"'My name's Robin,' she says to the little fellow. 'What's yours, dear?' "'Christopher,' he says right off. 'First, Christopher. An' then John. An' then Bartlett. Have you only got one name?' he asked her. "'Yes, I've got two,' she says. 'The rest of mine is Sidney. Where--' "'Only two?' says the child. 'Why, I've got three.' "'Only two,' she answers. 'Where did your father go--don't you know that, Christopher?' "That seemed to make him think of something, and he looked down at his paper bag. "'First he bringed me these,' he says, and his face lighted up and he held out his bag to her. 'You can have one my cream-puffs,' he offers her, magnificent. I held my breath for fear she wouldn't take it, but she did. 'What fat ones!' she says admiring, and held it in her hand while she asked him more. It was real strange how we stood around, us older women and all, waiting for her to see what she could get out of him. But there wasn't any use. He was to go with whoever asked him to go--that was all he knew. "Silas Sykes snaps his watch. 'It's gettin' late,' he gives out, with a backward look at nothing in particular. 'Hadn't we best just leave him at the police station? Threat Hubbelthwait and me go right past there.' "Mis' Toplady, she sweeps round on him, pulling her shawl over her shoulders--one of them gestures of some women that makes it seem like even them that works hard and don't get out much of anywhere has motions left in them that used to be motioned in courts and castles and like that. 'Police station! Silas Sykes,' says she, queenly, 'you put me in mind of a stone wall, you're that sympathizin'.' "'Well, _we_ can't take him, Amandy,' Timothy Toplady reminds her, hurried. 'We live too far. 'Twouldn't do to walk him 'way there.' Timothy will give, but he wants to give to his own selected poor that he knows about; an' he won't never allow himself no luxuries in givin' here an' there, when something just happens to come up. "'Land, he may of come from where there's disease--you can't tell,' says Mis' Uppers. 'I think we'd ought to go slow.' "'Yes,' says two-three others, 'we'd best go slow. Why, his father may be looking for him.' "Mis' Eleanor Emmons spoke up serene. "'While we're going slow,' she says, 'I think I'll just take him home and get his feet dry. I live the nearest. Mr. Sykes, you might report him at the police station as you go by, in case someone is looking for him. And if nobody inquires, he can sleep on my couch beside my grate fire to-night. Can't he, Robin?' "'I'd love it,' says the girl. "'Excellent,' says Insley, and set the little boy on his feet. "But when he done that, the child suddenly swung round and caught Miss Sidney's arm and looked up in her face; and his little nose was screwed up alarming. "'What _is_ it--what's the matter, Christopher?' she ask' him. And the rest of us that had begun moving to go, stopped to listen. And in that little stillness Christopher told us:--