"Yes," replied Uncle Will; "from the Zoo. They're peacocks' eggs. _White_ peacocks, too. They cost him ten dollars apiece--forty dollars for the four. I told him 'twas a risky thing to leave them out in the orchard. Said _I_ wouldn't be responsible. Bartlett said the peahen wouldn't set anywhere else. He'd have to take the chance. What are you going to do with a man like that?" I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Jimmy Toppan. He was trying to insert a piece of blueberry pie in his mouth. Three times he made the attempt, and each time his aim was poor. I had a feeling as if my chair were sinking beneath me. The dining-room and the whole family of Toppans revolved about me in a blur. _Peacocks' eggs! Forty dollars!_ I have no recollection of the rest of the meal. The elder Toppans talked together, I believe, but on what subject I have not the faintest notion. In five or six minutes Jimmy and I were safely over the fence and running across the meadow. We had to stop once or twice for breath, but we covered the distance to the wooded swamp in record time. Back of a large oak, where we were nearly covered by ferns, we stopped and panted. Jimmy spoke first. "They don't hang people under sixteen years old," he said. "Are you sure?" "I'm sure," he replied. "They put 'em in prison, though," I remarked, "for life!" "What'll we do?" asked Jimmy. We debated the question from every point of view. Of one thing we were determined: we would never be taken alive. "There's the circus," I suggested. "Don't you suppose we could join that?" "Like Toby Tyler? He had a horrible time!" "It's better than stayin' all your life in a dungeon on bread and water hollowed out of the living rock," I reminded him. "I'd have to go home first and get my decalcomania book," Jimmy stipulated. "Well, that will be all right; I'll get my punch." About my most cherished possession was a discarded punch, formerly used by a real conductor on a train. It seemed that I ought not present myself to the circus people empty-handed if Jimmy were going to bring his book of decalcomanias. It struck me that I might be especially welcome, as a ticket-taker, if I had a punch. I could work in that capacity while I was learning to ride bareback, or qualifying for the position of ring-master, or perhaps--so high do one's air-castles tower--that of clown! Why not? Others had achieved it. We decided to leave our refuge in the swamp, sneak up the meadow, pass the farm by a back route, and so to the highroad and home. Then, separating long enough to get the decalcomania book and the punch, we could camp for a night or two in Davenport's field, and join the circus in the morning. By the time the peacocks' eggs were missed we would be far away.