"You had better get out here. I will take your baskets and the cage." This she did, and deposited all three of the bipeds on the sidewalk. She bade them "Good evening" even, and, when the old gentleman had at last put his somewhat cumbrous question, "Could you kindly tell us on which corner Mr. Max Keesler lives?" the car was gone in the darkness.
Short work that night as Bertha doffed her ulster and assumed her home costume. For Max, he only tethered the horses, and then ran into the house, lighted it, and waited. Bertha joined him, however, before his uncle appeared. And leaving her in her own parlor, the guilty Max put on his hat, walked down the avenue, and met his dazed relatives, so that he could help them and the canary-bird and the baskets to his own door.
"Come, Bertha, come!" he cried. "Here is Uncle Stephen and my aunt!"
"Where did you drop from, dear aunt?" And the dear old lady explained how they had rung at the wrong door, how long the servant was in coming, and then how badly the servant understood their English.
"But how came you there at all?" persisted Bertha.
"Oh, the conductor left us at the wrong street."
"At the wrong street!" cried Bertha. "These conductors are so careless! But this man must have done it on purpose. What looking man was he?"
"My dear child," said her aunt, speaking in German, "you must not blame him; he was very young and very kind; perhaps he was a new man, and did not know. He was very kind, and carried the bird himself to the sidewalk."
After this, mischievous Mistress Bertha did not dare say a word.
But there was no second trip that evening.