, propelling Stump, who yelped with
fright, at the very feet of Abner Sawyer.

"Oh, my Gosh!" yelled Jimsy wildly. "Pinched!"

[Illustration]

Outraged, the first citizen rose from a bench beside a table and a lamp,
and Jimsy, scrambling to his feet, a ridiculous figure of apology and
dismay in his billowing train and sagging shoulders, saw that Mr. Sawyer
held in his hand a plane and a piece of wood and that the room in which
he stood was a work-shop perfect in equipment.

"What," demanded Mr. Sawyer in a terrible voice, "what does this mean?
That dog--"

But Jimsy had not heard.

"Lordy," he breathed, "what a thump-walloper of a shop! Whisht Jack
Sweeny could see this. My, wouldn't his good eye open! Whatcha makin'?"

Mr. Sawyer reddened as any man may whose weakness has been unexpectedly
detected by a boy in an acre of night-shirt.

"No one," he began icily, "_no_ one--not even Mrs. Sawyer presumes to
come beyond that threshold"--he broke off and frowned impatiently,
feeling his power of aloofness threatened by something in Jimsy's eager
stare which claimed a kinship of interest.... There was an alarming
suggestion of intimacy anyway in a midnight scene with a tailless dog, a
boy clad in your own night-shirt--and an inferential person with an eye
by the name of Sweeny.... Why did a ridiculous frozen sense of guilt
impede his tongue now when rebuke was imperative?... Why on earth had a
look of relief and understanding supplanted the puzzled friendliness of
Jimsy's supper-time stare?... So might a dog look who had waggled in
friendly perplexity at the foot of a flawless statue only to find that
the statue held in its hand a lowly but perfectly comprehensible bone
... and the dog's attitude of course toward the flawless statue would
never be quite the same--nor--

"James," said the first citizen hoarsely, "go to bed!"

[Illustration]

"Aw," said James softly, "make it Jimsy. Aunt Judith did. I ain't no
stiff wit' spinach an' buttons chasin' newsies off the porch."

"Jimsy!" said the first citizen faintly, and felt his world rock about
him again. For fate and Jimsy, it was very plain, had filed the word
away with the biscuit.

[Illustration]

Jimsy's grin was radiant. Upset, Mr. Sawyer turned back to his bench
with Jimsy at his heels.

"Oh, Lordy, Lordy," breathed the boy in an ecstasy of admiration.
"Makin' a Christmas present fur Aunt Judith on the sly, ain't ye? Won't
she jus' open her eyes! _I_ be