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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Baby Mine, by Margaret Mayo
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Baby Mine
+
+Author: Margaret Mayo
+
+Posting Date: July 21, 2008 [EBook #860]
+Release Date: March, 1997
+Last Updated: March 16, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BABY MINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Keller
+
+
+
+
+
+BABY MINE
+
+By Margaret Mayo
+
+
+To my Helper and Husband
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Even in college Alfred Hardy was a young man of fixed ideas and high
+ideals and proud of it.
+
+His friend, Jimmy Jinks, had few ideas and no ideals, and was glad of
+it, and before half of their first college term had passed, Jimmy
+had ridded himself of all such worries as making up his own mind or
+directing his own morals. Alfred did all these things so much better,
+argued Jimmy, furthermore, Alfred LIKED to do them--Jimmy owed it to his
+friend to give him that pleasure.
+
+The fact that Jimmy was several years Alfred's senior and twice his
+size, in no way altered his opinion of Alfred's judgment, and through
+their entire college course they agreed as one man in all their
+discussions--or rather--in all Alfred's discussions.
+
+But it was not until the close of their senior year that Alfred favoured
+Jimmy with his views on matrimony.
+
+Sitting alone in a secluded corner of the campus waiting for Alfred to
+solve a problem in higher mathematics, Jimmy now recalled fragments of
+Alfred's last conversation.
+
+“No twelve dollar shoes and forty dollar hats for MY wife,” his young
+friend had raged and he condemned to Jimmy the wicked extravagance of
+his own younger sisters. “The woman who gets me must be a home-maker.
+I'll take her to the theatre occasionally, and now and then we'll have a
+few friends in for the evening; but the fireside must be her magnet, and
+I'll be right by her side each night with my books and my day's worries.
+She shall be taken into my confidence completely; and I'll take good
+care to let her know, before I marry her, just what I expect in return.”
+
+“Alfred certainly has the right idea about marriage,” mused Jimmy, as
+the toe of his boot shoved the gravel up and down the path. “There's
+just one impractical feature about it.” He was conscious of a slight
+feeling of heresy when he admitted even ONE flaw in his friend's scheme
+of things. “Where is Alfred to find such a wife?”
+
+Jimmy ran through the list of unattached girls to whom Alfred had thus
+far presented him. It was no doubt due to his lack of imagination, but
+try as he would, he could not see any one of these girls sitting by the
+fireside listening to Alfred's “worries” for four or five nights each
+week. He recalled all the married women whom he had been obliged,
+through no fault of his own, to observe.
+
+True, all of them did not boast twelve dollar shoes or forty dollar
+hats--for the very simple reason that the incomes or the tempers of
+their husbands did not permit of it. In any case, Jimmy did not remember
+having seen them spend many evenings by the fireside. Where then was
+Alfred to find the exceptional creature who was to help “systematise his
+life”? Jimmy was not above hoping that Alfred's search might be a long
+one. He was content for his friend to go jogging along by his side,
+theorising about marriage and taking no chances with facts. Having come
+to this conclusion, he began to feel uneasy at Alfred's non-appearance.
+Alfred had promised to meet him on this spot at four-thirty, and Alfred
+had decided ideas about punctuality. It was now five-thirty. Ought Jimmy
+to look for him, or would he be wiser to remain comfortably seated and
+to try to digest another of his friend's theories?
+
+While Jimmy was trying to decide this vexed question, his ear caught the
+sound of a girlish titter. Turning in embarrassment toward a secluded
+path just behind him, whom did he see coming toward him but Alfred, with
+what appeared to be a bunch of daffodils; but as Alfred drew nearer,
+Jimmy began to perceive at his elbow a large flower-trimmed hat,
+and--“horrors!”--beneath it, with a great deal of filmy white and yellow
+floating from it, was a small pink and white face.
+
+Barely had Jimmy reversed himself and rearranged his round, astonished
+features, when Alfred, beaming and buoyant, brought the bundle of fluff
+to a full stop before him.
+
+“Sorry to be late, old chap,” said Alfred. “I have brought my excuse
+with me. I want you to know Miss Merton.” Then turning to the small
+creature, whose head peeped just above his elbow, Alfred explained
+to her graciously that Jimmy Jinks was his very best friend, present
+company excepted, of course, and added that she and Jimmy would no doubt
+“see a great deal of each other in the future.”
+
+In his embarrassment, Jimmy's eyes went straight to the young lady's
+shoes. It was possible that there might be more expensive shoes in this
+world, but Jimmy had certainly never seen daintier.
+
+“I hope we didn't disturb you,” a small voice was chirping; and innocent
+and conventional as the remark surely was, Jimmy was certain of an
+undercurrent of mischief in it. He glanced up to protest, but two
+baby-blue eyes fixed upon him in apparent wonderment, made him certain
+that anything he could say would seem rude or ridiculous; so, as usual
+when in a plight, he looked to Alfred for the answer.
+
+Slapping Jimmy upon the shoulder in a condescending spirit, Alfred
+suggested that they all sit down and have a chat.
+
+“Oh, how nice,” chirped the small person.
+
+Jimmy felt an irresistible desire to run, but the picture of himself,
+in his very stout person, streaking across the campus to the giggled
+delight of Miss Fluff, soon brought him submissively to the seat,
+where he sat twiddling his straw hat between his fingers, and glancing
+uncertainly at Alfred, who was thoughtful enough to sit next him.
+
+“Goodness, one could almost dance out here, couldn't one?” said the
+small person, named Zoie, as her eyes roved over the bit of level green
+before them.
+
+“Would you like to try?” asked Alfred, apparently agreeable to her every
+caprice.
+
+“I'd love it!” cried Zoie. “Come along.” She sprang up and held out her
+hands to him.
+
+“I'm going to be unselfish,” answered Alfred, “and let Jimmy have that
+fun.”
+
+By this time, Jimmy had been seized with an intuitive feeling that his
+friend was in immediate danger.
+
+“Was this the young woman who was to sit opposite the fireside five
+nights a week and systematise Alfred's life?”
+
+Jimmy stared at the intruder blankly. For answer, two small hands were
+thrust out toward him and an impatient little voice was commanding him
+to “Come, dance.” He heard Alfred's laughter. He had no intention of
+accommodating the small person in this or any other matter, yet, before
+he realised quite how it had happened, he was two-stepping up and down
+the grass to her piping little voice; nor did she release him until the
+perspiration came rolling from his forehead; and, horror of horrors, his
+one-time friend, Alfred, seemed to find this amusing, and laughed louder
+and louder when Jimmy sank by his side exhausted.
+
+When Jimmy was again able to think consecutively, he concluded that
+considerable conversation must have taken place between Alfred and
+the small one, while he was recovering his breath and re-adjusting his
+wilted neckwear. He was now thrown into a fresh panic by an exclamation
+from the excitable Zoie.
+
+“You must both meet my friend, Aggie Darling,” she was saying. “I am
+bringing her with me to the hop to-night. She is not at all like me.
+You will like her dreadfully.” She smiled at Jimmy as though she were
+conferring a great favour upon him.
+
+“Like her dreadfully,” commented Jimmy to himself. “It was just the kind
+of expression one might expect from a mind in such disorder as hers.
+'Systematise Alfred's life,' indeed!”
+
+There was more nonsensical chatter, or so it seemed to Jimmy, then Zoie
+and Alfred rose to go, and Jimmy was told by both of them that he was to
+put in an appearance at the Fraternity “hop” that night.
+
+“I'll see you at dinner,” called Alfred gaily over his shoulder and
+Jimmy was left to grapple with his first disappointment at his friend's
+lack of discrimination.
+
+“It's her fault,” concluded Jimmy, as he lifted himself heavily off
+the bench and started down the campus, resolved to console himself with
+food.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Now Jimmy had no intention of going to the “hop.” He had tried to
+tell Alfred so a dozen times during dinner, but each time he had been
+interrupted by one of Alfred's enthusiastic rhapsodies about Zoie.
+
+“Most marvellous girl I have ever met!” exclaimed Alfred over his soup.
+“So sensible; so modest. And did you see how simply she dresses?” he
+asked. Jimmy recalled his first vision of billowy fluff; but before he
+could answer, Alfred had continued excitedly:
+
+“I'll tell you what first attracted me toward her.” He looked at Jimmy
+as though he expected some especial mark of gratitude for the favour
+about to be bestowed; then he explained with a serious weighing of his
+words, “It was her love of children. I had barely been introduced to
+her when she turned her back upon me and gave her whole attention to
+Professor Peck's little boy Willie. I said to myself, 'any girl of that
+age who prefers children to young chaps of my age, is the girl for me.'”
+
+“I see,” assented Jimmy lamely. It was his first remark during dinner.
+
+“After that, I no longer hesitated. You know, Jimmy, I have decision.”
+
+“Yes, I have noticed,” admitted Jimmy, without conviction.
+
+“In fifteen minutes,” said Alfred, “I had learned all about the young
+lady's antecedents.”
+
+Having finished his soup, and resisted a childish impulse to tip the
+plate and scrape the bottom of it, Jimmy was now looking anxiously
+toward the door through which the roast ought to come.
+
+“I'll tell you all about her,” volunteered Alfred. But Jimmy's eyes
+were upon Alfred's plate; his friend had not yet devoured more than two
+spoonfuls of soup; at that rate, argued Jimmy, the roast would reach
+them about the time that he was usually trying to make his dessert last
+as long as possible.
+
+“She is here with her aunt,” continued Alfred. “They are on a short
+visit to Professor Peck.”
+
+Jimmy approved of the “short.”
+
+“That's good,” he murmured, hopeful that a separation from the minx
+might restore his friend's reason.
+
+“And Jimmy,” exclaimed Alfred with glistening eyes, “what do you think?”
+
+Jimmy thought a great deal but he forebore to say it, and Alfred
+continued very enthusiastically.
+
+“She lives right in the same town with us.”
+
+“What!” ejaculated Jimmy, and he felt his appetite going.
+
+“Within a stone's throw of my house--and yours,” added Alfred
+triumphantly. “Think of our never having met her before!”
+
+“I am thinking,” said Jimmy.
+
+“Of course she has been away from home a great deal,” went on Alfred.
+“She's been in school in the East; but there were the summers.”
+
+“So there were,” assented Jimmy, thinking of his hitherto narrow
+escapes.
+
+“Her father is old John Merton,” continued Alfred. “Merton the
+stationer--you know him, Jimmy. Unfortunately, he has a great deal of
+money; but that hasn't spoilt her. Oh no! She is just as simple and
+considerate in her behaviour as if she were some poor little struggling
+school teacher. She is the one for me, Jimmy. There is no doubt about
+it, and I'll tell you a secret.”
+
+Jimmy looked at him blankly.
+
+“I am going to propose to her this very night.”
+
+“Good Lord!” groaned Jimmy, as if his friend had been suddenly struck
+down in the flower of his youth.
+
+“That's why you simply must come with me to the hop,” continued Alfred.
+“I want you to take care of her friend Aggie, and leave me alone with
+Zoie as much as possible.”
+
+“Zoie!” sniffed Jimmy. The name to him was as flippant as its owner.
+
+“True, strong name,” commented Alfred. “So simple, so direct, so like
+her. I'll have to leave you now,” he said, rising. “I must send her some
+flowers for the dance.” He turned at the door. Suppose I add a few from
+you for Aggie.”
+
+“What!” exploded Jimmy.
+
+“Just by way of introduction,” called Alfred gaily. “It's a good idea.”
+
+Before Jimmy could protest further, he found himself alone for the
+second time that day. He ate his roast in gloomy silence. It seemed dry
+and tasteless. Even his favourite desert of plum pudding failed to rouse
+him from his dark meditations, and he rose from the table dejected and
+forlorn.
+
+A few hours later, when Alfred led Jimmy into the ballroom, the latter
+was depressed, not only by his friend's impending danger, but he felt
+an uneasy foreboding as to his own future. With his college course
+practically finished and Alfred attaching himself to unforeseen
+entities, Jimmy had come to the ball with a curious feeling of having
+been left suspended in mid-air.
+
+Before he could voice his misgivings to Alfred, the young men were
+surrounded by a circle of chattering females. And then it was that Jimmy
+found himself looking into a pair of level brown eyes, and felt himself
+growing hot and cold by turns. When the little knot of youths and
+maidens disentangled itself into pairs of dancers, it became clear to
+Jimmy that he had been introduced to Aggie, and that he was expected to
+dance with her.
+
+As a matter of fact, Jimmy had danced with many girls; true, it was
+usually when there was no other man left to “do duty”; but still he
+had done it. Why then should he feel such distressing hesitation about
+placing his arm around the waist of this brown-eyed Diana? Try as he
+would he could not find words to break the silence that had fallen
+between them. She was so imposing; so self-controlled. It really seemed
+to Jimmy that she should be the one to ask him to dance. As a matter
+of fact, that was just what happened; and after the dance she suggested
+that they sit in the garden; and in the garden, with the moonlight
+barely peeping through the friendly overhanging boughs of the trees,
+Jimmy found Aggie capable of a courage that filled him with amazement;
+and later that night, when he and Alfred exchanged confidences, it
+became apparent to the latter that Aggie had volunteered to undertake
+the responsibility of outlining Jimmy's entire future.
+
+He was to follow his father's wishes and take up a business career in
+Chicago at once; and as soon as all the relatives concerned on both
+sides had been duly consulted, he and Aggie were to embark upon
+matrimony.
+
+“Good!” cried Alfred, when Jimmy had managed to stammer his shame-faced
+confession. “We'll make it a double wedding. I can be ready to-morrow,
+so far as I'm concerned.” And then followed another rhapsody upon the
+fitness of Zoie as the keeper of his future home and hearth, and the
+mother of his future sons and daughters. In fact, it was far into the
+night when the two friends separated--separated in more than one sense,
+as they afterward learned.
+
+While Alfred and Jimmy were saying “good-night” to each other, Zoie and
+Aggie in one of the pretty chintz bedrooms of Professor Peck's modest
+home, were still exchanging mutual confidences.
+
+“The thing I like about Alfred,” said Zoie, as she gazed at the tip of
+her dainty satin slipper, and turned her head meditatively to one side,
+“is his positive nature. I've never before met any one like him. Do you
+know,” she added with a sly twinkle in her eye, “it was all I could do
+to keep from laughing at him. He's so awfully serious.” She giggled to
+herself at the recollection of him; then she leaned forward to Aggie,
+her small hands clasped across her knees and her face dimpling with
+mischief. “He hasn't the remotest idea what I'm like.”
+
+Aggie studied her young friend with unmistakable reproach. “I MADE
+Jimmy know what I'M like,” she said. “I told him ALL my ideas about
+everything.”
+
+“Good Heavens!” exclaimed Zoie in shocked surprise.
+
+“He's sure to find out sooner or later,” said Aggie sagely. “I think
+that's the only sensible way to begin.”
+
+“If I'd told Alfred all MY ideas about things,” smiled Zoie, “there'd
+have BEEN no beginning.”
+
+“What do you mean?” asked Aggie, with a troubled look.
+
+“Well, take our meeting,” explained Zoie. “Just as we were introduced,
+that horrid little Willie Peck caught his heel in a flounce of my skirt.
+I turned round to slap him, but I saw Alfred looking, so I patted his
+ugly little red curls instead. And what do you think? Alfred told me
+to-night that it was my devotion to Willie that first made him adore
+me.”
+
+“And you didn't explain to him?” asked Aggie in amazement.
+
+“And lose him before I'd got him!” exclaimed Zoie.
+
+“It might be better than losing him AFTER you've got him,” concluded the
+elder girl.
+
+“Oh, Aggie,” pouted Zoie, “I think you are horrid. You're just trying to
+spoil all the fun of my engagement.”
+
+“I am not,” cried Aggie, and the next moment she was sitting on the arm
+of Zoie's chair.
+
+“Goose!” she said, “how dare you be cross with me?”
+
+“I am NOT cross,” declared Zoie, and after the customary apologies from
+Aggie, confidence was fully restored on both sides and Zoie continued
+gaily: “Don't you worry about Alfred and me,” she said as she kicked off
+her tiny slippers and hopped into bed. “Just you wait until I get him.
+I'll manage him all right.”
+
+“I dare say,” answered Aggie; not without misgivings, as she turned off
+the light.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The double wedding of four of Chicago's “Younger Set” had been
+adequately noticed in the papers, the conventional “honeymoon” journey
+had been made, and Alfred Hardy and Jimmy Jinks had now settled down to
+the routine of their respective business interests.
+
+Having plunged into his office work with the same vigour with which
+he had attacked higher mathematics, Alfred had quickly gained the
+confidence of the elders of his firm, and they had already begun to give
+way to him in many important decisions. In fact, he was now practically
+at the head of his particular department with one office doing well in
+Chicago and a second office promising well in Detroit.
+
+As for Jimmy, he had naturally started his business career with fewer
+pyrotechnics; but he was none the less contented. He seldom saw his old
+friend Alfred now, but Aggie kept more or less in touch with Zoie;
+and over the luncheon table the affairs of the two husbands were often
+discussed by their wives. It was after one of these luncheons that Aggie
+upset Jimmy's evening repose by the fireside by telling him that she was
+a wee bit worried about Zoie and Alfred.
+
+“Alfred is so unreasonable,” said Aggie, “so peevish.”
+
+“Nonsense!” exclaimed Jimmy shortly. “If he's peevish he has some good
+reason. You can be sure of that.”
+
+“You needn't get cross with me, Jimmy,” said Aggie in a hurt voice.
+
+“Why should I be cross with you?” snapped Jimmy. “It isn't YOUR fault
+if Alfred's made a fool of himself by marrying the last person on earth
+whom he should have married.”
+
+“I think he was very lucky to get her,” argued Aggie in defence of her
+friend.
+
+“Oh, you do, do you?” answered Jimmy in a very aggrieved tone.
+
+“She is one of the prettiest girls in Chicago,” said Aggie.
+
+“You're pretty too,” answered Jimmy, “but it doesn't make an idiot of
+you.”
+
+“It's TIME you said something nice to me,” purred Aggie; and her arm
+stole fondly around Jimmy's large neck.
+
+“I don't know why it is,” said Jimmy, shaking his head dejectedly, “but
+every time Zoie Hardy's name is mentioned in this house it seems to stir
+up some sort of a row between you and me.”
+
+“That's because you're so prejudiced,” answered Aggie with a touch of
+irritation.
+
+“There you go again,” said Jimmy.
+
+“I didn't mean it!” interposed Aggie contritely. “Oh, come now, Jimmy,”
+ she pleaded, “let's trundle off to bed and forget all about it.” And
+they did.
+
+But the next day, as Jimmy was heading for the La Salle restaurant to
+get his luncheon, who should call to him airily from a passing taxi
+but Zoie. It was apparent that she wished him to wait until she could
+alight; and in spite of his disinclination to do so, he not only waited
+but followed the taxi to its stopping place and helped the young woman
+to the pavement.
+
+“Oh, you darling!” exclaimed Zoie, all of a flutter, and looking exactly
+like an animated doll. “You've just saved my life.” She called to the
+taxi driver to “wait.”
+
+“Are you in trouble?” asked the guileless Jimmy.
+
+“Yes, dreadful,” answered Zoie, and she thrust a half-dozen small
+parcels into Jimmy's arms. “I have to be at my dressmaker's in half an
+hour; and I haven't had a bite of lunch. I'm miles and miles from home;
+and I can't go into a restaurant and eat just by myself without being
+stared at. Wasn't it lucky that I saw you when I did?”
+
+There was really very little left for Jimmy to say, so he said it; and a
+few minutes later they were seated tete-a-tete in one of Chicago's most
+fashionable restaurants, and Zoie the unconscious flirt was looking up
+at Jimmy with apparently adoring eyes, and suggesting all the eatables
+which he particularly abominated.
+
+No sooner had the unfortunate man acquiesced in one thing and
+communicated Zoie's wish to the waiter, than the flighty young person
+found something else on the menu that she considered more tempting to
+her palate. Time and again the waiter had to be recalled and the order
+had to be given over until Jimmy felt himself laying up a store of
+nervous indigestion that would doubtless last him for days.
+
+When the coveted food at last arrived, Zoie had become completely
+engrossed in the headgear of one of her neighbours, and it was only
+after Jimmy had been induced to make himself ridiculous by craning his
+neck to see things of no possible interest to him that Zoie at last gave
+her attention to her plate.
+
+In obeyance of Jimmy's order the waiter managed to rush the lunch
+through within three-quarters of an hour; but when Jimmy and Zoie at
+length rose to go he was so insanely irritated, that he declared they
+had been in the place for hours; demanded that the waiter hurry his
+bill; and then finally departed in high dudgeon without leaving the
+customary “tip” behind him.
+
+But all this was without its effect upon Zoie, who, a few moments
+later rode away in her taxi, waving gaily to Jimmy who was now late for
+business and thoroughly at odds with himself and the world.
+
+As a result of the time lost at luncheon Jimmy missed an appointment
+that had to wait over until after office hours, and as a result of this
+postponement, he missed Aggie, who went to a friend's house for dinner,
+leaving word for him to follow. For the first time in his life, Jimmy
+disobeyed Aggie's orders, and, later on, when he “trundled off to bed”
+ alone, he again recalled that it was Zoie Hardy who was always causing
+hard feeling between him and his spouse.
+
+Some hours later, when Aggie reached home with misgivings because Jimmy
+had not joined her, she was surprised to find him sleeping as peacefully
+as a cherub. “Poor dear,” she murmured, “I hope he wasn't lonesome.” And
+she stole away to her room.
+
+The next morning when Aggie did not appear at the breakfast table, Jimmy
+rushed to her room in genuine alarm. It was now Aggie's turn to sleep
+peacefully; and he stole dejectedly back to the dining-room and for the
+first time since their marriage, he munched his cold toast and sipped
+his coffee alone.
+
+So thoroughly was his life now disorganised, and so low were his spirits
+that he determined to walk to his office, relying upon the crisp morning
+air to brace him for the day's encounters. By degrees, he regained his
+good cheer and as usual when in rising spirits, his mind turned toward
+Aggie. The second anniversary of their wedding was fast approaching--he
+began to take notice of various window displays. By the time he had
+reached his office, the weightiest decision on his mind lay in choosing
+between a pearl pendant and a diamond bracelet for his now adorable
+spouse.
+
+But a more difficult problem awaited him. Before he was fairly in his
+chair, the telephone bell rang violently. Never guessing who was at the
+other end of the wire, he picked up his receiver and answered.
+
+“What?” he exclaimed in surprise. “Mrs. Hardy?” Several times he opened
+his lips to ask a question, but it was apparent that the person at the
+other end of the line had a great deal to say and very little time to
+say it, and it was only after repeated attempts that he managed to get
+in a word or so edgewise.
+
+“What's happened?” he asked.
+
+“Say nothing to anybody,” was Zoie's noncommittal answer, “not even to
+Aggie. Jump in a taxi and come as quickly as you can.”
+
+“But what IS it?” persisted Jimmy. The dull sound of the wire told him
+that the person at the other end had “hung up.”
+
+Jimmy gazed about the room in perplexity. What was he to do? Why on
+earth should he leave his letters unanswered and his mail topsy turvy to
+rush forth in the shank of the morning at the bidding of a young woman
+whom he abhorred. Ridiculous! He would do no such thing. He lit a cigar
+and began to open a few letters marked “private.” For the life of him he
+could not understand one word that he read. A worried look crossed his
+face.
+
+“Suppose Zoie were really in need of help, Aggie would certainly never
+forgive him if he failed her.” He rose and walked up and down.
+
+“Why was he not to tell Aggie?”
+
+“Where was Alfred?” He stopped abruptly. His over excited imagination
+had suggested a horrible but no doubt accurate answer. “Wedded to an
+abomination like Zoie, Alfred had sought the only escape possible to a
+man of his honourable ideals--he had committed suicide.”
+
+Seizing his coat and hat Jimmy dashed through the outer office without
+instructing his astonished staff as to when he might possibly return.
+
+“Family troubles,” said the secretary to himself as he appropriated one
+of Jimmy's best cigars.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+LESS than half an hour later, Jimmy's taxi stopped in front of the
+fashionable Sherwood Apartments where Zoie had elected to live.
+Ascending toward the fifth floor he scanned the face of the elevator boy
+expecting to find it particularly solemn because of the tragedy that
+had doubtless taken place upstairs. He was on the point of sending out
+a “feeler” about the matter, when he remembered Zoie's solemn injunction
+to “say nothing to anybody.” Perhaps it was even worse than suicide. He
+dared let his imagination go no further. By the time he had put out his
+hand to touch the electric button at Zoie's front door, his finger was
+trembling so that he wondered whether he could hit the mark. The result
+was a very faint note from the bell, but not so faint that it escaped
+the ear of the anxious young wife, who had been pacing up and down the
+floor of her charming living room for what seemed to her ages.
+
+“Hurry, hurry, hurry!” Zoie cried through her tears to her neat little
+maid servant, then reaching for her chatelaine, she daubed her small
+nose and flushed cheeks with powder, after which she nodded to Mary to
+open the door.
+
+To Jimmy, the maid's pert “good-morning” seemed to be in very bad taste
+and to properly reprove her he assumed a grave, dignified air out of
+which he was promptly startled by Zoie's even more unseemly greeting.
+
+“Hello, Jimmy!” she snapped. Her tone was certainly not that of a
+heart-broken widow. “It's TIME you got here,” she added with an injured
+air.
+
+Jimmy gazed at Zoie in astonishment. She was never what he would have
+called a sympathetic woman, but really----!
+
+“I came the moment you 'phoned me,” he stammered; “what is it? What's
+the matter?”
+
+“It's awful,” sniffled Zoie. And she tore up and down the room
+regardless of the fact that Jimmy was still unseated.
+
+“Awful what?” questioned Jimmy.
+
+“Worst I've ever had,” sobbed Zoie.
+
+“Is anything wrong with Alfred?” ventured Jimmy. And he braced himself
+for her answer.
+
+“He's gone,” sobbed Zoie.
+
+“Gone!” echoed Jimmy, feeling sure that his worst fears were about to be
+realised. “Gone where?”
+
+“I don't know,” sniffled Zoie, “I just 'phoned his office. He isn't
+there.”
+
+“Oh, is that all?” answered Jimmy, with a sigh of relief. “Just another
+little family tiff,” he was unable to conceal a feeling of thankfulness.
+“What's up?”
+
+Zoie measured Jimmy with a dangerous gleam in her eyes. She resented the
+patronising tone that he was adopting. How dare he be cheerful when
+she was so unhappy--and because of him, too? She determined that his
+self-complacency should be short-lived.
+
+“Alfred has found out that I lied about the luncheon,” she said,
+weighing her words and their effect upon Jimmy.
+
+“What luncheon?” stuttered Jimmy, feeling sure that Zoie had suddenly
+marked him for her victim, but puzzled as to what form her persecution
+was about to take.
+
+“What luncheon?” repeated Zoie, trying apparently to conceal her disgust
+at his dulness. “OUR luncheon yesterday.”
+
+“Why did you LIE,” asked Jimmy, his eyes growing rounder and rounder
+with wonder.
+
+“I didn't know he KNEW,” answered Zoie innocently.
+
+“Knew what?” questioned Jimmy, more and more befogged.
+
+“That I'd eaten with a man,” concluded Zoie impatiently. Then she turned
+her back upon Jimmy and again dashed up and down the room occupied with
+her own thoughts.
+
+It was certainly difficult to get much understanding out of Zoie's
+disjointed observations, but Jimmy was doing his best. He followed her
+restless movements about the room with his eyes, and then ventured a
+timid comment.
+
+“He couldn't object to your eating with me.”
+
+“Oh, couldn't he?” cried Zoie, and she turned upon him with a look
+of contempt. “If there's anything that he DOESN'T object to,” she
+continued, “I haven't found it out yet.” And with that she threw herself
+in a large arm chair near the table, and left Jimmy to draw his own
+conclusions.
+
+Jimmy looked about the room as though expecting aid from some unseen
+source; then his eyes sought the floor. Eventually they crept to the tip
+of Zoie's tiny slipper as it beat a nervous tattoo on the rug. To save
+his immortal soul, Jimmy could never help being hypnotised by Zoie's
+small feet. He wondered now if they had been the reason of Alfred's
+first downfall. He recalled with a sigh of relief that Aggie's feet were
+large and reassuring. He also recalled an appropriate quotation: “The
+path of virtue is not for women with small feet,” it ran. “Yes, Aggie's
+feet are undoubtedly large,” he concluded. But all this was not solving
+Zoie's immediate problem; and an impatient cough from her made him
+realise that something was expected of him.
+
+“Why did you lunch with me,” he asked, with a touch of irritation, “if
+you thought he wouldn't like it?”
+
+“I was hungry,” snapped Zoie.
+
+“Oh,” grunted Jimmy, and in spite of his dislike of the small creature
+his vanity resented the bald assertion that she had not lunched with him
+for his company's sake.
+
+“I wouldn't have made an engagement with you of course,” she continued,
+with a frankness that vanquished any remaining conceit that Jimmy might
+have brought with him. “I explained to you how it was at the time. It
+was merely a case of convenience. You know that.”
+
+Jimmy was beginning to see it more and more in the light of an
+inconvenience.
+
+“If you hadn't been in front of that horrid old restaurant just when I
+was passing,” she continued, “all this would never have happened. But
+you were there, and you asked me to come in and have a bite with you;
+and I did, and there you are.”
+
+“Yes, there I am,” assented Jimmy dismally. There was no doubt about
+where he was now, but where was he going to end? That was the question.
+“See here,” he exclaimed with fast growing uneasiness, “I don't like
+being mixed up in this sort of thing.”
+
+“Of course you'd think of yourself first,” sneered Zoie. “That's just
+like a man.”
+
+“Well, I don't want to get your husband down on me,” argued Jimmy
+evasively.
+
+“Oh, I didn't give YOU away,” sneered Zoie. “YOU needn't worry,” and she
+fixed her eyes upon him with a scornful expression that left no doubt as
+to her opinion that he was a craven coward.
+
+“But you said he'd 'found out,'” stammered Jimmy.
+
+“He's found out that I ate with a MAN,” answered Zoie, more and more
+aggrieved at having to employ so much detail in the midst of her
+distress. “He doesn't know it was you.”
+
+“But Zoie----” protested Jimmy.
+
+She lifted a small hand, begging him to spare her further questions.
+It was apparent that she must explain each aspect of their present
+difficulty, with as much patience as though Jimmy were in reality only a
+child. She sank into her chair and then proceeded, with a martyred air.
+
+“You see it was like this,” she said. “Alfred came into the restaurant
+just after we had gone out and Henri, the waiter who has taken care
+of him for years, told him that I had just been in to luncheon with a
+gentleman.”
+
+Jimmy shifted about on the edge of his chair, ill at ease.
+
+“Now if Alfred had only told me that in the first place,” she continued,
+“I'd have known what to say, but he didn't. Oh no, he was as sweet as
+could be all through breakfast and last night too, and then just as he
+was leaving this morning, I said something about luncheon and he said,
+quite casually, 'Where did you have luncheon YESTERDAY, my dear?' So I
+answered quite carelessly, 'I had none, my love.' Well, I wish you could
+have seen him. He called me dreadful things. He says I'm the one thing
+he can't endure.”
+
+“What's that?” questioned Jimmy, wondering how Alfred could confine
+himself to any “ONE thing.”
+
+“He says I'm a liar!” shrieked Zoie tearfully.
+
+“Well, aren't you?” asked Jimmy.
+
+“Of course I am,” declared Zoie; “but why shouldn't I be?” She looked
+at Jimmy with such an air of self-approval that for the life of him he
+could find no reason to offer. “You know how jealous Alfred is,” she
+continued. “He makes such a fuss about the slightest thing that I've got
+out of the habit of EVER telling the TRUTH.” She walked away from
+Jimmy as though dismissing the entire matter; he shifted his position
+uneasily; she turned to him again with mock sweetness. “I suppose YOU
+told AGGIE all about it?” she said.
+
+Jimmy's round eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped lower. “I--I--don't
+believe I did,” he stammered weakly. “I didn't think of it again.”
+
+“Thank heaven for that!” concluded Zoie with tightly pressed lips. Then
+she knotted her small white brow in deep thought.
+
+Jimmy regarded her with growing uneasiness. “What are you up to now?” he
+asked.
+
+“I don't know yet,” mused Zoie, “BUT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TELL
+AGGIE--that's ONE SURE thing.” And she pinned him down with her eyes.
+
+“I certainly will tell her,” asserted Jimmy, with a wag of his very
+round head. “Aggie is just the one to get you out of this.”
+
+“She's just the one to make things worse,” said Zoie decidedly. Then
+seeing Jimmy's hurt look, she continued apologetically: “Aggie MEANS
+all right, but she has an absolute mania for mixing up in other people's
+troubles. And you know how THAT always ends.”
+
+“I never deceived my wife in all my life,” declared Jimmy, with an air
+of self approval that he was far from feeling.
+
+“Now, Jimmy,” protested Zoie impatiently, “you aren't going to have
+moral hydrophobia just when I need your help!”
+
+“I'm not going to lie to Aggie, if that's what you mean,” said Jimmy,
+endeavouring not to wriggle under Zoie's disapproving gaze.
+
+“Then don't,” answered Zoie sweetly.
+
+Jimmy never feared Zoie more than when she APPEARED to agree with him.
+He looked at her now with uneasy distrust.
+
+“Tell her the truth,” urged Zoie.
+
+“I will,” declared Jimmy with an emphatic nod.
+
+“And I'LL DENY IT,” concluded Zoie with an impudent toss of her head.
+
+“What!” exclaimed Jimmy, and he felt himself getting onto his feet.
+
+“I've already denied it to Alfred,” continued Zoie. “I told him I'd
+never been in that restaurant without him in all my life, that the
+waiter had mistaken someone else for me.” And again she turned her back
+upon Jimmy.
+
+“But don't you see,” protested Jimmy, “this would all be so very much
+simpler if you'd just own up to the truth now, before it's too late?”
+
+“It IS too late,” declared Zoie. “Alfred wouldn't believe me now,
+whatever I told him. He says a woman who lies once lies all the time.
+He'd think I'd been carrying on with you ALL ALONG.”
+
+“Good Lord!” groaned Jimmy as the full realisation of his predicament
+thrust itself upon him.
+
+“We don't DARE tell him now,” continued Zoie, elated by the demoralised
+state to which she was fast reducing him. “For Heaven's sake, don't make
+it any worse,” she concluded; “it's bad enough as it is.”
+
+“It certainly is,” agreed Jimmy, and he sank dejectedly into his chair.
+
+“If you DO tell him,” threatened Zoie from the opposite side of the
+table, “I'll say you ENTICED me into the place.”
+
+“What!” shrieked Jimmy and again he found himself on his feet.
+
+“I will,” insisted Zoie, “I give you fair warning.”
+
+He stared at her in absolute horror. “I don't believe you've any
+conscience at all,” he said.
+
+“I haven't,” she sniffled. “I'm too miserable.” And throwing herself
+into the nearest armchair she wept copiously at the thought of her many
+injuries.
+
+Uncertain whether to fly or to remain, Jimmy gazed at her gloomily.
+“Well, I'M not laughing myself to death,” he said.
+
+For answer Zoie turned upon him vehemently. “I just wish I'd never laid
+eyes on you, Jimmy,” she cried.
+
+Jimmy was wishing the very same thing.
+
+“If I cared about you,” she sobbed, “it wouldn't be so bad; but to
+think of losing my Alfred for----” words failed her and she trailed off
+weakly,--“for nothing!”
+
+“Thanks,” grunted Jimmy curtly. In spite of himself he was always miffed
+by the uncomplimentary way in which she disposed of him.
+
+His sarcasm was lost upon Zoie. Having finished all she had to say to
+him, she was now apparently bent upon indulging herself in a first class
+fit of hysterics.
+
+There are critical moments in all of our lives when our future happiness
+or woe hangs upon our own decision. Jimmy felt intuitively that he was
+face to face with such a moment, but which way to turn? that was the
+question. Being Jimmy, and soft-hearted in spite of his efforts to
+conceal it, he naturally turned the wrong way, in other words, towards
+Zoie.
+
+“Oh, come now,” he said awkwardly, as he crossed to the arm of her
+chair. “This will soon blow over.”
