It was a grand scheme, and I'd been all right if I'd followed the trolley track along the post-road; but the gasolene carts was so thick, and I got to breathin' so much gravel, that I switches off. I takes a nice-lookin' lane that appears like it might bring me out somewhere near the place I was headin' for; but as I ain't much on findin' my way where they don't have sign-boards at the corners, the first thing I knows I've made so many turns I don't know whether I'm goin' out or comin' back.
It was while I was doin' the stray act, and wonderin' if it was goin' to shower, or was only just bluffin', that I bumps into this Incubator bunch, and the performance begins.
First squint I took I thought somebody'd been settin' out a new kind of shrubbery, and then I sized it up for a lot of umbrella jars that had been dumped there. But pretty soon I sees that it's nothin' but a double row of kids, all dressed the same. There must have been more'n a hundred of 'em, and they was standin' quiet by the side of the road, just as much to home as if that was where they belonged. Now, it ain't the reg'lar thing to find any such aggregation as that on a back lane, and if I'd had as much sense as a family horse in a carryall I'd shied and rambled the other way. But I has to get curious to see what it's all about, so I blazes ahead, figurin' on takin' a good look as I goes by.
At the head of the procession was a lady and gent holdin' some kind of exercises, and as I comes up I notices something familiar about the lady's back hair. She turns around just then, gives a little squeal, and makes for me with both hands out. Sure, it was her—Sadie Sullivan, that was. Well, I knew that Sadie was liable to be floatin' around anywhere in Westchester County, for that seems to be her regular stampin' ground since she got to travelin' with the country house set; but I wasn't lookin' to run across her just then and in that company.
"Oh, Shorty!" says she, "you're a life-saver! I've half a mind to hug you right here."
"If it wa'n't for givin' an exhibition," says I, "I'd lend you the other half. But how does the life-savin' come in? And where'd you collect so many kids all of a size? Is that pop, there?" and I jerks me thumb at the gent.
"Captain Kenwoodie," says Sadie, "I want you to know my friend, Professor McCabe. Shorty, this is Captain Sir Hunter Kenwoodie, of the British war office."
"Woodie," says I, "how goes it?"
"Chawmed to meet you, I'm suah," says he.
"Oh, splash!" says I. "You don't mean it?"