A traffic policeman, very military-looking in trim khaki, was holding up the Charles Street traffic while automobiles spun up and down Beacon Street. Wendell, pausing on the curb, saw him suddenly check the Beacon Street traffic, while still holding the Charles Street lines at bay. The large square expanse was quite clear except for the khaki figure with both arms uplifted. Charles Street truck-drivers prepared to speed up. Beacon Street automobilists craned their heads out to see what was delaying the long double lines. Foot passengers lining the curbstones looked impatient and watched the traffic man for the signal that did not come. Apparently he had forgotten what he was there for. Then a smile spread along the curb-stone ranks,--a smile that merged into a ripple of laughter quite unusual among self-contained Boston pedestrians, as the impatient waiters saw that the majestic khaki officer was holding up scores of important citizens to let one small gray squirrel cross the street. It was Wendell’s little friend of the Public Garden, still intent on pressing business, who, unmindful of all safety-first rules, was taking a diagonal cut from corner to corner across one of the busiest thoroughfares of Boston. “I know that squirrel. He lives in Louisburg Square,” Wendell heard a man say. “I know him by the look in his eye.” Which shows how cocksure of their own judgments some people are. The squirrel made the farther corner in safety. The traffic man gave the signal. The crowd surged forward, Wendell with them. He crossed by right angles to the squirrel’s corner and saw that busy little beast frisking along Charles Street, with the deliberate purpose of one who knows his goal, and then turning up into quiet Chestnut Street. Wendell followed him, as it was his direct route also; but it was not until the squirrel turned from Chestnut Street into West Cedar Street that Wendell saw with fast-beating heart that he carried in his mouth an acorn for his winter storehouse. If the squirrel should--oh, if only he should--! Yes, opposite Acorn Street he paused. It was evident that he had intended to proceed along West Cedar Street to Mount Vernon Street, which bounds Louisburg Square on the nearer side; but on the door-step of a West Cedar Street house sat a cat, a sleek gray pussy, and when she saw the squirrel, she grew tense all over and began to quiver, commencing at the tip of her tail; and the squirrel saw her--_and turned up into Acorn Street_. Would he drop it? oh, would he? Would no yapping puppy come to the rescue? Would no tidbit of garbage tempt him to investigation? No, Acorn Street appeared deserted by man and beast. Its aristocratic spotlessness offered no hope of a bread crust or even a banana peel.