+
+Zoie only sobbed the louder.
+
+“This isn't the first time you and Alfred have called it all off,” he
+reminded her.
+
+Again she sobbed.
+
+Jimmy could never remember quite how it happened. But apparently he
+must have patted Zoie on the shoulder. At any rate, something or other
+loosened the flood-gates of her emotion, and before Jimmy could possibly
+escape from her vicinity she had wheeled round in her chair, thrown her
+arms about him, and buried her tear-stained face against his waist-coat.
+
+“Good Lord!” exclaimed Jimmy, for the third time that morning, as he
+glanced nervously toward the door; but Zoie was exclaiming in her own
+way and sobbing louder and louder; furthermore she was compelling Jimmy
+to listen to an exaggerated account of her many disappointments in her
+unreasonable husband. Seeing no possibility of escape, without resorting
+to physical violence, Jimmy stood his ground, wondering what to expect
+next. He did not have long to wonder.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WITHIN an hour from the time Alfred had entered his office that morning
+he was leaving it, in a taxi, with his faithful secretary at his
+side, and his important papers in a bag at his feet. “Take me to the
+Sherwood,” he commanded the driver, “and be quick.”
+
+As they neared Alfred's house, Johnson could feel waves of increasing
+anger circling around his perturbed young employer and later when they
+alighted from the taxi it was with the greatest difficulty that he could
+keep pace with him.
+
+Unfortunately for Jimmy, the outer door of the Hardy apartment had been
+left ajar, and thus it was that he was suddenly startled from Zoie's
+unwelcome embraces by a sharp exclamation.
+
+“So!” cried Alfred, and he brought his fist down with emphasis on the
+centre table at Jimmy's back.
+
+Wheeling about, Jimmy beheld his friend face to face with him. Alfred's
+lips were pressed tightly together, his eyes flashing fire. It was
+apparent that he desired an immediate explanation. Jimmy turned to the
+place where Zoie had been, to ask for help; like the traitress that she
+was, he now saw her flying through her bedroom door. Again he glanced at
+Alfred, who was standing like a sentry, waiting for the pass-word that
+should restore his confidence in his friend.
+
+“I'm afraid I've disturbed you,” sneered Alfred.
+
+“Oh, no, not at all,” answered Jimmy, affecting a careless indifference
+that he did not feel and unconsciously shaking hands with the waiting
+secretary.
+
+Reminded of the secretary's presence in such a distinctly family scene,
+Alfred turned to him with annoyance.
+
+“Go into my study,” he said. “I'll be with you presently. Here's your
+list,” he added and he thrust a long memorandum into the secretary's
+hand. Johnson retired as unobtrusively as possible and the two old
+friends were left alone. There was another embarrassed silence which
+Jimmy, at least, seemed powerless to break.
+
+“Well?” questioned Alfred in a threatening tone.
+
+“Tolerably well,” answered Jimmy in his most pleasant but slightly
+nervous manner. Then followed another pause in which Alfred continued to
+eye his old friend with grave suspicion.
+
+“The fact is,” stammered Jimmy, “I just came over to bring Aggie----” he
+corrected himself--“that is, to bring Zoie a little message from Aggie.”
+
+“It seemed to be a SAD one,” answered Alfred, with a sarcastic smile, as
+he recalled the picture of Zoie weeping upon his friend's sleeve.
+
+“Oh no--no!” answered Jimmy, with an elaborate attempt at carelessness.
+
+“Do you generally play the messenger during business hours?” thundered
+Alfred, becoming more and more enraged at Jimmy's petty evasions.
+
+“Just SOMETIMES,” answered Jimmy, persisting in his amiable manner.
+
+“Jimmy,” said Alfred, and there was a solemn warning in his voice,
+“don't YOU lie to me!”
+
+Jimmy started as though shot. The consciousness of his guilt was strong
+upon him. “I beg your pardon,” he gasped, for the want of anything more
+intelligent to say.
+
+“You don't do it well,” continued Alfred, “and you and I are old
+friends.”
+
+Jimmy's round eyes fixed themselves on the carpet.
+
+“My wife has been telling you her troubles,” surmised Alfred.
+
+Jimmy tried to protest, but the lie would not come.
+
+“Very well,” continued Alfred, “I'll tell you something too. I've done
+with her.” He thrust his hands in his pockets and began to walk up and
+down.
+
+“What a turbulent household,” thought Jimmy and then he set out in
+pursuit of his friend. “I'm sorry you've had a misunderstanding,” he
+began.
+
+“Misunderstanding!” shouted Alfred, turning upon him so sharply that he
+nearly tripped him up, “we've never had anything else. There was never
+anything else for us TO have. She's lied up hill and down dale from the
+first time she clinched her baby fingers around my hand--” he imitated
+Zoie's dainty manner--“and said 'pleased to meet you!' But I've caught
+her with the goods this time,” he shouted, “and I've just about got
+HIM.”
+
+“Him!” echoed Jimmy weakly.
+
+“The wife-stealer,” exclaimed Alfred, and he clinched his fists in
+anticipation of the justice he would one day mete out to the despicable
+creature.
+
+Now Jimmy had been called many things in his time, he realised that he
+would doubtless be called many more things in the future, but never by
+the wildest stretch of imagination, had he ever conceived of himself in
+the role of “wife-stealer.”
+
+Mistaking Jimmy's look of amazement for one of incredulity, Alfred
+endeavoured to convince him.
+
+“Oh, YOU'LL meet a wife-stealer sooner or later,” he assured him. “You
+needn't look so horrified.”
+
+Jimmy only stared at him and he continued excitedly: “She's had the
+effrontery--the bad taste--the idiocy to lunch in a public restaurant
+with the blackguard.”
+
+The mere sound of the word made Jimmy shudder, but engrossed in his own
+troubles Alfred continued without heeding him.
+
+“Henri, the head-waiter, told me,” explained Alfred, and Jimmy
+remembered guiltily that he had been very bumptious with the fellow.
+“You know the place,” continued Alfred, “the LaSalle--a restaurant where
+I am known--where she is known--where my best friends dine--where Henri
+has looked after me for years. That shows how desperate she is. She
+must be mad about the fool. She's lost all sense of decency.” And again
+Alfred paced the floor.
+
+“Oh, I wouldn't go as far as that,” stammered Jimmy.
+
+“Oh, wouldn't you?” cried Alfred, again turning so abruptly that Jimmy
+caught his breath. Each word of Jimmy's was apparently goading him on to
+greater anger.
+
+“Now don't get hasty,” Jimmy almost pleaded. “The whole thing is no
+doubt perfectly innocent. Talk to her gently. Win her confidence. Get
+her to tell you the truth.”
+
+“The truth!” shouted Alfred in derision. “Zoie! The truth!”
+
+Jimmy feared that his young friend might actually become violent. Alfred
+bore down upon him like a maniac.
+
+“The truth!” he repeated wildly. “She wouldn't know the truth if she saw
+it under a microscope. She's the most unconscionable little liar that
+ever lured a man to the altar.”
+
+Jimmy rolled his round eyes with feigned incredulity.
+
+“I found it out before we'd been married a month,” continued Alfred.
+“She used to sit evenings facing the clock. I sat with my back to it.
+I used to ask her the time. Invariably she would lie half an hour,
+backward or forward, just for practice. THAT was the BEGINNING. Here,
+listen to some of these,” he added, as he drew half a dozen telegrams
+from his inner pocket, and motioned Jimmy to sit at the opposite side of
+the table.
+
+Jimmy would have preferred to stand, but it was not a propitious time to
+consult his own preferences. He allowed himself to be bullied into the
+chair that Alfred suggested.
+
+Throwing himself into the opposite chair, Alfred selected various
+exhibits from his collection of messages. “I just brought these up from
+the office,” he said. “These are some of the telegrams that she sent me
+each day last week while I was away. This is Monday's.” And he proceeded
+to read with a sneering imitation of Zoie's cloy sweetness.
+
+“'Darling, so lonesome without you. Cried all day. When are you coming
+home to your wee sad wifie? Love and kisses. Zoie.'” Tearing the
+defenceless telegram into bits, Alfred threw it from him and waited for
+his friend's verdict.
+
+“She sent that over the wire?” gasped Jimmy.
+
+“Oh, that's nothing,” answered Alfred. “That's a mild one.” And he
+selected another from the same pocket. “Here, listen to this. This is
+what she REALLY did. This is from my secretary the same night.”
+
+“You spied upon her!” asked Jimmy, feeling more and more convinced that
+his own deceptions would certainly be run to earth.
+
+“I HAVE to spy upon her,” answered Alfred, “in self-defence. It's the
+only way I can keep her from making me utterly ridiculous.” And he
+proceeded to read from the secretary's telegram. “'Shopped all
+morning. Lunched at Martingale's with man and woman unknown to
+me--Martingale's,'” he repeated with a sneer--“'Motored through Park
+with Mrs. Wilmer until five.' Mrs. Wilmer,” he exclaimed, “there's a
+woman I've positively forbidden her to speak to.”
+
+Jimmy only shook his head and Alfred continued to read.
+
+“'Had tea with Mr. and Mrs. Thompson and young Ardesley at the Park
+View.' Ardesley is a young cub,” explained Alfred, “who spends his time
+running around with married women while their husbands are away trying
+to make a living for them.”
+
+“Shocking!” was the extent of Jimmy's comment, and Alfred resumed
+reading.
+
+“'Dinner and theatre same party. Supper at Wellingford. Home two A. M.'”
+ He looked at Jimmy, expecting to hear Zoie bitterly condemned. Jimmy
+only stared at him blankly. “That's pretty good,” commented Alfred, “for
+the woman who 'CRIED' all day, isn't it?”
+
+Still Jimmy made no answer, and Alfred brought his fist down upon the
+table impatiently. “Isn't it?” he repeated.
+
+“She was a bit busy THAT day,” admitted Jimmy uneasily.
+
+“The truth!” cried Alfred again, as he rose and paced about excitedly.
+“Getting the truth out of Zoie is like going to a fire in the night. You
+think it's near, but you never get there. And when she begins by saying
+that she's going to tell you the 'REAL truth'”--he threw up his hands in
+despair--“well, then it's time to leave home.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+There was another pause, then Alfred drew in his breath and bore down
+upon Jimmy with fresh vehemence. “The only time I get even a semblance
+of truth out of Zoie,” he cried, “is when I catch her red-handed.”
+ Again he pounded the table and again Jimmy winced. “And even then,” he
+continued, “she colours it so with her affected innocence and her plea
+about just wishing to be a 'good fellow,' that she almost makes me doubt
+my own eyes. She is an artist,” he declared with a touch of enforced
+admiration. “There's no use talking; that woman is an artist.”
+
+“What are you going to do?” asked Jimmy, for the want of anything better
+to say.
+
+“I am going to leave her,” declared Alfred emphatically. “I am going
+away.”
+
+A faint hope lit Jimmy's round childlike face. With Alfred away there
+would be no further investigation of the luncheon incident.
+
+“That might be a good idea,” he said.
+
+“It's THE idea,” said Alfred; “most of my business is in Detroit anyhow.
+I'm going to make that my headquarters and stay there.”
+
+Jimmy was almost smiling.
+
+“As for Zoie,” continued Alfred, “she can stay right here and go as far
+as she likes.”
+
+“Not with me,” thought Jimmy.
+
+“But,” shrieked Alfred, with renewed emphasis, “I'm going to find out
+who the FELLOW is. I'll have THAT satisfaction!”
+
+Jimmy's spirits fell.
+
+“Henri knows the head-waiter of every restaurant in this town,” said
+Alfred, “that is, every one where she'd be likely to go; and he says
+he'd recognise the man she lunched with if he saw him again.”
+
+Jimmy's features became suddenly distorted.
+
+“The minute she appears anywhere with anybody,” explained Alfred, “Henri
+will be notified by 'phone. He'll identify the man and then he'll wire
+me.”
+
+“What good will that do?” asked Jimmy weakly.
+
+“I'll take the first train home,” declared Alfred.
+
+“For what?” questioned Jimmy.
+
+“To shoot him!” exclaimed Alfred.
+
+“What!” gasped Jimmy, almost losing his footing.
+
+Alfred mistook Jimmy's concern for anxiety on his behalf.
+
+“Oh, I'll be acquitted,” he declared. “Don't you worry. I'll get my tale
+of woe before the jury.”
+
+“But I say,” protested Jimmy, too uneasy to longer conceal his real
+emotions, “why kill this one particular chap when there are so many
+others?”
+
+“He's the only one she's ever lunched with, ALONE,” said Alfred. “She's
+been giddy, but at least she's always been chaperoned, except with him.
+He's the one all right; there's no doubt about it. He's the beginning of
+the end.”
+
+“His own end, yes,” assented Jimmy half to himself. “Now, see here, old
+man,” he argued, “I'd give that poor devil a chance to explain.”
+
+“Explain!” shouted Alfred so sharply that Jimmy quickly retreated. “I
+wouldn't believe him now if he were one of the Twelve Apostles.”
+
+“That's tough,” murmured Jimmy as he saw the last avenue of honourable
+escape closed to him.
+
+“Tough!” roared Alfred, thinking of himself. “Hah.”
+
+“On the Apostles, I mean,” explained Jimmy nervously.
+
+Again Alfred paced up and down the room, and again Jimmy tried to think
+of some way to escape from his present difficulty. It was quite apparent
+that his only hope lay not in his own candor, but in Alfred's absence.
+“How long do you expect to be away?” he asked.
+
+“Only until I hear from Henri,” said Alfred.
+
+“Henri?” repeated Jimmy and again a gleam of hope shone on his dull
+features. He had heard that waiters were often to be bribed. “Nice
+fellow, Henri,” he ventured cautiously. “Gets a large salary, no doubt?”
+
+“Does he!” exclaimed Alfred, with a certain pride of proprietorship. “No
+tips could touch Henri, no indeed. He's not that sort of a person.”
+
+Again the hope faded from Jimmy's round face.
+
+“I look upon Henri as my friend,” continued Alfred enthusiastically. “He
+speaks every language known to man. He's been in every country in the
+world. HENRI UNDERSTANDS LIFE.”
+
+“LOTS of people UNDERSTAND LIFE,” commented Jimmy dismally, “but SOME
+people don't APPRECIATE it. They value it too lightly, to MY way of
+thinking.”
+
+“Ah, but you have something to live for,” argued Alfred.
+
+“I have indeed; a great deal,” agreed Jimmy, more and more abused at the
+thought of what he was about to lose.
+
+“Ah, that's different,” exclaimed Alfred. “But what have _I_?”
+
+Jimmy was in no frame of mind to consider his young friend's assets, he
+was thinking of his own difficulties.
+
+“I'm a laughing stock,” shouted Alfred. “I know it. A 'good thing' who
+gives his wife everything she asks for, while she is running around
+with--with my best friend, for all I know.”
+
+“Oh, no, no,” protested Jimmy nervously. “I wouldn't say that.”
+
+“Even if she weren't running around,” continued Alfred excitedly,
+without heeding his friend's interruption, “what have we to look forward
+to? What have we to look backward to?”
+
+Again Jimmy's face was a blank.
+
+Alfred answered his own question by lifting his arms tragically toward
+Heaven. “One eternal round of wrangles and rows! A childless home! Do
+you think she wants babies?” he cried, wheeling about on Jimmy, and
+daring him to answer in the affirmative. “Oh, no!” he sneered. “All she
+wants is a good time.”
+
+“Well,” mumbled Jimmy, “I can't see much in babies myself, fat, little,
+red worms.”
+
+Alfred's breath went from him in astonishment
+
+“Weren't YOU ever a fat, little, red worm?” he hissed. “Wasn't _I_
+ever a little, fat, red----” he paused in confusion, as his ear became
+puzzled by the proper sequence of his adjectives, “a fat, red, little
+worm,” he stammered; “and see what we are now!” He thrust out his chest
+and strutted about in great pride.
+
+“Big red worms,” admitted Jimmy gloomily.
+
+But Alfred did not hear him. “You and I ought to have SONS on the way to
+what we are,” he declared, “and better.”
+
+“Oh yes, better,” agreed Jimmy, thinking of his present plight. “Much
+better.”
+
+“But HAVE we?” demanded Alfred.
+
+Jimmy glanced about the room, as though expecting an answering
+demonstration from the ceiling.
+
+“Have YOU?” persisted Alfred.
+
+Jimmy shook his head solemnly.
+
+“Have _I_?” asked the irate husband.
+
+Out of sheer absent mindedness Jimmy shrugged his shoulders.
+
+As usual Alfred answered his own question. “Oh, no!” he raged. “YOU have
+a wife who spends her time and money gadding about with----”
+
+Jimmy's face showed a new alarm.
+
+“--my wife,” concluded Alfred.
+
+Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+“I have a wife,” said Alfred, “who spends her time and my money gadding
+around with God knows whom. But I'll catch him!” he cried with new fury.
+“Here,” he said, pulling a roll of bills from his pocket. “I'll bet you
+I'll catch him. How much do you want to bet?”
+
+Undesirous of offering any added inducements toward his own capture,
+Jimmy backed away both literally and figuratively from Alfred's
+proposition.
+
+“What's the use of getting so excited?” he asked.
+
+Mistaking Jimmy's unwillingness to bet for a disinclination to take
+advantage of a friend's reckless mood, Alfred resented the implied
+insult to his astuteness.
+
+“You think I can't catch him?” he exclaimed. “Let's see the colour of
+your money,” he demanded.
+
+But before Jimmy could comply, an unexpected voice broke into the
+argument and brought them both round with a start.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+“Good Heavens,” exclaimed Aggie, who had entered the room while Alfred
+was talking his loudest. “What a racket!”
+
+Her eyes fell upon Jimmy who was teetering about uneasily just behind
+Alfred. She stared at him in amazement. Was it possible that Jimmy, the
+methodical, had left his office at this hour of the morning, and for
+what?
+
+Avoiding the question in Aggie's eyes, Jimmy pretended to be searching
+for his pocket handkerchief--but always with the vision of Aggie in her
+new Fall gown and her large “picture” hat at his elbow. Never before had
+she appeared so beautiful to him, so desirable--suppose he should lose
+her? Life spread before him as a dreary waste. He tried to look up at
+her; he could not. He feared she would read his guilt in his eyes. “What
+guilt?” he asked himself. There was no longer any denying the fact--a
+secret had sprung up between them.
+
+Annoyed at receiving no greeting, Aggie continued in a rather hurt
+voice:
+
+“Aren't you two going to speak to me?”
+
+Alfred swallowed hard in an effort to regain his composure.
+
+“Good-morning,” he said curtly.
+
+Fully convinced of a disagreement between the two old friends, Aggie
+addressed herself in a reproachful tone to Jimmy.
+
+“My dear,” she said, “what are you doing here this time of day?”
+
+Jimmy felt Alfred's steely eyes upon him. “Why!” he stammered. “Why, I
+just came over to--bring your message.”
+
+“My message?” repeated Aggie in perplexity. “What message?”
+
+Alfred's eyebrows drew themselves sharply together.
+
+Jimmy had told so many lies this morning that another more or less could
+not matter; moreover, this was not a time to hesitate.
+
+“Why, the message you sent to Zoie,” he answered boldly.
+
+“But I sent no message to Zoie,” said Aggie.
+
+“What!” thundered Alfred, so loud that Aggie's fingers involuntarily
+went to her ears. She was more and more puzzled by the odd behaviour of
+the two.
+
+“I mean yesterday's message,” corrected Jimmy. And he assumed an
+aggrieved air toward Aggie.
+
+“You villain,” exclaimed Aggie. “I told you to 'phone her yesterday
+morning from the office.”
+
+“Yes, I know,” agreed Jimmy placidly, “but I forgot it and I just came
+over to explain.” Alfred's fixed stare was relaxing and at last Jimmy
+could breathe.
+
+“Oh,” murmured Aggie, with a wise little elevation of her eye-brows,
+“then that's why Zoie didn't keep her luncheon appointment with me
+yesterday.”
+
+Jimmy felt that if this were to go on much longer, he would utter one
+wild shriek and give himself up for lost; but at present he merely
+swallowed with an effort, and awaited developments.
+
+It was now Alfred's turn to become excited.
+
+“Oh, IS it!” he cried with hysterical laughter.
+
+Aggie regarded him with astonishment. Was this her usually
+self-controlled friend?
+
+“Oh, no!” sneered Alfred with unmistakable pity for her credulity.
+“That's not why my wife didn't eat luncheon with you. She may TELL you
+that's why. She undoubtedly will; but it's NOT why. Oh, no!” and running
+his hands through his hair, Alfred tore up and down the room.
+
+“What do you mean by that?” Aggie asked in amazement.
+
+“Your dear husband Jimmy will doubtless explain,” answered Alfred with
+a slur on the “dear.” Then he turned toward the door of his study. “Pray
+excuse me--I'M TOO BUSY,” and with that he strode out of the room and
+banged the study door behind him.
+
+“Goodness gracious!” gasped Aggie. She looked after Alfred, then at
+Jimmy. She was the picture of consternation. “What's the matter with
+him?” she asked.
+
+“Just another little family tiff,” answered Jimmy, trying to assume a
+nonchalant manner.
+
+“Not about YOU!” gasped Aggie.
+
+“Me!” cried Jimmy, his equilibrium again upset. “Certainly not!” he
+declared. “What an idea!”
+
+“Yes, wasn't it?” answered Aggie. “That just shows how silly one can
+be. I almost thought Alfred was going to say that Zoie had lunched with
+you.”
+
+“Me?” again echoed Jimmy, and he wondered if everybody in the world had
+conspired to make him the target of their attention. He caught Aggie's
+eye and tried to laugh carelessly. “That would have been funny, wouldn't
+it?” he said.
+
+“Yes, wouldn't it,” repeated Aggie, and he thought he detected a slight
+uneasiness in her voice.
+
+“Speaking of lunch,” added Jimmy quickly, “I think, dearie, that I'll
+come home for lunch in the future.”
+
+“What?” exclaimed Aggie in great amazement.
+
+“Those downtown places upset my digestion,” explained Jimmy quickly.
+
+“Isn't this very SUDDEN,” she asked, and again Jimmy fancied that there
+was a shade of suspicion in her tone.
+
+His face assumed a martyred expression. “Of course, dear,” he said, “if
+you insist upon my eating downtown, I'll do it; but I thought you'd be
+glad to have me at home.”
+
+Aggie turned to him with real concern. “Why, Jimmy,” she said, “what's
+the matter with you?” She took a step toward him and anxiously studied
+his face. “I never heard you talk like that before. I don't think you're
+well.”
+
+“That's just what I'm telling you,” insisted Jimmy vehemently, excited
+beyond all reason by receiving even this small bit of sympathy. “I'm
+ill,” he declared. No sooner had he made the declaration than he began
+to believe in it. His doleful countenance increased Aggie's alarm.
+
+“My angel-face,” she purred, and she took his chubby cheeks in her
+hands and looked down at him fondly. “You know I ALWAYS want you to come
+home.” She stooped and kissed Jimmy's pouting lips. He held up his face
+for more. She smoothed the hair from his worried brow and endeavoured
+to cheer him. “I'll run right home now,” she said, “and tell cook to get
+something nice and tempting for you! I can see Zoie later.”
+
+“It doesn't matter,” murmured Jimmy, as he followed her toward the door
+with a doleful shake of his head. “I don't suppose I shall ever enjoy my
+luncheon again--as long as I live.”
+
+“Nonsense,” cried Aggie, “come along.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WHEN Alfred returned to the living room he was followed by his
+secretary, who carried two well-filled satchels. His temper was not
+improved by the discovery that he had left certain important papers
+at his office. Dispatching his man to get them and to meet him at the
+station with them, he collected a few remaining letters from the drawer
+of the writing table, then uneasy at remaining longer under the same
+roof with Zoie, he picked up his hat, and started toward the hallway.
+For the first time his eye was attracted by a thick layer of dust and
+lint on his coat sleeve. Worse still, there was a smudge on his cuff.
+If there was one thing more than another that Alfred detested it was
+untidiness. Putting his hat down with a bang, he tried to flick the dust
+from his sleeve with his pocket handkerchief; finding this impossible,
+he removed his coat and began to shake it violently.
+
+It was at this particular moment that Zoie's small face appeared
+cautiously from behind the frame of the bedroom door. She was quick to
+perceive Alfred's plight. Disappearing from view for an instant, she
+soon reappeared with Alfred's favourite clothes-brush. She tiptoed into
+the room.
+
+Barely had Alfred drawn his coat on his shoulders, when he was startled
+by a quick little flutter of the brush on his sleeve. He turned
+in surprise and beheld Zoie, who looked up at him as penitent and
+irresistible as a newly-punished child.
+
+“Oh,” snarled Alfred, and he glared at her as though he would enjoy
+strangling her on the spot.
+
+“Alfred,” pouted Zoie, and he knew she was going to add her customary
+appeal of “Let's make up.” But Alfred was in no mood for nonsense. He
+thrust his hands in his pockets and made straight for the outer doorway.
+
+Smiling to herself as she saw him leaving without his hat, Zoie slipped
+it quickly beneath a flounce of her skirt. No sooner had Alfred reached
+the sill of the door than his hand went involuntarily to his head; he
+turned to the table where he had left his hat. His face wore a puzzled
+look. He glanced beneath the table, in the chair, behind the table,
+across the piano, and then he began circling the room with pent up rage.
+He dashed into his study and out again, he threw the chairs about with
+increasing irritation, then giving up the search, he started hatless
+toward the hallway. It was then that a soft babyish voice reached his
+ear.
+
+“Have you lost something, dear?” cooed Zoie.
+
+Alfred hesitated. It was difficult to lower his dignity by answering
+her, but he needed his headgear. “I want my hat,” he admitted shortly.
+
+“Your hat?” repeated Zoie innocently and she glanced around the room
+with mild interest. “Maybe Mary took it.”
+
+“Mary!” cried Alfred, and thinking the mystery solved, he dashed toward
+the inner hallway.
+
+“Let ME get it, dear,” pleaded Zoie, and she laid a small detaining hand
+upon his arm as he passed.
+
+“Stop it!” commanded Alfred hotly, and he shook the small hand from his
+sleeve as though it had been something poisonous.
+
+“But Allie,” protested Zoie, pretending to be shocked and grieved.
+
+“Don't you 'but Allie' me,” cried Alfred, turning upon her sharply. “All
+I want is my hat,” and again he started in search of Mary.
+
+“But--but--but Allie,” stammered Zoie, as she followed him.
+
+“But--but--but,” repeated Alfred, turning on her in a fury. “You've
+butted me out of everything that I wanted all my life, but you're not
+going to do it again.”
+
+“You see, you said it yourself,” laughed Zoie.
+
+“Said WHAT,” roared Alfred.
+
+“But,” tittered Zoie.
+
+The remnants of Alfred's self-control were forsaking him. He clinched
+his fists hard in a final effort toward restraint. “You'd just as well
+stop all these baby tricks,” he threatened between his teeth, “they're
+not going to work. THIS time my mind is made up.”
+
+“Then why are you afraid to talk to me?” asked Zoie sweetly.
+
+“Who said I was afraid?” demanded Alfred hotly.
+
+“You ACT like it,” declared Zoie, with some truth on her side. “You
+don't want----” she got no further.
+
+“All I want,” interrupted Alfred, “is to get out of this house once and
+for all and to stay out of it.” And again he started in pursuit of his
+hat.
+
+“Why, Allie,” she gazed at him with deep reproach. “You liked this place
+so much when we first came here.”
+
+Again Alfred picked at the lint on his coat sleeve. Edging her way
+toward him cautiously she ventured to touch his sleeve with the brush.
+
+“I'll attend to that myself,” he said curtly, and he sank into the
+nearest chair to tie a refractory shoe lace.
+
+“Let me brush you, dear,” pleaded Zoie. “I don't wish you to start out
+in the world looking unbrushed,” she pouted. Then with a sly emphasis
+she added teasingly, “The OTHER women might not admire you that way.”
+
+Alfred broke his shoe string then and there. While he stooped to tie a
+knot in it, Zoie managed to perch on the arm of his chair.
+
+“You know, Allie,” she continued coaxingly, “no one could ever love you
+as I do.”
+
+Again Alfred broke his shoe lace.
+
+“Oh, Allie!” she exclaimed with a little ripple of childish laughter,
+“do you remember how absurdly poor we were when we were first married,
+and how you refused to take any help from your family? And do you
+remember that silly old pair of black trousers that used to get so thin
+on the knees and how I used to put shoe-blacking underneath so the white
+wouldn't show through?” By this time her arm managed to get around his
+neck.
+
+“Stop it!” shrieked Alfred as though mortal man could endure no more.
+“You've used those trousers to settle every crisis in our lives.”
+
+Zoie gazed at him without daring to breathe; even she was aghast at his
+fury, but only temporarily. She recovered herself and continued sweetly:
+
+“If everything is SETTLED,” she argued, “where's the harm in talking?”
+
+“We've DONE with talking,” declared Alfred. “From this on, I act.”
+ And determined not to be cheated out of this final decision, he again
+started for the hall door.
+
+“Oh, Allie!” cried Zoie in a tone of sharp alarm.
+
+In spite of himself Alfred turned to learn the cause of her anxiety.
+
+“You haven't got your overshoes on,” she said.
+
+Speechless with rage, Alfred continued on his way, but Zoie moved before
+him swiftly. “I'll get them for you, dear,” she volunteered graciously.
+
+“Stop!” thundered Alfred. They were now face to face.
+
+“I wish you wouldn't roar like that,” pouted Zoie, and the pink tips of
+her fingers were thrust tight against her ears.
+
+Alfred drew in his breath and endeavoured for the last time to repress
+his indignation. “Either you can't, or you won't understand that it is
+extremely unpleasant for me to even talk to you--much less to receive
+your attentions.”
+
+“Very likely,” answered Zoie, unperturbed. “But so long as I am your
+lawful wedded wife----” she emphasised the “lawful”--“I shan't let any
+harm come to you, if _I_ can help it.” She lifted her eyes to heaven
+bidding it to bear witness to her martyrdom and looking for all the
+world like a stained glass saint.
+
+“Oh, no!” shouted Alfred, almost hysterical at his apparent failure to
+make himself understood. “You wouldn't let any harm come to me. Oh, no.
+You've only made me the greatest joke in Chicago,” he shouted. “You've
+only made me such a laughing stock that I have to leave it. That's
+all--that's all!”
+
+“Leave Chicago!” exclaimed Zoie incredulously. Then regaining her
+self-composure, she edged her way close to him and looked up into his
+eyes in baby-like wonderment. “Why, Allie, where are we going?” Her
+small arm crept up toward his shoulder. Alfred pushed it from him
+rudely.
+
+“WE are not going,” he asserted in a firm, measured voice. “_I_ am
+going. Where's my hat?” And again he started in search of his absent
+headgear.
+
+“Oh, Allie!” she exclaimed, and this time there was genuine alarm in her
+voice, “you wouldn't leave me?”
+
+“Wouldn't I, though?” sneered Alfred. Before he knew it, Zoie's arms
+were about him--she was pleading desperately.
+
+“Now see here, Allie, you may call me all the names you like,” she cried
+with great self-abasement, “but you shan't--you SHAN'T go away from
+Chicago.”
+
+“Oh, indeed?” answered Alfred as he shook himself free of her. “I
+suppose you'd like me to go on with this cat and dog existence. You'd
+like me to stay right here and pay the bills and take care of you, while
+you flirt with every Tom, Dick and Harry in town.”
+
+“It's only your horrid disposition that makes you talk like that,”
+ whimpered Zoie. “You know very well that I never cared for anybody but
+you.”
+
+“Until you GOT me, yes,” assented Alfred, “and NOW you care for
+everybody BUT me.” She was about to object, but he continued quickly.
+“Where you MEET your gentlemen friends is beyond me. _I_ don't introduce
+them to you.”
+
+“I should say not,” agreed Zoie, and there was a touch of vindictiveness
+in her voice. “The only male creature that you ever introduced to me was
+the family dog.”
+
+“I introduce every man who's fit to meet you,” declared Alfred with an
+air of great pride.
+
+“That doesn't speak very well for your acquaintances,” snipped Zoie.
+Even HER temper was beginning to assert itself.
+
+“I won't bicker like this,” declared Alfred.
+
+“That's what you always say, when you can't think of an answer,”
+ retorted Zoie.
+
+“You mean when I'm tired of answering your nonsense!” thundered Alfred.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Realising that she was rapidly losing ground by exercising her advantage
+over Alfred in the matter of quick retort, Zoie, with her customary
+cunning, veered round to a more conciliatory tone. “Well,” she cooed,
+“suppose I DID eat lunch with a man?”
+
+“Ah!” shrieked Alfred, as though he had at last run his victim to earth.
+
+She retreated with her fingers crossed. “I only said suppose,” she
+reminded him quickly. Then she continued in a tone meant to draw from
+him his heart's most secret confidence. “Didn't you ever eat lunch with
+any woman but me?”
+
+“Never!” answered Alfred firmly.
+
+There was an unmistakable expression of pleasure on Zoie's small face,
+but she forced back the smile that was trying to creep round her lips,
+and sidled toward Alfred, with eyes properly downcast. “Then I'm very
+sorry I did it,” she said solemnly, “and I'll never do it again.”
+
+“So!” cried Alfred with renewed indignation. “You admit it?”
+
+“Just to please you, dear,” explained Zoie sweetly, as though she were
+doing him the greatest possible favour.
+
+“To please me?” gasped Alfred. “Do you suppose it pleases me to know
+that you are carrying on the moment my back is turned, making a fool of
+me to my friends?”
+
+“Your friends?” cried Zoie with a sneer. This time it was her turn to be
+angry. “So! It's your FRIENDS that are worrying you!” In her excitement
+she tossed Alfred's now damaged hat into the chair just behind her. He
+was far too overwrought to see it. “_I_ haven't done you any harm,” she
+continued wildly. “It's only what you think your friends think.”
+
+“You haven't done me any harm?” repeated Alfred, in her same tragic key,
+“Oh no! Oh no! You've only cheated me out of everything I expected to
+get out of life! That's all!”
+
+Zoie came to a full stop and waited for him to enumerate the various
+treasures that he had lost by marrying her. He did so.
+
+“Before we were married,” he continued, “you pretended to adore
+children. You started your humbugging the first day I met you. I refer
+to little Willie Peck.”
+
+A hysterical giggle very nearly betrayed her. Alfred continued:
+
+“I was fool enough to let you know that I admire women who like
+children. From that day until the hour that I led you to the altar,
+you'd fondle the ugliest little brats that we met in the street, but the
+moment you GOT me----”
+
+“Alfred!” gasped Zoie. This was really going too far.
+
+“Yes, I repeat it!” shouted Alfred, pounding the table with his fist for
+emphasis. “The moment you GOT me, you declared that all children were
+horrid little insects, and that someone ought to sprinkle bug-powder on
+them.”
+
+“Oh!” protested Zoie, shocked less by Alfred's interpretation of her
+sentiments, than by the vulgarity with which he expressed them.
+
+“On another occasion,” declared Alfred, now carried away by the recital
+of his long pent up wrongs, “you told me that all babies should be put
+in cages, shipped West, and kept in pens until they got to be of an
+interesting age. 'Interesting age!'” he repeated with a sneer, “meaning
+old enough to take YOU out to luncheon, I suppose.”
+
+“I never said any such thing,” objected Zoie.
+
+“Well, that was the idea,” insisted Alfred. “I haven't your glib way of
+expressing myself.”
+
+“You manage to express yourself very well,” retorted Zoie. “When
+you have anything DISAGREEABLE to say. As for babies,” she continued
+tentatively, “I think they are all very well in their PLACE, but they
+were NEVER meant for an APARTMENT.”
+
+“I offered you a house in the country,” shouted Alfred.
+
+“The country!” echoed Zoie. “How could I live in the country, with
+people being murdered in their beds every night? Read the papers.”
+
+“Always an excuse,” sighed Alfred resignedly. “There always HAS been
+and there always would be if I'd stay to listen. Well, for once,” he
+declared, “I'm glad that we have no children. If we had, I might feel
+some obligation to keep up this farce of a marriage. As it is,” he
+continued, “YOU are free and _I_ am free.” And with a courtly wave of
+his arm, he dismissed Zoie and the entire subject, and again he started
+in pursuit of Mary and his hat.
