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Page 10
"Oh, dear!" came a despairing little sigh, "whatever--"
Their eyes met and, at the droll perplexity he read in hers, George
laughed outright. An explosive frank boyish laugh. He rose with a
courteous gesture. "I'm afraid it's a case of 'if the mountain won't
come to Mahomet,'" he began, with gay sententiousness. "Won't you sit
down?"
The matron's kindly eyes appraised the bold, manly young face a moment,
then, with a certain leisurely grace, she stepped in between the seats
and, seating herself, lugged her two small charges down beside her.
"I suppose, under the circumstances, an old woman like me can discard the
conventionalities?" she remarked smilingly.
Jerry and Alice leered triumphantly at their victim. "Now!" Jerry
shrilled exactingly "tell us all about hoboes!"
"They do carry empty tomato-cans, don't they?" pleaded Alice.
It was now their guardian's turn to laugh at his dismay. "You see what
you've let yourself in for now?" she remarked.
"Seems I am up against it," he admitted, with a rueful grin, "well! must
make good somehow, I suppose?"
With an infinitely boyish gesture he tipped his fur cap to the back of
his head and leaned forward with finger-tips compressed in approved
story-telling fashion.
"Once upon a time!--" a breathless "Yes-s"--those two small faces
reminded him much of terriers watching a rat-hole--"there was a hobo."
He thought hard. "He was a very dirty old hobo--he never used to wash
his face. He was walking along the road one day when he heard a little
wee voice call out 'Hey!'. He looked down and he saw an empty tomato-can
on a rubbish heap. Tomato-cans used to be able to talk in those days and
the hoboes were very good to them--always used to drink out of them and
carry them to save them from walking. This can had a picture of its big
red face on the outside. 'Give us a lift?' said the can. 'Where to?'
said the old hobo. 'Back to California, where I came from,' said the
can. 'All right!' said the old hobo, 'I'm goin' there, too.' And he
picked the can up and hung it round his neck and kept on walking till
they came to a house. The window of the house was open and they could
see a big fat bottle on a little table. 'Ah!' said the old hobo 'here's
an old friend of mine!--he's comin' with us, too,' And he shoved his arm
through the window and put the bottle in his pocket. By and by they came
to a river--'Hey!' said the can, again--'What's up?' said the old
hobo--'I'm dry,' said the can--'So am I,' said the hobo; and he dipped
the can in the water and gave it a very little drink. 'Hey!' said the
can, 'give us a drop more!'--'Wait a bit!' said the old hobo, and he
pulled the cork out of the bottle. 'Don't you pour any of that feller
into me!' said the can, 'he'll burn my inside out--an' yours--if you pour
him into me I'll open my mouth where I'm soldered and let him run out,
and you won't be able to drink out of me any more. Chuck him into the
river!--he's no good.'
"'You shut your mouth!' said the old hobo, 'or I'll chuck you into the
river!' And he poured some of the stuff out of the bottle into the can--"
At this exciting point poor George halted for breath and mopped his
forehead. He felt fully as thirsty as the tomato-can. But the children
were upon him, clutching his scarlet tunic:
"What did he do then?" howled Jerry.
"Eh?" gasped the young policeman,--"oh, he opened his mouth where he was
soldered and let the stuff run out. So the old hobo threw him into the
river. That's why hoboes always pack a bottle with them now instead of a
tomato-can."
He leaned back with a sigh and, thrusting his hands deep into his
pockets, smiled wanly at his vis-�-vis.
"There!" he said, with feeble triumph, "I've carried out the sentence."
And it did him good to drink in her mirthful, waggish laugh.
"Yes!" she conceded gaily, "you certainly did great execution, though you
look more like a prisoner just reprieved."
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