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“They?” she questioned. “Do you mean the soda-water They?”

“And They know so much,” explained the little old gentleman, “because the Bird tells ’em.”

“He tells ’em everything,” grumbled the Officer. “They send him around the whole country hunting gossip—when he ought to be working exclusively in the interest of Law and Order.”

Law and Order—Gwendolyn wondered who these two were.

“He knows everything I do,” asserted the Policeman, “and everything she does—” Here he jerked his head sidewise at Jane.

She retreated, an expression of guilt on that front face.

“And everything you do,” he went on, indicating Gwendolyn.

“I know that,” she said in an injured tone. “He told Jane I was here.”

At that, the Policeman gave himself a quick half-turn. “You’ve seen him?” he demanded of the nurse.

She shifted from side to side nervously. “It ain’t the same one,” she protested. “It—”

He interrupted. “You couldn’t be mistaken,” he declared. “Did he have a bumpy forehead? and a lumpy tail?”

“You don’t mean a lump of salt,” said Gwendolyn, astonished.

“He does,” said the little old gentleman. “And the bumpy forehead is from having to remember so many things.”

She heaved a sigh of relief. “Well, I think I’d like that Bird,” she said. “And I don’t believe he’s far. ‘Cause when you whistled I heard flying.”

“Running and flying,” corrected the Policeman; “—running and flying to me.” (He said it proudly.) “The squirrels and the robin-redbreasts, and the sparrows, all follow me here from the Park of a night, knowing I protect ’em.”

“Oh?” murmured Gwendolyn. “You protect ’em?” She looked sidewise at Jane, reflecting that the nurse had given him quite another character.

“Yes; and I protect old, old people.”

“Huh!” snorted the Man-Who-Makes-Faces. “You protect old people, eh? Well, how about old organ-grinders?“

“You ought to know,” answered the Officer promptly. “I guess you didn’t give me that black eye for nothing.”

Whereat the little old gentleman suddenly subsided into silence.

“Yes, I protect old people,” reiterated the other, “and the blind, of course, and the trees and the flowers and the fountains. Also, the statues. There’s the General, for instance. If I didn’t watch out, folks would scribble on him with chalk.”

Gwendolyn assented. Once more she was beginning to have belief in him.

“Then,” he resumed, “I look after the children, so that—”

She started. The children!—he? “But,” she interrupted, “Jane’s always told me that you grab little boys and girls and carry ’em off.” Then, fairly shook at her own boldness.

“I never!” denied Jane, sullenly.

He laughed. “I do carry ’em off. But where?“

“I don’t know,”—in a flutter.

“Tell her,” urged the little old gentleman.

The Policeman leaned his feet against the bill-board. “I’m the man,” said he, “that takes lost little kids to their fathers and mothers.”

To their fathers and mothers! Gwendolyn came round upon Jane, lifting accusing eyes, pointing an accusing finger, “So!” she breathed. “You told me he stole ’em! It isn’t true!” And she wiggled the finger.

Jane edged away, head on one side “Oh, I was jokin’ you,” she declared lightly. But—accidentally—- she turned aside her grinning front face and gave the others a glimpse of the back one. And each noted how the square mouth was trembling with anxiety.

“Ah-ha!” exclaimed Gwendolyn, triumphantly. “I’m finding you out!”

The Policeman crossed his feet against the bill-board, taking care not to injure any of the articles there displayed. “Yes, I’ve taken a lot of lost little kids to their fathers and mothers,” he repeated. “And I was just wondering if you—”

She gave him no chance to finish his sentence. In her joy at finding that here was another friend, she ran to him and leaned to smile into his face.

“You’ll help me to find my fath-er and moth-er, won’t you?” she cried.

“Cer-tainly!”

“We were starting just as you came,” said the Man-Who-Makes-Faces.

“Well, let’s be off!” His whistle hung by a thin chain from a button-hole of his coat. He swung it to his lips, Toot! Toot! It was a cheery blast.

The next moment, coming, as it were, on the heels of her sudden good fortune, Gwendolyn closed her right hand and found herself possessed of a bag of candy!—red-and-white stick-candy of the variety that she had often seen selling at street corners (out of show-cases that went on wheels). More than once she had longed, and in vain, to stop at one of these show-cases and purchase. Now she suddenly remembered having done so with a high hand. The sticks were striped spirally. Boldly she produced one and fell to sucking it, making more noise with her sucking than ever the strict proprieties of the nursery permitted.

Then, candy in hand, and with the little old gentleman on her right, the Policeman on her left, and Jane trailing behind, doing a one-two-three-and-point, she set forward gayly along the wide, curving road.