“You ought to board where we do,” said Alice, enthusiastically. “We have _heaps_ of fun. Have you got a barn?” Mr. Putchett confessed that he did not know. “Oh, we’ve got a splendid one!” exclaimed the child. “There’s stalls, and a granary, and a carriage-house and _two_ lofts in it. We put out hay to the horses, and they eat it right out of our hands—aren’t afraid a bit. Then we get into the granary, and bury ourselves all up in the oats, so only our heads stick out. The lofts are just _lovely_: one’s full of hay and the other’s full of wheat, and we chew the wheat, and make gum of it. The hay-stalks are real nice and sweet to chew, too. They only cut the hay last week, and we all rode in on the wagon—one, two, three, four—seven of us. Then we’ve got two croquet sets, and the boys make us whistles and squalks.” “Squalks?” interrogated the broker. “Yes; they’re split quills, and you blow in them. They don’t make very pretty music, but it’s ever so funny. We’ve got two big swings and a hammock, too.” “Is the house very full?” asked Mr. Putchett. “Not so very,” replied the child. “If you come there to board, I’ll make Frank teach you how to make whistles.” That afternoon Mr. Putchett took the train for New York, from which city he returned the next morning with quite a well-filled trunk. It was afterward stated by a person who had closely observed the capitalist’s movements during his trip, that he had gone into a first-class clothier’s and demanded suits of the best material and latest cut, regardless of cost, and that he had pursued the same singular coarse at a gent’s furnishing store, and a fashionable jeweler’s. Certain it is that on the morning of Mr. Putchett’s return a gentleman very well dressed, though seemingly ill at ease in his clothing, called at Mrs. Brown’s boarding-house, and engaged a room, and that the younger ladies pronounced him very stylish and the older ones thought him very odd. But as he never intruded, spoke only when spoken to, and devoted himself earnestly and entirely to the task of amusing the children, the boarders all admitted that he was very good-hearted.