were marked
only by Christmas dinners varying with the generosity of a series of
wardens.

But Shaver was entitled to all the joys of Christmas, and The Hopper had
no desire to deprive him of them.

"Keep a-larfin', Shaver, keep a-larfin'," said the Hopper. "Ole Hop ain't
a-goin' to hurt ye!"

The Hopper, feeling his way cautiously round the fringes of New Haven,
arrived presently at Happy Hill Farm, where he ran the car in among the
chicken sheds behind the cottage and carefully extinguished the lights.

"Now, Shaver, out ye come!"

Whereupon Shaver obediently jumped into his arms.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

III

The Hopper knocked twice at the back door, waited an instant, and knocked
again. As he completed the signal the door was opened guardedly. A man and
woman surveyed him in hostile silence as he pushed past them, kicked the
door shut, and deposited the blinking child on the kitchen table. Humpy,
the one-eyed, jumped to the windows and jammed the green shades close into
the frames. The woman scowlingly waited for the head of the house to
explain himself, and this, with the perversity of one who knows the
dramatic value of suspense, he was in no haste to do.

"Well," Mary questioned sharply. "What ye got there, Bill?"

The Hopper was regarding Shaver with a grin of benevolent satisfaction.
The youngster had seized a bottle of catsup and was making heroic efforts
to raise it to his mouth, and the Hopper was intensely tickled by Shaver's
efforts to swallow the bottle. Mrs. Stevens, _alias_ Weeping Mary, was not
amused, and her husband's enjoyment of the child's antics irritated her.

"Come out with ut, Bill!" she commanded, seizing the bottle. "What ye been
doin'?"

Shaver's big blue eyes expressed surprise and displeasure at being
deprived of his plaything, but he recovered quickly and reached for a
plate with which he began thumping the table.

"Out with ut, Hop!" snapped Humpy nervously. "Nothin' wuz said about
kidnapin', an' I don't stand for ut!"

"When I heard the machine comin' in the yard I knowed somethin' was wrong
an' I guess it couldn't be no worse," added Mary, beginning to cry. "You
hadn't no right to do ut, Bill. Hookin' a buzz-buzz an' a kid an' when we
wuz playin' the white card! You ought t' 'a' told me, Bill, what ye went
to town fer, an' it bein' Christmas, an' all."

That he should have chosen for his fall the Christmas season of all times
was reprehensible,