vy, and he hoped the family would soon decide
that he had missed the train, and would go home, but he saw Mrs.
Fenelby seat herself on the waiting-bench. He saw Kitty take a seat
beside her, and he saw Billy, after evident hesitation, take the
seat next to Kitty. The evergreen tree was small, and the next tree
to it was ten feet distant. He was marooned behind that tree.

Mr. Fenelby instantly saw that he had done a foolish thing. He had
that overwhelming sense of foolishness that comes to a man at times,
when he thinks he has never done a sane and sound act in his whole
silly life. Mr. Fenelby realized that he had been foolish when he
had bought, on the subscription plan, a complete set of Eugene
Field's works, bound in three-quarters levant morocco, twelve
volumes for thirty-six dollars. He realized that although he had had
to pay but five dollars down, to the agent, he would have to pay
thirty per cent. of the value of the whole set, in duty, the moment
he took the books into the house. He realized that he had been silly
to bring the whole heavy set home at one time. He realized that he
had been positively childish when he thought of hiding himself
behind this miserable little tree, with this heavy box in his arms
and six suburban stores staring him full in the face. He wondered
what the proprietors of the six stores would think of him if they
happened to see him hiding there behind the tree, while his whole
family awaited him on the station platform. And then, as he happened
to remember that one of the stores was a drug-store with a
soda-fountain, he shuddered. Given three suburbanites on a station
platform, and a train not due for thirty minutes for which they must
wait, and a soda-fountain across the way, and the answer is that the
three suburbanites will soon be in the place where the soda-fountain
is.

When Mrs. Fenelby arose Mr. Fenelby shifted the box of books into a
more secure angle of his arm, and as the trio, and Bobberts, started
across the track and lawn Mr. Fenelby edged cautiously around the
tree to keep it between him and them. The trade of smuggler has ever
been one of wild adventure and excitement.

He peered at them until they entered the drug-store, and then he
backed cautiously away, step by step, with the tree as a screen. As
he reached the corner of the station he turned and ran, and as he
turned he saw Billy hurry out of the drug-store and run, and Mrs.
Fenelby and Kitty hurry out after Bi