“Well, how in the world did that Calico Clown come to be in my pocket?” exclaimed the man.  He took the toy out, turned it over and looked at it from all sides.  As he did so he happened to punch the Clown in the chest, and of course the Clown banged his cymbals together, as he had been taught to do in the workshop of Santa Claus, where he had been made.

And as the cymbals tinkled and clanged the typewriter girl laughed harder than ever.  Then the man happened to pull one of the strings, and the Clown kicked up his legs.  The office boy was looking into the room just then, and, seeing this antic of the jolly red and yellow chap, the office boy laughed out loud.

“Dear me!  I’m glad every one in this office is so good-natured,” thought the Clown to himself.  “And I certainly am glad to get out of that Man’s pocket.  I was nearly smothered there, but of course it was better than being in the tree.  I’ll do some more tricks for them if the Man pulls more strings.”

And the Man did.  He pulled the strings fastened to the Clown’s arms, and they jiggled and joggled in a merry fashion, so the girl and the office boy laughed harder than ever.

“Well, how in the world did that Clown toy come to be in my pocket?  That’s what I want to know,” said the Man, very much puzzled.

“Maybe one of the children put it in,” suggested the girl.  She knew the Man had children at home.

“No, I hardly think it was any of my children,” said the Man.  “Arnold has no toy like this.  He has a Bold Tin Soldier, as he calls him, and some soldier men.  And my little girl, Mirabell, has a Lamb on Wheels.  But neither of them has a Calico Clown.”

“Perhaps some of their playmates called at your house, to have fun with Arnold or Mirabell,” said the typewriter girl, “and they may have dropped the Clown into your pocket as your coat hung on the rack.”

“Yes, that could have happened,” said the Man.  “But I remember I put my hand in my pocket as I left the house, to make sure I had some letters I was to mail.  The Clown was not in my pocket then.  He must have got in after I left my house.  And how could that happen, I should like to know!  I didn’t go in any place.  How could it have happened?”

Of course neither the office boy nor the typewriter girl could tell.  They had not seen the Calico Clown fall from the tree into the pocket of the Man as he passed underneath.  And even the Man himself had not seen this.

“It’s very queer,” said the father of Mirabell and Arnold.  “The only way it could have happened that I can think of is that some children I passed on the street may have tossed the Clown into my pocket.  I have very large ones in this coat, and sometimes they stand wide open.”

The Calico Clown stayed in the office all that day.  It was the first time he had ever been to business, and he rather liked it as a change.  Very few toys ever have the chance he had.  He sat up on the Man’s desk and watched the girl click at the typewriter, and he watched the office boy come in and out.  The office boy looked at the Clown, too.