ack with his pockets partly stuffed with the remnants of the scanty
meal.

And the next day Titee was tardy again, and lunchless too, and the
next, until the teacher, in despair, sent a nicely printed note to his
mother about him, which might have done some good, had not Titee taken
great pains to tear it up on the way home.

One day it rained, whole bucketsful of water, that poured in torrents
from a miserable, angry sky. Too wet a day for bits of boys to be
trudging to school, so Titee's mother thought; so she kept him at home
to watch the weather through the window, fretting and fuming like a
regular storm in miniature. As the day wore on, and the rain did not
abate, his mother kept a strong watch upon him, for he tried many times
to slip away.

Dinner came and went, and the gray soddenness of the skies deepened
into the blackness of coming night. Someone called Titee to go to bed,
and Titee was nowhere to be found.

Under the beds, in closets and corners, in such impossible places as
the soap-dish and water-pitcher even, they searched, but he had gone as
completely as if he had been spirited away. It was of no use to call
up the neighbors, he had never been near their houses, they affirmed,
so there was nothing to do but to go to the railroad track where Titee
had been seen so often trudging in the shrill north-wind.

With lanterns and sticks, and his little yellow dog, the rescuing party
started down the track. The rain had ceased falling, but the wind blew
a gale, scurrying great gray clouds over a fierce sky. It was not
exactly dark, though in this part of the city there is neither gas nor
electricity, and on such a night as this neither moon nor stars dared
show their faces in so gray a sky; but a sort of all-diffused
luminosity was in the air, as though the sea of atmosphere was charged
with an ethereal phosphorescence.

Search as they did, there were no signs of Titee. The soft earth
between the railroad ties crumbled between their feet without showing
any small tracks or footprints.

"Mais, we may as well return," said the big brother; "he is not here."

"Oh, mon Dieu," urged the mother, "he is, he is; I know it."

So on they went, slipping on the wet earth, stumbling over the loose
rocks, until a sudden wild yelp from Tiger brought them to a
standstill. He had rushed ahead of them, and his voice could be heard
in the distance, howling piteously.

With a fresh impetus the little muddy part