“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m going to present you with this book,” he answered, taking it from under his arm. Then he sat down on the edge of a chair, placed his hat on the rug and drew a fountain pen from his vest pocket.
“I’ll write your name in it,” said he. “How do you spell Gladys?”
“G-l-a-d-y-s,” she replied.
“Thank you. Now this,” he continued, rising and handing her the book with a bow, “is my revenge for your father’s treatment of me. Perhaps he’ll be sorry he didn’t buy the ‘Complete Works of Peter Smith.’ Good-by, my dear.”
He walked to the door, gave her another bow, and left the room, and Jane Gladys could see that he was laughing to himself as if very much amused.
When the door had closed behind the queer little man the child sat down in the window again and glanced at the book. It had a red and yellow cover and the word “Thingamajigs” was across the front in big letters.
Then she opened it, curiously, and saw her name written in black letters upon the first white leaf.
“He was a funny little man,” she said to herself, thoughtfully.
She turned the next leaf, and saw a big picture of a clown, dressed in green and red and yellow, and having a very white face with three-cornered spots of red on each cheek and over the eyes. While she looked at this the book trembled in her hands, the leaf crackled and creaked and suddenly the clown jumped out of it and stood upon the floor beside her, becoming instantly as big as any ordinary clown.