+
+“If it's your freedom you wish,” pouted Zoie with an abused air, “you
+might have said so in the first place.”
+
+Alfred stopped in sheer amazement at the cleverness with which the
+little minx turned his every statement against him.
+
+“It's not very manly of you,” she continued, “to abuse me just because
+you've found someone whom you like better.”
+
+“That's not true,” protested Alfred hotly, “and you know it's not true.”
+ Little did he suspect the trap into which she was leading him.
+
+“Then you DON'T love anybody more than you do me?” she cried eagerly,
+and she gazed up at him with adoring eyes.
+
+“I didn't say any such thing,” hedged Alfred.
+
+“Then you DO,” she accused him.
+
+“I DON'T,” he declared in self defence.
+
+With a cry of joy, she sprang into his arms, clasped her fingers tightly
+behind his neck, and rained impulsive kisses upon his unsuspecting face.
+
+For an instant, Alfred looked down at Zoie, undecided whether to
+strangle her or to return her embraces. As usual, his self-respect won
+the day for him and, with a determined effort, he lifted her high in the
+air, so that she lost her tenacious hold of him, and sat her down with
+a thud in the very same chair in which she had lately dropped his hat.
+Having acted with this admirable resolution, he strode majestically
+toward the inner hall, but before he could reach it, Zoie was again
+on her feet, in a last vain effort to conciliate him. Turning, Alfred
+caught sight of his poor battered hat. This was the final spur to
+action. Snatching it up with one hand, and throwing his latchkey on the
+table with the other, he made determinedly for the outer door.
+
+Screaming hysterically, Zoie caught him just as he reached the threshold
+and threw the whole weight of her body upon him.
+
+“Alfred,” she pleaded, “if you REALLY love me, you CAN'T leave me like
+this!” Her emotion was now genuine. He looked down at her gravely--then
+into the future.
+
+“There are other things more important than what YOU call 'love,'” he
+said, very solemnly.
+
+“There is such a thing as a soul, if you only knew it. And you have hurt
+mine through and through.”
+
+“But how, Alfred, how?” asked the small person, and there was a frown of
+genuine perplexity on her tiny puckered brow. “What have I REALLY DONE,”
+ She stroked his hand fondly; her baby eyes searched his face.
+
+“It isn't so much what people DO to us that counts,” answered Alfred in
+a proud hurt voice. “It's how much they DISAPPOINT us in what they do. I
+expected better of YOU,” he said sadly.
+
+“I'll DO better,” coaxed Zoie, “if you'll only give me a chance.”
+
+He was half inclined to believe her.
+
+“Now, Allie,” she pleaded, perceiving that his resentment was dying and
+resolved to, at last, adopt a straight course, “if you'll only listen,
+I'll tell you the REAL TRUTH.”
+
+Unprepared for the electrical effect of her remark, Zoie found herself
+staggering to keep her feet. She gazed at Alfred in amazement. His arms
+were lifted to Heaven, his breath was coming fast.
+
+“'The REAL TRUTH!'” he gasped, then bringing his crushed hat down on his
+forehead with a resounding whack, he rushed from her sight.
+
+The clang of the closing elevator door brought Zoie to a realisation of
+what had actually happened. Determined that Alfred should not escape
+her she rushed to the hall door and called to him wildly. There was no
+answer. Running back to the room, she threw open the window and threw
+herself half out of it. She was just in time to see Alfred climb into
+a passing taxi. “Alfred!” she cried. Then automatically she flew to the
+'phone. “Give me 4302 Main,” she called and she tried to force back her
+tears. “Is this Hardy & Company?” she asked.
+
+“Well, this is Mrs. Hardy,” she explained.
+
+“I wish you'd ring me up the moment my husband comes in.” There was a
+slight pause, then she clutched the receiver harder. “Not COMING back?”
+ she gasped. “Gone!--to Detroit?” A short moan escaped her lips. She
+let the receiver fall back on the hook and her head went forward on her
+outstretched arms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+When Jimmy came home to luncheon that day, Aggie succeeded in getting a
+general idea of the state of affairs in the Hardy household. Of course
+Jimmy didn't tell the whole truth. Oh, no--far from it. In fact, he
+appeared to be aggravatingly ignorant as to the exact cause of the Hardy
+upheaval. Of ONE thing, however, he was certain. “Alfred was going to
+quit Chicago and leave Zoie to her own devices.”
+
+“Jimmy!” cried Aggie. “How awful!” and before Jimmy was fairly out of
+the front gate, she had seized her hat and gloves and rushed to the
+rescue of her friend.
+
+Not surprised at finding Zoie in a state of collapse, Aggie opened her
+arms sympathetically to receive the weeping confidences that she was
+sure would soon come.
+
+“Zoie dear,” she said as the fragile mite rocked to and fro. “What is
+it?” She pressed the soft ringlets from the girl's throbbing forehead.
+
+“It's Alfred,” sobbed Zoie. “He's gone!”
+
+“Yes, I know,” answered Aggie tenderly. “Isn't it awful? Jimmy just told
+me.”
+
+“Jimmy told you WHAT?” questioned Zoie, and she lifted her head and
+regarded Aggie with sudden uneasiness. Her friend's answer raised Jimmy
+considerably in Zoie's esteem. Apparently he had not breathed a word
+about the luncheon.
+
+“Why, Jimmy told me,” continued Aggie, “that you and Alfred had had
+another tiff, and that Alfred had gone for good.”
+
+“For GOOD!” echoed Zoie and her eyes were wide with terror. “Did Alfred
+tell Jimmy that?”
+
+Aggie nodded.
+
+“Then he MEANS it!” cried Zoie, at last fully convinced of the strength
+of Alfred's resolve. “But he shan't,” she declared emphatically. “I
+won't let him. I'll go after him. He has no right----” By this time she
+was running aimlessly about the room.
+
+“What did you do to him?” asked Aggie, feeling sure that Zoie was as
+usual at fault.
+
+“Nothing,” answered Zoie with wide innocent eyes.
+
+“Nothing?” echoed Aggie, with little confidence in her friend's ability
+to judge impartially about so personal a matter.
+
+“Absolutely nothing,” affirmed Zoie. And there was no doubting that she
+at least believed it.
+
+“What does he SAY,” questioned Aggie diplomatically.
+
+“He SAYS I 'hurt his soul.' Whatever THAT is,” answered Zoie, and
+her face wore an injured expression. “Isn't that a nice excuse,” she
+continued, “for leaving your lawful wedded wife?” It was apparent that
+she expected Aggie to rally strongly to her defence. But at present
+Aggie was bent upon getting facts.
+
+“HOW did you hurt him?” she persisted.
+
+“I ate lunch,” said Zoie with the face of a cherub.
+
+“With whom?” questioned Aggie slyly. She was beginning to scent the
+probable origin of the misunderstanding.
+
+“It's of no consequence,” answered Zoie carelessly; “I wouldn't have
+wiped my feet on the man.” By this time she had entirely forgotten
+Aggie's proprietorship in the source of her trouble.
+
+“But who WAS the man?” urged Aggie, and in her mind, she had already
+condemned him as a low, unprincipled creature.
+
+“What does that matter?” asked Zoie impatiently. “It's ANY man with
+Alfred--you know that--ANY man!”
+
+Aggie sank in a chair and looked at her friend in despair. “Why DO you
+do these things,” she said wearily, “when you know how Alfred feels
+about them?”
+
+“You talk as though I did nothing else,” answered Zoie with an aggrieved
+tone. “It's the first time since I've been married that I've ever eaten
+lunch with any man but Alfred. I thought you'd have a little sympathy
+with me,” she whimpered, “instead of putting me on the gridiron like
+everyone else does.”
+
+“Everyone else?” questioned Aggie, with recurring suspicion.
+
+“I mean Alfred,” explained Zoie. “HE'S 'everyone else' to me.” And then
+with a sudden abandonment of grief, she threw herself prostrate at her
+friend's knees. “Oh, Aggie, what can I do?” she cried.
+
+But Aggie was not satisfied with Zoie's fragmentary account of her
+latest escapade. “Is that the only thing that Alfred has against you?”
+ she asked.
+
+“That's the LATEST,” sniffled Zoie, in a heap at Aggie's feet. And then
+she continued in a much aggrieved tone, “You know he's ALWAYS rowing
+because we haven't as many babies as the cook has cats.”
+
+“Well, why don't you get him a baby?” asked the practical, far-seeing
+Aggie.
+
+“It's too late NOW,” moaned Zoie.
+
+“Not at all,” reassured Aggie. “It's the very thing that would bring him
+back.”
+
+“How COULD I get one?” questioned Zoie, and she looked up at Aggie with
+round astonished eyes.
+
+“Adopt it,” answered Aggie decisively.
+
+Zoie regarded her friend with mingled disgust and disappointment. “No,”
+ she said with a sigh and a shake of her head, “that wouldn't do any
+good. Alfred's so fussy. He always wants his OWN things around.”
+
+“He needn't know,” declared Aggie boldly.
+
+“What do you mean?” whispered Zoie.
+
+Drawing herself up with an air of great importance, and regarding the
+wondering young person at her knee with smiling condescension, Aggie
+prepared to make a most interesting disclosure.
+
+“There was a long article in the paper only this morning,” she told
+Zoie, “saying that three thousand husbands in this VERY CITY are
+fondling babies not their own.”
+
+Zoie turned her small head to one side, the better to study Aggie's
+face. It was apparent to the latter that she must be much more explicit.
+
+“Babies adopted in their absence,” explained Aggie, “while they were on
+trips around the country.”
+
+A dangerous light began to glitter in Zoie's eyes.
+
+“Aggie!” she cried, bringing her small hands together excitedly, “do you
+think I COULD?”
+
+“Why not?” asked Aggie, with a very superior air. Zoie's enthusiasm was
+increasing her friend's admiration of her own scheme. “This same paper
+tells of a woman who adopted three sons while her husband was in Europe,
+and he thinks each one of them is his.”
+
+“Where can we get some?” cried Zoie, now thoroughly enamoured of the
+idea.
+
+“You can always get TONS of them at the Children's Home,” answered Aggie
+confidently.
+
+“I can't endure babies,” declared Zoie, “but I'd do ANYTHING to get
+Alfred back. Can we get one TO-DAY?” she asked.
+
+Aggie looked at her small friend with positive pity. “You don't WANT one
+TO-DAY,” she explained.
+
+Zoie rolled her large eyes inquiringly.
+
+“If you were to get one to-day,” continued Aggie, “Alfred would know it
+wasn't yours, wouldn't he?”
+
+A light of understanding began to show on Zoie's small features.
+
+“There was none when he left this morning,” added Aggie.
+
+“That's true,” acquiesced Zoie.
+
+“You must wait awhile,” counselled Aggie, “and then get a perfectly new
+one.”
+
+But Zoie had never been taught to wait.
+
+“Now Aggie----” she began.
+
+Aggie continued without heeding her.
+
+“After a few months,” she explained, “when Alfred's temper has had time
+to cool, we'll get Jimmy to send him a wire that he has an heir.”
+
+“A few months!” exclaimed Zoie, as though Aggie had suggested an
+eternity. “I've never been away from Alfred that long in all my life.”
+
+Aggie was visibly annoyed. “Well, of course,” she said coldly, as she
+rose to go, “if you can get Alfred back WITHOUT that----”
+
+“But I can't!” cried Zoie, and she clung to her friend as to her last
+remaining hope.
+
+“Then,” answered Aggie, somewhat mollified by Zoie's complete
+submission. “THIS is the only way. The President of the Children's Home
+is a great friend of Jimmy's,” she said proudly.
+
+It was at this point that Zoie made her first practical suggestion.
+“Then we'll LET JIMMY GET IT,” she declared.
+
+“Of course,” agreed Aggie enthusiastically, as though they would be
+according the poor soul a rare privilege. “Jimmy gives a hundred
+dollars to the Home every Christmas,”--additional proof why he should be
+selected for this very important office.
+
+“Good Heavens!” exclaimed Zoie with shocked surprise. “If Alfred were to
+give a hundred dollars to a Baby's Home, I should suspect him.”
+
+“Don't be silly!” snapped Aggie curtly. In spite of her firm faith in
+Jimmy's innocence, she was undoubtedly annoyed by Zoie's unpleasant
+suggestion.
+
+There was an instant's pause, then putting disagreeable thoughts from
+her mind, Aggie turned to Zoie with renewed enthusiasm.
+
+“We must get down to business,” she said, “we'll begin on the baby's
+outfit at once.”
+
+“Its what?” queried Zoie.
+
+“Its clothes,” explained Aggie.
+
+“Oh, what fun!” exclaimed Zoie, and she clapped her hands merrily like a
+very small child. A moment later she stopped with sudden misgiving.
+
+“But, Aggie,” she said fearfully, “suppose Alfred shouldn't come back
+after I've got the baby? I'd be a widow with a child.”
+
+“Oh, he's sure to come back!” answered Aggie, with a confident air.
+“He'll take the first train, home.”
+
+“I believe he will,” assented Zoie joyfully. All her clouds were again
+dispelled. “Aggie,” she cried impulsively, “you are a darling. You have
+just saved my life.” And she clasped her arms so tightly around Aggie's
+neck that her friend was in danger of being suffocated.
+
+Releasing herself Aggie continued with a ruffled collar and raised
+vanity: “You can write him an insinuating letter now and then, just to
+lead up to the good news gradually.”
+
+Zoie tipped her small head to one side and studied her friend
+thoughtfully. “Do you know, Aggie,” she said, with frank admiration, “I
+believe you are a better liar than I am.”
+
+“I'm NOT a liar,” objected Aggie vehemently, “at least, not often,” she
+corrected. “I've never lied to Jimmy in all my life.” She drew herself
+up with conscious pride. “And Jimmy has NEVER LIED TO ME.”
+
+“Isn't that nice,” sniffed Zoie and she pretended to be searching for
+her pocket-handkerchief.
+
+But Aggie did not see her. She was glancing at the clock.
+
+“I must go now,” she said. And she started toward the door.
+
+“But, Aggie----” protested Zoie, unwilling to be left alone.
+
+“I'll run in again at tea time,” promised Aggie.
+
+“I don't mind the DAYS,” whined Zoie, “but when NIGHT comes I just MUST
+have somebody's arms around me.”
+
+“Zoie!” gasped Aggie, both shocked and alarmed.
+
+“I can't help it,” confessed Zoie; “the moment it gets dark I'm just
+scared stiff.”
+
+“That's no way for a MOTHER to talk,” reproved Aggie.
+
+“A mother!” exclaimed Zoie, horrified at the sudden realisation that
+this awful appellation would undoubtedly pursue her for the rest of
+her life. “Oh, don't call me that,” she pleaded. “You make me feel a
+thousand years old.”
+
+“Nonsense,” laughed Aggie, and before Zoie could again detain her she
+was out of the room.
+
+When the outside door had closed behind her friend, Zoie gazed about
+the room disconsolately, but her depression was short-lived. Remembering
+Aggie's permission about the letter, she ran quickly to the writing
+table, curled her small self up on one foot, placed a brand new pen in
+the holder, then drew a sheet of paper toward her and, with shoulders
+hunched high and her face close to the paper after the manner of a
+child, she began to pen the first of a series of veiled communications
+that were ultimately to fill her young husband with amazement.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+When Jimmy reached his office after his unforeseen call upon Zoie, his
+subsequent encounter with Alfred, and his enforced luncheon at home
+with Aggie, he found his mail, his 'phone calls, and his neglected
+appointments in a state of hopeless congestion, and try as he would, he
+could not concentrate upon their disentanglement. Growing more and more
+furious with the long legged secretary who stood at the corner of his
+desk, looking down upon him expectantly, and waiting for his tardy
+instructions, Jimmy rose and looked out of the window. He could feel
+Andrew's reproachful eyes following him.
+
+“Shall Miss Perkins take your letters now?” asked Andrew, and he
+wondered how late the office staff would be kept to-night to make up for
+the time that was now being wasted.
+
+Coming after repeated wounds from his nearest and dearest, Andrew's
+implied reproach was too much for Jimmy's overwrought nerves. “Get out!”
+ he answered unceremoniously. And when Andrew could assure himself that
+he had heard aright, he stalked out of the door with his head high in
+the air.
+
+Jimmy looked after his departing secretary with positive hatred. It was
+apparent to him that the whole world was against him. He had been
+too easy he decided. His family, friends, and business associates
+had undoubtedly lost all respect for him. From this day forth he was
+determined to show himself to be a man of strong mettle.
+
+Having made this important decision and having convinced himself that he
+was about to start on a new life, Jimmy strode to the door of the office
+and, without disturbing the injured Andrew, he called sharply to Miss
+Perkins to come at once and take his letters.
+
+Poor Jimmy! Again he tried in vain to concentrate upon the details of
+the “cut-glass” industry. Invariably his mind would wander back to the
+unexpected incidents of the morning. Stopping suddenly in the middle of
+a letter to a competing firm, he began pacing hurriedly up and down the
+room.
+
+Had she not feared that her chief might misconstrue any suggestion from
+her as an act of impertinence, Miss Perkins, having learned all the
+company's cut-glass quotations by rote, could easily have supplied the
+remainder of the letter. As it was, she waited impatiently, tapping the
+corner of the desk with her idle pencil. Jimmy turned at the sound, and
+glanced at the pencil with unmistakable disapproval. Miss Perkins waited
+in silence. After one or two more uneasy laps about the room, Jimmy went
+to his 'phone and called his house number.
+
+“It's undoubtedly domestic trouble,” decided Miss Perkins, and she
+wondered whether it would be delicate of her, under the circumstances,
+to remain in the room.
+
+From her employer's conversation at the 'phone, it was clear to Miss
+Perkins that Mrs. Jinks was spending the afternoon with Mrs Hardy,
+but why this should have so annoyed MR. Jinks was a question that Miss
+Perkins found it difficult to answer. Was it possible that Mr. Jinks's
+present state of unrest could be traced to the door of the beautiful
+young wife of his friend? “Oh dear,” thought Miss Perkins, “how
+scandalous!”
+
+“That will do,” commanded Jimmy, interrupting Miss Perkins's interesting
+speculations, and he nodded toward the door.
+
+“But----” stammered Miss Perkins, as she glanced at the unfinished
+letters.
+
+“I'll call you when I need you,” answered Jimmy gruffly. Miss Perkins
+left the room in high dudgeon.
+
+“I'LL show them,” said Jimmy to himself, determined to carry out his
+recent resolve to be firm.
+
+Then his mind wend back to his domestic troubles. “Suppose, that Zoie,
+after imposing secrecy upon him, should change that thing called her
+'mind' and confide in Aggie about the luncheon?” Jimmy was positively
+pale. He decided to telephone to Zoie's house and find out how affairs
+were progressing. At the 'phone he hesitated. “If Aggie HAS found out
+about the luncheon,” he argued, “my 'phoning to Zoie's will increase her
+suspicions. If Zoie has told her nothing, she'll wonder why I'm 'phoning
+to Zoie's house. There's only one thing to do,” he decided. “I must wait
+and say nothing. I can tell from Aggie's face when I meet her at dinner
+whether Zoie has betrayed me.”
+
+Having arrived at this conclusion, Jimmy resolved to get home as early
+as possible, and again Miss Perkins was called to his aid.
+
+The flurry with which Jimmy despatched the day's remaining business
+confirmed both Miss Perkins and Andrew in their previous opinion that
+“the boss” had suddenly “gone off his head.” And when he at last left
+the office and banged the door behind him there was a general sigh of
+relief from his usually tranquil staff.
+
+Instead of walking, as was his custom, Jimmy took a taxi to his home but
+alas, to his surprise he found no wife.
+
+“Did Mrs. Jinks leave any word?” he inquired from the butler.
+
+“None at all,” answered that unperturbed creature; and Jimmy felt sure
+that the attitude of his office antagonists had communicated itself to
+his household servants.
+
+When Jimmy's anxious ear at last caught the rustle of a woman's dress in
+the hallway, his dinner had been waiting half an hour, and he had
+worked himself into a state of fierce antagonism toward everything and
+everybody.
+
+At the sound of Aggie's voice however, his heart began to pound with
+fear. “Had she found him out for the weak miserable deceiver that he
+was? Would she tell him that they were going to separate forever?”
+
+Aggie's first words were reassuring. “Awfully sorry to be so late,
+dear,” she said.
+
+Jimmy felt her kiss upon his chubby cheek and her dear arms about his
+neck. He decided forthwith to tell her everything, and never, never
+again to run the risk of deceiving her; but before he could open his
+lips, she continued gaily:
+
+“I've brought Zoie home with me, dear. There's no sense in her eating
+all alone, and she's going to have ALL her dinners with us.” Jimmy
+groaned. “After dinner,” continued Aggie, “you and I can take her to
+the theatre and all those places and keep her cheered until Alfred comes
+home.”
+
+“Home?” repeated Jimmy in alarm. Was it possible that Alfred had already
+relented?
+
+“Oh, he doesn't know it yet,” explained Aggie, “but he's coming. We'll
+tell you all about it at dinner.” And they did.
+
+While waiting for Aggie, Jimmy had thought himself hungry, but once
+the two women had laid before him their “nefarious baby-snatching
+scheme”--food lost its savour for him, and one course after another was
+taken away from him untouched.
+
+Each time that Jimmy ventured a mild objection to his part in the plan,
+as scheduled by them, he met the threatening eye of Zoie; and by the
+time that the three left the table he was so harassed and confused by
+the chatter of the two excited women, that he was not only reconciled
+but eager to enter into any scheme that might bring Alfred back, and
+free him of the enforced companionship of Alfred's nerve-racking wife.
+True, he reflected, it was possible that Alfred, on his return, might
+discover him to be the culprit who lunched with Zoie and might carry out
+his murderous threat; but even such a fate was certainly preferable to
+interminable evenings spent under the same roof with Zoie.
+
+“All YOU need do, Jimmy,” explained Aggie sweetly, when the three of
+them were comfortably settled in the library, “is to see your friend
+the Superintendent of the Babies' Home, and tell him just what kind of a
+baby we shall need, and when we shall need it.”
+
+“Can't we see it ourselves?” chimed in Zoie.
+
+“Oh yes, indeed,” said Aggie confidently, and she turned to Jimmy with
+a matter-of-fact tone. “You'd better tell the Superintendent to have
+several for us to look at when the time arrives.”
+
+“Yes, that's better,” agreed Zoie.
+
+As for Jimmy, he had long ceased to make any audible comment, but
+internally he was saying to himself: “man of strong mettle, indeed!”
+
+“We'll attend to all the clothes for the child,” said Aggie generously
+to Jimmy.
+
+“I want everything to be hand-made,” exclaimed Zoie enthusiastically.
+
+“We can make a great many of the things ourselves, evenings,” said
+Aggie, “while we sit here and talk to Jimmy.”
+
+“I thought we were going OUT evenings!” objected Zoie.
+
+Jimmy rolled his eyes toward her like a dumb beast of burden.
+
+“MOST evenings,” assented Aggie. “And then toward the last, you know,
+Zoie----” she hesitated to explain further, for Jimmy was already
+becoming visibly embarrassed.
+
+“Oh, yes, that's true,” blushed Zoie.
+
+There was an awkward pause, then Aggie turned again toward Jimmy, who
+was pretending to rebuild the fire. “Oh yes, one more thing,” she said.
+“When everything is quite ready for Alfred's return, we'll allow you,
+Jimmy dear, to wire him the good news.”
+
+“Thanks, so much,” said Jimmy.
+
+“I wish it were time to wire now,” said Zoie pensively, and in his mind,
+Jimmy fervently agreed with that sentiment.
+
+“The next few months will slip by before you know it,” declared Aggie
+cheerfully. “And by the way, Zoie,” she added, “why should you go back
+to your lonesome flat to-night?”
+
+Zoie began to feel for her pocket handkerchief--Jimmy sat up to receive
+the next blow. “Stay here with us,” suggested Aggie. “We'll be so glad
+to have you.” She included Jimmy in her glance. “Won't we, dear?” she
+asked.
+
+When the two girls went upstairs arm in arm that night, Jimmy remained
+in his chair by the fire, too exhausted to even prepare for bed. “A man
+of mettle!” he said again to himself.
+
+This had certainly been the longest day of his life.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+WHEN Aggie predicted that the few months of waiting would pass quickly
+for Zoie, she was quite correct. They passed quickly for Aggie as well;
+but how about Jimmy? When he afterward recalled this interval in his
+life, it was always associated with long strands of lace winding around
+the legs of the library chairs, white things lying about in all the
+places where he had once enjoyed sitting or lying, late dinners, lonely
+breakfasts, and a sense of isolation from Aggie.
+
+One evening when he had waited until he was out of all patience with
+Aggie, he was told by his late and apologetical spouse that she had been
+helping Zoie to redecorate her bedroom to fit the coming occasion.
+
+“It is all done in pink and white,” explained Aggie, and then followed
+detailed accounts of the exquisite bed linens, the soft lovely hangings,
+and even the entire relighting of the room.
+
+“Why pink?” asked Jimmy, objecting to any scheme of Zoie's on general
+principles.
+
+“It's Alfred's favourite colour,” explained Aggie. “Besides, it's so
+becoming,” she added.
+
+Jimmy could not help feeling that this lure to Alfred's senses was
+absolutely indecent, and he said so.
+
+“Upon my word,” answered Aggie, quite affronted, “you are getting as
+unreasonable as Alfred himself.” Then as Jimmy prepared to sulk, she
+added coaxingly, “I was GOING to tell you about Zoie's lovely new
+negligee, and about the dear little crib that just matches it.
+Everything is going to be in harmony.”
+
+“With Zoie in the house?” asked Jimmy sceptically.
+
+“I can't think why you've taken such a dislike to that helpless child,”
+ said Aggie.
+
+A few days later, while in the midst of his morning's mail, Jimmy was
+informed that it was now time for him to conduct Aggie and Zoie to the
+Babies' Home to select the last, but most important, detail for
+their coming campaign. According to instructions, Jimmy had been in
+communication with the amused Superintendent of the Home, and he now led
+the two women forth with the proud consciousness that he, at least, had
+attended properly to his part of the business. By the time they reached
+the Children's Home, several babies were on view for their critical
+inspection.
+
+Zoie stared into the various cribs containing the wee, red mites with
+puckered faces. “Oh dear!” she exclaimed, “haven't you any white ones?”
+
+“These are supposed to be white,” said the Superintendent, with an
+indulgent smile, “the black ones are on the other side of the room.”
+
+“Black ones!” cried Zoie in horror, and she faced about quickly as
+though expecting an attack from their direction.
+
+“Which particular one of these would you recommend?” asked the practical
+Aggie of the Superintendent as she surveyed the first lot.
+
+“Well, it's largely a matter of taste, ma'am,” he answered. “This seems
+a healthy little chap,” he added, and seizing the long white clothes
+of the nearest infant, he drew him across his arm and held him out for
+Aggie's inspection.
+
+“Let's see,” cried Zoie, and she stood on tiptoe to peep over the
+Superintendent's elbow.
+
+As for Jimmy, he stood gloomily apart. This was an ordeal for which
+he had long been preparing himself, and he was resolved to accept it
+philosophically.
+
+“I don't think much of that one,” snipped Zoie. And in spite of himself.
+Jimmy felt his temper rising.
+
+Aggie turned to him with a smile. “Which one do YOU prefer, Jimmy?”
+
+“It's not MY affair,” answered Jimmy curtly.
+
+“Since when?” asked Zoie.
+
+Aggie perceived trouble brewing, and she turned to pacify Jimmy. “Which
+one do you think your FRIEND ALFRED would like?” she persisted.
+
+“If I were in his place----” began Jimmy hotly.
+
+“Oh, but you AREN'T,” interrupted Zoie; then she turned to the
+Superintendent. “What makes some of them so much larger than others?”
+ she asked, glancing at the babies he had CALLED “white.”
+
+“Well, you see they're of different ages,” explained the Superintendent
+indulgently.
+
+“We told Mr. Jinks they must all be of the same age,” said Zoie with a
+reproachful look at Jimmy.
+
+“What age is that?” asked the Superintendent.
+
+“I should say a week old,” said Aggie.
+
+“Then this is the one for you,” decided the Superintendent, designating
+his first choice.
+
+“I think we'd better take the Superintendent's advice,” said Aggie
+complacently.
+
+Zoie looked around the room with a dissatisfied air. Was it possible
+that all babies were as homely as these?
+
+“You know, Zoie,” explained Aggie, divining her thought, “they get
+better looking as they grow older.”
+
+“They couldn't look worse!” was Zoie's disgusted comment.
+
+“Fetch it home, Jimmy,” said Aggie.
+
+“What!” exclaimed Jimmy, who had considered his mission completed.
+
+“You don't expect US to carry it, do you?” asked Aggie in a hurt voice.
+
+The Superintendent settled the difficulty temporarily by informing them
+that the baby could not possibly leave the home until the mother had
+signed the necessary papers for its release.
+
+“I thought all those details had been attended to,” said Aggie, and
+again the two women surveyed Jimmy with grieved disappointment.
+
+“I'll get the mother's signature the first thing in the morning,”
+ volunteered the Superintendent.
+
+“Very well,” said Zoie, “and in the meantime, I'll send some new clothes
+for it,” and with a lofty farewell to the Superintendent, she and Aggie
+followed Jimmy down stairs to the taxi.
+
+“Now,” said Zoie, when they were properly seated, “let's stop at a
+telegraph office and let Jimmy send a wire to Alfred.”
+
+“Wait until we get the baby,” cautioned Aggie.
+
+“We'll have it the first thing in the morning,” argued Zoie.
+
+“Jimmy can send him a night-letter,” compromised Aggie, “that way Alfred
+won't get the news until morning.”
+
+A few minutes later, the taxi stopped in front of Jimmy's office and
+with a sigh of thanksgiving he hurried upstairs to his unanswered mail.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+When Alfred Hardy found himself on the train bound for Detroit, he tried
+to assure himself that he had done the right thing in breaking away
+from an association that had kept him for months in a constant state of
+ferment. His business must come first, he decided. Having settled this
+point to his temporary satisfaction, he opened his afternoon paper
+and leaned back in his seat, meaning to divert his mind from personal
+matters, by learning what was going on in the world at large.
+
+No sooner had his eye scanned the first headline than he was startled by
+a boisterous greeting from a fellow traveller, who was just passing down
+the aisle.
+
+“Hello, Hardy!” cried his well meaning acquaintance. “Where are you
+bound for?”
+
+“Detroit,” answered Alfred, annoyed by the sudden interruption.
+
+“Where's the missus?” asked the intruder.
+
+“Chicago,” was Alfred's short reply.
+
+“THAT'S a funny thing,” declared the convivial spirit, not guessing how
+funny it really was. “You know,” he continued, so loud that everyone in
+the vicinity could not fail to hear him, “the last time I met you two,
+you were on your honeymoon--on THIS VERY TRAIN,” and with that the
+fellow sat himself down, uninvited, by Alfred's side and started on a
+long list of compliments about “the fine little girl” who had in his
+opinion done Alfred a great favour when she consented to tie herself to
+a “dull, money-grubbing chap” like him.
+
+“So,” thought Alfred, “this is the way the world sees us.” And he began
+to frame inaudible but desperate defences of himself. Again he told
+himself that he was right; but his friend's thoughtless words had
+planted an uncomfortable doubt in his mind, and when he left the
+train to drive to his hotel, he was thinking very little about the new
+business relations upon which he was entering in Detroit, and very much
+about the domestic relations which he had just severed in Chicago.
+
+Had he been merely a “dull money-grubber”? Had he left his wife too much
+alone? Was she not a mere child when he married her? Could he not, with
+more consideration, have made of her a more understanding companion?
+These were questions that were still unanswered in his mind when he
+arrived at one of Detroit's most enterprising hotels.
+
+But later, having telephoned to his office and found that several
+matters of importance were awaiting his decision, he forced himself to
+enter immediately upon his business obligations.
+
+As might have been expected, Alfred soon won the respect and serious
+consideration of most of his new business associates, and this in a
+measure so mollified his hurt pride, that upon rare occasions he was
+affable enough to accept the hospitality of their homes. But each
+excursion that he made into the social life of these new friends, only
+served to remind him of the unsettled state of his domestic affairs.
+
+“How your wife must miss you!” his hostess would remark before they were
+fairly seated at table.
+
+“They tell me she is so pretty,” his vis-a-vis would exclaim.
+
+“When is she going to join you?” the lady on his left would ask.
+
+Then his host would laugh and tell the “dear ladies” that in HIS
+opinion, Alfred was afraid to bring his wife to Detroit, lest he might
+lose her to a handsomer man.
+
+Alfred could never quite understand why remarks such as this annoyed him
+almost to the point of declaring the whole truth. His LEAVING Zoie, and
+his “losing” her, as these would-be comedians expressed it, were
+two separate and distinct things in his mind, and he felt an almost
+irresistible desire to make this plain to all concerned.
+
+But no sooner did he open his lips to do so, than a picture of Zoie in
+all her child-like pleading loveliness, arose to dissuade him. He could
+imagine his dinner companions all pretending to sympathise with him,
+while they flayed poor Zoie alive. She would never have another chance
+to be known as a respectable woman, and compared to most women of
+his acquaintance, she WAS a respectable woman. True, according to
+old-fashioned standards, she had been indiscreet, but apparently the
+present day woman had a standard of her own. Alfred found his eye
+wandering round the table surveying the wives of his friends. Was there
+one of them, he wondered, who had never fibbed to her husband, or eaten
+a simple luncheon unchaperoned by him? Of one thing he was certain,
+there was not one of them so attractive as Zoie. Might she not be
+forgiven, to some extent, if her physical charms had made her a source
+of dangerous temptation to unprincipled scoundrels like the one with
+whom she had no doubt lunched? Then, too, had she not offered at the
+moment of his departure to tell him the “real truth”? Might this not
+have been the one occasion upon which she would have done so? “She seemed
+so sincere,” he ruminated, “so truly penitent.” Then again, how generous
+it was of her to persist in writing to him with never an answer from
+him to encourage her. If she cared for him so little as he had once
+imagined, why should she wish to keep up even a presence of fondness?
+Her letters indicated an undying devotion.
+
+These were some of the thoughts that were going through Alfred's mind
+just three months after his departure from Chicago, and all the while
+his hostess was mentally dubbing him a “dull person.”
+
+“What an abstracted man he is!” she said before he was down the front
+steps.
+
+“Is he really so clever in business?” a woman friend inquired.
+
+“It's hard to believe, isn't it?” commented a third, and his host
+apologised for the absent Alfred by saying that he was no doubt worried
+about a particular business decision that had to be made the next
+morning.
+
+But it was not the responsibility of this business decision that was
+knotting Alfred's brow, as he walked hurriedly toward the hotel, where
+he had told his office boy to leave the last mail. This had been
+the longest interval that Zoie had ever let slip without writing. He
+recalled that her last letters had hinted at a “slight indisposition.”
+ In fact, she had even mentioned “seeing the doctor”--“Good Heavens!” he
+thought, “Suppose she were really ill? Who would look after her?”
+
+When Alfred reached his rooms, the boy had not yet arrived. He crossed
+to the library table and took from the drawer all the letters thus far
+received from Zoie. He read them consecutively. “How could he have been
+so stupid as not to have realised sooner that her illness--whatever it
+was--had been gradually creeping upon her from the very first day of his
+departure?”
+
+The boy arrived with the mail. It contained no letter from Zoie and
+Alfred went to bed with an uneasy mind.
+
+The next morning he was down at his office early, still no letter from
+Zoie.
+
+Refusing his partner's invitation to lunch, Alfred sat alone in his
+office, glad to be rid of intrusive eyes. “He would write to Jimmy
+Jinks,” he decided, “and find out whether Zoie were in any immediate
+danger.”
+
+Not willing to await the return of his stenographer, or to acquaint her
+with his personal affairs, Alfred drew pen and paper toward him and sat
+helplessly before it. How could he inquire about Zoie without appearing
+to invite a reconciliation with her? While he was trying to answer
+this vexed question, a sharp knock came at the door. He turned to see a
+uniformed messenger holding a telegram toward him. Intuitively he felt
+that it contained some word about Zoie. His hand trembled so that he
+could scarcely sign for the message before opening it.
