By the time she had got as far as “my little Sammy,” Jimmy was out of the house and at the first pair of bars; and, being in a terrible fright, he ran back to Johnny as fast as he could go.
Johnny was sitting there, hugging somebody. What body? Not a body of water is meant this time, but a lively, loving, frisking, barking little body, named Rover. And close behind came Mr. Plummer. When Ellis Payne came home without the Jimmyjohns, Mr. Plummer put the horse into the light wagon, and took Rover, and went to look after them.
CHAPTER IV.
THE JIMMYJOHNS’ SAILOR-SUITS.
This chapter will tell why Mrs. Plummer had to sew very odd-looking patches on the Jimmyjohns’ sailor-suits. It will also tell what boy cut holes in those sailor-suits, and why he cut them, and when; and will show, that, at the time it was done, the three boys were in great danger.
It was on a Monday morning that people first took notice that the Jimmies’ trousers were patched in a curious manner. Johnny was carrying the new dog, and Jimmy was taking hold of Johnny’s hand. After Rover was lost, the twins had a new dog given them, named Snip. He was the smallest dog they ever saw: but he was a dog; he was not a puppy. Mr. Plummer brought him home in his pocket one day, two weeks after Rover went away. It was Rover, you know, that ran off with poor little Polly Cologne. People talked so much to him about this piece of mischief, that at last he began to feel ashamed of himself; and, as soon as Polly Cologne’s name was mentioned, he would slink into a corner, and hide his head. One day Annetta showed him an apron that poor little Polly used to wear,—it was a bib-apron,—and said to him, “St’boy! Go find her! Don’t come back till you find her!”
The bib-apron was about three inches long. Rover caught it in his mouth, and away he went, and—did not come back. They looked for him far and near; they put his name in the newspapers; but all in vain. The apron was found sticking to a bramble-bush, about a mile from home; but nothing could be seen or heard of Rover. There was a circus in town that day, and he might have gone off with that. Perhaps he was ashamed to come back. Little Mr. Tompkins, the lobster-seller, thinks the dog understood what Annetta said, and that he may be, even now, scouring the woods, or else sniffing along the streets, peeping into back-yards, down cellar-ways, up staircases, in search of poor Polly Cologne.
Mr. Tompkins was among the very first to notice the sailor-suits. He met the twins that morning as he was wheeling along his lobsters, and quickly dropped his wheelbarrow, and sat down on one of the side-boards. Being a small, slim man, he could sit there as well as not without tipping the wheelbarrow over.
Mr. Tompkins wore short-legged pantaloons and a long-waisted coat. The reason of this was, that he had short legs and (for his size) a long waist. His coat was buttoned up to his chin. His cap had a stiff visor, which stood out like the awning of a shop. He had a thin face, a small nose, small eyes, and a wide mouth; and he wore a blue apron with shoulder-straps.
“What’s happened to your trousers, eh?” asked little Mr. Tompkins. His way of speaking was as sharp and quick as Snip’s way of barking. “Say, what’s happened to your trousers?”