"Why? _Why?_" the Fantasm fairly shouted. "I told you a moment ago that he was the _Itinerant Tinker_! He tries to mend every broken and unbroken thing in Fantasma Land! Every time he catches me," went on the Fantasm, as he edged cautiously away, "he tries to glue on my head. It's very annoying--and, besides, it hurts! Good-by, Dickey!" he called, and disappeared forthwith into the bushes. "Isn't he a droll person?" thought Dickey. "He never stops with me more than ten minutes at a time but what he either loses his head or runs away." By that time the Itinerant Tinker had come up to where Dickey stood. He sat wearily down on a boulder by the wayside, removed some of the heavier merchandise from off his back, and proceeded to mop his face vigorously with a great red handkerchief. Dickey waited several minutes for the old man to speak; but the Itinerant Tinker only regarded him solemnly. He did not even smile. "It's very warm work, sir," ventured Dickey, at last, "carrying all that stuff--isn't it?" "Stuff?" returned the Itinerant Tinker, in a very mild, but unmistakably hurt tone of voice. "Well--" Dickey hesitated timidly. "_Don't_ call them stuff, please," sighed the Itinerant Tinker; "call them necessary commodities." "But whatever one _does_ call them," Dickey persisted, "they still make you warm to carry them all about, don't they?" The Itinerant Tinker nodded his head and sighed again. Again Dickey waited for a considerable space of time. But the old man would have been perfectly content to sit there for ever, Dickey thought, without speaking. "I _do_ wish he would talk," said he to himself. "It's awfully annoying to have him sit there and look at one without saying a word." "What do you mend, sir?" Dickey inquired at last. "I tried once," sighed the Itinerant Tinker, sadly, "to mend the break of day. It took me twenty-seven hours and eleven minutes to fix it, and it broke every twenty-four. At that rate how long would it take to patch them all together?" Another distressing silence. "Have you figured _that_ out?" whispered the Itinerant Tinker at length. "I haven't tried," Dickey admitted. "_I_ tried once," the Itinerant Tinker said, "but I ran out of paper and gave it up. Then, when the night fell," he resumed dolefully, after another long interval of silence, "I tried to prop it up. But I met with the same difficulty that confronted me in patching up the day, and was forced to abandon _that_ too." "In which direction were you going when I met you?" Dickey asked. The Itinerant Tinker pointed ahead of him along the path and mopped his bald head. "But where?" insisted Dickey. "To the Crypt. I was going to the Crypt," murmured the Itinerant Tinker, "to see whether I couldn't get some umbrellas to mend." "But they don't need umbrellas in the Crypt, do they?" Dickey asked, surprised. "No, they don't," sighed the Itinerant Tinker; "and _that's_ the reason I'm going there."