went out of the store. "If you had two lollypops I'd be afraid you
wouldn't know which one to taste first, and it would take so long to make
sure that you might grow old before you found out, and then you wouldn't
have any fun eating them."

"Oh, you're such a funny daddy!" laughed Rose.

They walked down Main Street, and soon came to Mr. Bunker's real estate
office. He hurried inside, followed by the children.

Mr. Bunker looked behind the door in the little room where he had his
desk. The office was made up of three rooms, and in the large, outer one,
were several clerks, writing at desks. Some of them knew the two little
Bunker children and nodded and smiled at them.

"Where's that old coat of mine I sometimes wear?" asked Mr. Bunker of one
of his clerks, when the office door had been opened but no garment was
found hanging behind it.

"Do you mean that ragged one?" asked the clerk, whose name, by the way,
was Donlin--Mr. Donlin.

"That's the one I mean," said Mr. Bunker. "I stuck some real estate papers
in the pocket of that coat yesterday when I went out to the lumber pile
with Mr. Johnson, and now I want them. I must have left them in the pocket
of the old, ragged coat."

"If you did they're gone, I'm afraid," said Mr. Donlin.

"Gone? You mean those papers are gone?"