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“So you are going away from us?” asked the Clown.

“Yes,” answered the Captain. “But I am sorry I shall not see the new trousers the girl is going to make for you. I would like to see them.”

“Perhaps you may come back and visit us,” suggested the Candy Rabbit.

“Perhaps,” agreed the Captain, and then he had to stop talking for the boy and his father came back.

CHAPTER IV

A BEAN BATTLE

“Well, Arnold, do you think you will like your Bold Tin Soldier and his men?” asked the boy’s father.

“Oh, yes, Daddy! I’m sure I shall!” was the answer. “I’ll take them over to Dick’s house, and we’ll have a make-believe battle on the floor in the playroom.”

“That is strange,” thought the tin Captain, as the girl clerk was wrapping him and his men up in a large paper. “Very strange! Where have I heard those names before–Dick and Arnold? I wonder–I wonder—-“

But just then the girl turned the box upside down to tie a knot in the string she was putting around it, and the Captain and his men had all they could do to keep in their places.

“Stand fast, every one of you!” said the Captain in a low voice to his tin men. “We are perhaps going on a long trip.”

The boy paid over his dollar of pocket money, his father added another dollar, and then the box of toy Tin Soldiers was taken away.

Just what happened on their trip from the store of course the Captain and his men did not know. They could feel themselves being jiggled about, and at one time they were put on the seat of an automobile, though they did not know it. And finally they were set down with a jingle and a jangle, the guns of the men rattling against the tin legs of the soldiers, and the sword of the Captain tinkling in its scabbard.

“Now I’ll have some fun with my Soldiers!” cried the boy, whose name was Arnold.

The paper was taken off, the box was opened, and once more the Bold Tin Soldier and his men saw the light of day. They looked about them curiously.

The Captain and his men saw that they were in a pleasant, sunny room. The box, which might have been called their “barracks,” was on a table, and, bending over it, was the boy, Arnold.

“Forward–March!” called Arnold, and one by one he took the Tin Soldiers out of the box and set them in rows on the table, with the Captain at the head of his men. That is the proper place for a Captain, you know.

Of course if Arnold had not been there, and if no other human eyes had been looking at the Tin Soldiers, they could have marched out of the box by themselves. But, as it was, Arnold had to lift them out. He did not know, of course, that his toys, and all other toys, have the power of pretending they are alive at certain times.

As Arnold was standing his Soldiers in rows on the table, the door of the room opened and a little girl came in.

“Oh, Arnold! what did you get?” she asked. “Oh, aren’t they nice!”

“These are my new Soldiers, Mirabell,” said the boy. “Daddy took me to the store and I bought them with some of my pocket money. But Daddy gave me a dollar, too. Want to see my Soldiers fight?” asked Arnold, as he stood the Corporal and the Sergeant where they could help the Captain take charge of the men.

“Oh, no, Arnold! I don’t want to see any soldiers fight! They might shoot me!” cried the little girl, pretending to shiver.

“Nope! They won’t shoot anybody!” said Arnold. “They have only make- believe guns, and I’ll only make-believe shoot ’em. I yell ‘Bang! Bang!’ and that’s all the shooting there is. Now watch, Mirabell.”

The boy divided the tin toys into two companies, just as the tin Captain himself had done with his men when he gave the fancy drill on the counter before the Calico Clown swung from the string and nearly caught fire. One of the companies was commanded by the Captain, while the Sergeant, who had red stripes on his sleeves, was in charge of the other.