Billy jumped.  “I know what we can do for Laura,” he said.  “I’ll have to have Mrs. Lathrop’s permission though.”  He seized his hat and made for the door.  “I’d better see her about it to-night.”  The door slammed.

It had all happened so suddenly that the children gazed after him with wide-open mouths and eyes.

“What do you suppose it’s going to be, Maida?” Rosie asked finally.

“I don’t know,” Maida answered.  “I haven’t the least idea.  But if Billy makes it, you may be sure it will be wonderful.”

When Billy came back, they asked him a hundred questions.  But they could not get a word out of him in regard to the new toy.

He appeared at the shop early the next morning with a suit-case full of bundles.  Then followed doings that, for a long time, were a mystery to everybody.  A crowd of excited children followed him about, asking him dozens of questions and chattering frantically among themselves.

First, he opened one of the bundles—­out dropped eight little pulleys.  Second, he went up into Maida’s bedroom and fastened one of the little pulleys on the sill outside her window.  Third, he did the same thing in Rosie’s house, in Arthur’s and in Dicky’s.  Fourth, he fastened four of the little pulleys at the playroom window in the Lathrop house.

“Oh, what is he doing?” “I can’t think of anything.”  “Oh, I wish he’d tell us,” came from the children who watched these manoeuvres from the street.

Fifth, Billy opened another bundle—­this time, out came four coils of a thin rope.

“I know now,” Arthur called up to him, “but I won’t tell.”

Billy grinned.

And, sure enough, “You watch him,” was all Arthur would say to the entreaties of his friends.

Sixth, Billy ran a double line of rope between Maida’s and Laura’s window, a second between Rosie’s and Laura’s, a third between Arthur’s and Laura’s, a fourth between Dicky’s and Laura’s.

Last, Billy opened another bundle.  Out dropped four square tin boxes, each with a cover and a handle.

“I’ve guessed it!  I’ve guessed it!” Maida and Rosie screamed together.  “It’s a telephone.”

“That’s the answer,” Billy confessed.  He went from house to house fastening a box to the lower rope.

“Now when you want to say anything to Laura,” he said on his return, “just write a note, put it in the box, pull on the upper string and it will sail over to her window.  Suppose you all run home and write something now.  I’ll go over to Laura’s to see how it works.”

The children scattered.  In a few moments, four excited little faces appeared at as many windows.  The telephone worked perfectly.  Billy handed Mrs. Lathrop the notes to deliver to Laura.

“Oh, Mr. Potter,” Mrs. Lathrop said suddenly, “there’s a matter that I wished to speak to you about.  That little Flynn girl has lived in the family of Mr. Jerome Westabrook, hasn’t she?”