"New Haven ought to be a good place to sell the machine," says he. "I can get a job there too." At that I goes to pumpin' him some more, and he starts in to hand out the weirdest line of yarns I ever listened to. Maybe he wa'n't a very skilful liar, but he was a willin' one. Quick as I'd tangle him up on one story, he'd lie himself out and into another. He accounts for his not havin' any home in half a dozen different ways, sometimes killin' off his relations one by one, and then bunchin' 'em in a railroad wreck or an earthquake. But he sticks to Chicago as the place where he lived last, although the nearest he can get to the street number is by sayin' it was somewhere near Central Park. "That happens to be in New York," says I. "There are two in Chicago," says he. "All right, Gerald," says I. "I give up. We'll let it go that you're playin' a lone hand; but before you start out again you'd better get a good night's rest here. What do you say?" He didn't need much urgin'; so we runs the bubble around into the stable, and I tucks him and Togo away together in the spare bed. "Who's the little lad?" says Dennis to me. "For one thing," says I, "he's an honourary member of the Ananias Club. If I can dig up any more information between now and mornin', Dennis, I'll let you know." First I calls up two or three village police stations along the line; but they hadn't had word of any stray kid. "That's funny," thinks I. "If he'd lived down in Hester-st., there'd be four thousand cops huntin' him up by this time." But it wa'n't my cue to do the frettin'; so I lets things rest as they are, only takin' a look at the kid before I turns in, to see that he was safe. And say, that one look gets me all broke up; for when I tiptoes in with the candle I finds that pink and white face of his all streaked up with cryin', and he has one arm around Togo, like he thought that terrier was all the friend he had left. Gee! but that makes me feel mean! Why, if I'd known he was goin' to blubber himself to sleep that way, I'd hung around and cheered him up. He'd been so brash about this runaway business, though, that I never suspicioned he'd go to pieces the minute he was left alone. And they look different when they're asleep, don't they? I guess I must have put in the next two hours' wonderin' how it was that a nice, bright youngster like that should come to quit home. If he'd come from some tenement house, where it was a case of pop bein' on the island, and maw rushin' the can and usin' the poker on him, you wouldn't think anything of it. But here he has his bubble, and his high priced terrier, and things like that, and yet he does the skip. Well, there wa'n't any answer.