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“Perhaps some of their playmates called at your house, to have fun with Arnold or Mirabell,” said the typewriter girl, “and they may have dropped the Clown into your pocket as your coat hung on the rack.”

“Yes, that could have happened,” said the Man. “But I remember I put my hand in my pocket as I left the house, to make sure I had some letters I was to mail. The Clown was not in my pocket then. He must have got in after I left my house. And how could that happen, I should like to know! I didn’t go in any place. How could it have happened?”

Of course neither the office boy nor the typewriter girl could tell. They had not seen the Calico Clown fall from the tree into the pocket of the Man as he passed underneath. And even the Man himself had not seen this.

“It’s very queer,” said the father of Mirabell and Arnold. “The only way it could have happened that I can think of is that some children I passed on the street may have tossed the Clown into my pocket. I have very large ones in this coat, and sometimes they stand wide open.”

The Calico Clown stayed in the office all that day. It was the first time he had ever been to business, and he rather liked it as a change. Very few toys ever have the chance he had. He sat up on the Man’s desk and watched the girl click at the typewriter, and he watched the office boy come in and out. The office boy looked at the Clown, too.

“I’m going to have some fun with him when the Boss goes out to lunch,” said the office boy to himself.

Now the Clown felt rather strange in the office. His part in life was to make joy and laughter, and he could not do it sitting up straight and stiff on a desk. He looked around, and he saw, not far from him, a jolly little man, like a dwarf.

“I wish I could speak to him,” thought the Clown. “He looks as if he belonged to the toy family.”

And you can imagine how surprised the Clown was when, all of a sudden, the Man lifted the head right off the queer-looking little dwarf and dipped his pen down inside him!

“Why, he’s an ink well!” thought the Clown. “That’s what he is! An ink well! And his head comes off the same as the Porcelain Cat’s head lifts off for matches to be put inside her. How very odd! I’d like to talk to that chap.”

When the Man went out to lunch, into the office hurried the office boy with a grin on his face.

“What do you want?” asked the typewriter girl. “I want to make that Clown jiggle,” was the answer. “I’m going to have some fun with him.”

“No, you mustn’t!” exclaimed the girl. “The Boss won’t like it if you touch him. If you break him–“

“Aw, I won’t break him!” cried the boy. “Let me have him!”

He made a grab for the Calico Clown, and the girl tried to stop the boy. As a result the Clown was knocked off the desk to the floor.

“Oh, dear! I hope my glued leg is not broken!” thought the Clown.

CHAPTER VII

IN THE WASH-BASKET

“There, now look what you did!” cried the girl.

“I didn’t do it! You did!” said the boy. “If you hadn’t jiggled it out of my hand when I was taking it down it wouldn’t have fallen.”

I don’t know how long they might have gone on disputing in this fashion if the office boy from next door had not poked his head in and called:

“What’s the matter?”

Then he saw the Calico Clown lying on the floor and he added:

“Has Santa Claus been here?” and he laughed.

“It came out of the pocket of the Boss,” explained the first office boy. “He put it on his desk. I was going to look at it and pull the strings, ’cause the Boss is out to lunch, but she jiggled my hand and made me drop it. Now it’s busted.”