He also says, however, that he remembers running for a long time as fast as he could go. When he stopped to take breath and to look around he found he was in a strange part of the city and there was nobody in the street in any direction. He was lost!
The Man Mite remembered that his papa told him that if ever he was lost he should ask a policeman, but there wasn’t a policeman or anybody else in sight. On the corner, though, was a patrol box, and the Man Mite had seen the policeman telephone to the station from the box, so he thought he would do the same thing. As he was trying to open the door he was startled to hear a voice inside exclaim, “Christmas is coming!”
“Which way is it coming, please?” asked the Man Mite, and off popped the top and up popped a Jack-in-the-box with his arms extended.
“Thank you,” said the Man Mite, and hastened away in the direction the Jack-in-the-box had pointed. Presently he saw a toy trolley car going in the same direction. “Hello!” he said, “where is that car going?”
“Going to meet Christmas,” answered the trolley car; “get inside.”
“Thank you,” answered the Man Mite, “you’re most too small for me to get inside of, but I can sit on top.”
He did so, and the car took him to the end of the line, and he was his own conductor and collected his own fare from himself. When the car stopped, it was at the end of a street which ran up against a steep bluff with no elevator or path to help a little boy to get to its top. The Man Mite wondered how he was ever going to get past that bluff, when he saw a climbing-monkey-on-a-string. One end of his string was attached to the top of the bluff and the other was fastened to the ground below.
“Hello,” said the monkey, “Christmas is coming, and if you want to go to meet it, you would better crawl up my string. I’ll show you how.”
“Oh, I can’t,” said the Man Mite.
“Can’t!” mocked the monkey. “I’m only a tin monkey and I can do it. It’s easy.”