+
+A moment later the messenger boy was startled out of his lethargy by a
+succession of contradictory exclamations.
+
+“No!” cried Alfred incredulously as he gazed in ecstasy at the telegram.
+“Yes!” he shouted, excitedly, as he rose from his chair. “Where's a
+time table?” he asked the astonished boy, and he began rummaging rapidly
+through the drawers of his desk.
+
+“Any answer?” inquired the messenger.
+
+“Take this,” said Alfred. And he thrust a bill into the small boy's
+hand.
+
+“Yes, sir,” answered the boy and disappeared quickly, lest this madman
+might reconsider his generosity.
+
+Alfred threw down the time table in despair. “No train for Chicago until
+night,” he cried; but his mind was working fast. The next moment he was
+at the telephone, asking for the Division Superintendent of the railway
+line.
+
+When Alfred's partner returned from luncheon he found a curt note
+informing him that Alfred had left on a special for Chicago and would
+“write.”
+
+“I'll bet it's his wife!” said the partner.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+During the evening of the same day that Alfred was enjoying such
+pleasurable emotions, Zoie and Aggie were closeted in the pretty pink
+and white bedroom that the latter had tried to describe to Jimmy. On
+a rose-coloured couch in front of the fire sat Aggie threading ribbons
+through various bits of soft white linen, and in front of her, at the
+foot of a rose-draped bed, knelt Zoie. She was trying the effect of
+a large pink bow against the lace flounce of an empty but inviting
+bassinette.
+
+“How's that?” she called to Aggie, as she turned her head to one side
+and surveyed the result of her experiment with a critical eye.
+
+Aggie shot a grudging glance at the bassinette. “I wish you wouldn't
+bother me every moment,” she said. “I'll never get all these things
+finished.”
+
+Apparently Zoie decided that the bow was properly placed, for she
+applied herself to sewing it fast to the lining. In her excitement she
+gave the thread a vicious pull. “Oh, dear, oh dear, my thread is always
+breaking!” she sighed in vexation.
+
+“You're excited,” said Aggie.
+
+“Wouldn't YOU be excited,” questioned Zoie'”if you were expecting a baby
+and a husband in the morning?”
+
+“I suppose I should,” admitted Aggie.
+
+For a time the two friends sewed in silence, then Zoie looked up with
+sudden anxiety.
+
+“You're SURE Jimmy sent the wire?” she asked.
+
+“I saw him write it,” answered Aggie, “while I was in the office
+to-day.”
+
+“When will Alfred get it?” demanded Zoie eagerly.
+
+“Oh, he won't GET it until to-morrow morning,” said Aggie. “I told you
+that to-day. It's a night message.”
+
+“I wonder what he'll be doing when he gets it?” mused Zoie. There was a
+suspicion of a smile around her lips.
+
+“What will he do AFTER he gets it?” questioned Aggie.
+
+Looking up at her friend in alarm, Zoie suddenly ceased sewing. “You
+don't mean he won't come?” she gasped.
+
+“Of course I don't,” answered Aggie. “He's only HUMAN if he is a
+husband.”
+
+There was a sceptical expression around Zoie's mouth, but she did not
+pursue the subject. “How do you suppose that red baby will ever look in
+this pink basket?” she asked. And then with a regretful little sigh, she
+declared that she wished she'd “used blue.”
+
+“I didn't think the baby that we chose was so horribly red,” said Aggie.
+
+“Red!” cried Zoie, “it's magenta.” And again her thread broke. “Oh,
+darn!” she exclaimed in annoyance, and once more rethreaded her needle.
+“I couldn't look at it,” she continued with a disgusted little pucker of
+her face. “I wish they had let us take it this afternoon so I could have
+got used to it before Alfred gets here.”
+
+“Now don't be silly,” scolded Aggie. “You know very well that the
+Superintendent can't let it leave the home until its mother signs the
+papers. It will be here the first thing in the morning. You'll have all
+day to get used to it before Alfred gets here.”
+
+“ALL DAY,” echoed Zoie, and the corners of her mouth began to droop.
+“Won't Alfred be here before TO-MORROW NIGHT?”
+
+Aggie was becoming exasperated by Zoie's endless questions. “I told
+you,” she explained wearily, “that the wire won't be delivered until
+to-morrow morning, it will take Alfred eight hours to get here, and
+there may not be a train just that minute.”
+
+“Eight long hours,” sighed Zoie dismally. And Aggie looked at her
+reproachfully, forgetting that it is always the last hour that
+is hardest to bear. Zoie resumed her sewing resignedly. Aggie was
+meditating whether she should read her young friend a lecture on the
+value of patience, when the telephone began to ring violently.
+
+Zoie looked up from her sewing with a frown. “You answer it, will you,
+Aggie?” she said. “I can't let go this thread.”
+
+“Hello,” called Aggie sweetly over the 'phone; then she added in
+surprise, “Is this you, Jimmy dear?” Apparently it was; and as Zoie
+watched Aggie's face, with its increasing distress she surmised that
+Jimmy's message was anything but “dear.”
+
+“Good heavens!” cried Aggie over the telephone, “that's awful!”
+
+“Isn't Alfred coming?” was the first question that burst from Zoie's
+lips.
+
+Aggie motioned to Zoie to be quiet. “TO-NIGHT!” she exclaimed.
+
+“To-night!” echoed Zoie joyfully; and without waiting for more details
+and with no thought beyond the moment, she flew to her dressing table
+and began arranging her hair, powdering her face, perfuming her lips,
+and making herself particularly alluring for the prodigal husband's
+return.
+
+Now the far-sighted Aggie was experiencing less pleasant sensations at
+the phone. “A special?” she was saying to Jimmy. “When did Alfred GET
+the message?” There was a slight pause. Then she asked irritably, “Well,
+didn't you mark it 'NIGHT message'?” From the expression on Aggie's face
+it was evident that he had not done so. “But, Jimmy,” protested Aggie,
+“this is dreadful! We haven't any baby!” Then calling to him to wait a
+minute, and leaving the receiver dangling, she crossed the room to
+Zoie, who was now thoroughly engrossed in the making of a fresh toilet.
+“Zoie!” she exclaimed excitedly, “Jimmy made a mistake.”
+
+“Of course he'd do THAT,” answered Zoie carelessly.
+
+“But you don't understand,” persisted Aggie. “They sent the 'NIGHT
+message' TO-DAY. Alfred's coming on a special. He'll be here tonight.”
+
+“Thank goodness for that!” cried Zoie, and the next instant she was
+waltzing gaily about the room.
+
+“That's all very well,” answered Aggie, as she followed Zoie with
+anxious eyes, “but WHERE'S YOUR BABY?”
+
+“Good heavens!” cried Zoie, and for the first time she became conscious
+of their predicament. She gazed at Aggie in consternation. “I forgot all
+about it,” she said, and then asked with growing anxiety, “What can we
+DO?”
+
+“Do?” echoed Aggie, scarcely knowing herself what answer to make, “we've
+got to GET it--TO-NIGHT. That's all!”
+
+“But,” protested Zoie, “how CAN we get it when the mother hasn't signed
+the papers yet?”
+
+“Jimmy will have to arrange that with the Superintendent of the Home,”
+ answered Aggie with decision, and she turned toward the 'phone to
+instruct Jimmy accordingly.
+
+“Yes, that's right,” assented Zoie, glad to be rid of all further
+responsibility, “we'll let Jimmy fix it.”
+
+“Say, Jimmy,” called Aggie excitedly, “you'll have to go straight to the
+Children's Home and get that baby just as quickly as you can. There's
+some red tape about the mother signing papers, but don't mind about
+that. Make them give it to you to-night. Hurry, Jimmy. Don't waste a
+minute.”
+
+There was evidently a protest from the other end of the wire, for Aggie
+added impatiently, “Go on, Jimmy, do! You can EAT any time.” And with
+that she hung up the receiver.
+
+“Its clothes,” called Zoie frantically. “Tell him about the clothes. I
+sent them this evening.”
+
+“Never mind about the clothes,” answered Aggie. “We're lucky if we get
+the baby.”
+
+“But I have to mind,” persisted Zoie. “I gave all its other things to
+the laundress. I wanted them to be nice and fresh. And now the horrid
+old creature hasn't brought them back yet.”
+
+“You get into your OWN things,” commanded Aggie.
+
+“Where's my dressing gown?” asked Zoie, her elation revived by the
+thought of her fine raiment, and with that she flew to the foot of the
+bed and snatched up two of the prettiest negligees ever imported from
+Paris. “Which do you like better?” she asked, as she held them both
+aloft, “the pink or the blue?”
+
+“It doesn't matter,” answered Aggie wearily. “Get into SOMETHING, that's
+all.”
+
+“Then unhook me,” commanded Zoie gaily, as she turned her back to Aggie,
+and continued to admire the two “creations” on her arm. So pleased was
+she with the picture of herself in either of the garments that she began
+humming a gay waltz and swaying to the rhythm.
+
+“Stand still,” commanded Aggie, but her warning was unnecessary, for at
+that moment Zoie was transfixed by a horrible fear.
+
+“Suppose,” she said in alarm, “that Jimmy can't GET the baby?”
+
+“He's GOT to get it,” answered Aggie emphatically, and she undid the
+last stubborn hook of Zoie's gown and put the girl from her. “There,
+now, you're all unfastened,” she said, “hurry and get dressed.”
+
+“You mean undressed,” laughed Zoie, as she let her pretty evening gown
+fall lightly from her shoulders and drew on her pink negligee. “Oh,
+Aggie!” she exclaimed, as she caught sight of her reflection in the
+mirror, “isn't it a love? And you know,” she added. “Alfred just adores
+pink.”
+
+“Silly!” answered Aggie, but in spite of herself, she was quite thrilled
+by the picture of the exquisite young creature before her. Zoie had
+certainly never looked more irresistible. “Can't you get some of that
+colour out of your cheeks,” asked Aggie in despair. “You look like a
+washerwoman.”
+
+“I'll put on some cold cream and powder,” answered Zoie. She flew to her
+dressing table; and in a moment there was a white cloud in her immediate
+vicinity. She turned to Aggie to inquire the result. Again the 'phone
+rang. “Who's that?” she exclaimed in alarm.
+
+“I'll see,” answered Aggie.
+
+“It couldn't be Alfred, could it?” asked Zoie with mingled hope and
+dread.
+
+“Of course not,” answered Aggie, as she removed the receiver from the
+hook. “Alfred wouldn't 'phone, he would come right up.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Discovering that it was merely Jimmy “on the wire,” Zoie's uneasiness
+abated, but Aggie's anxiety was visibly increasing.
+
+“Where ARE you?” she asked of her spouse. “The Children's Home!” she
+repeated, then followed further explanations from Jimmy which were
+apparently not satisfactory. “Oh, Jimmy!” cried his disturbed wife, “it
+can't be! That's horrible!”
+
+“What is it?” shrieked Zoie, trying to get her small ear close enough to
+the receiver to catch a bit of the obviously terrifying message.
+
+“Wait a minute,” called Aggie into the 'phone. Then she turned to Zoie
+with a look of despair. “The mother's changed her mind,” she explained;
+“she won't give up the baby.”
+
+“Good Lord!” cried Zoie, and she sank into the nearest chair. For an
+instant the two women looked at each other with blank faces. “What can
+we DO,” asked Zoie.
+
+Aggie did not answer immediately. This was indeed a serious predicament;
+but presently Zoie saw her friend's mouth becoming very resolute, and
+she surmised that Aggie had solved the problem. “We'll have to get
+ANOTHER baby, that's all,” decided Aggie. “There must be OTHER babies.”
+
+“Where?” asked Zoie.
+
+“There, in the Children's Home,” answered Aggie with great confidence,
+and she returned to the 'phone.
+
+Zoie crossed to the bed and knelt at its foot in search of her little
+pink slippers.
+
+“Oh, Aggie,” she sighed, “the others were all so red!”
+
+But Aggie did not heed her protest. “Listen, Jimmy,” she called in the
+'phone, “can't you get another baby?” There was a pause, then Aggie
+commanded hotly, “Well, GET in the business!” Another pause and then
+Aggie continued very firmly, “Tell the Superintendent that we JUST MUST
+have one.”
+
+Zoie stopped in the act of putting on her second slipper and called a
+reminder to Aggie. “Tell him to get a HE one,” she said, “Alfred wants a
+boy.”
+
+“Take what you can get!” answered Aggie impatiently, and again she gave
+her attention to the 'phone. “What!” she cried, with growing despair,
+and Zoie waited to hear what had gone wrong now. “Nothing under three
+months,” explained Aggie.
+
+“Won't that do?” asked Zoie innocently.
+
+“Do!” echoed Aggie in disgust. “A three-months' old baby is as big as a
+whale.”
+
+“Well, can't we say it GREW UP?” asked Zoie, priding herself on her
+power of ready resource.
+
+“Overnight, like a mushroom?” sneered Aggie.
+
+Almost vanquished by her friend's new air of cold superiority, Zoie
+was now on the verge of tears. “Somebody must have a new baby,” she
+faltered. “Somebody ALWAYS has a new baby.”
+
+“For their own personal USE, yes,” admitted Aggie, “but who has a new
+baby for US?”
+
+“How do I know?” asked Zoie helplessly. “You're the one who ought to
+know. You got me into this, and you've GOT to get me out of it. Can you
+imagine,” she asked, growing more and more unhappy, “what would happen
+to me if Alfred were to come home now and not find a baby? He wouldn't
+forgive a LITTLE lie, what would he do with a WHOPPER like this?” Then
+with sudden decision, she rushed toward the 'phone. “Let me talk to
+Jimmy,” she said, and the next moment she was chattering so rapidly and
+incoherently over the 'phone that Aggie despaired of hearing one word
+that she said, and retired to the next room to think out a new plan of
+action.
+
+“Say, Jimmy,” stammered Zoie into the 'phone, “you've GOT to get me a
+baby. If you don't, I'll kill myself! I will, Jimmy, I will. You got me
+into this, Jimmy,” she reminded him. “You've GOT to get me out of it.”
+ And then followed pleadings and coaxings and cajolings, and at length,
+a pause, during which Jimmy was apparently able to get in a word or so.
+His answer was not satisfactory to Zoie. “What!” she shrieked, tiptoeing
+to get her lips closer to the receiver; then she added with conviction,
+“the mother has no business to change her mind.”
+
+Apparently Jimmy maintained that the mother had changed it none the
+less.
+
+“Well, take it away from her,” commanded Zoie. “Get it quick, while she
+isn't looking.” Then casting a furtive glance over her shoulder to make
+sure that Aggie was still out of the room, she indulged in a few dark
+threats to Jimmy, also some vehement reminders of how he had DRAGGED her
+into that horrid old restaurant and been the immediate cause of all the
+misfortunes that had ever befallen her.
+
+Could Jimmy have been sure that Aggie was out of ear-shot of Zoie's
+conversation, the argument would doubtless have kept up indefinitely--as
+it was--the result was a quick acquiescence on his part and by the time
+that Aggie returned to the room, Zoie was wreathed in smiles.
+
+“It's all right,” she said sweetly. “Jimmy's going to get it.”
+
+Aggie looked at her sceptically. “Goodness knows I hope so,” she said,
+then added in despair, “Look at your cheeks. They're flaming.”
+
+Once more the powder puff was called into requisition, and Zoie turned a
+temporarily blanched face to Aggie. “Is that better?” she asked.
+
+“Very much,” answered Aggie, “but how about your hair?”
+
+“What's the matter with it?” asked Zoie. Her reflection betrayed a
+coiffure that might have turned Marie Antoinette green with envy.
+
+“Would anybody think you'd been in bed for days?” asked Aggie.
+
+“Alfred likes it that way,” was Zoie's defence.
+
+“Turn around,” said Aggie, without deigning to argue the matter further.
+And she began to remove handfuls of hairpins from the yellow knotted
+curls.
+
+“What are you doing?” exclaimed Zoie, as she sprayed her white neck and
+arms with her favourite perfume.
+
+Aggie did not answer.
+
+Zoie leaned forward toward the mirror to smooth out her eyebrows with
+the tips of her perfumed fingers. “Good gracious,” she cried in horror
+as she caught sight of her reflection. “You're not going to put my hair
+in a pigtail!”
+
+“That's the way invalids always have their hair,” was Aggie's laconic
+reply, and she continued to plait the obstinate curls.
+
+“I won't have it like that!” declared Zoie, and she shook herself free
+from Aggie's unwelcome attentions and proceeded to unplait the hateful
+pigtail. “Alfred would leave me.”
+
+Aggie shrugged her shoulders.
+
+“If you're going to make a perfect fright of me,” pouted Zoie, “I just
+won't see him.”
+
+“He isn't coming to see YOU,” reminded Aggie. “He's coming to see the
+baby.”
+
+“If Jimmy doesn't come soon, I'll not HAVE any baby,” answered Zoie.
+
+“Get into bed,” said Aggie, and she proceeded to turn down the soft lace
+coverlets.
+
+“Where did I put my cap?” asked Zoie. Her eyes caught the small knot of
+lace and ribbons for which she was looking, and she pinned it on top of
+her saucy little curls.
+
+“In you go,” said Aggie, motioning to the bed.
+
+“Wait,” said Zoie impressively, “wait till I get my rose lights on the
+pillow.” She pulled the slender gold chain of her night lamp; instantly
+the large white pillows were bathed in a warm pink glow--she studied
+the effect very carefully, then added a lingerie pillow to the two
+more formal ones, kicked off her slippers and hopped into bed. One more
+glance at the pillows, then she arranged the ribbons of her negligee to
+fall “carelessly” outside the coverlet, threw one arm gracefully above
+her head, half-closed her eyes, and sank languidly back against her
+pillows.
+
+“How's that?” she breathed faintly.
+
+Controlling her impulse to smile, Aggie crossed to the dressing-table
+with a business-like air and applied to Zoie's pink cheeks a third
+coating of powder.
+
+Zoie sat bolt upright and began to sneeze. “Aggie,” she said, “I just
+hate you when you act like that.” But suddenly she was seized with a new
+idea.
+
+“I wonder,” she mused as she looked across the room at the soft, pink
+sofa bathed in firelight, “I wonder if I shouldn't look better on that
+couch under those roses.”
+
+Aggie was very emphatic in her opinion to the contrary. “Certainly not!”
+ she said.
+
+“Then,” decided Zoie with a mischievous smile, “I'll get Alfred to carry
+me to the couch. That way I can get my arms around his neck. And once
+you get your arms around a man's neck, you can MANAGE him.”
+
+Aggie looked down at the small person with distinct disapproval. “Now,
+don't you make too much fuss over Alfred,” she continued. “YOU'RE the
+one who's to do the forgiving. Don't forget that! What's more,” she
+reminded Zoie, “you're very, very weak.” But before she had time to
+instruct Zoie further there was a sharp, quick ring at the outer door.
+
+The two women glanced at each other inquiringly. The next instant a
+man's step was heard in the hallway.
+
+“How is she, Mary?” demanded someone in a voice tense with anxiety.
+
+“It's Alfred!” exclaimed Zoie.
+
+“And we haven't any baby!” gasped Aggie.
+
+“What shall I do?” cried Zoie.
+
+“Lie down,” commanded Aggie, and Zoie had barely time to fall back
+limply on the pillows when the excited young husband burst into the
+room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+When Alfred entered Zoie's bedroom he glanced about him in bewilderment.
+It appeared that he was in an enchanted chamber. Through the dim rose
+light he could barely perceive his young wife. She was lying white and
+apparently lifeless on her pillows. He moved cautiously toward the bed,
+but Aggie raised a warning finger. Afraid to speak, he grasped Aggie's
+hand and searched her face for reassurance; she nodded toward Zoie,
+whose eyes were closed. He tiptoed to the bedside, sank on his knees and
+reverently kissed the small hand that hung limply across the side of the
+bed.
+
+To Alfred's intense surprise, his lips had barely touched Zoie's
+fingertips when he felt his head seized in a frantic embrace. “Alfred,
+Alfred!” cried Zoie in delight; then she smothered his face with kisses.
+As she lifted her head to survey her astonished husband, she caught
+the reproving eye of Aggie. With a weak little sigh, she relaxed her
+tenacious hold of Alfred, breathed his name very faintly, and sank back,
+apparently exhausted, upon her pillows.
+
+“It's been too much for her,” said the terrified young husband, and he
+glanced toward Aggie in anxiety.
+
+Aggie nodded assent.
+
+“How pale she looks,” added Alfred, as he surveyed the white face on the
+pillows.
+
+“She's so weak, poor dear,” sympathised Aggie, almost in a whisper.
+
+Alfred nodded his understanding to Aggie. It was then that his attention
+was for the first time attracted toward the crib.
+
+“My boy!” he exclaimed. And again Zoie forgot Aggie's warning and
+sat straight up in bed. But Alfred did not see her. He was making
+determinedly for the crib, his heart beating high with the pride of
+possession.
+
+Throwing back the coverlets of the bassinette, Alfred stared at the
+empty bed in silence, then he quickly turned to the two anxious women.
+“Where is he?” he asked, his eyes wide with terror.
+
+Zoie's lips opened to answer, but no words came.
+
+Alfred's eyes turned to Aggie. The look on her face increased his worst
+fears. “Don't tell me he's----” he could not bring himself to utter the
+word. He continued to look helplessly from one woman to the other.
+
+In vain Zoie again tried to answer. Aggie also made an unsuccessful
+attempt to speak. Then, driven to desperation by the strain of the
+situation, Zoie declared boldly: “He's out.”
+
+“Out?” echoed Alfred in consternation.
+
+“With Jimmy,” explained Aggie, coming to Zoie's rescue as well as she
+knew how.
+
+“Jimmy!” repeated Alfred in great astonishment.
+
+“Just for a breath of air,” explained Zoie sweetly She had now entirely
+regained her self-possession.
+
+“Isn't he very young to be out at night?” asked Alfred with a puzzled
+frown.
+
+“We told Jimmy that,” answered Aggie, amazed at the promptness
+with which each succeeding lie presented itself. “But you see,” she
+continued, “Jimmy is so crazy about the child that we can't do anything
+with him.”
+
+“Jimmy crazy about my baby?” exclaimed Alfred incredulously. “He always
+said babies were 'little red worms.'”
+
+“Not this one,” answered Zoie sweetly.
+
+“No, indeed,” chimed in Aggie. “He acts as though he owned it.”
+
+“Oh, DOES he?” exclaimed Alfred hotly. “I'll soon put a stop to that,”
+ he declared. “Where did he take him?”
+
+Again the two women looked at each other inquiringly, then Aggie
+stammered evasively.
+
+“Oh, j-just downstairs--somewhere.”
+
+“I'll LOOK j-just downstairs somewhere,” decided Alfred, and he snatched
+up his hat and started toward the door.
+
+“Alfred!” cried Zoie in alarm.
+
+Coming back to her bedside to reassure her, Alfred was caught in a
+frantic embrace. “I'll be back in a minute, dear,” he said, but Zoie
+clung to him and pleaded desperately.
+
+“You aren't going to leave me the very first thing?”
+
+Alfred hesitated. He had no wish to be cruel to Zoie, but the thought of
+Jimmy out in the street with his baby at this hour of the night was not
+to be borne.
+
+Zoie renewed her efforts at persuasion. “Now, dearie,” she said, “I
+wish you'd go get shaved and wash up a bit. I don't wish baby to see you
+looking so horrid.”
+
+“Yes, do, Alfred,” insisted Aggie. “He's sure to be here in a minute.”
+
+“My boy won't care HOW his father looks,” declared Alfred proudly, and
+Zoie told Aggie afterward that his chest had momentarily expanded three
+inches.
+
+“But _I_ care,” persisted Zoie. “First impressions are so important.”
+
+“Now, Zoie,” cautioned Aggie, as she crossed toward the bed with
+affected solicitude. “You mustn't excite yourself.”
+
+Zoie was quick to understand the suggested change in her tactics, and
+again she sank back on her pillows apparently ill and faint.
+
+Utterly vanquished by the dire result of his apparently inhuman
+thoughtlessness, Alfred glanced at Aggie, uncertain as to how to repair
+the injury.
+
+Aggie beckoned to him to come away from the bed.
+
+“Let her have her own way,” she whispered with a significant glance
+toward Zoie.
+
+Alfred nodded understandingly and put a finger to his lips to signify
+that he would henceforth speak in hushed tones, then he tiptoed back to
+the bed and gently stroked the curls from Zoie's troubled forehead.
+
+“There now, dear,” he whispered, “lie still and rest and I'll go shave
+and wash up a bit.”
+
+Zoie sighed her acquiescence.
+
+“Mind,” he whispered to Aggie, “you are to call me the moment my boy
+comes,” and then he slipped quietly into the bedroom.
+
+No sooner had Alfred crossed the threshold, than Zoie sat up in bed and
+called in a sharp whisper to Aggie, “What's keeping them?” she asked.
+
+“I can't imagine,” answered Aggie, also in whisper.
+
+“If I had Jimmy here,” declared Zoie vindictively, “I'd wring his little
+fat neck,” and slipping her little pink toes from beneath the covers,
+she was about to get out of bed, when Aggie, who was facing Alfred's
+bedroom door, gave her a warning signal.
+
+Zoie had barely time to get back beneath the covers, when Alfred
+re-entered the room in search of his satchel. Aggie found it for him
+quickly.
+
+Alfred glanced solicitously at Zoie's closed eyes. “I'm so sorry,” he
+apologised to Aggie, and again he slipped softly out of the room.
+
+Aggie and Zoie drew together for consultation.
+
+“Suppose Jimmy can't get the baby,” whispered Zoie.
+
+“In that case, he'd have 'phoned,” argued Aggie.
+
+“Let's 'phone to the Home,” suggested Zoie, “and find----” She was
+interrupted by Alfred's voice.
+
+“Say, Aggie,” called Alfred from the next room.
+
+“Yes?” answered Aggie sweetly, and she crossed to the door and waited.
+
+“Hasn't he come yet?” called Alfred impatiently.
+
+“Not yet, Alfred,” said Aggie, and she closed the door very softly, lest
+Alfred should hear her.
+
+“I never knew Alfred could be so silly!” snapped Zoie.
+
+“Sh! sh!” warned Aggie, and she glanced anxiously toward Alfred's door.
+
+“He doesn't care a bit about me!” complained Zoie. “It's all that horrid
+old baby that he's never seen.”
+
+“If Jimmy doesn't come soon, he never WILL see it,” declared Aggie, and
+she started toward the window to look out.
+
+Just then there was a short quick ring of the bell. The two women
+glanced at each other with mingled hope and fear. Then their eyes sought
+the door expectantly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+With the collar of his long ulster pushed high and the brim of his derby
+hat pulled low, Jimmy Jinks crept cautiously into the room. When he at
+length ceased to glance over his shoulder and came to a full stop, Aggie
+perceived a bit of white flannel hanging beneath the hem of his tightly
+buttoned coat.
+
+“You've GOT it!” she cried.
+
+“Where is it?” asked Zoie.
+
+“Give it to me,” demanded Aggie.
+
+Jimmy stared at them as though stupefied, then glanced uneasily over his
+shoulder, to make sure that no one was pursuing him. Aggie unbuttoned
+his ulster, seized a wee mite wrapped in a large shawl, and clasped it
+to her bosom with a sigh of relief. “Thank heaven!” she exclaimed, then
+crossed quickly to the bassinette and deposited her charge.
+
+In the meantime, having thrown discretion to the wind, Zoie had hopped
+out of bed. As usual, her greeting to Jimmy was in the nature of a
+reproach. “What kept you?” she demanded crossly.
+
+“Yes,” chimed in Aggie, who was now bending over the crib. “What made
+you so long?”
+
+“See here!” answered Jimmy hotly, “if you two think you can do any
+better, you're welcome to the job,” and with that he threw off his
+overcoat and sank sullenly on the couch.
+
+“Sh! sh!” exclaimed Zoie and Aggie, simultaneously, and they glanced
+nervously toward Alfred's bedroom door.
+
+Jimmy looked at them without comprehending why he should “sh.” They did
+not bother to explain. Instead, Zoie turned her back upon him.
+
+“Let's see it,” she said, peeping into the bassinette. And then with a
+little cry of disgust she again looked at Jimmy reproachfully. “Isn't it
+ugly?” she said. Jimmy's contempt for woman's ingratitude was too
+deep for words, and he only stared at her in injured silence. But his
+reflections were quickly upset when Alfred called from the next room, to
+inquire again about Baby.
+
+“Alfred's here!” whispered Jimmy, beginning to realise the meaning of
+the women's mysterious behaviour.
+
+“Sh! sh!” said Aggie again to Jimmy, and Zoie flew toward the bed,
+almost vaulting over the footboard in her hurry to get beneath the
+covers.
+
+For the present Alfred did not disturb them further. Apparently he was
+still occupied with his shaving, but just as Jimmy was about to ask for
+particulars, the 'phone rang. The three culprits glanced guiltily at
+each other.
+
+“Who's that?” whispered Zoie in a frightened voice.
+
+Aggie crossed to the 'phone. “Hello,” she called softly. “The Children's
+Home?” she exclaimed.
+
+Jimmy paused in the act of sitting and turned his round eyes toward the
+'phone.
+
+Aggie's facial expression was not reassuring. “But we can't,” she was
+saying; “that's impossible.”
+
+“What is it?” called Zoie across the foot of the bed, unable longer to
+endure the suspense.
+
+Aggie did not answer. She was growing more and more excited. “A thief!”
+ she cried wildly, over the 'phone. “How dare you call my husband a
+thief!”
+
+Jimmy was following the conversation with growing interest.
+
+“Wait a minute,” said Aggie, then she left the receiver hanging by the
+cord and turned to the expectant pair behind her. “It's the Children's
+Home,” she explained. “That awful woman says Jimmy STOLE her baby!”
+
+“What!” exclaimed Zoie as though such depravity on Jimmy's part were
+unthinkable. Then she looked at him accusingly, and asked in low,
+measured tones, “DID you STEAL HER BABY, JIMMY?”
+
+“Didn't you tell me to?” asked Jimmy hotly. “Not literally,” corrected
+Aggie.
+
+“How else COULD I steal a baby?” demanded Jimmy.
+
+Zoie looked at the unfortunate creature as if she could strangle him,
+and Aggie addressed him with a threat in her voice.
+
+“Well, the Superintendent says you've got to bring it straight back.”
+
+“I'd like to see myself!” said Jimmy.
+
+“He sha'n't bring it back,” declared Zoie. “I'll not let him!”
+
+“What shall I tell the Superintendent?” asked Aggie, “he's holding the
+wire.”
+
+“Tell him he can't have it,” answered Zoie, as though that were the end
+of the whole matter.
+
+“Well,” concluded Aggie, “he says if Jimmy DOESN'T bring it back the
+mother's coming after it.”
+
+“Good Lord!” exclaimed Zoie.
+
+As for Jimmy, he bolted for the door. Aggie caught him by the sleeve as
+he passed. “Wait, Jimmy,” she said peremptorily. There was a moment of
+awful indecision, then something approaching an idea came to Zoie.
+
+“Tell the Superintendent that it isn't here,” she whispered to Aggie
+across the footboard. “Tell him that Jimmy hasn't got here yet.”
+
+“Yes,” agreed Jimmy, “tell him I haven't got here yet.”
+
+Aggie nodded wisely and returned to the 'phone. “Hello,” she called
+pleasantly; then proceeded to explain. “Mr. Jinks hasn't got here yet.”
+ There was a pause, then she added in her most conciliatory tone, “I'll
+tell him what you say when he comes in.” Another pause, and she hung up
+the receiver with a most gracious good-bye and turned to the others with
+increasing misgivings. “He says he won't be responsible for that mother
+much longer--she's half-crazy.”
+
+“What right has she to be crazy?” demanded Zoie in an abused voice.
+“She's a widow. She doesn't need a baby.”
+
+“Well,” decided Aggie after careful deliberation, “you'd better take it
+back, Jimmy, before Alfred sees it.”
+
+“What?” exclaimed Zoie in protest. And again Jimmy bolted, but again he
+failed to reach the door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+His face covered with lather, and a shaving brush in one hand, Alfred
+entered the room just as his friend was about to escape.
+
+“Jimmy!” exclaimed the excited young father, “you're back.”
+
+“Oh, yes--yes,” admitted Jimmy nervously, “I'm back.”
+
+“My boy!” cried Alfred, and he glanced toward the crib. “He's here!”
+
+“Yes--yes,” agreed Aggie uneasily, as she tried to place herself between
+Alfred and the bassinette. “He's here, but you mayn't have him, Alfred.”
+
+“What?” exclaimed Alfred, trying to put her out of the way.
+
+“Not yet,” protested Aggie, “not just yet.”
+
+“Give him to me,” demanded Alfred, and thrusting Aggie aside, he took
+possession of the small mite in the cradle.
+
+“But--but, Alfred,” pleaded Aggie, “your face. You'll get him all wet.”
+
+Alfred did not heed her. He was bending over the cradle in an ecstasy.
+“My boy!” he cried, “my boy!” Lifting the baby in his arms he circled
+the room cooing to him delightedly.
+
+“Was he away from home when his fadder came? Oh, me, oh, my! Coochy!
+Coochy! Coochy!” Suddenly he remembered to whom he owed this wondrous
+treasure and forgetful of the lather on his unshaven face he rushed
+toward Zoie with an overflowing heart. “My precious!” he exclaimed, and
+he covered her cheek with kisses.
+
+“Go away!” cried Zoie in disgust and she pushed Alfred from her and
+brushed the hateful lather from her little pink check.
+
+But Alfred was not to be robbed of his exaltation, and again he circled
+the room, making strange gurgling sounds to Baby.
+
+“Did a horrid old Jimmy take him away from fadder?” he said
+sympathetically, in the small person's ear; and he glanced at Jimmy with
+frowning disapproval. “I'd just like to see him get you away from me
+again!” he added to Baby, as he tickled the mite's ear with the end of
+his shaving brush. “Oh, me! oh, my!” he exclaimed in trepidation, as he
+perceived a bit of lather on the infant's cheek. Then lifting the boy
+high in his arms and throwing out his chest with great pride, he looked
+at Jimmy with an air of superiority. “I guess I'm bad, aye?” he said.
+
+Jimmy positively blushed. As for Zoie, she was growing more and more
+impatient for a little attention to herself.
+
+“Rock-a-bye, Baby,” sang Alfred in strident tones and he swung the child
+high in his arms.
+
+Jimmy and Aggie gazed at Alfred as though hypnotised. They kept time to
+his lullaby out of sheer nervousness. Suddenly Alfred stopped, held the
+child from him and gazed at it in horror. “Good heavens!” he exclaimed.
+The others waited breathlessly. “Look at that baby's face,” commanded
+Alfred.
+
+Zoie and Aggie exchanged alarmed glances, then Zoie asked in
+trepidation, “What's the matter with his face?”
+
+“He's got a fever,” declared Alfred. And he started toward the bed to
+show the child to its mother.
+
+“Go away!” shrieked Zoie, waving Alfred off in wild alarm.
+
+“What?” asked Alfred, backing from her in surprise.
+
+Aggie crossed quickly to Alfred's side and looked over his shoulder at
+the boy. “I don't see anything wrong with its face,” she said.
+
+“It's scarlet!” persisted Alfred.
+
+“Oh,” said Jimmy with a superior air, “they're always like that.”
+
+“Nothing of the sort,” snorted Alfred, and he glared at Jimmy
+threateningly. “You've frozen the child parading him around the
+streets.”
+
+“Let me have him, Alfred,” begged Aggie sweetly; “I'll put him in his
+crib and keep him warm.”
+
+Reluctantly Alfred released the boy. His eyes followed him to the crib
+with anxiety. “Where's his nurse?” he asked, as he glanced first from
+one to the other.
+
+Zoie and Jimmy stared about the room as though expecting the desired
+person to drop from the ceiling. Then Zoie turned upon her unwary
+accomplice.
+
+“Jimmy,” she called in a threatening tone, “where IS his nurse?”
+
+“Does Jimmy take the nurse out, too?” demanded Alfred, more and more
+annoyed by the privileges Jimmy had apparently been usurping in his
+absence.
