then, with a certain leisurely grace, she stepped in between the seats
and, seating herself, lugged her two small charges down beside her.

"I suppose, under the circumstances, an old woman like me can discard the
conventionalities?" she remarked smilingly.

Jerry and Alice leered triumphantly at their victim. "Now!" Jerry
shrilled exactingly "tell us all about hoboes!"

"They do carry empty tomato-cans, don't they?" pleaded Alice.

It was now their guardian's turn to laugh at his dismay. "You see what
you've let yourself in for now?" she remarked.

"Seems I am up against it," he admitted, with a rueful grin, "well! must
make good somehow, I suppose?"

With an infinitely boyish gesture he tipped his fur cap to the back of
his head and leaned forward with finger-tips compressed in approved
story-telling fashion.

"Once upon a time!--" a breathless "Yes-s"--those two small faces
reminded him much of terriers watching a rat-hole--"there was a hobo."
He thought hard. "He was a very dirty old hobo--he never used to wash
his face. He was walking along the road one day when he heard a little
wee voice call out 'Hey!'. He looked down and he saw an empty tomato-can
on a rubbish heap. Tomato-cans used to be able to talk in those days and
the hoboes were very good to them--always used to drink out of them and
carry them to save them from walking. This can had a picture of its big
red face on the outside. 'Give us a lift?' said the can. 'Where to?'