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“Hush! Don’t make a noise!” said the big burglar.

“No, we must be very quiet,” said the little burglar.

But, quiet as they were, and whisper as softly as they did, the White Rocking Horse heard them.

“Some one is coming,” said the Horse to the Sawdust Doll. “We must stop talking now. We dare not talk or move if human eyes look at us, and some one is coming.”

“Then I had better hurry back to Dorothy’s room,” said the Doll.

“Too late! They are coming up the stairs,” whispered the Horse. “Stay where you are and I’ll stay here too!”

So the Sawdust Doll flopped down on the carpet and the Rocking Horse remained very still and quiet right at the edge of the top step.

Up the stairs came the big burglar walking slowly and softly.

“Look out!” whispered the little burglar, who remained at the foot of the stairs. “I see something white! Look out!”

“It is only a Rocking Horse,” whispered back the big burglar. “A White Rocking Horse! And a Sawdust Doll is here, too. I guess the children must have forgotten and left them in the hall. And that Sawdust Doll is just what I want. I know somebody I can give her to. I’ll take her!”

The Sawdust Doll would have screamed and run away if she had dared, but she could not while the burglar was looking at her. The bad man reached out to pick up the Sawdust Doll, but his foot slipped, and, to save himself from falling, he made a grab for one of the legs of the White Rocking Horse.

Now whether the Horse kicked out; or not, I cannot say. It may be that he did, and, again, it may be that he did not. Anyhow, all of a sudden the White Horse toppled right over on top of the bad burglar, and down the stairs they went, bumpity-bump! all in a heap, right toward the little burglar standing at the foot. Down the stairs rolled the big burglar and the White Rocking Horse.

“Bang! Bing! Bung!” was the noise they made.

CHAPTER X

THE GRASS PARTY

Standing at the foot of the stairs was the little burglar. He was waiting while the big, bad man went upstairs to see if he could get any jewelry. And when the big burglar touched the White Rocking Horse, and it toppled over on him, and when both of them fell down the stairs together, making a loud noise, they fell right on top of the little burglar.

“Oh! Oh, dear! Oh, dear me!” cried the little burglar when he was struck by the big bad man and the White Rocking Horse. “Oh, what is all this? What are you doing, Jake?” he cried.

“Me? I’m not doing anything!” exclaimed the big burglar, as he went bumpity-bump along the lower hall, turning over and over in somersaults, just as the little burglar was doing.

“Not doing anything? Why, you came tumbling downstairs right on top of me!” cried the little burglar. “Why did you do that?”

“I–I couldn’t help it,” answered the big burglar. “That white thing you saw was a Rocking Horse, and there was a Sawdust Doll near it. I reached out to get the Doll, and the Horse stuck out his hind legs and kicked me down the stairs. That’s what he did!”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed the little burglar. “A White Rocking Horse didn’t kick you! A wooden horse can’t kick!”

“Well, this one did,” declared the burglar. “Oh, my back!”

The father and mother of Dick and Dorothy heard the noise out in the hall. So did Martha, the maid, and Mary, the cook. Dick’s father sat up in bed.

“I heard a noise,” said his wife.

“So did I,” said Daddy. “I think everybody in the house must have heard it. Somebody, or something, fell downstairs.”

“You had better look and see,” said his wife. “Maybe it was burglars.”

So Dick’s father went out into the hall to look, and there, surely enough, were the two bad burglars. They had been all tangled up in the legs and rockers of the White Horse, and they were just getting untangled. And they were so sore and lame from having been bumped around that they did not know what to do. They were so dazed and surprised that they stood still.