+
+“Never mind about the nurse,” interposed Aggie. “Baby likes me better
+anyway. I'll tuck him in,” and she bent fondly over the crib, but Alfred
+was not to be so easily pacified.
+
+“Do you mean to tell me,” he exclaimed excitedly, “that my boy hasn't
+any nurse?”
+
+“We HAD a nurse,” corrected Zoie, “but--but I had to discharge her.”
+
+Alfred glanced from one to the other for an explanation.
+
+“Discharge her?” he repeated, “for what?”
+
+“She was crazy,” stammered Zoie.
+
+Alfred's eyes sought Aggie's for confirmation. She nodded. He directed
+his steady gaze toward Jimmy. The latter jerked his head up and down in
+nervous assent.
+
+“Well,” said Alfred, amazed at their apparent lack of resource, “why
+didn't you get ANOTHER nurse?”
+
+“Aggie is going to stay and take care of baby to-night,” declared Zoie,
+and then she beamed upon Aggie as only she knew how. “Aren't you, dear?”
+ she asked sweetly.
+
+“Yes, indeed,” answered Aggie, studiously avoiding Jimmy's eye.
+
+“Baby is going to sleep in the spare room with Aggie and Jimmy,” said
+Zoie.
+
+“What!” exclaimed Jimmy, too desperate to care what Alfred might infer.
+
+Ignoring Jimmy's implied protest, Zoie continued sweetly to Alfred:
+
+“Now, don't worry, dear; go back to your room and finish your shaving.”
+
+“Finish shaving?” repeated Alfred in a puzzled way. Then his hand went
+mechanically to his cheek and he stared at Zoie in astonishment. “By
+Jove!” he exclaimed, “I had forgotten all about it. That shows you how
+excited I am.” And with a reluctant glance toward the cradle, he went
+quickly from the room, singing a high-pitched lullaby.
+
+Just as the three conspirators were drawing together for consultation,
+Alfred returned to the room. It was apparent that there was something
+important on his mind.
+
+“By the way,” he said, glancing from one to another, “I forgot to
+ask--what's his name?”
+
+The conspirators looked at each other without answering. To Alfred their
+delay was annoying. Of course his son had been given his father's name,
+but he wished to HEAR someone say so.
+
+“Baby's, I mean,” he explained impatiently.
+
+Jimmy felt instinctively that Zoie's eyes were upon him. He avoided her
+gaze.
+
+“Jimmy!” called Zoie, meaning only to appeal to him for a name.
+
+“Jimmy!” thundered the infuriated Alfred. “You've called my boy 'Jimmy'?
+Why 'Jimmy'?”
+
+For once Zoie was without an answer.
+
+After waiting in vain for any response, Alfred advanced upon the
+uncomfortable Jimmy.
+
+“You seem to be very popular around here,” he sneered.
+
+Jimmy shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and studied the
+pattern of the rug upon which he was standing.
+
+After what seemed an age to Jimmy, Alfred turned his back upon his old
+friend and started toward his bedroom. Jimmy peeped out uneasily from
+his long eyelashes. When Alfred reached the threshold, he faced about
+quickly and stared again at Jimmy for an explanation. It seemed to Jimmy
+that Alfred's nostrils were dilating. He would not have been surprised
+to see Alfred snort fire. He let his eyes fall before the awful
+spectacle of his friend's wrath. Alfred's upper lip began to curl. He
+cast a last withering look in Jimmy's direction, retired quickly from
+the scene and banged the door.
+
+When Jimmy again had the courage to lift his eyes he was confronted by
+the contemptuous gaze of Zoie, who was sitting up in bed and regarding
+him with undisguised disapproval.
+
+“Why didn't you tell him what the baby's name is?” she demanded.
+
+“How do _I_ know what the baby's name is?” retorted Jimmy savagely.
+
+“Sh! sh!” cautioned Aggie as she glanced nervously toward the door
+through which Alfred had just passed.
+
+“What does it matter WHAT the baby's name is so long as we have to send
+it back?”
+
+“I'll NOT send it back,” declared Zoie emphatically, “at least not until
+morning. That will give Jimmy a whole night to get another one.”
+
+“Another!” shrieked Jimmy. “See here, you two can't be changing babies
+every five minutes without Alfred knowing it. Even HE has SOME sense.”
+
+“Nonsense!” answered Aggie shortly. “You know perfectly well that all
+young babies look just alike. Their own mothers couldn't tell them
+apart, if it weren't for their clothes.”
+
+“But where can we GET another?” asked Zoie.
+
+Before Aggie could answer, Alfred was again heard calling from the next
+room. Apparently all his anger had subsided, for he inquired in the most
+amiable tone as to what baby might be doing and how he might be feeling.
+Aggie crossed quickly to the door, and sweetly reassured the anxious
+father, then she closed the door softly and turned to Zoie and Jimmy
+with a new inspiration lighting her face. “I have it,” she exclaimed
+ecstatically.
+
+Jimmy regarded his spouse with grave suspicion.
+
+“Now see here,” he objected, “every time YOU 'HAVE IT,' I DO IT. The
+NEXT time you 'HAVE IT' YOU DO IT!”
+
+The emphasis with which Jimmy made his declaration deserved
+consideration, but to his amazement it was entirely ignored by both
+women. Hopping quickly out of bed, without even glancing in his
+direction, Zoie gave her entire attention to Aggie. “What is it?” she
+asked eagerly.
+
+“There must be OTHER babies' Homes,” said Aggie, and she glanced at
+Jimmy from her superior height.
+
+“They aren't open all night like corner drug stores,” growled Jimmy.
+
+“Well, they ought to be,” decided Zoie.
+
+“And surely,” argued Aggie, “in an extraordinary case--like----”
+
+“This was an 'extraordinary case,'” declared Jimmy, “and you saw what
+happened this time, and the Superintendent is a friend of mine--at least
+he WAS a friend of mine.” And with that Jimmy sat himself down on the
+far corner of the couch and proceeded to ruminate on the havoc that
+these two women had wrought in his once tranquil life.
+
+Zoie gazed at Jimmy in deep disgust; her friend Aggie had made an
+excellent suggestion, and instead of acting upon it with alacrity, here
+sat Jimmy sulking like a stubborn child.
+
+“I suppose,” said Zoie, as her eyebrows assumed a bored angle, “there
+are SOME babies in the world outside of Children's Homes.”
+
+“Of course,” was Aggie's enthusiastic rejoinder; “there's one born every
+minute.”
+
+“But I was born BETWEEN minutes,” protested Jimmy.
+
+“Who's talking about you?” snapped Zoie.
+
+Again Aggie exclaimed that she “had it.”
+
+“She's got it twice as bad,” groaned Jimmy, and he wondered what new
+form her persecution of him was about to take.
+
+“Where is the morning paper?” asked Aggie, excitedly.
+
+“We can't advertise NOW,” protested Zoie. “It's too late for that.”
+
+“Sh! Sh!” answered Aggie, as she snatched the paper quickly from
+the table and began running her eyes up and down its third page.
+“Married--married,” she murmured, and then with delight she found
+the half column for which she was searching. “Born,” she exclaimed
+triumphantly. “Here we are! Get a pencil, Zoie, and we'll take down all
+the new ones.”
+
+“Of course,” agreed Zoie, clapping her hands in glee, “and Jimmy can get
+a taxi and look them right up.”
+
+“Oh, CAN he?” shouted Jimmy as he rose with clenched fists. “Now you
+two, see here----”
+
+Before Jimmy could complete his threat, there was a sharp ring of the
+door bell. He looked at the two women inquiringly.
+
+“It's the mother,” cried Zoie in a hoarse whisper.
+
+“The mother!” repeated Jimmy in terror and he glanced uncertainly from
+one door to the other.
+
+“Cover up the baby!” called Zoie, and drawing Jimmy's overcoat quickly
+from his arm, Aggie threw it hurriedly over the cradle.
+
+For an instant Jimmy remained motionless in the centre of the room,
+hatless, coatless, and shorn of ideas. A loud knock on the door decided
+him and he sank with trembling knees behind the nearest armchair, just
+as Zoie made a flying leap into the bed and prepared to draw the cover
+over her head.
+
+The knock was repeated and Aggie signalled to Zoie to answer it.
+
+“Come in!” called Zoie very faintly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+From his hiding-place Jimmy peeped around the edge of the armchair and
+saw what seemed to be a large clothes basket entering the room. Closer
+inspection revealed the small figure of Maggie, the washerwoman's
+daughter, propelling the basket, which was piled high with freshly
+laundered clothing. Jimmy drew a long sigh of relief, and unknotted his
+cramped limbs.
+
+“Shall I lay the things on the sofa, mum?” asked Maggie as she placed
+her basket on the floor and waited for Zoie's instructions.
+
+“Yes, please,” answered Zoie, too exhausted for further comment.
+
+Taking the laundry piece by piece from the basket, Maggie made excuses
+for its delay, while she placed it on the couch. Deaf to Maggie's
+chatter, Zoie lay back languidly on her pillows; but she soon heard
+something that lifted her straight up in bed.
+
+“Me mother is sorry she had to kape you waitin' this week,” said Maggie
+over her shoulder; “but we've got twins at OUR house.”
+
+“Twins!” echoed Zoie and Aggie simultaneously. Then together they stared
+at Maggie as though she had been dropped from another world.
+
+Finding attention temporarily diverted from himself, Jimmy had begun to
+rearrange both his mind and his cravat when he felt rather than saw that
+his two persecutors were regarding him with a steady, determined gaze.
+In spite of himself, Jimmy raised his eyes to theirs.
+
+“Twins!” was their laconic answer.
+
+Now, Jimmy had heard Maggie's announcement about the bountiful supply
+of offspring lately arrived at her house, but not until he caught the
+fanatical gleam in the eyes of his companions did he understand the
+part they meant him to play in their next adventure. He waited for no
+explanation--he bolted toward the door.
+
+“Wait, Jimmy,” commanded Aggie. But it was not until she had laid firm
+hold of him that he waited.
+
+Surprised by such strange behaviour on the part of those whom she
+considered her superiors, Maggie looked first at Aggie, then at Jimmy,
+then at Zoie, uncertain whether to go or to stay.
+
+“Anythin' to go back, mum?” she stammered.
+
+Zoie stared at Maggie solemnly from across the foot of the bed.
+“Maggie,” she asked in a deep, sepulchral tone, “where do you live?”
+
+“Just around the corner on High Street, mum,” gasped Maggie. Then,
+keeping her eyes fixed uneasily on Zoie she picked up her basket and
+backed cautiously toward the door.
+
+“Wait!” commanded Zoie; and Maggie paused, one foot in mid-air. “Wait in
+the hall,” said Zoie.
+
+“Yes'um,” assented Maggie, almost in a whisper. Then she nodded her
+head jerkily, cast another furtive glance at the three persons who were
+regarding her so strangely, and slipped quickly through the door.
+
+Having crossed the room and stealthily closed the door, Aggie returned
+to Jimmy, who was watching her with the furtive expression of a trapped
+animal.
+
+“It's Providence,” she declared, with a grave countenance.
+
+Jimmy looked up at Aggie with affected innocence, then rolled his round
+eyes away from her. He was confronted by Zoie, who had approached from
+the opposite side of the room.
+
+“It's Fate,” declared Zoie, in awe-struck tones.
+
+Jimmy was beginning to wriggle, but he kept up a last desperate presence
+of not understanding them.
+
+“You needn't tell me I'm going to take the wash to the old lady,” he
+said, “for I'm not going to do it.”
+
+“It isn't the WASH,” said Aggie, and her tone warned him that she
+expected no nonsense from him.
+
+“You know what we are thinking about just as well as we do,” said Zoie.
+“I'll write that washerwoman a note and tell her we must have one of
+those babies right now.” And with that she turned toward her desk and
+began rummaging amongst her papers for a pencil and pad. “The luck of
+these poor,” she murmured.
+
+“The luck of US,” corrected Aggie, whose spirits were now soaring. Then
+she turned to Jimmy with growing enthusiasm. “Just think of it, dear,”
+ she said, “Fate has sent us a baby to our very door.”
+
+“Well,” declared Jimmy, again beginning to show signs of fight, “if
+Fate has sent a baby to the door, you don't need me,” and with that he
+snatched his coat from the crib.
+
+“Wait, Jimmy,” again commanded Aggie, and she took his coat gently but
+firmly from him.
+
+“Now, see here,” argued Jimmy, trying to get free from his strong-minded
+spouse, “you know perfectly well that that washerwoman isn't going to
+let us have that baby.”
+
+“Nonsense,” called Zoie over her shoulder, while she scribbled a hurried
+note to the washerwoman. “If she won't let us have it 'for keeps,' I'll
+just 'rent it.'”
+
+“Good Lord!” exclaimed Jimmy in genuine horror. “Warm, fresh,
+palpitating babies rented as you would rent a gas stove!”
+
+“That's all a pose,” declared Aggie, in a matter-of-fact tone. “You
+think babies 'little red worms,' you've said so.”
+
+Jimmy could not deny it.
+
+“She'll be only too glad to rent it,” declared Zoie, as she glanced
+hurriedly through the note just written, and slipped it, together with
+a bill, into an envelope. “I'll pay her anything. It's only until I can
+get another one.”
+
+“Another!” shouted Jimmy, and his eyes turned heavenward for help. “An
+endless chain with me to put the links together!”
+
+“Don't be so theatrical,” said Aggie, irritably, as she took up Jimmy's
+coat and prepared to get him into it.
+
+“Why DO you make such a fuss about NOTHING,” sighed Zoie.
+
+“Nothing?” echoed Jimmy, and he looked at her with wondering eyes.
+“I crawl about like a thief in the night snatching babies from their
+mother's breasts, and you call THAT nothing?”
+
+“You don't have to 'CRAWL,'” reminded Zoie, “you can take a taxi.”
+
+“Here's your coat, dear,” said Aggie graciously, as she endeavoured to
+slip Jimmy's limp arms into the sleeves of the garment.
+
+“You can take Maggie with you,” said Zoie, with the air of conferring a
+distinct favour upon him.
+
+“And the wash on my lap,” added Jimmy sarcastically.
+
+“No,” said Zoie, unruffled by Jimmy's ungracious behaviour. “We'll send
+the wash later.”
+
+“That's very kind of you,” sneered Jimmy, as he unconsciously allowed
+his arms to slip into the sleeves of the coat Aggie was urging upon him.
+
+“All you need to do,” said Aggie complacently, “is to get us the baby.”
+
+“Yes,” said Jimmy, “and what do you suppose my friends would say if they
+were to see me riding around town with the wash-lady's daughter and a
+baby on my lap? What would YOU say?” he asked Aggie, “if you didn't know
+the facts?”
+
+“Nobody's going to see you,” answered Aggie impatiently; “it's only
+around the corner. Go on, Jimmy, be a good boy.”
+
+“You mean a good thing,” retorted Jimmy without budging from the spot.
+
+“How ridiculous!” exclaimed Zoie; “it's as easy as can be.”
+
+“Yes, the FIRST one SOUNDED easy, too,” said Jimmy.
+
+“All you have to do,” explained Zoie, trying to restrain her rising
+intolerance of his stupidity, “is to give this note to Maggie's mother.
+She'll give you her baby, you bring it back here, we'll give you THIS
+one, and you can take it right back to the Home.”
+
+“And meet the other mother,” concluded Jimmy with a shake of his head.
+
+There was a distinct threat in Zoie's voice when she again addressed the
+stubborn Jimmy and the glitter of triumph was in her eyes.
+
+“You'd better meet here THERE than HERE,” she warned him; “you know what
+the Superintendent said.”
+
+“That's true,” agreed Aggie with an anxious face. “Come now,” she
+pleaded, “it will only take a minute; you can do the whole thing before
+you have had time to think.”
+
+“Before I have had time to think,” repeated Jimmy excitedly. “That's how
+you get me to do everything. Well, this time I've HAD time to think and
+I don't think I will!” and with that he threw himself upon the couch,
+unmindful of the damage to the freshly laundered clothes.
+
+“Get up,” cried Zoie.
+
+“You haven't time to sit down,” said Aggie.
+
+“I'll TAKE time,” declared Jimmy. His eyes blinked ominously and he
+remained glued to the couch.
+
+There was a short silence; the two women gazed at Jimmy in despair.
+Remembering a fresh grievance, Jimmy turned upon them.
+
+“By the way,” he said, “do you two know that I haven't had anything to
+eat yet?”
+
+“And do you know,” said Zoie, “that Alfred may be back at any minute? He
+can't stay away forever.”
+
+“Not unless he has cut his throat,” rejoined Jimmy, “and that's what I'd
+do if I had a razor.”
+
+Zoie regarded Jimmy as though he were beyond redemption. “Can't you ever
+think of anybody but yourself?” she asked, with a martyred air.
+
+Had Jimmy been half his age, Aggie would have felt sure that she saw him
+make a face at her friend for answer. As it was, she resolved to make
+one last effort to awaken her unobliging spouse to a belated sense of
+duty.
+
+“You see, dear,” she said, “you might better get the washerwoman's baby
+than to go from house to house for one,” and she glanced again toward
+the paper.
+
+“Yes,” urged Zoie, “and that's just what you'll HAVE to do, if you don't
+get this one.”
+
+Jimmy's head hung dejectedly. It was apparent that his courage was
+slipping from him. Aggie was quick to realise her opportunity, and
+before Jimmy could protect himself from her treacherous wiles, she had
+slipped one arm coyly about his neck.
+
+“Now, Jimmy,” she pleaded as she pressed her soft cheek to his throbbing
+temple, and toyed with the bay curl on his perspiring forehead, “wont
+you do this little teeny-weepy thing just for me?”
+
+Jimmy's lips puckered in a pout; he began to blink nervously. Aggie
+slipped her other arm about his neck.
+
+“You know,” she continued with a baby whine, “I got Zoie into this, and
+I've just got to get her out of it. You're not going to desert me,
+are you, Jimmy? You WILL help me, won't you, dear?” Her breath was on
+Jimmy's cheek; he could feel her lips stealing closer to his. He had not
+been treated to much affection of late. His head drooped lower--he began
+to twiddle the fob on his watch chain. “Won't you?” persisted Aggie.
+
+Jimmy studied the toes of his boots.
+
+“Won't you?” she repeated, and her soft eyelashes just brushed the tip
+of his retrousee nose.
+
+Jimmy's head was now wagging from side to side.
+
+“Won't you?” she entreated a fourth time, and she kissed him full on the
+lips.
+
+With a resigned sigh, Jimmy rose mechanically from the heap of crushed
+laundry and held out his fat chubby hand.
+
+“Give me the letter,” he groaned.
+
+“Here you are,” said Zoie, taking Jimmy's acquiescence as a matter of
+course; and she thrust the letter into the pocket of Jimmy's ulster.
+“Now, when you get back with the baby,” she continued, “don't come in
+all of a sudden; just wait outside and whistle. You CAN WHISTLE, can't
+you?” she asked with a doubtful air.
+
+For answer, Jimmy placed two fingers between his lips and produced a
+shrill whistle that made both Zoie and Aggie glance nervously toward
+Alfred's bedroom door.
+
+“Yes, you can WHISTLE,” admitted Zoie, then she continued her
+directions. “If Alfred is not in the room, I'll raise the shade and you
+can come right up.”
+
+“And if he is in the room?” asked Jimmy with a fine shade of sarcasm.
+
+“If he IS in the room,” explained Zoie, “you must wait outside until I
+can get rid of him.”
+
+Jimmy turned his eyes toward Aggie to ask if it were possible that she
+still approved of Zoie's inhuman plan. For answer Aggie stroked his coat
+collar fondly.
+
+“We'll give you the signal the moment the coast is clear,” she said,
+then she hurriedly buttoned Jimmy's large ulster and wound a muffler
+about his neck. “There now, dear, do go, you're all buttoned up,” and
+with that she urged him toward the door.
+
+“Just a minute,” protested Jimmy, as he paused on the threshold. “Let me
+get this right, if the shade is up, I stay down.”
+
+“Not at all,” corrected Aggie and Zoie in a breath. “If the shade is up,
+you come up.”
+
+Jimmy cast another martyred look in Zoie's direction.
+
+“You won't hurry will you?” he said, “you know it is only twenty-three
+below zero and I haven't had anything to eat yet--and----”
+
+“Yes, we know,” interrupted the two women in chorus, and then Aggie
+added wearily, “go on, Jimmy; don't be funny.”
+
+“Funny?” snorted Jimmy. “With a baby on my lap and the wash lady's
+daughter, I won't be funny, oh no!”
+
+It is doubtful whether Jimmy would not have worked himself into another
+state of open rebellion had not Aggie put an end to his protests by
+thrusting him firmly out of the room and closing the door behind him.
+After this act of heroic decision on her part, the two women listened
+intently, fearing that he might return; but presently they heard the
+bang of the outer door, and at last they drew a long breath of relief.
+For the first time since Alfred's arrival, Aggie was preparing to sink
+into a chair, when she was startled by a sharp exclamation from Zoie.
+
+“Good heavens,” cried Zoie, “I forgot to ask Maggie.”
+
+“Ask her what?” questioned Aggie.
+
+“Boys or girls,” said Zoie, with a solemn look toward the door through
+which Jimmy had just disappeared.
+
+“Well,” decided Aggie, after a moment's reflection, “it's too late now.
+Anyway,” she concluded philosophically, “we couldn't CHANGE it.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+With more or less damage to himself consequent on his excitement, Alfred
+completed his shaving and hastened to return to his wife and the babe.
+Finding the supposedly ill Zoie careering about the centre of the room
+expostulating with Aggie, the young man stopped dumbfounded on the
+threshold.
+
+“Zoie,” he cried in astonishment. “What are you doing out of bed?”
+
+For an instant the startled Zoie gazed at him stupefied.
+
+“Why, I--I----” Her eyes sought Aggie's for a suggestion; there was no
+answer there. It was not until her gaze fell upon the cradle that she
+was seized by the desired inspiration.
+
+“I just got up to see baby,” she faltered, then putting one hand giddily
+to her head, she pretended to sway.
+
+In an instant Alfred's arms were about her. He bore her quickly to the
+bed. “You stay here, my darling,” he said tenderly. “I'll bring baby
+to you,” and after a solicitous caress he turned toward baby's crib and
+bent fondly over the little one. “Ah, there's father's man,” he said.
+“Was he lonesome baby? Oh, goodis g'acious,” then followed an incoherent
+muttering of baby talk, as he bore the youngster toward Zoie's bed.
+“Come, my precious,” he called to Zoie, as he sank down on the edge of
+the bed. “See mother's boy.”
+
+“Mother!” shrieked Zoie in horror. It had suddenly dawned upon her that
+this was the name by which Alfred would no doubt call her for the rest
+of her life. She almost detested him.
+
+But Alfred did not see the look of disgust on Zoie's face. He was wholly
+absorbed by baby.
+
+“What a funny face,” he cooed as he pinched the youngster's cheek.
+“Great Scott, what a grip,” he cried as the infant's fingers closed
+around his own. “Will you look at the size of those hands,” he
+exclaimed.
+
+Zoie and Aggie exchanged worried glances; the baby had no doubt
+inherited his large hands from his mother.
+
+“Say, Aggie,” called Alfred, “what are all of these little specks
+on baby's forehead?” He pointed toward the infant's brow. “One, two,
+three,” he counted.
+
+Zoie was becoming more and more uncomfortable at the close proximity of
+the little stranger.
+
+“Oh,” said Aggie, with affected carelessness as she leaned over Alfred's
+shoulder and glanced at baby's forehead. “That is just a little rash.”
+
+“A rash!” exclaimed Alfred excitedly, “that's dangerous, isn't it? We'd
+better call up the doctor.” And he rose and started hurriedly toward the
+telephone, baby in arms.
+
+“Don't be silly,” called Zoie, filled with vague alarm at the thought of
+the family physician's appearance and the explanations that this might
+entail.
+
+Stepping between Alfred and the 'phone, Aggie protested frantically.
+“You see, Alfred,” she said, “it is better to have the rash OUT, it
+won't do any harm unless it turns IN.”
+
+“He's perfectly well,” declared Zoie, “if you'll only put him in his
+crib and leave him alone.”
+
+Alfred looked down at his charge. “Is that right, son?” he asked, and he
+tickled the little fellow playfully in the ribs. “I'll tell you what,”
+ he called over his shoulder to Zoie, “he's a fine looking boy.” And then
+with a mysterious air, he nodded to Aggie to approach. “Whom does he
+look like?” he asked.
+
+Again Zoie sat up in anxiety. Aggie glanced at her, uncertain what
+answer to make.
+
+“I--I hadn't thought,” she stammered weakly.
+
+“Go on, go on,” exclaimed the proud young father, “you can't tell me
+that you can look at that boy and not see the resemblance.”
+
+“To whom?” asked Aggie, half fearfully.
+
+“Why,” said Alfred, “he's the image of Zoie.”
+
+Zoie gazed at the puckered red face in Alfred's arms. “What!” she
+shrieked in disgust, then fall back on her pillows and drew the lace
+coverlet over her face.
+
+Mistaking Zoie's feeling for one of embarrassment at being over-praised,
+Alfred bore the infant to her bedside. “See, dear,” he persisted, “see
+for yourself, look at his forehead.”
+
+“I'd rather look at you,” pouted Zoie, peeping from beneath the
+coverlet, “if you would only put that thing down for a minute.”
+
+“Thing?” exclaimed Alfred, as though doubting his own ears. But before
+he could remonstrate further, Zoie's arms were about his neck and she
+was pleading jealously for his attention.
+
+“Please, Alfred,” she begged, “I have scarcely had a look at you, yet.”
+
+Alfred shook his head and turned to baby with an indulgent smile. It was
+pleasant to have two such delightful creatures bidding for his entire
+attention.
+
+“Dear me,” he said to baby. “Dear me, tink of mudder wanting to look at
+a big u'gy t'ing like fadder, when she could look at a 'itty witty t'ing
+like dis,” and he rose and crossed to the crib where he deposited the
+small creature with yet more gurgling and endearing.
+
+Zoie's dreams of rapture at Alfred's home coming had not included such
+divided attention as he was now showing her and she was growing more and
+more desperate at the turn affairs had taken. She resolved to put a stop
+to his nonsense and to make him realise that she and no one else was the
+lode star of his existence. She beckoned to Aggie to get out of the
+room and to leave her a clear field and as soon as her friend had gone
+quietly into the next room, she called impatiently to Alfred who was
+still cooing rapturously over the young stranger. Finding Alfred deaf
+to her first entreaty, Zoie shut her lips hard, rearranged her pretty
+head-dress, drew one fascinating little curl down over her shoulder,
+reknotted the pink ribbon of her negligee, and then issued a final and
+imperious order for her husband to attend her.
+
+“Yes, yes, dear,” answered Alfred, with a shade of impatience. “I'm
+coming, I'm coming.” And bidding a reluctant farewell to the small
+person in the crib, he crossed to her side.
+
+Zoie caught Alfred's hand and drew him down to her; he smiled
+complacently.
+
+“Well,” he said in the patronising tone that Zoie always resented. “How
+is hubby's little girl?”
+
+“It's about time,” pouted Zoie, “that you made a little fuss over me for
+a change.”
+
+“My own!” murmured Alfred. He stooped to kiss the eager lips, but just
+as his young wife prepared to lend herself to his long delayed embrace,
+his mind was distracted by an uneasy thought. “Do you think that Baby
+is----”
+
+He was not permitted to finish the sentence.
+
+Zoie drew him back to her with a sharp exclamation.
+
+“Think of ME for a while,” she commanded.
+
+“My darling,” expostulated Alfred with a shade of surprise at her
+vehemence. “How could I think of anyone else?” Again he stooped to
+embrace her and again his mind was directed otherwise. “I wonder if Baby
+is warm enough,” he said and attempted to rise.
+
+“Wonder about ME for a while,” snapped Zoie, clinging to him
+determinedly.
+
+Again Alfred looked at her in amazement. Was it possible there was
+anything besides Baby worth wondering about? Whether there was or not,
+Zoie was no longer to be resisted and with a last regretful look at the
+crib, he resigned himself to giving his entire attention to his spoiled
+young wife.
+
+Gratified by her hard-won conquest, Zoie now settled herself in Alfred's
+arms.
+
+“You haven't told me what you did all the time that you were away,” she
+reminded him.
+
+“Oh, there was plenty to do,” answered Alfred.
+
+“Did you think of me every minute?” she asked jealously.
+
+“That would be telling,” laughed Alfred, as he pinched her small pink
+ear.
+
+“I wish to be 'told,'” declared Zoie; “I don't suppose you realise it,
+but if I were to live a THOUSAND YEARS, I'd never be quite sure what you
+did during those FEW MONTHS.”
+
+“It was nothing that you wouldn't have been proud of,” answered Alfred,
+with an unconscious expansion of his chest.
+
+“Do you love me as much as ever?” asked Zoie.
+
+“Behave yourself,” answered Alfred, trying not to appear flattered
+by the discovery that his absence had undoubtedly caused her great
+uneasiness.
+
+“Well, SAY it!” demanded Zoie.
+
+“You know I do,” answered Alfred, with the diffidence of a school boy.
+
+“Then kiss me,” concluded Zoie, with an air of finality that left Alfred
+no alternative.
+
+As a matter of fact, Alfred was no longer seeking an alternative. He was
+again under the spell of his wife's adorable charms and he kissed her
+not once, but many times.
+
+“Foolish child,” he murmured, then he laid her tenderly against the
+large white pillows, remonstrating with her for being so spoiled, and
+cautioning her to be a good little girl while he went again to see about
+Baby.
+
+Zoie clung to his hand and feigned approaching tears.
+
+“You aren't thinking of me at all?” she pouted. “And kisses are no
+good unless you put your whole mind on them. Give me a real kiss!” she
+pleaded.
+
+Again Alfred stooped to humour the small importunate person who was so
+jealous of his every thought, but just as his lips touched her forehead
+his ear was arrested by a sound as yet new both to him and to Zoie. He
+lifted his head and listened.
+
+“What was that?” he asked.
+
+“I don't know,” answered Zoie, wondering if the cat could have got into
+the room.
+
+A redoubled effort on the part of the young stranger directed their
+attention in the right direction.
+
+“My God!” exclaimed Alfred tragically, “it's Baby. He's crying.” And
+with that, he rushed to the crib and clasped the small mite close to his
+breast, leaving Zoie to pummel the pillows in an agony of vexation.
+
+After vain cajoling of the angry youngster, Alfred bore him excitedly to
+Zoie's bedside.
+
+“You'd better take him, dear,” he said.
+
+To the young husband's astonishment, Zoie waved him from her in terror,
+and called loudly for Aggie. But no sooner had Aggie appeared on the
+scene, than a sharp whistle was heard from the pavement below.
+
+“Pull down the shade!” cried Zoie frantically.
+
+Aggie hastened toward the window.
+
+Attributing Zoie's uneasiness to a caprice of modesty, Alfred turned
+from the cradle to reassure her.
+
+“No one can see in way up here,” he said.
+
+To Zoie's distress, the lowering of the shade was answered by a yet
+shriller whistle from the street below.
+
+“Was it 'up' or 'down'?” cried Zoie to Aggie in an agony of doubt, as
+she tried to recall her instructions to Jimmy.
+
+“I don't know,” answered Aggie. “I've forgotten.”
+
+Another impatient whistle did not improve their memory. Alarmed by
+Zoie's increasing excitement, and thinking she was troubled merely by
+a sick woman's fancy that someone might see through the window, Alfred
+placed the babe quickly in its cradle and crossed to the young wife's
+bed.
+
+“It was up, dear,” he said. “You had Aggie put it down.”
+
+“Then I want it up,” declared the seemingly perverse Zoie.
+
+“But it was up,” argued Alfred.
+
+A succession of emotional whistles set Zoie to pounding the pillows.
+
+“Put it down!” she commanded.
+
+“But Zoie----” protested Alfred.
+
+“Did I say 'up' or did I say 'down'?” moaned the half-demented Zoie,
+while long whistles and short whistles, appealing whistles and impatient
+whistles followed each other in quick succession.
+
+“You said down, dear,” persisted Alfred, now almost as distracted as his
+wife.
+
+Zoie waved him from the room. “I wish you'd get out of here,” she cried;
+“you make me so nervous that I can't think at all.”
+
+“Of course, dear,” murmured Alfred, “if you wish it.” And with a hurt
+and perplexed expression on his face he backed quickly from the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+When Zoie's letter asking for the O'Flarety twin had reached that young
+lady's astonished mother, Mrs. O'Flarety felt herself suddenly lifted to
+a position of importance.
+
+“Think of the purty Mrs. Hardy a wantin' my little Bridget,” she
+exclaimed, and she began to dwell upon the romantic possibilities of
+her offspring's future under the care of such a “foine stylish lady and
+concluded by declaring it 'a lucky day entoirely.'”
+
+Jimmy had his misgivings about it being Bridget's “LUCKY day,” but it
+was not for him to delay matters by dwelling upon the eccentricities
+of Zoie's character, and when Mrs. O'Flarety had deposited Bridget in
+Jimmy's short arms and slipped a well filled nursing bottle into his
+overcoat pocket, he took his leave hastily, lest the excited woman add
+Bridget's twin to her willing offering.
+
+Once out of sight of the elated mother, Jimmy thrust the defenceless
+Bridget within the folds of his already snug ulster, buttoned the
+garment in such places as it would meet, and made for the taxi which,
+owing to the upset condition of the street, he had been obliged to
+abandon at the corner.
+
+Whether the driver had obtained a more promising “fare” or been run
+in by the police, Jimmy never knew. At any rate it was in vain that he
+looked for his vehicle. So intense was the cold that it was impossible
+to wait for a chance taxi; furthermore, the meanness of the district
+made it extremely unlikely that one would appear, and glancing guiltily
+behind him to make sure that no one was taking cognisance of his strange
+exploit, Jimmy began picking his way along dark lanes and avoiding the
+lighted thoroughfare on which the “Sherwood” was situated, until he was
+within a block of his destination.
+
+Panting with haste and excitement, he eventually gained courage to
+dash through a side street that brought him within a few doors of the
+“Sherwood.” Again glancing behind him, he turned the well lighted corner
+and arrived beneath Zoie's window to find one shade up and one down. In
+his perplexity he emitted a faint whistle. Immediately he saw the other
+shade lowered. Uncertain as to what arrangement he had actually made
+with Zoie, he ventured a second whistle. The result was a hysterical
+running up and down of the shade which left him utterly bewildered as to
+what disposition he was supposed to make of the wobbly bit of humanity
+pressed against his shirt front.
+
+Reaching over his artificially curved figure to grasp a bit of white
+that trailed below his coat, he looked up to see a passing policeman
+eyeing him suspiciously.
+
+“Taking the air?” asked the policeman.
+
+“Ye-yes,” mumbled Jimmy with affected nonchalence and he knocked the
+heels of his boots together in order to keep his teeth from chattering.
+“It's a fi-fine ni-night for air,” he stuttered.
+
+“Is it?” said the policeman, and to Jimmy's horror, he saw the fellow's
+eyes fix themselves on the bit of white.
+
+“Go-good-night,” stammered Jimmy hurriedly, and trying to assume an
+easy stride in spite of the uncomfortable addition to his already rotund
+figure, he slipped into the hotel, where avoiding the lighted elevator,
+he laboured quickly, up the stairs.
+
+At the very moment when Zoie was driving Alfred in consternation from
+the room, Jimmy entered it uninvited.
+
+“Get out,” was the inhospitable greeting received simultaneously from
+Zoie and Aggie, and without waiting for further instructions he “got.”
+
+Fortunately for all concerned, Alfred, who was at the same moment
+departing by way of the bedroom door, did not look behind him; but it
+was some minutes before Aggie who had followed Jimmy into the hall could
+persuade him to return.
+
+After repeated and insistent signals both from Aggie and Zoie, Jimmy's
+round red face appeared cautiously around the frame of the door. It bore
+unmistakable indications of apoplexy. But the eyes of the women were not
+upon Jimmy's face, they too had caught sight of the bit of white that
+hung below his coat, and dragging him quickly into the room and closing
+the door, Aggie proceeded without inquiry or thanks to unbutton his coat
+and to take from beneath it the small object for which she and Zoie had
+been eagerly waiting.
