. I should not mind the loss of the money if I could only get back my
lovely diamond ring. But go to sleep, dears. To-morrow we may have good
news."

And so Bunny and Sue went to sleep. They were up early the next morning,
but not so early as Mr. Brown, who, their mother said, had gone to the
carpenter shop to help Mr. Foswick look among the sawdust and shavings.

After a while Bunny and Sue went out in the yard to play with some of
the boys and girls who lived near by. And to them Bunny and his sister
told the story of what the strange dog had done.

"I am sure I saw that big yellow dog," cried Lulu Dare, one o