"Indeed?" he said, grimly smiling. "So she is a friend of yours! And who are you?" "Oh, I am Carolyn May Cameron," said the little girl, and mentioned the name of the apartment house in which she lived, only a few blocks away. "Very well, Carolyn May Cameron," said the man, leaning from the car to place in her hand a folded bank note, "give this money to your friend and tell her to buy another go-cart with it." "Why should you?" objected the woman beside him. "Drive on, Ren," said the man briefly, and the motor-car rolled away, leaving the amazed little girl with twenty dollars in one hand and the leash of the mongrel dog in the other. Carolyn May did not know anything about the pale lady who had run away--her name, nor where she lived. She did not see how she was going to give that money to her. CHAPTER II A PROBLEM TO SOLVE A boy with a pair of crutches beside him sat on the steps of the apartment house where Carolyn May lived. "'Lo, Carolyn May!" he said when the greatly, excited little girl and the mongrel dog arrived, "Your Pop's got home." "Oh, Johnny O'Harrity, I am so glad!" she said with relief. "I'd most forgotten this was his night for getting home early. So _much_ has happened this afternoon," and she sighed ecstatically. "There's always something happening to you, Carolyn May, let you tell it," said the janitor's boy, enviously. "What is it now?" "Oh, I couldn't stop to tell you all, Johnny," declared the little girl, slipping Prince's leash and letting him free to scramble up the steps. "Just the _won_-derfulest thing happened--" "Aw, pshaw!" scoffed the boy, unwilling to admit that a mere girl could fall upon Adventure so easily. "Like my grandmother says, you're always taking mice for monsters." "I'm not either!" gasped the little girl. "You are an awfully impolite boy to say so--and I don't like mice! You just look at _that_, Johnny O'Harrity!" and she thrust her hand clutching the twenty dollar bill under his freckled nose. "What would you say if a man just gave you that and you didn't know who it belonged to? So there!" She refolded the banknote and marched into the house with her head in the air, leaving Johnny O'Harrity speechless. The possession of a bill of such large denomination was too tangible evidence of "just the _won_-derfulest thing" having happened for the young sceptic to doubt longer. Visions of a wealth of ice-cream cones, lollipops and all-day suckers danced in the lame boy's mental vision. "Aw, Carolyn, I didn't mean to make you mad!" he cried after her. "I was only foolin'." But Carolyn May went on without reply. Perhaps she had reason to suspect Johnny O'Harrity's disingenuousness.