+
+“Thank Heaven!” sighed Zoie, as she saw Aggie bearing the latest
+acquisition to Alfred's rapidly increasing family safely toward the
+crib.
+
+Suddenly remembering something in his right hand coat pocket, Jimmy
+called to Aggie, who turned to him and waited expectantly. After
+characteristic fumbling, he produced a well filled nursing bottle.
+
+“What's that?” asked Zoie.
+
+“For HER,” grunted Jimmy, and he nodded toward the bundle in Aggie's
+arms.
+
+“HER!” cried Zoie and Aggie in chorus. Zoie shut her lips hard and gazed
+at him with contempt.
+
+“I might have known you'd get the wrong kind,” she said.
+
+What Jimmy thought about the ingratitude of woman was not to be
+expressed in language. He controlled himself as well as he could and
+merely LOOKED the things that he would like to have said.
+
+“Well, it can't be helped now,” decided the philosophic Aggie; “here,
+Jimmy,” she said, “you hold 'HER' a minute and I'll get you the other
+one.”
+
+Placing the small creature in Jimmy's protesting arms, Aggie turned
+toward the cradle to make the proposed exchange when she was startled by
+the unexpected return of Alfred.
+
+Thanks to the ample folds of Jimmy's ulster, he was able to effectually
+conceal his charge and he started quickly toward the hall, but in making
+the necessary detour around the couch he failed to reach the door before
+Alfred, who had chosen a more direct way.
+
+“Hold on, Jimmy,” exclaimed Alfred good-naturedly, and he laid a
+detaining hand on his friend's shoulder. “Where are you going?”
+
+“I'll be back,” stammered Jimmy weakly, edging his way toward the door,
+and contriving to keep his back toward Alfred.
+
+“Wait a minute,” said Alfred jovially, as he let his hand slip onto
+Jimmy's arm, “you haven't told me the news yet.”
+
+“I'll tell you later,” mumbled Jimmy, still trying to escape. But
+Alfred's eye had fallen upon a bit of white flannel dangling below
+the bottom of Jimmy's ulster, it travelled upward to Jimmy's unusually
+rotund figure.
+
+“What have you got there?” he demanded to know, as he pointed toward the
+centre button of Jimmy's overcoat.
+
+“Here?” echoed Jimmy vapidly, glancing at the button in question, “why,
+that's just a little----” There was a faint wail from the depths of
+the ulster. Jimmy began to caper about with elephantine tread. “Oochie,
+coochie, oochie,” he called excitedly.
+
+“What's the matter with you?” asked Alfred. The wail became a shriek.
+“Good Heavens!” cried the anxious father, “it's my boy.” And with that
+he pounced upon Jimmy, threw wide his ulster and snatched from his arms
+Jimmy's latest contribution to Zoie's scheme of things.
+
+As Aggie had previously remarked, all young babies look very much alike,
+and to the inexperienced eye of this new and overwrought father, there
+was no difference between the infant that he now pressed to his breast,
+and the one that, unsuspected by him, lay peacefully dozing in the crib,
+not ten feet from him. He gazed at the face of the newcomer with the
+same ecstasy that he had felt in the possession of her predecessor. But
+Zoie and Aggie were looking at each other with something quite different
+from ecstasy.
+
+“My boy,” exclaimed Alfred, with deep emotion, as he clasped the tiny
+creature to his breast. Then he turned to Jimmy. “What were you doing
+with my baby?” he demanded hotly.
+
+“I--I was just taking him out for a little walk!” stammered Jimmy.
+
+“You just try,” threatened Alfred, and he towered over the intimidated
+Jimmy. “Are you crazy?”
+
+Jimmy was of the opinion that he must be crazy or he would never have
+found himself in such a predicament as this, but the anxious faces of
+Zoie and Aggie, denied him the luxury of declaring himself so. He sank
+mutely on the end of the couch and proceeded to sulk in silence.
+
+As for Aggie and Zoie, they continued to gaze open-mouthed at Alfred,
+who was waltzing about the room transported into a new heaven of delight
+at having snatched his heir from the danger of another night ramble with
+Jimmy.
+
+“Did a horrid old Jimmy spoil his 'itty nap'?” he gurgled to Baby. Then
+with a sudden exclamation of alarm, he turned toward the anxious women.
+“Aggie!” he cried, as he stared intently into Baby's face. “Look--his
+rash! It's turned IN!”
+
+Aggie pretended to glance over Alfred's shoulder.
+
+“Why so it has,” she agreed nervously.
+
+“What shall we do?” cried the distraught Alfred.
+
+“It's all right now,” counselled Aggie, “so long as it didn't turn in
+too suddenly.”
+
+“We'd better keep him warm, hadn't we?” suggested Alfred, remembering
+Aggie's previous instructions on a similar occasion. “I'll put him in
+his crib,” he decided, and thereupon he made a quick move toward the
+bassinette.
+
+Staggering back from the cradle with the unsteadiness of a drunken man
+Alfred called upon the Diety. “What is THAT?” he demanded as he pointed
+toward the unexpected object before him.
+
+Neither Zoie, Aggie, nor Jimmy could command words to assist Alfred's
+rapidly waning powers of comprehension, and it was not until he had
+swept each face for the third time with a look of inquiry that Zoie
+found breath to stammer nervously, “Why--why--why, that's the OTHER
+one.”
+
+“The other one?” echoed Alfred in a dazed manner; then he turned to
+Aggie for further explanation.
+
+“Yes,” affirmed Aggie, with an emphatic nod, “the other one.”
+
+An undescribable joy was dawning on Alfred's face.
+
+“You don't mean----” He stared from the infant in his arms to the one in
+the cradle, then back again at Aggie and Zoie. The women solemnly nodded
+their heads. Even Jimmy unblushingly acquiesced. Alfred turned toward
+Zoie for the final confirmation of his hopes.
+
+“Yes, dear,” assented Zoie sweetly, “that's Alfred.”
+
+What Jimmy and the women saw next appeared to be the dance of a whirling
+dervish; as a matter of fact, it was merely a man, mad with delight,
+clasping two infants in long clothes and circling the room with them.
+
+When Alfred could again enunciate distinctly, he rushed to Zoie's side
+with the babes in his arms.
+
+“My darling,” he exclaimed, “why didn't you tell me?”
+
+“I was ashamed,” whispered Zoie, hiding her head to shut out the sight
+of the red faces pressed close to hers.
+
+“My angel!” cried Alfred, struggling to control his complicated
+emotions; then gazing at the precious pair in his arms, he cast his eyes
+devoutly toward heaven, “Was ever a man so blessed?”
+
+Zoie peeped from the covers with affected shyness.
+
+“You love me just as much?” she queried.
+
+“I love you TWICE as much,” declared Alfred, and with that he sank
+exhausted on the foot of the bed, vainly trying to teeter one son on
+each knee.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+When Jimmy gained courage to turn his eyes in the direction of the
+family group he had helped to assemble, he was not reassured by the
+reproachful glances that he met from Aggie and Zoie. It was apparent
+that in their minds, he was again to blame for something. Realising that
+they dared not openly reproach him before Alfred, he decided to make his
+escape while his friend was still in the room. He reached for his hat
+and tiptoed gingerly toward the door, but just as he was congratulating
+himself upon his decision, Alfred called to him with a mysterious air.
+
+“Jimmy,” he said, “just a minute,” and he nodded for Jimmy to approach.
+
+It must have been Jimmy's guilty conscience that made him powerless
+to disobey Alfred's every command. Anyway, he slunk back to the fond
+parent's side, where he ultimately allowed himself to be inveigled into
+swinging his new watch before the unattentive eyes of the red-faced
+babes on Alfred's knees.
+
+“Lower, Jimmy, lower,” called Alfred as Jimmy absent-mindedly allowed
+the watch to swing out of the prescribed orbit. “Look at the darlings,
+Jimmy, look at them,” he exclaimed as he gazed at the small creatures
+admiringly.
+
+“Yes, look at them, Jimmy,” repeated Zoie, and she glared at Jimmy
+behind Alfred's back.
+
+“Don't you wish you had one of them, Jimmy?'” asked Alfred.
+
+“Well, _I_ wish he had,” commented Zoie, and she wondered how she was
+ever again to detach either of them from Alfred's breast.
+
+Before she could form any plan, the telephone rang loud and
+persistently. Jimmy glanced anxiously toward the women for instructions.
+
+“I'll answer it,” said Aggie with suspicious alacrity, and she crossed
+quickly toward the 'phone. The scattered bits of conversation that Zoie
+was able to gather from Aggie's end of the wire did not tend to soothe
+her over-excited nerves. As for Alfred, he was fortunately so engrossed
+with the babies that he took little notice of what Aggie was saying.
+
+“What woman?” asked Aggie into the 'phone. “Where's she from?” The
+answer was evidently not reassuring. “Certainly not,” exclaimed Aggie,
+“don't let her come up; send her away. Mrs. Hardy can't see anyone at
+all.” Then followed a bit of pantomime between Zoie and Aggie, from
+which it appeared that their troubles were multiplying, then Aggie again
+gave her attention to the 'phone. “I don't know anything about her,” she
+fibbed, “that woman must have the wrong address.” And with that she hung
+up the receiver and came towards Alfred, anxious to get possession of
+his two small charges and to get them from the room, lest the mother who
+was apparently downstairs should thrust herself into their midst.
+
+“What's the trouble, Aggie?” asked Alfred, and he nodded toward the
+telephone.
+
+“Oh, just some woman with the wrong address,” answered Aggie with
+affected carelessness. “You'd better let me take the babies now,
+Alfred.”
+
+“Take them where?” asked Alfred with surprise.
+
+“To bed,” answered Aggie sweetly, “they are going to sleep in the next
+room with Jimmy and me.” She laid a detaining hand on Jimmy's arm.
+
+“What's the hurry?” asked Alfred a bit disgruntled.
+
+“It's very late,” argued Aggie.
+
+“Of course it is,” insisted Zoie. “Please, Alfred,” she pleaded, “do let
+Aggie take them.”
+
+Alfred rose reluctantly. “Mother knows best,” he sighed, but ignoring
+Aggie's outstretched arms, he refused to relinquish the joy of himself
+carrying the small mites to their room, and he disappeared with the two
+of them, singing his now favourite lullaby.
+
+When Alfred had left the room, Jimmy, who was now seated comfortably in
+the rocker, was rudely startled by a sharp voice at either side of him.
+
+“Well!” shrieked Zoie, with all the disapproval that could be got into
+the one small word.
+
+“You're very clever, aren't you?” sneered Aggie at Jimmy's other elbow.
+
+Jimmy stared from one to the other.
+
+“A nice fix you've got me into NOW,” reproved Zoie.
+
+“Why didn't you get out when you had the chance?” demanded Aggie.
+
+“You would take your own sweet time, wouldn't you,” said Zoie.
+
+“What did I tell you?” asked Aggie.
+
+“What does he care?” exclaimed Zoie, and she walked up and down the room
+excitedly, oblivious of the disarrangement of her flying negligee. “He's
+perfectly comfortable.”
+
+“Oh yes,” assented Jimmy, as he sank back into the rocker and
+began propelling himself to and fro. “I never felt better,” but a
+disinterested observer would have seen in him the picture of discomfort.
+
+“You're going to feel a great deal WORSE,” he was warned by Aggie. “Do
+you know who that was on the telephone?” she asked.
+
+Jimmy looked at her mutely.
+
+“The mother!” said Aggie emphatically
+
+“What!” exclaimed Jimmy.
+
+“She's down stairs,” explained Aggie.
+
+Jimmy had stopped rocking--his face now wore an uneasy expression.
+
+“It's time you showed a little human intelligence,” taunted Zoie, then
+she turned her back upon him and continued to Aggie, “what did she say?”
+
+“She says,” answered Aggie, with a threatening glance toward Jimmy,
+“that she won't leave this place until Jimmy gives her baby back.”
+
+“Let her have her old baby,” said Jimmy. “I don't want it.”
+
+“You don't want it?” snapped Zoie indignantly, “what have YOU got to do
+with it?”
+
+“Oh nothing, nothing,” acquiesced Jimmy meekly, “I'm a mere detail.”
+
+“A lot you care what becomes of me,” exclaimed Zoie reproachfully; then
+she turned to Aggie with a decided nod. “Well, I want it,” she asserted.
+
+“But Zoie,” protested Aggie in astonishment, “you can't mean to keep
+BOTH of them?”
+
+“I certainly DO,” said Zoie.
+
+“What?” cried Aggie and Jimmy in concert.
+
+“Jimmy has presented Alfred with twins,” continued Zoie testily, “and
+now, he has to HAVE twins.”
+
+Jimmy's eyes were growing rounder and rounder.
+
+“Do you know,” continued Zoie, with a growing sense of indignation,
+“what would happen to me if I told Alfred NOW that he WASN'T the father
+of twins? He'd fly straight out of that door and I'd never see him
+again.”
+
+Aggie admitted that Zoie was no doubt speaking the truth.
+
+“Jimmy has awakened Alfred's paternal instinct for twins,” declared
+Zoie, with another emphatic nod of her head, “and now Jimmy must take
+the consequences.”
+
+Jimmy tried to frame a few faint objections, but Zoie waved him aside,
+with a positive air. “It's no use arguing. If it were only ONE, it
+wouldn't be so bad, but to tell Alfred that he's lost twins, he couldn't
+live through it.”
+
+“But Zoie,” argued Aggie, “we can't have that mother hanging around down
+stairs until that baby is an old man. She'll have us arrested, the next
+thing.”
+
+“Why arrest US?” asked Zoie, with wide baby eyes. “WE didn't take it.
+Old slow-poke took it.” And she nodded toward the now utterly vanquished
+Jimmy.
+
+“That's right,” murmured Jimmy, with a weak attempt at sarcasm, “don't
+leave me out of anything good.”
+
+“It doesn't matter WHICH one she arrests,” decided the practical Aggie.
+
+“Well, it matters to me,” objected Zoie.
+
+“And to me too, if it's all the same to you,” protested Jimmy.
+
+“Whoever it is,” continued Aggie, “the truth is bound to come out.
+Alfred will have to know sooner or later, so we might as well make a
+clean breast of it, first as last.”
+
+“That's the first sensible thing you've said in three months,” declared
+Jimmy with reviving hope.
+
+“Oh, is that so?” sneered Zoie, and she levelled her most malicious look
+at Jimmy. “What do you think Alfred would do to YOU, Mr. Jimmy, if he
+knew the truth? YOU'RE the one who sent him the telegram; you are the
+one who told him that he was a FATHER.”
+
+“That's true,” admitted Aggie, with a wrinkled forehead.
+
+Zoie was quick to see her advantage. She followed it up. “And Alfred
+hasn't any sense of humour, you know.”
+
+“How could he have?” groaned Jimmy; “he's married.” And with that he
+sank into his habitual state of dumps.
+
+“Your sarcasm will do a great deal of good,” flashed Zoie. Then she
+dismissed him with a nod, and crossed to her dressing table.
+
+“But Zoie,” persisted Aggie, as she followed her young friend in
+trepidation, “don't you realise that if you persist in keeping this
+baby, that mother will dog Jimmy's footsteps for the rest of his life?”
+
+“That will be nice,” murmured Jimmy.
+
+Zoie busied herself with her toilet, and turned a deaf ear to Aggie.
+There was a touch of genuine emotion in Aggie's voice when she
+continued.
+
+“Just think of it, Zoie, Jimmy will never be able to come and go like a
+free man again.”
+
+“What do I care how he comes and goes?” exclaimed Zoie impatiently. “If
+Jimmy had gone when we told him to go, that woman would have had her old
+baby by now; but he didn't, oh no! All he ever does is to sit around and
+talk about his dinner.”
+
+“Yes,” cried Jimmy hotly, “and that's about as far as I ever GET with
+it.”
+
+“You'll never get anywhere with anything,” was Zoie's exasperating
+answer. “You're too slow.”
+
+“Well, there's nothing slow about you,” retorted Jimmy, stung to a
+frenzy by her insolence.
+
+“Oh please, please,” interposed Aggie, desperately determined to keep
+these two irascible persons to the main issue. “What are we going to
+tell that mother?”
+
+“You can tell her whatever you like,” answered Zoie, with an impudent
+toss of her head, “but I'll NOT give up that baby until I get ANOTHER
+one.'
+
+“Another?” almost shrieked Jimmy. It was apparent that he must needs
+increase the number of his brain cells if he were to follow this
+extraordinary young woman's line of thought much further. “You don't
+expect to go on multiplying them forever, do you?” he asked.
+
+“YOU are the one who has been multiplying them,” was Zoie's
+disconcerting reply.
+
+It was evident to Jimmy that he could not think fast enough nor clearly
+enough to save himself from a mental disaster if he continued to argue
+with the shameless young woman, so he contented himself by rocking to
+and fro and murmuring dismally that he had “known from the first that it
+was to be an endless chain.”
+
+While Zoie and Jimmy had been wrangling, Aggie had been weighing the
+pros and cons of the case. She now turned to Jimmy with a tone of firm
+but motherly decision. “Zoie is quite right,” she said.
+
+Jimmy rolled his large eyes up at his spouse with a “you too, Brutus,”
+ expression.
+
+Aggie continued mercilessly, “It's the only way, Jimmy.”
+
+No sooner had Aggie arrived at her decision than Zoie upset her
+tranquillity by a triumphant expression of “I have it.”
+
+Jimmy and Aggie gazed at Zoie's radiant face in consternation. They were
+accustomed to see only reproach there. Her sudden enthusiasm increased
+Jimmy's uneasiness.
+
+“YOU have it,” he grunted without attempting to conceal his disgust.
+“SHE'S the one who generally has it.” And he nodded toward Aggie.
+
+Inflamed by her young friend's enthusiasm, Aggie rushed to her eagerly.
+
+“What is it, Zoie?” she asked.
+
+“The washerwoman!” exclaimed Zoie, as though the revelation had come
+straight from heaven. “SHE HAD TWINS,” and with that, two pairs of eyes
+turned expectantly toward the only man in the room.
+
+Tracing the pattern of the rug with his toe, Jimmy remained stubbornly
+oblivious of their attentions. He rearranged the pillows on the couch,
+and finally, for want of a better occupation, he wound his watch. All to
+no avail. He could feel Zoie's cat-like gaze upon him.
+
+“Jimmy can get the other one,” she said.
+
+“The hell I can,” exclaimed Jimmy, starting to his feet and no longer
+considering time or place.
+
+The two women gazed at him reproachfully.
+
+“Jimmy!” cried Aggie, in a shocked, hurt voice. “That's the first time
+I've ever heard you swear.”
+
+“Well, it won't be the LAST time,” declared Jimmy hotly, “if THIS keeps
+up.” His eyes were blazing. He paced to and fro like an infuriated lion.
+
+“Dearest,” said Aggie, “you look almost imposing.”
+
+“Nonsense,” interrupted Zoie, who found Jimmy unusually ridiculous. “If
+I'd known that Jimmy was going to put such an idea into Alfred's head,
+I'd have got the two in the first place.”
+
+“Will she let us HAVE the other?” asked Aggie with some misgiving.
+
+“Of course she will,” answered Zoie, leaving Jimmy entirely out of
+the conversation. “She's as poor as a church mouse. I'll pay her well.
+She'll never miss it. What could she do with one twin, anyway?”
+
+A snort of rage from Jimmy did not disturb Zoie's enthusiasm. She
+proceeded to elaborate her plan.
+
+“I'll adopt them,” she declared, “I'll leave them all Alfred's money.
+Think of Alfred having real live twins for keeps.”
+
+“It would be nice, wouldn't it?” commented Jimmy sarcastically.
+
+Zoie turned to Jimmy, as though they were on the best of terms.
+
+“How much money have you?” she asked.
+
+Before Jimmy could declare himself penniless, Aggie answered for him
+with the greatest enthusiasm, “He has a whole lot; he drew some today.”
+
+“Good!” exclaimed Zoie to the abashed Jimmy, and then she continued in a
+matter-of-fact tone, “Now, Jimmy,” she said, “you go give the washwoman
+what money you have on account, then tell her to come around here in the
+morning when Alfred has gone out and I'll settle all the details with
+her. Go on now, Jimmy,” she continued, “you don't need another letter.”
+
+“No,” chimed in Aggie sweetly; “you know her now, dear.”
+
+“Oh, yes,” corroborated Jimmy, with a sarcastic smile and without
+budging from the spot on which he stood, “we are great pals now.”
+
+“What's the matter?” asked Zoie, astonished that Jimmy was not starting
+on his mission with alacrity. “What are you waiting for?”
+
+Jimmy merely continued to smile enigmatically.
+
+“You know what happened the last time you hesitated,” warned Aggie.
+
+“I know what happened when I DIDN'T hesitate,” ruminated Jimmy, still
+holding his ground.
+
+Zoie's eyes were wide with surprise. “You don't mean to say,” she
+exclaimed incredulously, “that you aren't GOING--after we have thought
+all this out just to SAVE you?”
+
+“Say,” answered Jimmy, with a confidential air, “do me a favour, will
+you? Stop thinking out things to 'save me.'”
+
+“But, Jimmy----” protested both women simultaneously; but before they
+could get further Alfred's distressed voice reached them from the next
+room.
+
+“Aggie!” he called frantically.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+What seemed to be a streak of pink through the room was in reality Zoie
+bolting for the bed.
+
+While Zoie hastened to snuggle comfortably under the covers, Aggie tried
+without avail to get Jimmy started on his errand.
+
+Getting no response from Aggie, Alfred, bearing one infant in his arms,
+came in search of her. Apparently he was having difficulty with the
+unfastening of baby's collar.
+
+“Aggie,” he called sharply, “how on earth do you get this fool pin out?”
+
+“Take him back, Alfred,” answered Aggie impatiently; “I'll be there in a
+minute.”
+
+But Alfred had apparently made up his mind that he was not a success as
+a nurse.
+
+“You'd better take him now, Aggie,” he decided, as he offered the small
+person to the reluctant Aggie. “I'll stay here and talk to Jimmy.”
+
+“Oh, but Jimmy was just going out,” answered Aggie; then she turned to
+her obdurate spouse with mock sweetness, “Weren't you, dear?” she asked.
+
+“Yes,” affirmed Zoie, with a threatening glance toward Jimmy. “He was
+going, just now.”
+
+Still Jimmy remained rooted to the spot.
+
+“Out?” questioned Alfred. “What for?”
+
+“Just for a little air,” explained Aggie blandly.
+
+“Yes,” growled Jimmy, “another little heir.”
+
+“Air?” repeated Alfred in surprise. “He had air a while ago with my
+son. He is going to stay here and tell me the news. Sit down, Jimmy,”
+ he commanded, and to the intense annoyance of Aggie and Zoie, Jimmy sank
+resignedly on the couch.
+
+Alfred was about to seat himself beside his friend, when the 'phone rang
+violently. Being nearest to the instrument, Alfred reached it first and
+Zoie and Aggie awaited the consequences in dread. What they heard did
+not reassure them nor Jimmy.
+
+“Still down there?” exclaimed Alfred into the 'phone.
+
+Jimmy began to wriggle with a vague uneasiness.
+
+“Well,” continued Alfred at the 'phone, “that woman has the wrong
+number.” Then with a peremptory “Wait a minute,” he turned to Zoie, “The
+hall boy says that woman who called a while ago is still down stairs and
+she won't go away until she has seen you, Zoie. She has some kind of an
+idiotic idea that you know where her baby is.”
+
+“How absurd,” sneered Zoie.
+
+“How silly,” added Aggie.
+
+“How foolish,” grunted Jimmy.
+
+“Well,” decided Alfred, “I'd better go down stairs and see what's
+the matter with her,” and he turned toward the door to carry out his
+intention.
+
+“Alfred!” called Zoie sharply. She was half out of bed in her anxiety.
+“You'll do no such thing. 'Phone down to the boy to send her away. She's
+crazy.”
+
+“Oh,” said Alfred, “then she's been here before? Who is she?”
+
+“Who is she?” answered Zoie, trying to gain time for a new inspiration.
+“Why, she's--she's----” her face lit up with satisfaction--the idea had
+arrived. “She's the nurse,” she concluded emphatically.
+
+“The nurse?” repeated Alfred, a bit confused.
+
+“Yes,” answered Zoie, pretending to be annoyed with his dull memory.
+“She's the one I told you about, the one I had to discharge.”
+
+“Oh,” said Alfred, with the relief of sudden comprehension; “the crazy
+one?”
+
+Aggie and Zoie nodded their heads and smiled at him tolerantly, then
+Zoie continued to elaborate. “You see,” she said, “the poor creature was
+so insane about little Jimmy that I couldn't go near the child.”
+
+“What!” exclaimed Alfred in a mighty rage. “I'll soon tell the boy what
+to do with her,” he declared, and he rushed to the 'phone. Barely had
+Alfred taken the receiver from the hook when the outer door was heard
+to bang. Before he could speak a distracted young woman, whose excitable
+manner bespoke her foreign origin, swept through the door without seeing
+him and hurled herself at the unsuspecting Zoie. The woman's black hair
+was dishevelled, and her large shawl had fallen from her shoulders. To
+Jimmy, who was crouching behind an armchair, she seemed a giantess.
+
+“My baby!” cried the frenzied mother, with what was unmistakably an
+Italian accent. “Where is he?” There was no answer; her eyes sought
+the cradle. “Ah!” she shrieked, then upon finding the cradle empty, she
+redoubled her lamentations and again she bore down upon the terrified
+Zoie.
+
+“You,” she cried, “you know where my baby is!”
+
+For answer, Zoie sank back amongst her pillows and drew the bed covers
+completely over her head. Alfred approached the bed to protect his young
+wife; the Italian woman wheeled about and perceived a small child in his
+arms. She threw herself upon him.
+
+“I knew it,” she cried; “I knew it!”
+
+Managing to disengage himself from what he considered a mad woman, and
+elevating one elbow between her and the child, Alfred prevented the
+mother from snatching the small creature from his arms.
+
+“Calm yourself, madam,” he commanded with a superior air. “We are very
+sorry for you, of course, but we can't have you coming here and going on
+like this. He's OUR baby and----”
+
+“He's NOT your baby!” cried the infuriated mother; “he's MY baby.
+Give him to me. Give him to me,” and with that she sprang upon the
+uncomfortable Alfred like a tigress. Throwing her whole weight on his
+uplifted elbow, she managed to pull down his arm until she could look
+into the face of the washerwoman's promising young offspring. The air
+was rent by a scream that made each individual hair of Jimmy's head
+stand up in its own defence. He could feel a sickly sensation at the top
+of his short thick neck.
+
+“He's NOT my baby,” wailed the now demented mother, little dreaming that
+the infant for which she was searching was now reposing comfortably on a
+soft pillow in the adjoining room.
+
+As for Alfred, all of this was merely confirmation of Zoie's statement
+that this poor soul was crazy, and he was tempted to dismiss her with
+worthy forbearance.
+
+“I am glad, madam,” he said, “that you are coming to your senses.”
+
+Now, all would have gone well and the bewildered mother would no doubt
+have left the room convinced of her mistake, had not Jimmy's nerves got
+the better of his judgment. Having slipped cautiously from his position
+behind the armchair he was tiptoeing toward the door, and was flattering
+himself on his escape, when suddenly, as his forward foot cautiously
+touched the threshold, he heard the cry of the captor in his wake, and
+before he could possibly command the action of his other foot, he felt
+himself being forcibly drawn backward by what appeared to be his too
+tenacious coat-tails.
+
+“If only they would tear,” thought Jimmy, but thanks to the excellence
+of the tailor that Aggie had selected for him, they did NOT “tear.”
+
+Not until she had anchored Jimmy safely to the centre of the rug did the
+irate mother pour out the full venom of her resentment toward him. From
+the mixture of English and Italian that followed, it was apparent that
+she was accusing Jimmy of having stolen her baby.
+
+“Take me to him,” she demanded tragically; “my baby--take me to him!”
+
+Jimmy appealed to Aggie and Zoie. Their faces were as blank as his own.
+He glanced at Alfred.
+
+“Humour her,” whispered Alfred, much elated by the evidence of his
+own self-control as compared to Jimmy's utter demoralisation under the
+apparently same circumstances.
+
+Still Jimmy did not budge.
+
+Alfred was becoming vexed; he pointed first to his own forehead, then
+to that of Jimmy's hysterical captor. He even illustrated his meaning
+by making a rotary motion with his forefinger, intended to remind Jimmy
+that the woman was a lunatic.
+
+Still Jimmy only stared at him and all the while the woman was becoming
+more and more emphatic in her declaration that Jimmy knew where her baby
+was.
+
+“Sure, Jimmy,” said Alfred, out of all patience with Jimmy's stupidity
+and tiring of the strain of the woman's presence. “You know where her
+baby is.”
+
+“Ah!” cried the mother, and she towered over Jimmy with a wild light in
+her eyes. “Take me to him,” she demanded; “take me to him.”
+
+Jimmy rolled his large eyes first toward Aggie, then toward Zoie and at
+last toward Alfred. There was no mercy to be found anywhere.
+
+“Take her to him, Jimmy,” commanded a concert of voices; and pursued by
+a bundle of waving colours and a medley of discordant sounds, Jimmy shot
+from the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The departure of Jimmy and the crazed mother was the occasion for a
+general relaxing among the remaining occupants of the room. Exhausted
+by what had passed Zoie had ceased to interest herself in the future. It
+was enough for the present that she could sink back upon her pillows and
+draw a long breath without an evil face bending over her, and without
+the air being rent by screams.
+
+As for Aggie, she fell back upon the window seat and closed her eyes.
+The horrors into which Jimmy might be rushing had not yet presented
+themselves to her imagination.
+
+Of the three, Alfred was the only one who had apparently received
+exhilaration from the encounter. He was strutting about the room with
+the babe in his arms, undoubtedly enjoying the sensations of a hero.
+When he could sufficiently control his feeling of elation, he looked
+down at the small person with an air of condescension and again lent
+himself to the garbled sort of language with which defenceless infants
+are inevitably persecuted.
+
+“Tink of dat horrid old woman wanting to steal our own little oppsie,
+woppsie, toppsie babykins,” he said. Then he turned to Zoie with an
+air of great decision. “That woman ought to be locked up,” he declared,
+“she's dangerous,” and with that he crossed to Aggie and hurriedly
+placed the infant in her unsuspecting arms. “Here, Aggie,” he said, “you
+take Alfred and get him into bed.”
+
+Glad of an excuse to escape to the next room and recover her self
+control, Aggie quickly disappeared with the child.
+
+For some moments Alfred continued to pace up and down the room; then he
+came to a full stop before Zoie.
+
+“I'll have to have something done to that woman,” he declared
+emphatically.
+
+“Jimmy will do enough to her,” sighed Zoie, weakly.
+
+“She's no business to be at large,” continued Alfred; then, with a
+business-like air, he started toward the telephone.
+
+“Where are you going?” asked Zoie.
+
+Alfred did not answer. He was now calling into the 'phone, “Give me
+information.”
+
+“What on earth are you doing?” demanded Zoie, more and more disturbed by
+his mysterious manner.
+
+“One can't be too careful,” retorted Alfred in his most paternal
+fashion; “there's an awful lot of kidnapping going on these days.”
+
+“Well, you don't suspect information, do you?” asked Zoie.
+
+Again Alfred ignored her; he was intent upon things of more importance.
+
+“Hello,” he called into the 'phone, “is this information?” Apparently it
+was for he continued, with a satisfied air, “Well, give me the Fullerton
+Street Police Station.”
+
+“The Police?” cried Zoie, sitting up in bed and looking about the room
+with a new sense of alarm.
+
+Alfred did not answer.
+
+“Aggie!” shrieked the over-wrought young wife.
+
+Alfred attempted to reassure her. “Now, now, dear, don't get nervous,”
+ he said, “I am only taking the necessary precautions.” And again he
+turned to the 'phone.
+
+Alarmed by Zoie's summons, Aggie entered the room hastily. She was not
+reassured upon hearing Alfred's further conversation at the 'phone.
+
+“Is this the Fullerton Street Police Station?” asked Alfred.
+
+“The Police!” echoed Aggie, and her eyes sought Zoie's inquiringly.
+
+“Sh! Sh!” called Alfred over his shoulder to the excited Aggie, then
+he continued into the 'phone. “Is Donneghey there?” There was a pause.
+Alfred laughed jovially. “It is? Well, hello, Donneghey, this is your
+old friend Hardy, Alfred Hardy at the Sherwood. I've just got back,”
+ then he broke the happy news to the no doubt appreciative Donneghey.
+“What do you think?” he said, “I'm a happy father.”
+
+Zoie puckered her small face in disgust.
+
+Alfred continued to elucidate joyfully at the 'phone.
+
+“Doubles,” he said, “yes--sure--on the level.”
+
+“I don't know why you have to tell the whole neighbourhood,” snapped
+Zoie. Her colour was visibly rising.
+
+But Alfred was now in the full glow of his genial account to his friend.
+“Set 'em up?” he repeated in answer to an evident suggestion from the
+other end of the line, “I should say I would. The drinks are on me. Tell
+the boys I'll be right over. And say, Donneghey,” he added, in a more
+confidential tone, “I want to bring one of the men home with me. I
+want him to keep an eye on the house to-night”; then after a pause, he
+concluded confidentially, “I'll tell you all about it when I get there.
+It looks like a kidnapping scheme to me,” and with that he hung up the
+receiver, unmistakably pleased with himself, and turned his beaming face
+toward Zoie.
+
+“It's all right, dear,” he said, rubbing his hands together with evident
+satisfaction, “Donneghey is going to let us have a Special Officer to
+watch the house to-night.”
+
+“I won't HAVE a special officer,” declared Zoie vehemently; then
+becoming aware of Alfred's great surprise, she explained half-tearfully,
+“I'm not going to have the police hanging around our very door. I would
+feel as though I were in prison.”
+
+“You ARE in prison, my dear,” returned the now irrepressible Alfred. “A
+prison of love--you and our precious boys.” He stooped and implanted a
+gracious kiss on her forehead, then turned toward the table for his hat.
+“Now,” he said, “I'll just run around the corner, set up the drinks for
+the boys, and bring the officer home with me,” and drawing himself up
+proudly, he cried gaily in parting, “I'll bet there's not another man in
+Chicago who has what I have to-night.”
+
+“I hope not,” groaned Zoie. as the door closed behind him. Then,
+thrusting her two small feet from beneath the coverlet and perching on
+the side of the bed, she declared to Aggie that “Alfred was getting more
+idiotic every minute.”
+
+“He's worse than idiotic,” corrected Aggie. “He's getting dangerous. If
+he gets the police around here before we give that baby back, they'll
+get the mother. She'll tell all she knows and that will be the end of
+Jimmy!”
+
+“End of Jimmy?” exclaimed Zoie, “it'll be the end of ALL of us.”
+
+“I can see our pictures in the papers, right now,” groaned Aggie. “Jimmy
+will be the villain.”
+
+“Jimmy IS a villain,” declared Zoie. “Where is he? Why doesn't he come
+back? How am I ever going to get that other twin?”
+
+“There is only one thing to do,” decided Aggie, “I must go for it
+myself.” And she snatched up her cape from the couch and started toward
+the door.
+
+“You?” cried Zoie, in alarm, “and leave me alone?”
+
+“It's our only chance,” argued Aggie. “I'll have to do it now, before
+Alfred gets back.”
+
+“But Aggie,” protested Zoie, clinging to her departing friend, “suppose
+that crazy mother should come back?”
+
+“Nonsense,” replied Aggie, and before Zoie could actually realise what
+was happening the bang of the outside door told her that she was alone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Wondering what new terrors awaited her, Zoie glanced uncertainly from
+door to door. So strong had become her habit of taking refuge in the
+bed, that unconsciously she backed toward it now. Barely had she reached
+the centre of the room when a terrific crash of breaking glass from the
+adjoining room sent her shrieking in terror over the footboard, and head
+first under the covers. Here she would doubtless have remained until
+suffocated, had not Jimmy in his backward flight from one of the
+inner rooms overturned a large rocker. This additional shock to Zoie's
+overstrung nerves forced a wild scream from her lips, and an answering
+exclamation from the nerve-racked Jimmy made her sit bolt upright. She
+gazed at him in astonishment. His tie was awry, one end of his collar
+had taken leave of its anchorage beneath his stout chin, and was now
+just tickling the edge of his red, perspiring brow. His hair was on end
+and his feelings were undeniably ruffled. As usual Zoie's greeting did
+not tend to conciliate him.
