“So you’re planning to go too, mister! Well, I’m planning to take you, but not in my suit-case. There’s the covered basket all ready for you. We’re going this very afternoon. You may have thought this was home, but it isn’t. It’s only a New York studio, where one earns his bread and butter. When you get to your final destination you’ll have all out-of-doors to chase your tail in,—that is, if you ever have one long enough to chase. It’s back to the old farm for you.
“But you’ve got to be mighty good, and whether you stay there or not depends entirely on yourself. I’m risking it because you are a rummy little chap, and I think you will be just bad enough to be lovable.”
Van cocked his head on one side, and lifted his left ear straight up, listening as if he understood every word. He barked very confidently at Bob, and when the time came, he entered his basket without protest. In a basket he had come to the New York studio, and in a basket he would leave it,—the proper way. The lid was shut and fastened, and Van started on his second railway journey.
The rumble and jolting of the trolley car, the jostling of the crowd at the station, the roaring, purring, grinding and shrieking of the train were nothing to him. He had been through all that before when he was even smaller, and nothing dreadful had come of it. Humans certainly make a lot of fuss for nothing. So he slept peacefully, as a prince should, only reminding his bearer that he was alive by a tiny “Yap!” when the express train made its one stop on the way.
There his basket was opened, and he chewed Bob’s finger for a minute, then snuggled down again, to awaken only when Bob stepped into a carriage at the end of his railway journey.
In the carriage the lid of Van’s basket was raised, and for the whole two-mile drive he sat up and watched everything with polite interest, but with no vulgar astonishment. His bonny brown eyes missed nothing, however. At last Bob jumped out, and as he went up the steps of the honeysuckle porch, he closed the basket lid and shouted:
“Kit! Kit! Where are you?”
“Bob! You dear fellow! How did you happen to get away? Are all the books in the world illustrated, and you off on a holiday?”
“No, not all of ’em. Got to get right back. I just ran up to bring a present for the kid you wrote me about. Thought she’d be lonesome. Where is she?”
“Upstairs. I’ll call her in a minute. What have you got in that basket?”