The Story of a Calico Clown Part 7

"No, I hardly think it was any of MY children," said the Man. "Arnold has no toy like this. He has a Bold Tin Soldier, as he calls him, and some soldier men. And my little girl, Mirabell, has a Lamb on Wheels.

But neither of them has a Calico Clown."

"Perhaps some of their playmates called at your house, to have fun with Arnold or Mirabell," said the typewriter girl, "and they may have dropped the Clown into your pocket as your coat hung on the rack."

"Yes, that could have happened," said the Man. "But I remember I put my hand in my pocket as I left the house, to make sure I had some letters I was to mail. The Clown was not in my pocket then. He must have got in after I left my house. And how could that happen, I should like to know! I didn't go in any place. How could it have happened?"

Of course neither the office boy nor the typewriter girl could tell.

They had not seen the Calico Clown fall from the tree into the pocket of the Man as he pa.s.sed underneath. And even the Man himself had not seen this.

"It's very queer," said the father of Mirabell and Arnold. "The only way it could have happened that I can think of is that some children I pa.s.sed on the street may have tossed the Clown into my pocket. I have very large ones in this coat, and sometimes they stand wide open."

The Calico Clown stayed in the office all that day. It was the first time he had ever been to business, and he rather liked it as a change.

Very few toys ever have the chance he had. He sat up on the Man's desk and watched the girl click at the typewriter, and he watched the office boy come in and out. The office boy looked at the Clown, too.

"I'm going to have some fun with him when the Boss goes out to lunch,"

said the office boy to himself.

Now the Clown felt rather strange in the office. His part in life was to make joy and laughter, and he could not do it sitting up straight and stiff on a desk. He looked around, and he saw, not far from him, a jolly little man, like a dwarf.

"I wish I could speak to him," thought the Clown. "He looks as if he belonged to the toy family."

And you can imagine how surprised the Clown was when, all of a sudden, the Man lifted the head right off the queer-looking little dwarf and dipped his pen down inside him!

"Why, he's an ink well!" thought the Clown. "That's what he is! An ink well! And his head comes off the same as the Porcelain Cat's head lifts off for matches to be put inside her. How very odd! I'd like to talk to that chap."

When the Man went out to lunch, into the office hurried the office boy with a grin on his face.

"What do you want?" asked the typewriter girl. "I want to make that Clown jiggle," was the answer. "I'm going to have some fun with him."

"No, you mustn't!" exclaimed the girl. "The Boss won't like it if you touch him. If you break him--"

"Aw, I won't break him!" cried the boy. "Let me have him!"

He made a grab for the Calico Clown, and the girl tried to stop the boy. As a result the Clown was knocked off the desk to the floor.

"Oh, dear! I hope my glued leg is not broken!" thought the Clown.

CHAPTER VII

IN THE WASH-BASKET

"There, now look what you did!" cried the girl.

"I didn't do it! You did!" said the boy. "If you hadn't jiggled it out of my hand when I was taking it down it wouldn't have fallen."

I don't know how long they might have gone on disputing in this fas.h.i.+on if the office boy from next door had not poked his head in and called:

"What's the matter?"

Then he saw the Calico Clown lying on the floor and he added:

"Has Santa Claus been here?" and he laughed.

"It came out of the pocket of the Boss," explained the first office boy. "He put it on his desk. I was going to look at it and pull the strings, 'cause the Boss is out to lunch, but she jiggled my hand and made me drop it. Now it's busted."

"Maybe it isn't," said the second office boy. "I'll see."

He picked the Calico Clown up off the floor, punched him in the chest, and the gay red and yellow chap banged his cymbals together.

"He's all right so far," said the second office boy. "Now we'll pull the strings."

"And there's where trouble may come in," thought the Calico Clown himself, for he heard and saw and felt all that went on. "I'm almost sure my glued leg is broken," said the Clown to himself.

But when the strings were pulled, one after another, and the arms and legs and head of the funny fellow twisted and turned and jerked, the two office boys and the typewriter girl laughed. And the Clown himself was glad, for he felt that he was not broken.

"If the Boss comes in and finds you playing with that Clown you'll catch it," said the girl to the first office boy, after a while.

"I guess I'd better put him back on the desk. I'm going out to get my dinner pretty soon," the boy said.

And a little later, while the girl was in an outer office looking over some papers and while the Man was still at his lunch and while the office boy was out getting something to eat, the Calico Clown was left alone with the Ink-Well Dwarf.

"How do you do?" politely asked the Clown.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Calico Clown Has a Chat With Ink-Well Dwarf.]

"Very well, thank you," answered the Dwarf. "And how are you? Where did you come from? Are you going to work here?"

"I never work!" exclaimed the Clown. "I am only to make jolly fun and laughter."

"Then this is no place for you," went on the Dwarf. "This is an office, and we must all work, though I must admit that those boys seem to get as much fun out of it as any one. They're always skylarking, cutting up, and playing jokes. But I work myself. I hold ink for the Boss."

"I see you do," answered the Clown. "I suppose I don't really belong here, made only for fun, as I am. And I did not want to come here. It was quite accidental. I was brought."

"How!" asked the Ink-Well Dwarf.

"In the pocket of the Man they call the Boss," was the reply. And then the Clown told of how he had fallen out of the tree.

All the remainder of the day the Calico Clown sat on the desk of the Man, wondering what would happen to him. At last he found out.

At the close of the afternoon, when no more business was to be done, the Man arose and closed his desk. He put papers in his different pockets to take home with him, and then he saw the Calico Clown.

"Oh, I mustn't forget you!" he said, speaking out loud as he sometimes did when alone. And he was alone in the office now, for the boy and the typewriter girl had gone. "I'll take you home and ask Arnold or Mirabell to whom you belong," went on the man. "You are some child's toy, I'm sure of that, and one of my children may know where you live."

The Calico Clown knew this to be so, and he knew that either Arnold or Mirabell would at once be able to say that the Clown belonged to Sidney, for they had seen Sidney playing with this toy.