"Can that be the watchman?" whispered the Calico Clown to the Bold Tin
Soldier.
"I hardly think so," was the answer. "He tramps along differently, his feet making a noise like the beat of a drum. This is quite another sound. But we had better keep still until we see what it is."
So all the toys kept quiet, and the noise came nearer and nearer and nearer, and then, all of a sudden, there rolled along the floor a toy Elephant on roller skates.
"Hello! Hello there, my toy friends!" cried the Elephant through his trunk. "How are you all? And where is the White Rocking Horse? I'll have a race with him. I tried to the other night, but one of my roller skates jiggled off and then the watchman came and the race could not be run. Where is the Rocking Horse?"
"Why, didn't you hear?" asked the Clown, as he sat up, for the toys knew it would be all right now to move about and talk as they had been doing.
"Didn't I hear what?" asked the Elephant, sliding around on his roller skates. "I hear a lot of things," he went on, "but these skates make so much racket I can't hear very well when I have them on. They don't really belong to me," he said, looking at the Candy Rabbit. "I just borrowed them from the sporting section, as I did before, to race with the White Rocking Horse."
"Well, you might have saved yourself the trouble," said the Monkey on a
Stick. "The White Rocking Horse isn't here any more. He was sold."
"Dear me!" exclaimed the Elephant. "That's too bad! Then I can't have a race."
"Unless you want to race with the Lamb on Wheels," said the Bold Tin
Soldier. "She has wheels on her feet almost like your roller skates.
Will you race with her?"
"Thank you, I don't believe I care to race," put in the Lamb. "I am not used to it. And I might break a leg, and then that nice little girl, who was petting me to-day, would not want to buy me. I had better not race."