At eleven o'clock, a round of calls made, the Green Imp came for Bob and Mrs. Lessing. They met him, hand in hand, the little figure in its voluminous misfit clothes looking quaint, enough beside the perfect outlines of his companion's attire. But both faces were very happy. “How many dollars do you suppose Ellen has, stowed away in that handsome purse of hers, ready to spend on the child?” Martha Macauley queried of Winifred Chester as they watched the Green Imp out of sight from the Macauley porch. Mrs. Chester shook her head. “I've no idea. She'll want to get him everything a child could have. But Red won't let her.” “He won't know. He'll drop them at a store and go off to the hospital. The things will come home by special delivery, and the next thing he sees will be Bob in silk socks and white linen.” “I don't believe it. He'll go shopping with them. He's wild over the boy, and he doesn't care a straw what people might think who saw the three together. He'll tyrannize over Ellen--and she'll let him, for the pleasure of being ruled by a man once more!” It was a shrewd prophecy and goes to show that women really understand each other pretty well--women of the same sort. For Red Pepper Burns did go shopping with the pair from start to finish. It was an experience he did not see any occasion for missing. “You won't mind my coming, too?” was all the permission he asked, and Mrs. Lessing answered simply: “Surely not, if you care to. We shall want your judgment.” She had not conducted them to a department store, but to the small shop of a decidedly exclusive children's outfitter. Burns knew nothing about the presumably greater cost of buying a wardrobe in a place like this, but he soon scented danger. He scrutinized certain glass showcases containing wax lay figures of pink-cheeked youngsters attired as for the stage, and boomed his first caution into his companion's ear. “That's not the sort of puppet we want to make out of Bob, eh?” he suggested. She turned, smiling. “Not unless you intend to keep him in a glass case, Doctor Burns.” “No long-trousered imitation of a sailor-boy, either, please,” said he, pointing, disfavour in his eye, at the presentment of a curly-headed infant of five in a Jack-tar outfit of white flannel topped by an expensive straw hat. “I see you're not going to trust me,” murmured Mrs. Lessing, as a slim-waisted, trailing-black-gowned saleswoman approached. “I'll trust you, but I intend to keep my eye on you,” admitted Burns frankly. He observed with interest the wonderful figure of the saleswoman. Quite possibly that lady thought he was admiring her, for nothing in his face could have told her that he was mapping out in his surgeon's mind her physical anatomy, and speculating as to where in the name of Hygeia she could have disposed of her digestive organs in a circumference the diminutive size of that!