* * * * *



THE LITTLE RED CHIMNEY




CHAPTER ONE

_In which the curtain rises on the Candy Wagon, and the leading
characters are thrown together in a perfectly logical manner by
Fate_.


The Candy Wagon stood in its accustomed place on the Y.M.C.A. corner.
The season was late October, and the leaves from the old sycamores, in
league with the east wind, after waging a merry war with the janitor all
morning, had swept, a triumphant host, across the broad sidewalk, to lie
in heaps of golden brown along the curb and beneath the wheels of the
Candy Wagon. In the intervals of trade, never brisk before noon, the
Candy Man had watched the game, taking sides with the leaves.

Down the steps of the Y.M.C.A. building sauntered the Reporter.
Perceiving the Candy Wagon at the curb he paused, scrutinising it
jauntily, through a monocle formed by a thumb and finger.

The wagon, freshly emblazoned in legends of red, yellow and blue which