you. One of you go in front and lead the way to a taxi."

"Don't you know the way yourself?" I asked in a
half-whisper.

"Of course I do, but I generally like to walk with a boy
in front of me. We all do. Only the cheap people nowadays
find their own way."

Father Knickerbocker had taken my arm and was walking
along in a queer, excited fashion, senile and yet with
a sort of forced youthfulness in his gait and manner.

"Now then," he said, "get into this taxi."

"Can't we _walk_?" I asked.

"Impossible," said the old gentleman. "It's five blocks
to where we are going."

As we took our seats I looked again at my companion; this
time more closely. Father Knickerbocker he certainly was,
yet somehow strangely transformed from my pictured fancy
of the Sleepy Hollow days. His antique coat with its wide
skirt had, it seemed, assumed a modish cut as if in
imitation of the bell-shaped spring overcoat of the young
man about town. His three-cornered hat was set at a rakish
angle till it looked almost like an up-to-date fedora.
The great stick that he used to carry had somehow changed
itself into the curved walking-stick of a Broadway lounger.