If you or I had looked over his shoulder, we should have seen at once that some of these were unfamiliar tools. A screw driver—yes! a pair of nippers—yes! a file—yes! but what were these three little shining objects which Pippin was fitting together with eager, trembling fingers? Now they are joined and make a slender bar of solid steel, one end flattened to a sharp edge. That is a jimmy, and Pippin is looking with shining eyes at a miniature but perfect set of burglar's tools.
"Now wouldn't that—" said Pippin. Sitting back on his heels, he took the tools out one by one and examined them carefully, handling them like a lover, whistling meantime, slowly and thoughtfully, the air devoted to the aged steeple-climber. He ran his eye along their edges; he rang them on a stone to test their perfection. "Com-plete!" he muttered. "These certingly are a complete outfit. Now I ask you honest, would—not—that—give you a pain in your—" Pippin confused the human interior with the gallinaceous. How should he know that we have no gizzard?
"Old Nipper!" he continued. "Only to think of the slickness of him! Went round with his wheel, innocent appearin' as you please, and when he saw a likely crib, he'd up and crack it with these little daisies, just as easy—"
He stopped abruptly, as a light broke in upon him. This was what Old Man Blossom meant. This was why he laffed and 'most had a pupplectic fit; and no wonder! Here was he, Pippin, singing and praying, and all the time taking a cracksman's kit along with him wherever he went! No wonder the old rip laughed! Now question was, what to do with 'em?
What say? No one was near; he was alone in the green murmuring place; yet some one did certainly seem to be speaking. Pippin cocked his ear to listen.
A shame to destroy good tools, pretty set like this, prettiest he ever saw or like to see? Might come in handy for any kind of work—even the jimmy? Any one might want to use a bar—farmin' like, or—
The strong brown fingers seemed to close of themselves, without will of his, round the tools, fondling them. Something like quicksilver ran crinkling through him—
"Now HONEST!" said Pippin. "Just watch me, will you?"
A flash in the sunlight where it broke through the leafy screen; a silver splash—the lucky bugs scattered in terror, and a solemn bullfrog tumbled headfirst off the stone from which he had been watching. Another flash and splash, and now a whole shower of them. Sang Pippin: