“Well, I guess it’s true enough,” said Mr. Treadwell.  “There are two uncles and one aunt, according to the story.  William Clayton, who is a brother of Mart’s father, is blind, and in some home or hospital—­I don’t know where, and I guess the children don’t either,” he added.

Lucile and Mart shook their heads.

“Simon Weatherby and his wife, Sallie, are brother and sister-in-law of Mrs. Clayton’s,” went on the impersonator.  “The last heard of them was that they sailed for the other side—­England, France or maybe Australia for all I know.  We theatrical folk travel around a good bit.  Anyhow, Simon Weatherby and his wife left in a hurry, and they gave the care of the children over to Mr. and Mrs. Jackson.

“Now Mr. Jackson is all right, and a nice man, but he is careless, else he wouldn’t get into so much trouble, and he wouldn’t have lost the address of Mart’s Uncle Simon.  But that’s how it happened.  So the children have some relations if we can only find them, and what they are to do in the meanwhile, now that the show is scattered, is more than I know.”

“Well, I know one thing they’re going to do, and that is stay right here with me until they are sure of a home somewhere else,” said Mrs. Brown.

“I’m glad to hear you say that!” exclaimed Mr. Treadwell, as he finished his lunch.  “I heard they left the boarding house, and that they had no money.  Well, I haven’t any too much myself, but I followed them, hoping I could find ’em and help ’em.  Now I’ve found my little friends all right,” he said, looking kindly at Lucile and Mart, “but some one else has helped them.”

“They helped some one else first,” said Mrs. Newton, with a smile.  “Mart got Mr. Winkler’s monkey down out of a tree.”

“I heard about that,” returned Mr. Treadwell, with a laugh.  “Well, now that I have located you, I suppose I’d better travel on, though where to go or what to do I don’t know,” he added with a sigh.  “I’m not as young as I once was,” he added, “and there isn’t the demand for impersonators there once was.  If I could get back to New York——­”

He paused and shook his head sadly.

“Why don’t you stay here and look for work, just as I’m going to do?” asked Mart.  “If you get to New York there won’t be much chance.  All the theater places are filled now for the winter season.”

“That’s so!” agreed the impersonator.  “But I don’t know what sort of work I could do here.”

“You—­you could be in our show!” interrupted Bunny, who, with Sue, had been listening eagerly to all the talk.  “We’re going to have a show, and you three could be in it!”

“Going to have a show, are you?” asked Mr. Treadwell, with a smile.

“Yes, a real one,” declared Sue.  “Once we had a circus, but this show is going to be in the Opera House, maybe, and we’ll give all the money we make to our mother’s Red Cross.”

“That will be nice,” said Mr. Treadwell, with a smile.  “But I’m afraid I’d be too big to fit into your show.”