favorite with the children of the neighborhood. He could do wonderful
things with a jackknife and the whistles, canes, swords and other toys he
had made for the Cook children had often filled their friends with envy.
He wore thick glasses with gold rims and was very bow-legged. He always
said that his legs were crooked because he had ridden horseback so much
when he was a young German cavalry trooper.

He was a skillful man with horses, and had never liked an automobile
half as much. He loved all animals and they seemed to love him too. At
the present time his pets consisted of a small woolly dog, an angora
cat, a parrot, and an alligator. The last named pet he kept in an old
wash tub, half full of water, and called him Percy. He used to talk to
all his pets as if they were human beings, Percy included, and many
people had ventured the opinion that his brain was not quite as good as
it should be.

"A little bit cracked, but harmless and faithful," was the way Bob's
father described him.

Bob had never seen Heinrich so upset as he was that afternoon. He put the
rolls of bills in his pocket and looked at Bob fiercely through his thick
glass spectacles. His watery blue eyes looked almost ferocious.

"What do you want here?" he demanded.

"My bicycle," said Bob.

"It iss got a puncture," said Heinrich.

"Oh, Heinrich," Bob exclaimed. "Why didn't you fix it?"