While the boys were at work in this manner, Stuyvesant making his ladder, and Phonny his cage, they suddenly heard some one opening the door. Wallace came in. Phonny called out to him to shut the door as quick as possible. Wallace did so, while Phonny, in explanation of the urgency of his injunction in respect to the door, pointed up to the squirrel, which was then creeping along, apparently quite at his ease, upon one of the beams in the back part of the shop. "Why, Bunny," said Wallace. "His name is not Bunny," said Phonny. "His name is Frink." "Frink," repeated Wallace. "Who invented that name?" "I don't know," replied Phonny, "only Beechnut said that his name was Frink. See the cage I am making for him." Wallace came up and looked at the cage. He stood a moment surveying it in silence. Then he turned toward Stuyvesant. "And what is Stuyvesant doing?" said he. "He is making a ladder." "What is it for, Stuyvesant?" said Wallace. "Why, it is to go upon the loft, in the hen-house," said Phonny, "though I don't see what good it will do, to go up there." "So it is settled, that _you_ are going to have the hen-house," said Wallace, looking toward Stuyvesant. "Yes," said Stuyvesant. Here there was another long pause. Wallace was looking at the ladder. He observed how carefully Stuyvesant was making it. He saw that the cross-bars were all exactly of a length, and he knew that they must have been pretty accurately measured. While Wallace was looking on, Stuyvesant was measuring off the distances upon the side pieces of the ladder, so as to have the steps of equal length. Wallace observed that he did this all very carefully. Wallace then looked back to Phonny's work. He saw that Phonny was guessing his way along. The holes were not equidistant from each other, and then they were not at the same distance from the edge of the board. As he had advanced along the line, he had drawn gradually nearer and nearer to the edge, and, what was a still greater difficulty, the holes in the lower board, which was to form the bottom of the cage, since their places too had been guessed at, did not correspond with those above, so that the wires, when they came to be put in, inclined some this way, and some that. In some places the wires came very near together, and in others the spaces between them were so wide, that Wallace thought that the squirrel, if by any chance he should ever get put into the cage, would be very likely to squeeze his way out. Then, besides, Phonny had not measured his wires in respect to length, but had cut them off of various lengths, taking care however not to have any of them too short. The result was that the ends of the wires projected to various distances above the board, presenting a ragged and unworkmanlike appearance. Wallace was silent while he was looking at these things. He was thinking of the difference between the two boys. The train of thought which was passing through his mind was somewhat as follows.