"Why, good morning, Mr. Schimmelpodt," Dick responded, as he started to get up. "What are you doing here."
"Oh, choost vaiting to see bis you do the same thing," grunted the contractor. "It was great sport—-not?"
"Decidedly 'not,'" laughed Dick, stepping gingerly over a sidewalk that had been spread thinly with some sticky substance. "Can I help you up, Mr. Schimmelpodt?"
The German, who knew his own weight, glanced at the boy's slight figure rather doubtfully.
"Bresgott, how many horsepower are you alretty?"
But Dick, standing carefully so that he would not slip again, displayed more strength than the contractor had expected. In another moment the German was on his feet, moving cautiously away, his eyes on the sidewalk. Yet he did not forget to mutter his thanks to the boy.
As Dick now went on his way again, slipping around the corner and into a bakeshop, he noticed that his right wrist felt a bit queer.
"Well, I haven't broken anything," he murmured, feeling of the wrist with his left hand. "But what on earth happened to the sidewalk."
As he paused before his door on the way back, he looked carefully down at the sidewalk. Right before the door several flags in the walk appeared to be thinly coated with some colorless specimen of slime.
"It looks as though it might be soft soap," pondered Prescott, examining the stuff more closely. "It'll be dry in a half an hour more, but I think I had better fix it."