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hole to the drainpipe was larger than the front—and Huppy got through it without too much trouble—but a few feet in, the pipe split. The way that Tucker and Harry usually took to the street was too small. They had to turn left—the first of many left turns—when they should have turned right, and turn downward when they should have turned up. After half an hour they’d gone so far, and in so many different directions, that even Harry didn’t know where they were—but it felt as if they ought to be in Brooklyn by now!
    The cat was leading the way—if fumbling in darkness through unknown pipes could be called leading—Huppy inching behind him, with Tucker Mouse bringing up the rear. “Let’s take a rest,” said Harry, and stopped. In the cramped pitch-black no one said a word. Then Huppy began to whimper. Harry twisted around and pawed the air till he found the dog’s head, which he patted. “I promise you, Huppy, I’ll get you out.”
    â€œNo, you won’t! I’ll get bigger and bigger—pretty soon I won’t even be able to move—I’ll squash myself to death!”
    â€œLet’s get going!” came Tucker’s anxious voice from behind.
    â€œYou two stay here,” said Harry. “I’m going on ahead and scout.”
    Huppy couldn’t turn around and Tucker couldn’t squeeze past him, so he did the best he could by patting the puppy’s rump and telling him it would be all right—which he hoped but wasn’t at all sure of.
    Neither one of them heard the cat come back. “It’s always worse right near the end. Two left—one down, one up—then a long level right and we’re on the street. And you’ll never guess where we come out!”
    â€œNorth Dakota!” said Tucker.
    They came out on the corner of Forty-first Street and Broadway—exactly one block from the entrance to the subway station. But the night was so beautiful, when they’d found a deserted doorway to sit in, that it almost made up for all their effort. A January thaw—like spring in midwinter—is a fragile, strange season. The air was clear, a warm wind brushed the animals’ fur, and high above, the remote bright stars seemed far more pure than the city’s glitter. Huppy took his ten deep breaths.
    But like most puppies when they are frightened, he couldn’t keep quiet. “What are we going to do? ” he said.
    â€œThe first thing we’re going to do is not worry,” said Harry. “But we do have to talk.”
    The time had come to discuss Huppy’s future, and with the dog present, because it was his future, after all. Harry explained, as gently as he could, while Huppy’s head hung down to his chest, that a cat and a mouse could live in a drainpipe, but—but—a growing dog couldn’t. It wasn’t that Tucker and he didn’t want him there, or love him very much, it was just that it was—impossible. A dog needed space where he could live, and hopefully, a place to play. Harry said he’d been racking his brains for four months, and the only thing he’d been able to think of was—he looked away, down Forty-first Street, although Huppy hadn’t lifted his eyes from the sidewalk—was for Huppy to go to Connecticut. The two of them would put him on the Late Local Express, at Grand Central Station.
    â€œWhere’s Connecticut?” said Huppy.
    Harry described Connecticut, where it was, how it looked, and began rhapsodizing about a beautiful, natural park up there, called the Old Meadow—“Renamed ‘Tucker’s Countryside,’” put in the mouse, “and for very good reason!”—and how they had this friend, Chester Cricket, who was very nice and could probably see that Huppy got adopted by a human family, and—
    â€œI don’t want to go to Connecticut!” said the dog.
    â€œI