store where mosquito dope and ice cream sodas had
been sold now displayed a basket full of small sponges for the sanitary
cleansing of slates. The faithless wretch who kept this store had put a
small sign on the basket reading, "For the classroom." One and all, the
merchants of Main Street had gone over to the Board of Education and all
signs pointed to school.

But the most pathetic sight to be witnessed on that sad, chill, autumn
night, was the small boy in a threadbare gray sweater and shabby cap who
stood gazing wistfully into the seductive windows of Pfiffel's Home
Bakery. The sight of him standing there with his small nose plastered
against the glass, looking with silent yearning upon the jelly rolls and
icing cakes, was enough to arouse pity in the coldest heart.

Only the rear of this poor, hungry little fellow could be seen from the
street, and if his face was pale and gaunt from privation and want, the
hurrying pedestrians on their cheerful way to the movies were spared
that pathetic sight.

All they saw was a shabby cap and an ill-fitting sweater which bulged in
back as if something were being carried in the rear pocket. And there he
stood, a poor little figure, heedless of the merry throngs that passed,
his wistful gaze fixed upon a four-story chocolate cake, a sort of
edible skyscraper, with a tiny dome of a glazed cherry upon the top of
it. And of all the surging throng on Main Street that bleak, autumnal
night, none noticed this poor fellow.

Yes, one. A lady sitting in a big blue automobile saw him. And her
heart, tenderer than the jelly rolls in Pfiffel's window, went out to
him. Perhaps she had a little _boy_ of her own....

CHAPTER II

A PATHETIC SIGHT

We shall pay particular attention to this sumptuous automobile which was
such as to attract attention in modest Bridgeboro. For one thing it was
of a rich shade of blue, whereas, the inhabitants of Bridgeboro being for
the most part dead, their favorite color in autos was black.

The car, indeed, was the latest super six Hunkajunk touring model, a
vision of grace and colorful beauty, set of with trimmings of shiny
nickel. The Hunkajunk people had outdone themselves in this latest model
and had produced "the car of a thousand delights." That seemed a good
many, but that is the number they announced, and surely they must have
known.

When one sat in the soft, spacious rear seat of the Hunkajunk touring
model, one felt the sensation of