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“You can’t see him ’cause he’s over the edge, down inside,” went on Madeline. “I can’t reach and get him, or I’d fish him out myself. And if he stays there very long he’ll melt, as he almost did once when he fell into the bathtub. Oh, please get him out for me.”

“I will!” promised Sidney.

“Oh, is it possible I am to see my dear old friend, the Candy Rabbit, again?” thought the Calico Clown, who, though stuffed into Sidney’s pocket, had heard all that was said. The toys could hear and understand talk at all times, except when they were asleep. The broken leg of the gay red and yellow chap did not hurt him very much just now. “I shall certainly be glad to see the Candy Rabbit again,” the Clown thought. “And Sidney had better hurry and get him out of the water, or he surely will melt, and that would be dreadful.”

The fountain in the yard of the house where Herbert, Madeline and Sidney lived was rather a high one. The little girl could just reach up to the rim of the basin to set her Rabbit there, but, once he had toppled over and was down inside, she could neither see nor reach him.

“You’ll have to stand on something or you can’t get him,” Madeline said to Sidney. “Shall I get you a box?”

“No, I’ll stand on my tiptoes,” he answered. And he did, thus making himself tall enough to reach over into the water and fish out the Candy Rabbit.

Out that sweet fellow came, dripping wet, but not much harmed.

“Oh, he didn’t melt, did he?” asked Madeline. “I’m so glad!”

“He hasn’t melted yet,” answered Sidney, as he handed the Easter toy to his sister. “But you’d better put him in the sun to dry, or he may crumble away.”

“I will,” Madeline promised.

As Sidney turned to walk away, the Calico Clown fell out of his pocket.

“What’s that? Where’d you get him?” cried Madeline. At the same time the Candy Rabbit saw the gay red and yellow chap from the toy store.

“Oh, there’s my dear old Clown friend!” thought the Rabbit, all wet as he was. “How in the wide world did he get here?”

But of course he could not ask, any more than the Calico Clown could answer.

And when the Clown, lying on the grass where he had fallen from Sidney’s pocket, saw the Candy Rabbit, the Clown said to himself:

“Yes, there he is! The same one I knew before. Oh, if we could only get together by ourselves and talk! How much we could say!”

Sidney picked the Calico Clown up off the grass.

“Where did you get him?” asked Madeline again. “He’s awfully cute. I saw one like that in the store where Aunt Emma got my Candy Rabbit.”

“Maybe this is the same one,” Sidney answered. “I traded off my musical top to Archibald for the Clown. His leg is broken.”

“Whose–Archibald’s?” asked Madeline, in surprise.

“No, the Clown’s,” answered Sidney, with a laugh. “I’m going to fix it. Course a Calico Clown is worth more than a musical top, for the Clown is new and my top was old. But a Clown with a broken leg isn’t worth so much.”

“Is it worth anything?” asked Madeline. “I mean can you fix him?”

“Oh, yes,” her brother answered. “He can still bang his cymbals, and he can jiggle both his arms and the leg that isn’t broken.”

Sidney punched the Clown in the chest, and the red and yellow fellow clapped his hands together and made the cymbals tinkle. Then Sidney pulled the strings and the two arms of the Clown went up and down, and one leg kicked out as nicely as you please. But the other leg did not move.

“That’s the leg that’s broken,” Sidney explained. “He got broken when Pete made him do the giant’s swing.”

“He looks as though he was trying to dance on one leg!” laughed Madeline. “He’s awfully cute, but he’s funny!”