va had heard of old, were sticking right up out
of the ground. But other flowers there were dangling high or low on tree
or shrub, while here and there across the grass a bird came hopping or a
squirrel ran. But the pilgrims never swerved. Full well they knew that
these delights were not for such as they.

It was, therefore, with surprise and concern that they at last
debouched upon a wide green space where a flag waved at the top of a
towering pole; for, behold, the grass was covered thick with children,
with here and there a beneficent policeman looking serenely on.

"Dast _we_ walk on it?" cried Morris. "Oh, Patrick, dast we?"

"Ask the cop," Nathan suggested. It was his first speech for an hour,
for Becky's misadventure with the chatelaine bag and the water-lake had
made him more than ever sure that his own method of safe-keeping was the
best.

"Ask him yerself," retorted Patrick. He had quite intended to accost a
large policeman, who would of course recognize and revere the buttons of
Mr. Brennan _pere_, but a commander cannot well accept the advice of his
subordinates. But Nathan was once more beyond the power of speech, and
it was Morris Mogilewsky who asked for and obtained permission to walk
on God's green earth. With little spurts of running and tentative jumps
to test its spring, they crossed Peacock Lawn to the grateful shade of
the trees at its further edge and there disposed themselves upon the
ground and ate their luncheon. Nathan Spiderwitz waited until Sadie had
finished and then entrusted the five gleaming pennies to her care while
he wildly bolted an appetizing combination of dark brown bread and
uncooked eel.

Becky reposed flat upon the chatelaine bag and waved her still damp
shoes exultantly. Eva lay, face downward beside her, and peered
wonderingly deep into the roots of things.

"Don't it smells nice!" she gloated. "Don't it looks nice! My, ain't we
havin' the party-time!"

"Don't mention it," said Patrick, in careful imitation of his mother's
hostess manner. "I'm pleased to see you, I'm sure."

"The Central Park is awful pretty," Sadie soliloquized as she lay on her
back and watched the waving branches and blue sky far above. "Awful
pretty! I likes we should live here all the time."

"Well," began Ignatius Aloysius Diamantstein, in slight disparagement of
his rival's powers as a cicerone; "well, I ain't seen no lions, nor no
rubber-neck-boat-birds. Und we ain't had no rides on nothings