+
+“How did YOU get here?” she asked with an air of reproach.
+
+“The fire-escape,” panted Jimmy and he nodded mysteriously toward the
+inner rooms of the apartment.
+
+“Fire-escape?” echoed Zoie. There was only one and that led through the
+bathroom window.
+
+Jimmy explained no further. He was now peeping cautiously out of the
+window toward the pavement below.
+
+“Where's the mother?” demanded Zoie.
+
+Jimmy jerked his thumb in the direction of the street. Zoie gazed at him
+with grave apprehension.
+
+“Jimmy!” she exclaimed. “You haven't killed her?”
+
+Jimmy shook his head and continued to peer cautiously out of the window.
+
+“What did you do with her?” called the now exasperated Zoie.
+
+“What did _I_ do with her?” repeated Jimmy, a flash of his old
+resentment returning. “What did SHE do with ME?”
+
+For the first time, Zoie became fully conscious of Jimmy's ludicrous
+appearance. Her overstrained nerves gave way and she began to laugh
+hysterically.
+
+“Say,” shouted Jimmy, towering over the bed and devoutly wishing that
+she were his wife so that he might strike her with impunity. “Don't you
+sic any more lunatics onto me.”
+
+It is doubtful whether Zoie's continued laughter might not have provoked
+Jimmy to desperate measures, had not the 'phone at that moment directed
+their thoughts toward worse possibilities. After the instrument had
+continued to ring persistently for what seemed to Zoie an age, she
+motioned to Jimmy to answer it. He responded by retreating to the other
+side of the room.
+
+“It may be Aggie,” suggested Zoie.
+
+For the first time, Jimmy became aware that Aggie was nowhere in the
+apartment.
+
+“Good Lord!” he exclaimed, as he realised that he was again tete-a-tete
+with the terror of his dreams. “Where IS Aggie?”
+
+“Gone to do what YOU should have done,” was Zoie's characteristic
+answer.
+
+“Well,” answered Jimmy hotly, “it's about time that somebody besides me
+did something around this place.”
+
+“YOU,” mocked Zoie, “all YOU'VE ever done was to hoodoo me from the very
+beginning.”
+
+“If you'd taken my advice,” answered Jimmy, “and told your husband the
+truth about the luncheon, there'd never have been any 'beginning.'”
+
+“If, if, if,” cried Zoie, in an agony of impatience, “if you'd tipped
+that horrid old waiter enough, he'd never have told anyway.”
+
+“I'm not buying waiters to cover up your crimes,” announced Jimmy with
+his most self-righteous air.
+
+“You'll be buying more than that to cover up your OWN crimes before
+you've finished,” retorted Zoie.
+
+“Before I've finished with YOU, yes,” agreed Jimmy. He wheeled upon her
+with increasing resentment. “Do you know where I expect to end up?” he
+asked.
+
+“I know where you OUGHT to end up,” snapped Zoie.
+
+“I'll finish in the electric chair,” said Jimmy. “I can feel blue
+lightning chasing up and down my spine right now.”
+
+“Well, I wish you HAD finished in the electric chair,” declared Zoie,
+“before you ever dragged me into that awful old restaurant.”
+
+“Oh, you do, do you?” answered Jimmy shaking his fist at her across the
+foot of the bed. For the want of adequate words to express his further
+feelings, Jimmy was beginning to jibber, when the outer door was
+heard to close, and he turned to behold Aggie entering hurriedly with
+something partly concealed by her long cape.
+
+“It's all right,” explained Aggie triumphantly to Zoie. “I've got it.”
+ She threw her cape aside and disclosed the fruits of her conquest.
+
+“So,” snorted Jimmy in disgust, slightly miffed by the apparent ease
+with which Aggie had accomplished a task about which he had made so much
+ado, “you've gone into the business too, have you?”
+
+Aggie deigned no reply to him. She continued in a businesslike tone to
+Zoie.
+
+“Where's Alfred?” she asked.
+
+“Still out,” answered Zoie.
+
+“Thank Heaven,” sighed Aggie, then she turned to Jimmy and addressed him
+in rapid, decided tones. “Now, dear,” she said, “I'll just put the new
+baby to bed, then I'll give you the other one and you can take it right
+down to the mother.”
+
+Jimmy made a vain start in the direction of the fire-escape. Four
+detaining hands were laid upon him.
+
+“Don't try anything like that,” warned Aggie; “you can't get out of this
+house without that baby. The mother is down stairs now. She's guarding
+the door. I saw her.” And Aggie sailed triumphantly out of the room to
+make the proposed exchange of babies.
+
+Before Jimmy was able to suggest to himself an escape from Aggie's last
+plan of action, the telephone again began to cry for attention.
+
+Neither Jimmy nor Zoie could summon courage to approach the impatient
+instrument, and as usual Zoie cried frantically for Aggie.
+
+Aggie was not long in returning to the room and this time she bore in
+her arms the infant so strenuously demanded by its mad mother.
+
+“Here you are, Jimmy,” she said; “here's the other one. Now take him
+down stairs quickly before Alfred gets back.” She attempted to place the
+unresisting babe in Jimmy's chubby arms, but Jimmy's freedom was not to
+be so easily disposed of.
+
+“What!” he exclaimed, backing away from the small creature in fear and
+abhorrence, “take that bundle of rags down to the hotel office and have
+that woman hystericing all over me. No, thanks.”
+
+“Oh well,” answered Aggie, distracted by the persistent ringing of the
+'phone, “then hold him a minute until I answer the 'phone.”
+
+This at least was a compromise, and reluctantly Jimmy allowed the now
+wailing infant to be placed in his arms.
+
+“Jig it, Jimmy, jig it,” cried Zoie. Jimmy looked down helplessly at
+the baby's angry red face, but before he had made much headway with the
+“jigging,” Aggie returned to them, much excited by the message which she
+had just received over the telephone.
+
+“That mother is making a scene down stairs in the office,” she said.
+
+“You hear,” chided Zoie, in a fury at Jimmy, “what did Aggie tell you?”
+
+“If she wants this thing,” maintained Jimmy, looking down at the bundle
+in his arms, “she can come after it.”
+
+“We can't have her up here,” objected Aggie.
+
+“Alfred may be back at any minute. He'd catch her. You know what
+happened the last time we tried to change them.”
+
+“You can send it down the chimney, for all I care,” concluded Jimmy.
+
+“I have it!” exclaimed Aggie, her face suddenly illumined.
+
+“Oh Lord,” groaned Jimmy, who had come to regard any elation on Zoie's
+or Aggie's part as a sure forewarner of ultimate discomfort for him.
+
+Again Aggie had recourse to the 'phone.
+
+“Hello,” she called to the office boy, “tell that woman to go around to
+the back door, and we'll send something down to her.” There was a slight
+pause, then Aggie added sweetly, “Yes, tell her to wait at the foot of
+the fire-escape.”
+
+Zoie had already caught the drift of Aggie's intention and she now fixed
+her glittering eyes upon Jimmy, who was already shifting about uneasily
+and glancing at Aggie, who approached him with a business-like air.
+
+“Now, dear,” said Aggie, “come with me. I'll hand Baby out through the
+bathroom window and you can run right down the fire-escape with him.”
+
+“If I do run down the fire-escape,” exclaimed Jimmy, wagging his large
+head from side to side, “I'll keep right on RUNNING. That's the last
+you'll ever see of me.”
+
+“But, Jimmy,” protested Aggie, slightly hurt by his threat, “once that
+woman gets her baby you'll have no more trouble.”
+
+“With you two still alive?” asked Jimmy, looking from one to the other.
+
+“She'll be up here if you don't hurry,” urged Aggie impatiently, and
+with that she pulled Jimmy toward the bedroom door.
+
+“Let her come,” said Jimmy, planting his feet so as to resist Aggie's
+repeated tugs, “I'm going to South America.”
+
+“Why will you act like this,” cried Aggie, in utter desperation, “when
+we have so little time?”
+
+“Say,” said Jimmy irrelevantly, “do you know that I haven't had any----”
+
+“Yes,” interrupted Aggie and Zoie in chorus, “we know.”
+
+“How long,” continued Zoie impatiently, “is it going to take you to slip
+down that fire-escape?”
+
+“That depends on how fast I 'slip,'” answered Jimmy doggedly.
+
+“You'll 'slip' all right,” sneered Zoie.
+
+Further exchange of pleasantries between these two antagonists was cut
+short by the banging of the outside door.
+
+“Good Heavens!” exclaimed Aggie, glancing nervously over her shoulder,
+“there's Alfred now. Hurry, Jimmy, hurry,” she cried, and with that she
+fairly forced Jimmy out through the bedroom door, and followed in his
+wake to see him safely down the fire-escape.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Zoie had barely time to arrange herself after the manner of an
+interesting invalid, when Alfred entered the room in the gayest of
+spirits.
+
+“Hello, dearie,” he cried as he crossed quickly to her side.
+
+“Already?” asked Zoie faintly and she glanced uneasily toward the door,
+through which Jimmy and Aggie had just disappeared.
+
+“I told you I shouldn't be long,” said Alfred jovially, and he implanted
+a condescending kiss on her forehead. “How is the little mother, eh?” he
+asked, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction.
+
+“You're all cold,” pouted Zoie, edging away, “and you've been drinking.”
+
+“I had to have one or two with the boys,” said Alfred, throwing out his
+chest and strutting about the room, “but never again. From now on I cut
+out all drinks and cigars. This is where I begin to live my life for our
+sons.”
+
+“How about your life for me?” asked Zoie, as she began to see long years
+of boredom stretching before her.
+
+“You and our boys are one and the same, dear,” answered Alfred, coming
+back to her side.
+
+“You mean you couldn't go on loving ME if it weren't for the BOYS?”
+ asked Zoie, with anxiety. She was beginning to realise how completely
+her hold upon him depended upon her hideous deception.
+
+“Of course I could, Zoie,” answered Alfred, flattered by what he
+considered her desire for his complete devotion, “but----”
+
+“But not so MUCH,” pouted Zoie.
+
+“Well, of course, dear,” admitted Alfred evasively, as he sank down upon
+the edge of the bed by her side--
+
+“You needn't say another word,” interrupted Zoie, and then with a shade
+of genuine repentance, she declared shame-facedly that she hadn't been
+“much of a wife” to Alfred.
+
+“Nonsense!” contradicted the proud young father, “you've given me the
+ONE thing that I wanted most in the world.”
+
+“But you see, dear,” said Zoie, as she wound her little white arms about
+his neck, and looked up into his face adoringly, “YOU'VE been the 'ONE'
+thing that I wanted 'MOST' and I never realised until to-night how--how
+crazy you are about things.”
+
+“What things?” asked Alfred, a bit puzzled.
+
+“Well,” said Zoie, letting her eyes fall before his and picking at a bit
+of imaginary lint on the coverlet, “babies and things.”
+
+“Oh,” said Alfred, and he was about to proceed when she again
+interrupted him.
+
+“But now that I DO realise it,” continued Zoie, earnestly, her fingers
+on his lips, lest he again interrupt, “if you'll only have a little
+patience with me, I'll--I'll----” again her eyes fell bashfully to the
+coverlet, as she considered the possibility of being ultimately obliged
+to replace the bogus twins with real ones.
+
+“All the patience in the world,” answered Alfred, little dreaming of the
+problem that confronted the contrite Zoie.
+
+“That's all I ask,” declared Zoie, her assurance completely restored,
+“and in case anything SHOULD happen to THESE----” she glanced anxiously
+toward the door through which Aggie had borne the twins.
+
+“But nothing is going to happen to these, dear,” interrupted Alfred,
+rising and again assuming an air of fatherly protection. “I'll attend
+to that. There, there,” he added, patting her small shoulder and nodding
+his head wisely. “That crazy woman has got on your nerves, but you
+needn't worry, I've got everything fixed. Donneghey sent a special
+officer over with me. He's outside watching the house, now.”
+
+“Now!” shrieked Zoie, fixing her eyes on the bedroom door, through which
+Jimmy had lately disappeared and wondering whether he had yet “slipped”
+ down the fire-escape.
+
+“Yes,” continued Alfred, walking up and down the floor with a masterly
+stride. “If that woman is caught hanging around here again, she'll get a
+little surprise. My boys are safe now, God bless them!” Then reminded of
+the fact that he had not seen them since his return, he started quickly
+toward the bedroom door. “I'll just have a look at the little rascals,”
+ he decided.
+
+“No, dear,” cried Zoie. She caught Alfred's arm as he passed the side of
+her bed, and clung to him in desperation. “Wait a minute.”
+
+Alfred looked down at her in surprise.
+
+She turned her face toward the door, and called lustily, “Aggie! Aggie!”
+
+“What is it, dear?” questioned Alfred, thinking Zoie suddenly ill, “can
+I get you something?”
+
+Before Zoie was obliged to reply, Aggie answered her summons.
+
+“Did you call?” she asked, glancing inquiringly into Zoie's distressed
+face.
+
+“Alfred's here,” said Zoie, with a sickly smile as she stroked his hand
+and glanced meaningly at Aggie. “He's GOT the OFFICER!”
+
+“The OFFICER?” cried Aggie, and involuntarily she took a step backward,
+as though to guard the bedroom door.
+
+“Yes,” said Alfred, mistaking Aggie's surprise for a compliment to his
+resource; “and now, Aggie, if you'll just stay with Zoie for a minute
+I'll have a look at my boys.”
+
+“No, no!” exclaimed Aggie, nervously, and she placed herself again in
+front of the bedroom door.
+
+Alfred was plainly annoyed by her proprietory air.
+
+“They're asleep,” explained Aggie.
+
+“I'll not WAKE them,” persisted Alfred, “I just wish to have a LOOK at
+them,” and with that he again made a move toward the door.
+
+“But Alfred,” protested Zoie, still clinging to his hand, “you're not
+going to leave me again--so soon.”
+
+Alfred was becoming more and more restive under the seeming absurdity of
+their persistent opposition, but before he could think of a polite way
+of over-ruling them, Aggie continued persuasively.
+
+“You stay with Zoie,” she said. “I'll bring the boys in here and you can
+both have a look at them.”
+
+“But Aggie,” argued Alfred, puzzled by her illogical behaviour, “would
+it be wise to wake them?”
+
+“Just this once,” said Aggie. “Now you stay here and I'll get them.”
+ Before Alfred could protest further she was out of the room and the door
+had closed behind her, so he resigned himself to her decision, banished
+his temporary annoyance at her obstinacy, and glanced about the room
+with a new air of proprietorship.
+
+“This is certainly a great night, Zoie,” he said.
+
+“It certainly is,” acquiesced Zoie, with an over emphasis that made
+Alfred turn to her with new concern.
+
+“I'm afraid that mad woman made you very nervous, dear,” he said.
+
+“She certainly did,” said Zoie.
+
+Zoie's nerves were destined to bear still further strain, for at that
+moment, there came a sharp ring at the door.
+
+Beside herself with anxiety Zoie threw her arms about Alfred, who had
+advanced to soothe her, drew him down by her side and buried her head on
+his breast.
+
+“You ARE jumpy,” said Alfred, and at that instant a wrangle of loud
+voices, and a general commotion was heard in the outer hall. “What's
+that?” asked Alfred, endeavouring to disentangle himself from Zoie's
+frantic embrace.
+
+Zoie clung to him so tightly that he was unable to rise, but his alert
+ear caught the sound of a familiar voice rising above the din of dispute
+in the hallway.
+
+“That sounds like the officer,” he exclaimed.
+
+“The officer?” cried Zoie, and she wound her arms more tightly about
+him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+Propelled by a large red fist, attached to the back of his badly wilted
+collar, the writhing form of Jimmy was now thrust through the outer
+door.
+
+“Let go of me,” shouted the hapless Jimmy.
+
+The answer was a spasmodic shaking administered by the fist; then a
+large burly officer, carrying a small babe in his arms, shoved the
+reluctant Jimmy into the centre of the room and stood guard over him.
+
+“I got him for you, sir,” announced the officer proudly, to the
+astonished Alfred, who had just managed to untwine Zoie's arms and to
+struggle to his feet.
+
+Alfred's eyes fell first upon the dejected Jimmy, then they travelled to
+the bundle of long clothes in the officer's arms.
+
+“My boy!” he cried. “My boy!” He snatched the infant from the officer
+and pressed him jealously to his breast. “I don't understand,” he said,
+gazing at the officer in stupefaction. “Where was he?”
+
+“You mean this one?” asked the officer, nodding toward the unfortunate
+Jimmy. “I caught him slipping down your fire-escape.”
+
+“I KNEW it,” exclaimed Zoie in a rage, and she cast a vindictive look at
+Jimmy for his awkwardness.
+
+“Knew WHAT, dear?” asked Alfred, now thoroughly puzzled.
+
+Zoie did not answer. Her powers of resource were fast waning. Alfred
+turned again to the officer, then to Jimmy, who was still flashing
+defiance into the officer's threatening eyes.
+
+“My God!” he exclaimed, “this is awful. What's the matter with you,
+Jimmy? This is the third time that you have tried to take my baby out
+into the night.”
+
+“Then you've had trouble with him before?” remarked the officer. He
+studied Jimmy with new interest, proud in the belief that he had brought
+a confirmed “baby-snatcher” to justice.
+
+“I've had a little trouble myself,” declared Jimmy hotly, now resolved
+to make a clean breast of it.
+
+“I'm not asking about your troubles,” interrupted the officer savagely,
+and Jimmy felt the huge creature's obnoxious fingers tightening again on
+his collar. “Go ahead, sir,” said the officer to Alfred.
+
+“Well,” began Alfred, nodding toward the now livid Jimmy, “he was out
+with my boy when I arrived. I stopped him from going out with him
+a second time, and now you, officer, catch him slipping down the
+fire-escape. I don't know what to say,” he finished weakly.
+
+“_I_ do,” exclaimed Jimmy, feeling more and more like a high explosive,
+“and I'll say it.”
+
+“Cut it,” shouted the officer. And before Jimmy could get further,
+Alfred resumed with fresh vehemence.
+
+“He's supposed to be a friend of mine,” he explained to the officer, as
+he nodded toward the wriggling Jimmy. “He was all right when I left him
+a few months ago.”
+
+“You'll think I'm all right again,” shouted Jimmy, trying to get free
+from the officer, “before I've finished telling all I----”
+
+“That won't help any,” interrupted the officer firmly, and with another
+twist of Jimmy's badly wilted collar he turned to Alfred with his most
+civil manner, “What shall I do with him, sir?”
+
+“I don't know,” said Alfred, convinced that his friend was a fit subject
+for a straight jacket. “This is horrible.”
+
+“It's absurd,” cried Zoie, on the verge of hysterics, and in utter
+despair of ever disentangling the present complication without
+ultimately losing Alfred, “you're all absurd,” she cried wildly.
+
+“Absurd?” exclaimed Alfred, turning upon her in amazement, “what do you
+mean?”
+
+“It's a joke,” said Zoie, without the slightest idea of where the joke
+lay. “If you had any sense you could see it.”
+
+“I DON'T see it,” said Alfred, with hurt dignity.
+
+“Neither do I,” said Jimmy, with boiling resentment.
+
+“Can you call it a joke,” asked Alfred, incredulously, “to have our
+boy----” He stopped suddenly, remembering that there was a companion
+piece to this youngster. “The other one!” he exclaimed, “our other
+boy----” He rushed to the crib, found it empty, and turned a terrified
+face to Zoie. “Where is he?” he demanded.
+
+“Now, Alfred,” pleaded Zoie, “don't get excited; he's all right.”
+
+“How do you know?” asked the distracted father.
+
+Zoie did not know, but at that moment her eyes fell upon Jimmy, and as
+usual he was the source of an inspiration for her.
+
+“Jimmy never cared for the other one,” she said, “did you, Jimmy?”
+
+Alfred turned to the officer, with a tone of command. “Wait,” he said,
+then he started toward the bedroom door to make sure that his other
+boy was quite safe. The picture that confronted him brought the hair
+straight up on his head. True to her promise, and ignorant of Jimmy's
+return with the first baby, Aggie had chosen this ill-fated moment to
+appear on the threshold with one babe on each arm.
+
+“Here they are,” she said graciously, then stopped in amazement at sight
+of the horrified Alfred, clasping a third infant to his breast.
+
+“Good God!” exclaimed Alfred, stroking his forehead with his unoccupied
+hand, and gazing at what he firmly believed must be an apparition,
+“THOSE aren't MINE,” he pointed to the two red mites in Aggie's arms.
+
+“Wh--why not, Alfred?” stammered Aggie for the want of something better
+to say.
+
+“What?” shrieked Alfred. Then he turned in appeal to his young wife,
+whose face had now become utterly expressionless. “Zoie?” he entreated.
+
+There was an instant's pause, then the blood returned to Zoie's face and
+she proved herself the artist that Alfred had once declared her.
+
+“OURS, dear,” she murmured softly, with a bashful droop of her lids.
+
+“But THIS one?” persisted Alfred, pointing to the baby in his arms, and
+feeling sure that his mind was about to give way.
+
+“Why--why--why,” stuttered Zoie, “THAT'S the JOKE.”
+
+“The joke?” echoed Alfred, looking as though he found it anything but
+such.
+
+“Yes,” added Aggie, sharing Zoie's desperation to get out of their
+temporary difficulty, no matter at what cost in the future. “Didn't
+Jimmy tell you?”
+
+“Tell me WHAT?” stammered Alfred, “what IS there to tell?”
+
+“Why, you see,” said Aggie, growing more enthusiastic with each
+elaboration of Zoie's lie, “we didn't dare to break it to you too
+suddenly.”
+
+“Break it to me?” gasped Alfred; a new light was beginning to dawn on
+his face.
+
+“So,” concluded Zoie, now thoroughly at home in the new situation, “we
+asked Jimmy to take THAT one OUT.”
+
+Jimmy cast an inscrutable glance in Zoie's direction. Was it possible
+that she was at last assisting him out of a difficulty?
+
+“You 'ASKED Jimmy'?” repeated Alfred.
+
+“Yes,” confirmed Aggie, with easy confidence, “we wanted you to get used
+to the idea gradually.”
+
+“The idea,” echoed Alfred. He was afraid to allow his mind to accept
+too suddenly the whole significance of their disclosure, lest his joy
+over-power him. “You--you--do--don't mean----” he stuttered.
+
+“Yes, dear,” sighed Zoie, with the face of an angel, and then with a
+languid sigh, she sank back contentedly on her pillows.
+
+“My boys! My boys!” cried Alfred, now delirious with delight. “Give
+them to me,” he called to Aggie, and he snatched the surprised infants
+savagely from her arms. “Give me ALL of them, ALL of them.” He clasped
+the three babes to his breast, then dashed to the bedside of the
+unsuspecting Zoie and covered her small face with rapturous kisses.
+
+Feeling the red faces of the little strangers in such close proximity to
+hers, Zoie drew away from them with abhorrence, but unconscious of her
+unmotherly action, Alfred continued his mad career about the room, his
+heart overflowing with gratitude toward Zoie in particular and mankind
+in general. Finding Aggie in the path of his wild jubilee, he treated
+that bewildered young matron to an unwelcome kiss. A proceeding which
+Jimmy did not at all approve.
+
+Hardly had Aggie recovered from her surprise when the disgruntled
+Jimmy was startled out of his dark mood by the supreme insult of a
+loud resounding kiss implanted on his own cheek by his excitable young
+friend. Jimmy raised his arm to resist a second assault, and Alfred
+veered off in the direction of the officer, who stepped aside just in
+time to avoid similar demonstration from the indiscriminating young
+father.
+
+Finding a wide circle prescribed about himself and the babies, Alfred
+suddenly stopped and gazed about from one astonished face to the other.
+
+“Well,” said the officer, regarding Alfred with an injured air,
+and feeling much downcast at being so ignominiously deprived of his
+short-lived heroism in capturing a supposed criminal, “if this is all a
+joke, I'll let the woman go.”
+
+“The woman,” repeated Alfred; “what woman?”
+
+“I nabbed a woman at the foot of the fire-escape,” explained the
+officer. Zoie and Aggie glanced at each other inquiringly. “I thought
+she might be an accomplice.”
+
+“What does she look like, officer?” asked Alfred. His manner was
+becoming more paternal, not to say condescending, with the arrival of
+each new infant.
+
+“Don't be silly, Alfred,” snapped Zoie, really ashamed that Alfred was
+making such an idiot of himself. “It's only the nurse.”
+
+“Oh, that's it,” said Alfred, with a wise nod of comprehension; “the
+nurse, then she's in the joke too?” He glanced from one to the other.
+They all nodded. “You're all in it,” he exclaimed, flattered to think
+that they had considered it necessary to combine the efforts of so many
+of them to deceive him.
+
+“Yes,” assented Jimmy sadly, “we are all 'in it.'”
+
+“Well, she's a great actress,” decided Alfred, with the air of a
+connoisseur.
+
+“She sure is,” admitted Donneghey, more and more disgruntled as he felt
+his reputation for detecting fraud slipping from him. “She put up a
+phoney story about the kid being hers,” he added. “But I could tell she
+wasn't on the level. Good-night, sir,” he called to Alfred, and ignoring
+Jimmy, he passed quickly from the room.
+
+“Oh, officer,” Alfred called after him. “Hang around downstairs. I'll
+be down later and fix things up with you.” Again Alfred gave his whole
+attention to his new-found family. He leaned over the cradle and gazed
+ecstatically into the three small faces below his. “This is too much,”
+ he murmured.
+
+“Much too much,” agreed Jimmy, who was now sitting hunched up on the
+couch in his customary attitude of gloom.
+
+“You were right not to break it to me too suddenly,” said Alfred, and
+with his arms encircling three infants he settled himself on the couch
+by Jimmy's side. “You're a cute one,” he continued to Jimmy, who was
+edging away from the three mites with aversion. In the absence of any
+answer from Jimmy, Alfred appealed to Zoie, “Isn't he a cute one, dear?”
+ he asked.
+
+“Oh, yes, VERY,” answered Zoie, sarcastically.
+
+Shutting his lips tight and glancing at Zoie with a determined effort at
+self restraint, Jimmy rose from the couch and started toward the door.
+
+“If you women are done with me,” he said, “I'll clear out.”
+
+“Clear out?” exclaimed Alfred, rising quickly and placing himself
+between his old friend and the door. “What a chance,” and he laughed
+boisterously. “You're not going to get out of my sight this night,” he
+declared. “I'm just beginning to appreciate all you've done for me.”
+
+“So am I,” assented Jimmy, and unconsciously his hand sought the spot
+where his dinner should have been, but Alfred was not to be resisted.
+
+“A man needs someone around,” he declared, “when he's going through a
+thing like this. I need all of you, all of you,” and with his eyes he
+embraced the weary circle of faces about him. “I feel as though I could
+go out of my head,” he explained and with that he began tucking the
+three small mites in the pink and white crib designed for but one.
+
+Zoie regarded him with a bored expression'
+
+“You act as though you WERE out of your head,” she commented, but Alfred
+did not heed her. He was now engaged in the unhoped for bliss of singing
+three babies to sleep with one lullaby.
+
+The other occupants of the room were just beginning to relax and to show
+some resemblance to their natural selves, when their features were again
+simultaneously frozen by a ring at the outside door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+Annoyed at being interrupted in the midst of his lullaby, to three,
+Alfred looked up to see Maggie, hatless and out of breath, bursting into
+the room, and destroying what was to him an ideally tranquil home scene.
+But Maggie paid no heed to Alfred's look of inquiry. She made directly
+for the side of Zoie's bed.
+
+“If you plaze, mum,” she panted, looking down at Zoie, and wringing her
+hands.
+
+“What is it?” asked Aggie, who had now reached the side of the bed.
+
+“'Scuse me for comin' right in”--Maggie was breathing hard--“but me
+mother sint me to tell you that me father is jus afther comin' home from
+work, and he's fightin' mad about the babies, mum.”
+
+“Sh! Sh!” cautioned Aggie and Zoie, as they glanced nervously toward
+Alfred who was rising from his place beside the cradle with increasing
+interest in Maggie's conversation.
+
+“Babies?” he repeated, “your father is mad about babies?”
+
+“It's all right, dear,” interrupted Zoie nervously; “you see,” she
+went on to explain, pointing toward the trembling Maggie, “this is our
+washerwoman's little girl. Our washerwoman has had twins, too, and it
+made the wash late, and her husband is angry about it.”
+
+“Oh,” said Alfred, with a comprehensive nod, but Maggie was not to be so
+easily disposed of.
+
+“If you please, mum,” she objected, “it ain't about the wash. It's about
+our baby girls.”
+
+“Girls?” exclaimed Zoie involuntarily.
+
+“Girls?” repeated Alfred, drawing himself up in the fond conviction that
+all his heirs were boys, “No wonder your pa's angry. I'd be angry too.
+Come now,” he said to Maggie, patting the child on the shoulder and
+regarding her indulgently, “you go straight home and tell your father
+that what HE needs is BOYS.”
+
+“Well, of course, sir,” answered the bewildered Maggie, thinking that
+Alfred meant to reflect upon the gender of the offspring donated by her
+parents, “if you ain't afther likin' girls, me mother sint the money
+back,” and with that she began to feel for the pocket in her red flannel
+petticoat.
+
+“The money?” repeated Alfred, in a puzzled way, “what money?”
+
+It was again Zoie's time to think quickly.
+
+“The money for the wash, dear,” she explained.
+
+“Nonsense!” retorted Alfred, positively beaming generosity, “who talks
+of money at such a time as this?” And taking a ten dollar bill from his
+pocket, he thrust it in Maggie's outstretched hand, while she was trying
+to return to him the original purchase money. “Here,” he said to the
+astonished girl, “you take this to your father. Tell him I sent it to
+him for his babies. Tell him to start a bank account with it.”
+
+This was clearly not a case with which one small addled mind could deal,
+or at least, so Maggie decided. She had a hazy idea that Alfred was
+adding something to the original purchase price of her young sisters,
+but she was quite at a loss to know how to refuse the offer of such
+a “grand 'hoigh” gentleman, even though her failure to do so would no
+doubt result in a beating when she reached home. She stared at Alfred
+undecided what to do, the money still lay in her outstretched hand.
+
+“I'm afraid Pa'll niver loike it, sir,” she said.
+
+“Like it?” exclaimed Alfred in high feather, and he himself closed her
+red little fingers over the bill, “he's GOT to like it. He'll GROW to
+like it. Now you run along,” he concluded to Maggie, as he urged her
+toward the door, “and tell him what I say.”
+
+“Yes, sir,” murmured Maggie, far from sharing Alfred's enthusiasm.
+
+Feeling no desire to renew his acquaintance with Maggie, particularly
+under Alfred's watchful eye, Jimmy had sought his old refuge, the high
+backed chair. As affairs progressed and there seemed no doubt of Zoie's
+being able to handle the situation to the satisfaction of all concerned,
+Jimmy allowed exhaustion and the warmth of the firelight to have their
+way with him. His mind wandered toward other things and finally into
+space. His head dropped lower and lower on his chest; his breathing
+became laboured--so laboured in fact that it attracted the attention of
+Maggie, who was about to pass him on her way to the door.
+
+“Sure an it's Mr. Jinks!” exclaimed Maggie. Then coming close to the
+side of the unsuspecting sleeper, she hissed a startling message in his
+ear. “Me mother said to tell you that me fadder's hoppin' mad at you,
+sir.”
+
+Jimmy sat up and rubbed his eyes. He studied the young person at his
+elbow, then he glanced at Alfred, utterly befuddled as to what had
+happened while he had been on a journey to happier scenes. Apparently
+Maggie was waiting for an answer to something, but to what? Jimmy
+thought he detected an ominous look in Alfred's eyes. Letting his hand
+fall over the arm of the chair so that Alfred could not see it, Jimmy
+began to make frantic signals to Maggie to depart; she stared at him the
+harder.
+
+“Go away,” whispered Jimmy, but Maggie did not move. “Shoo, shoo!” he
+said, and waved her off with his hand.
+
+Puzzled by Jimmy's sudden aversion to this apparently harmless child,
+Alfred turned to Maggie with a puckered brow.
+
+“Your father's mad at Jimmy?” he repeated. “What about?”
+
+For once Jimmy found it in his heart to be grateful to Zoie for the
+prompt answer that came from her direction.
+
+“The wash, dear,” said Zoie to Alfred; “Jimmy had to go after the wash,”
+ and then with a look which Maggie could not mistake for an invitation to
+stop longer, Zoie called to her haughtily, “You needn't wait, Maggie; we
+understand.”
+
+“Sure, an' it's more 'an I do,” answered Maggie, and shaking her head
+sadly, she slipped from the room.
+
+But Alfred could not immediately dismiss from his mind the picture of
+Maggie's inhuman parent.
+
+“Just fancy,” he said, turning his head to one side meditatively, “fancy
+any man not liking to be the father of twins,” and with that he again
+bent over the cradle and surveyed its contents. “Think, Jimmy,” he said,
+when he had managed to get the three youngsters in his arms, “just think
+of the way THAT father feels, and then think of the way _I_ feel.”
+
+“And then think of the way _I_ feel,” grumbled Jimmy.
+
+“You!” exclaimed Alfred; “what have you to feel about?”
+
+Before Jimmy could answer, the air was rent by a piercing scream and a
+crash of glass from the direction of the inner rooms.
+
+“What's that?” whispered Aggie, with an anxious glance toward Zoie.
+
+“Sounded like breaking glass,” said Alfred.
+
+“Burglars!” exclaimed Zoie, for want of anything better to suggest.
+
+“Burglars?” repeated Alfred with a superior air; “nonsense! Nonsense!
+Here,” he said, turning to Jimmy, “you hold the boys and I'll go
+see----” and before Jimmy was aware of the honour about to be thrust
+upon him, he felt three red, spineless morsels, wriggling about in his
+arms. He made what lap he could for the armful, and sat up in a stiff,
+strained attitude on the edge of the couch. In the meantime, Alfred had
+strode into the adjoining room with the air of a conqueror. Aggie looked
+at Zoie, with dreadful foreboding.
+
+“You don't suppose it could be?” she paused.
+
+“My baby!” shrieked the voice of the Italian mother from the adjoining
+room. “Where IS he?”
+
+Regardless of the discomfort of his three disgruntled charges, Jimmy
+began to circle the room. So agitated was his mind that he could
+scarcely hear Aggie, who was reporting proceedings from her place at the
+bedroom door.
+
+“She's come up the fire-escape,” cried Aggie; “she's beating Alfred to
+death.”
+
+“What?” shrieked Zoie, making a flying leap from her coverlets.
+
+“She's locking him in the bathroom,” declared Aggie, and with that she
+disappeared from the room, bent on rescue.
+
+“My Alfred!” cried Zoie, tragically, and she started in pursuit of
+Aggie.
+
+“Wait a minute,” called Jimmy, who had not yet been able to find
+a satisfactory place in which to deposit his armful of clothes and
+humanity. “What shall I do with these things?”
+
+“Eat 'em,” was Zoie's helpful retort, as the trailing end of her
+negligee disappeared from the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+Now, had Jimmy been less perturbed during the latter part of this
+commotion, he might have heard the bell of the outside door, which
+had been ringing violently for some minutes. As it was, he was wholly
+unprepared for the flying advent of Maggie.
+
+“Oh, plaze, sir,” she cried, pointing with trembling fingers toward
+the babes in Jimmy's arms, “me fadder's coming right behind me. He's
+a-lookin' for you sir.”
+
+“For me,” murmured Jimmy, wondering vaguely why everybody on earth
+seemed to be looking for HIM.
+
+“Put 'em down, sir,” cried Maggie, still pointing to the three babies,
+“put 'em down. He's liable to wallop you.”
+
+“Put 'em where?” asked Jimmy, now utterly confused as to which way to
+turn.
+
+“There,” said Maggie, and she pointed to the cradle beneath his very
+eyes.
+
+“Of course,” said Jimmy vapidly, and he sank on his knees and strove to
+let the wobbly creatures down easily.
+
+Bang went the outside door.
+
+“That's Pa now,” cried Maggie. “Oh hide, sir, hide.” And with that
+disconcerting warning, she too deserted him.
