“Good evening, ma’am,” said Horace, rising, and offering her a chair.  She did not seem to see very well, in spite of her enormous spectacles; for she took no notice of the chair, and remained standing in the middle of the floor.

[Illustration:  THE PUMPKIN HOOD.]

“She stares at me so hard!” thought Horace—­“that’s the reason she can’t see anything else.”—­“Please take a chair, ma’am.”

“Can’t stop to sit down.  Is your name Horace S. Clifford?” said the old woman, in a very feeble voice.

Horace looked at her; she had not a tooth in her head.

“Yes, ma’am; my name is Horace Clifford,” said he, respectfully.  He had great reverence for age, and could keep his mouth from twitching; but I’m sorry to say Prudy’s danced up at the corners, and Dotty’s opened and showed her back teeth The woman must have had all those clothes made when she was young, for nobody wore such things now; but it wasn’t likely she knew that, poor soul!

“Did you go to the ‘Brooklyn Eagle’ office, to-day, to ad-ver-tise some lost money, little boy?”

“Yes, ma’am.—­Why, that advertisement can’t have been printed so quick!”

“No, I calculate not.  Did you go in with a lady, and a leetle, oneasy, springy kind of a leetle girl?”

“Why, that’s me,” put in Fly.

“Yes, ma’am—­yes; were you there?  What do you know about it?”

“Don’t be in a hurry, little boy.  I want to be safe and sure.  I expect you took notice of a young man in a bottle-green coat,—­no, a greenish-black coat,—­a-sittin’ down by the door.”

“O, I don’t know.  Yes, I think I did.  Was he the one?  Did he find the money?”

“Did you walk up Orange Street?” continued the old woman.  “No, I mean Cranberry Street?”

“O, dear, I don’t know!  Prudy, run, call Aunt Madge.  Please tell me, ma’am, have you got it with you?  Is my name on the inside?”

“Wait till the little girl calls your aunt.  Perhaps she’d be willing to let me tell the story in my own way.  I’d ruther deal with grown folks,” said the provoking old lady.

Horace’s eyes flashed, but he contrived to keep his temper.

“It is my purse, ma’am, and my aunt knows nothing about it.  I can tell you just how it looks, and all there is in it.”

“Perhaps you are one of the kind that can tell folks a good deal, and thinks nobody knows things so well as yourself,” returned the disagreeable old woman, smiling and showing her toothless gums.  “From what I can learn, I should judge you talked ruther too loud about your money; for there was a pusson heerd you in the ferry-boat, and took pains to go in the same car afterwards, and pick your pocket.”

“Pick—­my—­pocket?”

“Yes, your pocket.  You wise, wonderful young man!”

“How?  When?  Where?”

“This is how,” said the old woman, quick as a thought putting out her hand, and thrusting it into Horace’s breast pocket.