"Hullo! Whose old cat is dead?" was his reply.

"Oh, Joe! such a dreadful thing has happened," Agnes said breathlessly.

"Bubby Creamer has gone off with Mr. Billy Quirk, the laundryman, and his mother's worried to death."

"Whew! that's some kid!" exclaimed Joe. "Didn't know he could walk yet."

"He can't, silly!" returned Agnes, exasperated. "Listen!" and she told the boy how the wonder had occurred. "You know, Mr. Billy Quirk drives away out High Street to collect laundry. Won't you drive out that way and see if he's got poor little Bubby in his wagon?"

"Sure!" cried Joe. "Hop in!"

"But-but _I_ didn't think of going."

"Say! You don't suppose I'd take a live baby aboard this car all alone?"

gasped Joe. "I-guess-not!"

"Oh, I'll go!" agreed Agnes, and immediately slipped into the seat beside him. "Do hurry-do! Mrs. Creamer is almost crazy."

Joe's engine had been running all the time, and in a minute they rounded the corner into High Street.

"Neale got back yet?" asked Joe, slipping the clutch into high speed.

"Oh-oh!" gasped Agnes, as the car shot forward with suddenly increased swiftness. "How-how did you know he had gone away?"

"Saw him off Christmas morning."

"Oh, Joe Eldred! did you know Neale was going?"

"Why, not till he went," admitted the boy. "I was running down to the railroad station to meet my married sister and her kids-they were coming over for Christmas dinner-and I saw Neale lugging his satchel and legging it for the station. That bag weighed a ton, so I took him in."

"Where did he say he was going?" Agnes asked eagerly.

"He didn't say. Don't you know?"

"If I did I wouldn't ask you," snapped Agnes. "Mean old thing!"

"Hul-_lo_!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Joe. "Who's mean?"

"Not you, Joe," the girl said sweetly. "But that Neale O'Neil. He went off without saying a word to any of us."

"Close mouthed as an oyster, Neale is. But I asked him what was in the bag, and what d' you s'pose he said?"

"I don't know," returned the girl, idly.

"He said: 'Either a hundred thousand dollars or nothing.' Now! what do you know about that?" demanded Joe, chuckling.

"What!" gasped Agnes, sitting straight up and staring at her companion.

"I guess if he'd been lugging such a fortune around it would have been heavy," added Joe, with laughter.

Agnes was silenced. For once the impulsive Corner House girl was circ.u.mspect. Neale's answer to Joe could mean but one thing. Neale must have carried away with him the old alb.u.m she had found in the garret of the Corner House.

"Goodness gracious!" thought Agnes, feeling a queer faintness within.

"It can't be that Neale O'Neil really believes that money and the bonds are good! That is too ridiculous! But, if not, what has he carried the book away with him for?

"He was going to show the bonds to somebody, he said. He went off in too great a hurry to do that. And did he take the book because the contents might be valuable and he was afraid to leave it behind him?"

"I never did hear of such a funny mix-up," concluded Agnes, still in her own mind. "And Ruth acts so strangely about it, too. She looked at the book first. Can it be possible that she thinks that old play money is real? Suppose some of it is good-just _some_ of it?"

Agnes had begun to worry herself now about the old alb.u.m and its contents. The mystery of it quite overshadowed in her mind the matter of the missing baby.

CHAPTER XII

MISS PEPPERILL'S DISASTER

The baby came first, after all, for Joe Eldred almost immediately exclaimed:

"Say, Aggie! isn't that Billy Quirk's wagon right ahead?"

"Oh, yes! Oh, yes, Joe!" Agnes agreed. "He hasn't got so far, after all."

"Do you believe he's got the kid?" demanded Joe, in doubt. "Look here!

The back of the wagon's full of clothes baskets. Why! if the kid's there, he's buried!"

"Oh, don't!" cried Agnes. "Don't say such a thing, Joe!"

The boy had slowed down while speaking, and instantly Agnes was out of the car and had run ahead.

"Mr. Quirk! Oh, Mr. Quirk! Billy!" she shouted. "You've got a baby there!"

"Heh?" gasped the laundryman, who had been about to clamber into his seat again. "Got a baby!" he repeated, in a dazed sort of way, and actually turning pale. "_Not another?_"

"In your wagon, I mean. It's Mrs. Creamer's Bubby. Oh, dear, Mr. Quirk!

do look quick and see if you've smothered him."

"What do you mean, girl? That I've smothered a baby!" groaned Mr. Quirk, who was a little, nervous man who could not stand much excitement.

"I don't know. Do look," begged Agnes. "Bubby was in the basket-not the soiled clothes-"

"Which basket?" cried the laundryman.

"The one you took away from the Creamers' porch, Billy," put in Joe Eldred, who had left the car, too. "Come on and look. Maybe the kid's all right."

"Oh, dear me! I hope so!" groaned Agnes. "What would Mrs. Creamer do-"

Joe helped the shaking laundryman to lift down the baskets of wash that were already stacked three tiers deep in the wagon.