MONSIEUR JULES TURNED AND FLED.
What in the world could have happened to Jules?
Then she received the greatest shock of her life.
From out the door of the bake-room came a gingerbread man, so fresh from the oven that the odor of hot gingerbread surrounded him like a cloud. He looked neither to right nor left, but picked Monsieur's tall silk hat from off a peg and placed it carelessly upon his own head. Next he caught up a large candy cane from a show-case, stepped over the prostrate body of the baker, and so left the shop, closing the front door behind him.
Madame saw him passing the windows, stepping along briskly and swinging the cane in his left hand.