+
+“Hide where?” gasped Jimmy.
+
+There was a moment's awful silence. Jimmy rose very cautiously from the
+cradle, his eyes sought the armchair. It had always betrayed him. He
+glanced toward the window. It was twelve stories to the pavement. He
+looked towards the opposite door; beyond that was the mad Italian woman.
+His one chance lay in slipping unnoticed through the hallway; he made
+a determined dash in that direction, but no sooner had he put his head
+through the door, than he drew it back quickly. The conversation between
+O'Flarety and the maid in the hallway was not reassuring. Jimmy decided
+to take a chance with the Italian mother, and as fast as he could, he
+streaked it toward the opposite door. The shrieks and denunciations that
+he met from this direction were more disconcerting than those of
+the Irish father. For an instant he stood in the centre of the room,
+wavering as to which side to surrender himself.
+
+The thunderous tones of the enraged father drew nearer; he threw himself
+on the floor and attempted to roll under the bed; the space between the
+railing and the floor was far too narrow. Why had he disregarded Aggie's
+advice as to diet? The knob of the door handle was turning--he vaulted
+into the bed and drew the covers over his head just as O'Flarety,
+trembling with excitement, and pursued by Maggie, burst into the room.
+
+“Lave go of me,” cried O'Flarety to Maggie, who clung to his arm in a
+vain effort to soothe him, and flinging her off, he made straight for
+the bed.
+
+“Ah,” he cried, gazing with dilated nostrils at the trembling object
+beneath the covers, “there you are, mum,” and he shook his fist above
+what he believed to be the cowardly Mrs. Hardy. “'Tis well ye may cover
+up your head,” said he, “for shame on yez! Me wife may take in washing,
+but when I comes home at night I wants me kids, and I'll be after havin'
+'em too. Where ar' they?” he demanded. Then getting no response from the
+agitated covers, he glanced wildly about the room. “Glory be to God!”
+ he exclaimed as his eyes fell on the crib; but he stopped short in
+astonishment, when upon peering into it, he found not one, or two, but
+three “barren.”
+
+“They're child stalers, that's what they are,” he declared to Maggie,
+as he snatched Bridget and Norah to his no doubt comforting breast. “Me
+little Biddy,” he crooned over his much coveted possession. “Me little
+Norah,” he added fondly, looking down at his second. The thought of his
+narrow escape from losing these irreplaceable treasures rekindled
+his wrath. Again he strode toward the bed and looked down at the now
+semi-quiet comforter.
+
+“The black heart of ye, mum,” he roared, then ordering Maggie to give
+back “every penny of that shameless creetur's money” he turned toward
+the door.
+
+So intense had been O'Flarety's excitement and so engrossed was he in
+his denunciation that he had failed to see the wild-eyed Italian woman
+rushing toward him from the opposite door.
+
+“You, you!” cried the frenzied woman and, to O'Flarety's astonishment,
+she laid two strong hands upon his arm and drew him round until he faced
+her. “Where are you going with my baby?” she asked, then peering into
+the face of the infant nearest to her, she uttered a disappointed
+moan. “'Tis not my baby!” she cried. She scanned the face of the second
+infant--again she moaned.
+
+Having begun to identify this hysterical creature as the possible mother
+of the third infant, O'Flarety jerked his head in the direction of the
+cradle.
+
+“I guess you'll find what you're lookin' for in there,” he said. Then
+bidding Maggie to “git along out o' this” and shrugging his shoulders
+to convey his contempt for the fugitive beneath the coverlet, he swept
+quickly from the room.
+
+Clasping her long-sought darling to her heart and weeping with delight,
+the Italian mother was about to follow O'Flarety through the door when
+Zoie staggered into the room, weak and exhausted.
+
+“You, you!” called the indignant Zoie to the departing mother. “How dare
+you lock my husband in the bathroom?” She pointed to the key, which the
+woman still unconsciously clasped in her hand. “Give me that key,” she
+demanded, “give it to me this instant.”
+
+“Take your horrid old key,” said the mother, and she threw it on the
+floor. “If you ever try to get my baby again, I'll lock your husband in
+JAIL,” and murmuring excited maledictions in her native tongue, she took
+her welcome departure.
+
+Zoie stooped for the key, one hand to her giddy head, but Aggie, who had
+just returned to the room, reached the key first and volunteered to go
+to the aid of the captive Alfred, who was pounding desperately on the
+bathroom door and demanding his instant release.
+
+“I'll let him out,” said Aggie. “You get into bed,” and she slipped
+quickly from the room.
+
+Utterly exhausted and half blind with fatigue Zoie lifted the coverlet
+and slipped beneath it. Her first sensation was of touching something
+rough and scratchy, then came the awful conviction that the thing
+against which she lay was alive.
+
+Without stopping to investigate the identity of her uninvited
+bed-fellow, or even daring to look behind her, Zoie fled from the room
+emitting a series of screams that made all her previous efforts in that
+direction seem mere baby cries. So completely had Jimmy been enveloped
+in the coverlets and for so long a time that he had acquired a vague
+feeling of aloftness toward the rest of his fellows, and had lost all
+knowledge of their goings and comings. But when his unexpected companion
+was thrust upon him he was galvanised into sudden action by her scream,
+and swathed in a large pink comforter, he rolled ignominiously from the
+upper side of the bed, where he lay on the floor panting and enmeshed,
+awaiting further developments. Of one thing he was certain, a great deal
+had transpired since he had sought the friendly solace of the covers and
+he had no mind to lose so good a friend as the pink comforter. By the
+time he had summoned sufficient courage to peep from under its edge, a
+babel of voices was again drawing near, and he hastily drew back in his
+shell and waited.
+
+Not daring to glance at the scene of her fright, Zoie pushed Aggie
+before her into the room and demanded that she look in the bed.
+
+Seeing the bed quite empty and noticing nothing unusual in the fact that
+the pink comforter, along with other covers, had slipped down behind it,
+Aggie hastened to reassure her terrified friend.
+
+“You imagined it, Zoie,” she declared, “look for yourself.”
+
+Zoie's small face peeped cautiously around the edge of the doorway.
+
+“Well, perhaps I did,” she admitted; then she slipped gingerly into the
+room, “my nerves are jumping like fizzy water.”
+
+They were soon to “jump” more, for at this instant, Alfred, burning with
+anger at the indignity of having been locked in the bathroom, entered
+the room, demanding to know the whereabouts of the lunatic mother, who
+had dared to make him a captive in his own house.
+
+“Where is she?” he called to Zoie and Aggie, and his eye roved wildly
+about the room. Then his mind reverted with anxiety to his newly
+acquired offspring. “My boys!” he cried, and he rushed toward the crib.
+“They're gone!” he declared tragically.
+
+“Gone?” echoed Aggie.
+
+“Not ALL of them,” said Zoie.
+
+“All,” insisted Alfred, and his hands went distractedly toward his head.
+“She's taken them all.”
+
+Zoie and Aggie looked at each other in a dazed way. They had a hazy
+recollection of having seen one babe disappear with the Italian woman,
+but what had become of the other two?
+
+“Where did they go?” asked Aggie.
+
+“I don't know,” said Zoie, with the first truth she had spoken that
+night, “I left them with Jimmy.”
+
+“Jimmy!” shrieked Alfred, and a diabolical light lit his features.
+“Jimmy!” he snorted, with sudden comprehension, “then he's at it again.
+He's crazy as she is. This is inhuman. This joke has got to stop!” And
+with that decision he started toward the outer door.
+
+“But Allie!” protested Zoie, really alarmed by the look that she saw on
+his face.
+
+Alfred turned to his trembling wife with suppressed excitement, and
+patted her shoulder condescendingly.
+
+“Control yourself, my dear,” he said. “Control yourself; I'll get
+your babies for you--trust me, I'll get them. And then,” he added with
+parting emphasis from the doorway, “I'll SETTLE WITH JIMMY!”
+
+By uncovering one eye, Jimmy could now perceive that Zoie and Aggie
+were engaged in a heated argument at the opposite side of the room. By
+uncovering one ear he learned that they were arranging a line of action
+for him immediately upon his reappearance. He determined not to wait for
+the details.
+
+Fixing himself cautiously on all fours, and making sure that he was
+well covered by the pink comforter, he began to crawl slowly toward the
+bedroom door.
+
+Turning away from Aggie with an impatient exclamation, Zoie suddenly
+beheld what seemed to her a large pink monster with protruding claws
+wriggling its way hurriedly toward the inner room.
+
+“Look!” she screamed, and pointing in horror toward the dreadful
+creature now dragging itself across the threshold, she sank fainting
+into Aggie's outstretched arms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+Having dragged the limp form of her friend to the near-by couch, Aggie
+was bending over her to apply the necessary restoratives, when Alfred
+returned in triumph. He was followed by the officer in whose arms were
+three infants, and behind whom was the irate O'Flarety, the hysterical
+Italian woman, and last of all, Maggie.
+
+“Bring them all in here, officer,” called Alfred over his shoulder.
+“I'll soon prove to you whose babies those are.” Then turning to Aggie,
+who stood between him and the fainting Zoie he cried triumphantly,
+“I've got them Aggie, I've got them.” He glanced toward the empty bed.
+“Where's Zoie?” he asked.
+
+“She's fainted,” said Aggie, and stepping from in front of the young
+wife, she pointed toward the couch.
+
+“Oh, my darling!” cried Alfred, with deep concern as he rushed to Zoie
+and began frantically patting her hands. “My poor frightened darling!”
+ Then he turned to the officer, his sense of injury welling high within
+him, “You see what these people have done to my wife? She's fainted.”
+ Ignoring the uncomplimentary remarks of O'Flarety, he again bent over
+Zoie.
+
+“Rouse yourself, my dear,” he begged of her. “Look at me,” he pleaded.
+“Your babies are safe.”
+
+“HER babies!” snorted O'Flarety, unable longer to control his pent up
+indignation.
+
+“I'll let you know when I want to hear from you,” snarled the officer to
+O'Flarety.
+
+“But they're NOT her babies,” protested the Italian woman desperately.
+
+“Cut it,” shouted the officer, and with low mutterings, the outraged
+parents were obliged to bide their time.
+
+Lifting Zoie to a sitting posture Alfred fanned her gently until she
+regained her senses. “Your babies are all right,” he assured her. “I've
+brought them all back to you.”
+
+“All?” gasped Zoie weakly, and she wondered what curious fate had been
+intervening to assist Alfred in such a prodigious undertaking.
+
+“Yes, dear,” said Alfred, “every one,” and he pointed toward the three
+infants in the officer's arms. “See, dear, see.”
+
+Zoie turned her eyes upon what SEEMED to her numberless red faces. “Oh!”
+ she moaned and again she swooned.
+
+“I told you she'd be afraid to face us,” shouted the now triumphant
+O'Flarety.
+
+“You brute!” retorted the still credulous Alfred, “how dare you
+persecute this poor demented mother?”
+
+Alfred's persistent solicitude for Zoie was too much for the resentful
+Italian woman.
+
+“She didn't persecute me, oh no!” she exclaimed sarcastically.
+
+“Keep still, you!” commanded the officer.
+
+Again Zoie was reviving and again Alfred lifted her in his arms and
+begged her to assure the officer that the babies in question were hers.
+
+“Let's hear her SAY it,” demanded O'Flarety.
+
+“You SHALL hear her,” answered Alfred, with confidence. Then he beckoned
+to the officer to approach, explaining that Zoie was very weak.
+
+“Sure,” said the officer; then planting himself directly in front of
+Zoie's half closed eyes, he thrust the babies upon her attention.
+
+“Look, Zoie!” pleaded Alfred. “Look!”
+
+Zoie opened her eyes to see three small red faces immediately opposite
+her own.
+
+“Take them away!” she cried, with a frantic wave of her arm, “take them
+away!”
+
+“What?” exclaimed Alfred in astonishment.
+
+“What did I tell you?” shouted O'Flarety. This hateful reminder brought
+Alfred again to the protection of his young and defenceless wife.
+
+“The excitement has unnerved her,” he said to the officer.
+
+“Ain't you about done with my kids?” asked O'Flarety, marvelling how any
+man with so little penetration as the officer, managed to hold down a
+“good payin' job.”
+
+“What do you want for your proof anyway?” asked the mother. But Alfred's
+faith in the validity of his new parenthood was not to be so easily
+shaken.
+
+“My wife is in no condition to be questioned,” he declared. “She's out
+of her head, and if you don't----”
+
+He stepped suddenly, for without warning, the door was thrown open and a
+second officer strode into their midst dragging by the arm the reluctant
+Jimmy.
+
+“I guess I've got somethin' here that you folks need in your business,”
+ he called, nodding toward the now utterly demoralised Jimmy.
+
+“Jimmy!” exclaimed Aggie, having at last got her breath.
+
+“The Joker!” cried Alfred, bearing down upon the panting Jimmy with a
+ferocious expression.
+
+“I caught him slipping down the fire-escape,” explained the officer.
+
+“Again?” exclaimed Aggie and Alfred in tones of deep reproach.
+
+“Jimmy,” said Alfred, coming close to his friend, and fixing his eyes
+upon him in a determined effort to control the poor creature's fast
+failing faculties, “you know the truth of this thing. You are the one
+who sent me that telegram, you are the one who told me that I was a
+father.”
+
+“Well, aren't you a father?” asked Aggie, trying to protect her dejected
+spouse.
+
+“Of course I am,” replied Alfred, with every confidence, “but I have to
+prove it to the officer. Jimmy knows,” he concluded. Then turning to
+the uncomfortable man at his side, he demanded imperatively, “Tell the
+officer the truth, you idiot. No more of your jokes. Am I a father or am
+I not?”
+
+“If you're depending on ME for your future offspring,” answered Jimmy,
+wagging his head with the air of a man reckless of consequences, “you
+are NOT a father.”
+
+“Depending on YOU?” gasped Alfred, and he stared at his friend in
+bewilderment. “What do you mean by that?”
+
+“Ask them,” answered Jimmy, and he nodded toward Zoie and Aggie.
+
+Alfred appealed to Aggie.
+
+“Ask Zoie,” said Aggie.
+
+Alfred bent over the form of the again prostrate Zoie. “My darling,”
+ he entreated, “rouse yourself.” Slowly she opened her eyes. “Now,” said
+Alfred, with enforced self-control, “you must look the officer squarely
+in the eye and tell him whose babies those are,” and he nodded toward
+the officer, who was now beginning to entertain grave doubts on the
+subject.
+
+“How should _I_ know?” cried Zoie, too exhausted for further lying.
+
+“What!” exclaimed Alfred, his hand on his forehead.
+
+“I only borrowed them,” said Zoie, “to get you home,” and with that she
+sank back on the couch and closed her eyes.
+
+“What did I tell you?” cried the triumphant O'Flarety.
+
+“I guess they're your'n all right,” admitted the officer doggedly, and
+he grudgingly released the three infants to their rightful parents.
+
+“I guess they'd better be,” shouted O'Flarety; then he and the Italian
+woman made for the door with their babes pressed close to their hearts.
+
+“Wait a minute,” cried Alfred. “I want an understanding.”
+
+O'Flarety turned in the doorway and raised a warning fist.
+
+“If you don't leave my kids alone, you'll GIT 'an understanding.'”
+
+“Me too,” added the mother.
+
+“On your way,” commanded the officer to the pair of them, and together
+with Maggie and the officer, they disappeared forever from the Hardy
+household.
+
+Alfred gazed about the room. “My God!” he exclaimed; then he turned to
+Jimmy who was still in the custody of the second officer: “If I'm not a
+father, what am I?”
+
+“I'd hate to tell you,” was Jimmy's unsympathetic reply, and in utter
+dejection Alfred sank on the foot of the bed and buried his head in his
+hands.
+
+“What shall I do with this one, sir?” asked the officer, undecided as to
+Jimmy's exact standing in the household.
+
+“Shoot him, for all I care,” groaned Alfred, and he rocked to and fro.
+
+“How ungrateful!” exclaimed Aggie, then she signalled to the officer to
+go.
+
+“No more of your funny business,” said the officer with a parting nod at
+Jimmy and a vindictive light in his eyes when he remembered the bruises
+that Jimmy had left on his shins.
+
+“Oh, Jimmy!” said Aggie sympathetically, and she pressed her hot face
+against his round apoplectic cheek. “You poor dear! And after all you
+have done for us!”
+
+“Yes,” sneered Zoie, having regained sufficient strength to stagger to
+her feet, “he's done a lot, hasn't he?” And then forgetting that her
+original adventure with Jimmy which had brought about such disastrous
+results was still unknown to Aggie and Alfred, she concluded bitterly,
+“All this would never have happened, if it hadn't been for Jimmy and his
+horrid old luncheon.”
+
+Jimmy was startled. This was too much, and just as he had seemed to be
+well out of complications for the remainder of his no doubt short life.
+He turned to bolt for the door but Aggie's eyes were upon him.
+
+“Luncheon?” exclaimed Aggie and she regarded him with a puzzled frown.
+
+Zoie's hand was already over her lips, but too late.
+
+Recovering from his somewhat bewildering sense of loss, Alfred, too, was
+now beginning to sit up and take notice.
+
+“What luncheon?” he demanded.
+
+Zoie gazed from Alfred to Aggie, then at Jimmy, then resolving to make
+a clean breast of the matter, she sidled toward Alfred with her most
+ingratiating manner.
+
+“Now, Alfred,” she purred, as she endeavoured to act one arm about
+his unsuspecting neck, “if you'll only listen, I'll tell you the REAL
+TRUTH.”
+
+A wild despairing cry from Alfred, a dash toward the door by Jimmy, and
+a determined effort on Aggie's part to detain her spouse, temporarily
+interrupted Zoie's narrative.
+
+But in spite of these discouragements, Zoie did eventually tell Alfred
+the real truth, and before the sun had risen on the beginning of another
+day, she had added to her confession, promises whose happy fulfillment
+was evidenced for many years after by the chatter of glad young voices,
+up and down the stairway of Alfred's new suburban home, and the flutter
+of golden curls in and out amongst the sunlight and shadows of his
+ample, well kept grounds.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Baby Mine, by Margaret Mayo
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diff --git a/860-0.zip b/860-0.zip
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
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+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Baby Mine, by Margaret Mayo
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Baby Mine, by Margaret Mayo
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Baby Mine
+
+Author: Margaret Mayo
+
+Release Date: July 21, 2008 [EBook #860]
+Last Updated: March 16, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BABY MINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Keller, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      BABY MINE
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Margaret Mayo
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      To my Helper and Husband
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Even in college Alfred Hardy was a young man of fixed ideas and high
+      ideals and proud of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His friend, Jimmy Jinks, had few ideas and no ideals, and was glad of it,
+      and before half of their first college term had passed, Jimmy had ridded
+      himself of all such worries as making up his own mind or directing his own
+      morals. Alfred did all these things so much better, argued Jimmy,
+      furthermore, Alfred LIKED to do them&mdash;Jimmy owed it to his friend to
+      give him that pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fact that Jimmy was several years Alfred's senior and twice his size,
+      in no way altered his opinion of Alfred's judgment, and through their
+      entire college course they agreed as one man in all their discussions&mdash;or
+      rather&mdash;in all Alfred's discussions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was not until the close of their senior year that Alfred favoured
+      Jimmy with his views on matrimony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sitting alone in a secluded corner of the campus waiting for Alfred to
+      solve a problem in higher mathematics, Jimmy now recalled fragments of
+      Alfred's last conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No twelve dollar shoes and forty dollar hats for MY wife,&rdquo; his young
+      friend had raged and he condemned to Jimmy the wicked extravagance of his
+      own younger sisters. &ldquo;The woman who gets me must be a home-maker. I'll
+      take her to the theatre occasionally, and now and then we'll have a few
+      friends in for the evening; but the fireside must be her magnet, and I'll
+      be right by her side each night with my books and my day's worries. She
+      shall be taken into my confidence completely; and I'll take good care to
+      let her know, before I marry her, just what I expect in return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alfred certainly has the right idea about marriage,&rdquo; mused Jimmy, as the
+      toe of his boot shoved the gravel up and down the path. &ldquo;There's just one
+      impractical feature about it.&rdquo; He was conscious of a slight feeling of
+      heresy when he admitted even ONE flaw in his friend's scheme of things.
+      &ldquo;Where is Alfred to find such a wife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy ran through the list of unattached girls to whom Alfred had thus far
+      presented him. It was no doubt due to his lack of imagination, but try as
+      he would, he could not see any one of these girls sitting by the fireside
+      listening to Alfred's &ldquo;worries&rdquo; for four or five nights each week. He
+      recalled all the married women whom he had been obliged, through no fault
+      of his own, to observe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      True, all of them did not boast twelve dollar shoes or forty dollar hats&mdash;for
+      the very simple reason that the incomes or the tempers of their husbands
+      did not permit of it. In any case, Jimmy did not remember having seen them
+      spend many evenings by the fireside. Where then was Alfred to find the
+      exceptional creature who was to help &ldquo;systematise his life&rdquo;? Jimmy was not
+      above hoping that Alfred's search might be a long one. He was content for
+      his friend to go jogging along by his side, theorising about marriage and
+      taking no chances with facts. Having come to this conclusion, he began to
+      feel uneasy at Alfred's non-appearance. Alfred had promised to meet him on
+      this spot at four-thirty, and Alfred had decided ideas about punctuality.
+      It was now five-thirty. Ought Jimmy to look for him, or would he be wiser
+      to remain comfortably seated and to try to digest another of his friend's
+      theories?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Jimmy was trying to decide this vexed question, his ear caught the
+      sound of a girlish titter. Turning in embarrassment toward a secluded path
+      just behind him, whom did he see coming toward him but Alfred, with what
+      appeared to be a bunch of daffodils; but as Alfred drew nearer, Jimmy
+      began to perceive at his elbow a large flower-trimmed hat, and&mdash;&ldquo;horrors!&rdquo;&mdash;beneath
+      it, with a great deal of filmy white and yellow floating from it, was a
+      small pink and white face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barely had Jimmy reversed himself and rearranged his round, astonished
+      features, when Alfred, beaming and buoyant, brought the bundle of fluff to
+      a full stop before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sorry to be late, old chap,&rdquo; said Alfred. &ldquo;I have brought my excuse with
+      me. I want you to know Miss Merton.&rdquo; Then turning to the small creature,
+      whose head peeped just above his elbow, Alfred explained to her graciously
+      that Jimmy Jinks was his very best friend, present company excepted, of
+      course, and added that she and Jimmy would no doubt &ldquo;see a great deal of
+      each other in the future.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In his embarrassment, Jimmy's eyes went straight to the young lady's
+      shoes. It was possible that there might be more expensive shoes in this
+      world, but Jimmy had certainly never seen daintier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope we didn't disturb you,&rdquo; a small voice was chirping; and innocent
+      and conventional as the remark surely was, Jimmy was certain of an
+      undercurrent of mischief in it. He glanced up to protest, but two
+      baby-blue eyes fixed upon him in apparent wonderment, made him certain
+      that anything he could say would seem rude or ridiculous; so, as usual
+      when in a plight, he looked to Alfred for the answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Slapping Jimmy upon the shoulder in a condescending spirit, Alfred
+      suggested that they all sit down and have a chat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, how nice,&rdquo; chirped the small person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy felt an irresistible desire to run, but the picture of himself, in
+      his very stout person, streaking across the campus to the giggled delight
+      of Miss Fluff, soon brought him submissively to the seat, where he sat
+      twiddling his straw hat between his fingers, and glancing uncertainly at
+      Alfred, who was thoughtful enough to sit next him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goodness, one could almost dance out here, couldn't one?&rdquo; said the small
+      person, named Zoie, as her eyes roved over the bit of level green before
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you like to try?&rdquo; asked Alfred, apparently agreeable to her every
+      caprice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd love it!&rdquo; cried Zoie. &ldquo;Come along.&rdquo; She sprang up and held out her
+      hands to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to be unselfish,&rdquo; answered Alfred, &ldquo;and let Jimmy have that
+      fun.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time, Jimmy had been seized with an intuitive feeling that his
+      friend was in immediate danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was this the young woman who was to sit opposite the fireside five nights
+      a week and systematise Alfred's life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy stared at the intruder blankly. For answer, two small hands were
+      thrust out toward him and an impatient little voice was commanding him to
+      &ldquo;Come, dance.&rdquo; He heard Alfred's laughter. He had no intention of
+      accommodating the small person in this or any other matter, yet, before he
+      realised quite how it had happened, he was two-stepping up and down the
+      grass to her piping little voice; nor did she release him until the
+      perspiration came rolling from his forehead; and, horror of horrors, his
+      one-time friend, Alfred, seemed to find this amusing, and laughed louder
+      and louder when Jimmy sank by his side exhausted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Jimmy was again able to think consecutively, he concluded that
+      considerable conversation must have taken place between Alfred and the
+      small one, while he was recovering his breath and re-adjusting his wilted
+      neckwear. He was now thrown into a fresh panic by an exclamation from the
+      excitable Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must both meet my friend, Aggie Darling,&rdquo; she was saying. &ldquo;I am
+      bringing her with me to the hop to-night. She is not at all like me. You
+      will like her dreadfully.&rdquo; She smiled at Jimmy as though she were
+      conferring a great favour upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like her dreadfully,&rdquo; commented Jimmy to himself. &ldquo;It was just the kind
+      of expression one might expect from a mind in such disorder as hers.
+      'Systematise Alfred's life,' indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was more nonsensical chatter, or so it seemed to Jimmy, then Zoie
+      and Alfred rose to go, and Jimmy was told by both of them that he was to
+      put in an appearance at the Fraternity &ldquo;hop&rdquo; that night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll see you at dinner,&rdquo; called Alfred gaily over his shoulder and Jimmy
+      was left to grapple with his first disappointment at his friend's lack of
+      discrimination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's her fault,&rdquo; concluded Jimmy, as he lifted himself heavily off the
+      bench and started down the campus, resolved to console himself with food.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Now Jimmy had no intention of going to the &ldquo;hop.&rdquo; He had tried to tell
+      Alfred so a dozen times during dinner, but each time he had been
+      interrupted by one of Alfred's enthusiastic rhapsodies about Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most marvellous girl I have ever met!&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred over his soup.
+      &ldquo;So sensible; so modest. And did you see how simply she dresses?&rdquo; he
+      asked. Jimmy recalled his first vision of billowy fluff; but before he
+      could answer, Alfred had continued excitedly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you what first attracted me toward her.&rdquo; He looked at Jimmy as
+      though he expected some especial mark of gratitude for the favour about to
+      be bestowed; then he explained with a serious weighing of his words, &ldquo;It
+      was her love of children. I had barely been introduced to her when she
+      turned her back upon me and gave her whole attention to Professor Peck's
+      little boy Willie. I said to myself, 'any girl of that age who prefers
+      children to young chaps of my age, is the girl for me.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; assented Jimmy lamely. It was his first remark during dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After that, I no longer hesitated. You know, Jimmy, I have decision.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I have noticed,&rdquo; admitted Jimmy, without conviction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In fifteen minutes,&rdquo; said Alfred, &ldquo;I had learned all about the young
+      lady's antecedents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having finished his soup, and resisted a childish impulse to tip the plate
+      and scrape the bottom of it, Jimmy was now looking anxiously toward the
+      door through which the roast ought to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you all about her,&rdquo; volunteered Alfred. But Jimmy's eyes were
+      upon Alfred's plate; his friend had not yet devoured more than two
+      spoonfuls of soup; at that rate, argued Jimmy, the roast would reach them
+      about the time that he was usually trying to make his dessert last as long
+      as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is here with her aunt,&rdquo; continued Alfred. &ldquo;They are on a short visit
+      to Professor Peck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy approved of the &ldquo;short.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's good,&rdquo; he murmured, hopeful that a separation from the minx might
+      restore his friend's reason.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Jimmy,&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred with glistening eyes, &ldquo;what do you think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy thought a great deal but he forebore to say it, and Alfred continued
+      very enthusiastically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She lives right in the same town with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; ejaculated Jimmy, and he felt his appetite going.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Within a stone's throw of my house&mdash;and yours,&rdquo; added Alfred
+      triumphantly. &ldquo;Think of our never having met her before!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am thinking,&rdquo; said Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course she has been away from home a great deal,&rdquo; went on Alfred.
+      &ldquo;She's been in school in the East; but there were the summers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So there were,&rdquo; assented Jimmy, thinking of his hitherto narrow escapes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her father is old John Merton,&rdquo; continued Alfred. &ldquo;Merton the stationer&mdash;you
+      know him, Jimmy. Unfortunately, he has a great deal of money; but that
+      hasn't spoilt her. Oh no! She is just as simple and considerate in her
+      behaviour as if she were some poor little struggling school teacher. She
+      is the one for me, Jimmy. There is no doubt about it, and I'll tell you a
+      secret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy looked at him blankly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to propose to her this very night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; groaned Jimmy, as if his friend had been suddenly struck down
+      in the flower of his youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's why you simply must come with me to the hop,&rdquo; continued Alfred. &ldquo;I
+      want you to take care of her friend Aggie, and leave me alone with Zoie as
+      much as possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zoie!&rdquo; sniffed Jimmy. The name to him was as flippant as its owner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True, strong name,&rdquo; commented Alfred. &ldquo;So simple, so direct, so like her.
+      I'll have to leave you now,&rdquo; he said, rising. &ldquo;I must send her some
+      flowers for the dance.&rdquo; He turned at the door. Suppose I add a few from
+      you for Aggie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; exploded Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just by way of introduction,&rdquo; called Alfred gaily. &ldquo;It's a good idea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Jimmy could protest further, he found himself alone for the second
+      time that day. He ate his roast in gloomy silence. It seemed dry and
+      tasteless. Even his favourite desert of plum pudding failed to rouse him
+      from his dark meditations, and he rose from the table dejected and
+      forlorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few hours later, when Alfred led Jimmy into the ballroom, the latter was
+      depressed, not only by his friend's impending danger, but he felt an
+      uneasy foreboding as to his own future. With his college course
+      practically finished and Alfred attaching himself to unforeseen entities,
+      Jimmy had come to the ball with a curious feeling of having been left
+      suspended in mid-air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he could voice his misgivings to Alfred, the young men were
+      surrounded by a circle of chattering females. And then it was that Jimmy
+      found himself looking into a pair of level brown eyes, and felt himself
+      growing hot and cold by turns. When the little knot of youths and maidens
+      disentangled itself into pairs of dancers, it became clear to Jimmy that
+      he had been introduced to Aggie, and that he was expected to dance with
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, Jimmy had danced with many girls; true, it was
+      usually when there was no other man left to &ldquo;do duty&rdquo;; but still he had
+      done it. Why then should he feel such distressing hesitation about placing
+      his arm around the waist of this brown-eyed Diana? Try as he would he
+      could not find words to break the silence that had fallen between them.
+      She was so imposing; so self-controlled. It really seemed to Jimmy that
+      she should be the one to ask him to dance. As a matter of fact, that was
+      just what happened; and after the dance she suggested that they sit in the
+      garden; and in the garden, with the moonlight barely peeping through the
+      friendly overhanging boughs of the trees, Jimmy found Aggie capable of a
+      courage that filled him with amazement; and later that night, when he and
+      Alfred exchanged confidences, it became apparent to the latter that Aggie
+      had volunteered to undertake the responsibility of outlining Jimmy's
+      entire future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was to follow his father's wishes and take up a business career in
+      Chicago at once; and as soon as all the relatives concerned on both sides
+      had been duly consulted, he and Aggie were to embark upon matrimony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good!&rdquo; cried Alfred, when Jimmy had managed to stammer his shame-faced
+      confession. &ldquo;We'll make it a double wedding. I can be ready to-morrow, so
+      far as I'm concerned.&rdquo; And then followed another rhapsody upon the fitness
+      of Zoie as the keeper of his future home and hearth, and the mother of his
+      future sons and daughters. In fact, it was far into the night when the two
+      friends separated&mdash;separated in more than one sense, as they
+      afterward learned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Alfred and Jimmy were saying &ldquo;good-night&rdquo; to each other, Zoie and
+      Aggie in one of the pretty chintz bedrooms of Professor Peck's modest
+      home, were still exchanging mutual confidences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The thing I like about Alfred,&rdquo; said Zoie, as she gazed at the tip of her
+      dainty satin slipper, and turned her head meditatively to one side, &ldquo;is
+      his positive nature. I've never before met any one like him. Do you know,&rdquo;
+       she added with a sly twinkle in her eye, &ldquo;it was all I could do to keep
+      from laughing at him. He's so awfully serious.&rdquo; She giggled to herself at
+      the recollection of him; then she leaned forward to Aggie, her small hands
+      clasped across her knees and her face dimpling with mischief. &ldquo;He hasn't
+      the remotest idea what I'm like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie studied her young friend with unmistakable reproach. &ldquo;I MADE Jimmy
+      know what I'M like,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I told him ALL my ideas about everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Heavens!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie in shocked surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's sure to find out sooner or later,&rdquo; said Aggie sagely. &ldquo;I think
+      that's the only sensible way to begin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I'd told Alfred all MY ideas about things,&rdquo; smiled Zoie, &ldquo;there'd have
+      BEEN no beginning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; asked Aggie, with a troubled look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, take our meeting,&rdquo; explained Zoie. &ldquo;Just as we were introduced,
+      that horrid little Willie Peck caught his heel in a flounce of my skirt. I
+      turned round to slap him, but I saw Alfred looking, so I patted his ugly
+      little red curls instead. And what do you think? Alfred told me to-night
+      that it was my devotion to Willie that first made him adore me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you didn't explain to him?&rdquo; asked Aggie in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And lose him before I'd got him!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It might be better than losing him AFTER you've got him,&rdquo; concluded the
+      elder girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Aggie,&rdquo; pouted Zoie, &ldquo;I think you are horrid. You're just trying to
+      spoil all the fun of my engagement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not,&rdquo; cried Aggie, and the next moment she was sitting on the arm of
+      Zoie's chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goose!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;how dare you be cross with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am NOT cross,&rdquo; declared Zoie, and after the customary apologies from
+      Aggie, confidence was fully restored on both sides and Zoie continued
+      gaily: &ldquo;Don't you worry about Alfred and me,&rdquo; she said as she kicked off
+      her tiny slippers and hopped into bed. &ldquo;Just you wait until I get him.
+      I'll manage him all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say,&rdquo; answered Aggie; not without misgivings, as she turned off
+      the light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The double wedding of four of Chicago's &ldquo;Younger Set&rdquo; had been adequately
+      noticed in the papers, the conventional &ldquo;honeymoon&rdquo; journey had been made,
+      and Alfred Hardy and Jimmy Jinks had now settled down to the routine of
+      their respective business interests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having plunged into his office work with the same vigour with which he had
+      attacked higher mathematics, Alfred had quickly gained the confidence of
+      the elders of his firm, and they had already begun to give way to him in
+      many important decisions. In fact, he was now practically at the head of
+      his particular department with one office doing well in Chicago and a
+      second office promising well in Detroit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Jimmy, he had naturally started his business career with fewer
+      pyrotechnics; but he was none the less contented. He seldom saw his old
+      friend Alfred now, but Aggie kept more or less in touch with Zoie; and
+      over the luncheon table the affairs of the two husbands were often
+      discussed by their wives. It was after one of these luncheons that Aggie
+      upset Jimmy's evening repose by the fireside by telling him that she was a
+      wee bit worried about Zoie and Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alfred is so unreasonable,&rdquo; said Aggie, &ldquo;so peevish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmy shortly. &ldquo;If he's peevish he has some good
+      reason. You can be sure of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn't get cross with me, Jimmy,&rdquo; said Aggie in a hurt voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should I be cross with you?&rdquo; snapped Jimmy. &ldquo;It isn't YOUR fault if
+      Alfred's made a fool of himself by marrying the last person on earth whom
+      he should have married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think he was very lucky to get her,&rdquo; argued Aggie in defence of her
+      friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you do, do you?&rdquo; answered Jimmy in a very aggrieved tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is one of the prettiest girls in Chicago,&rdquo; said Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're pretty too,&rdquo; answered Jimmy, &ldquo;but it doesn't make an idiot of
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's TIME you said something nice to me,&rdquo; purred Aggie; and her arm stole
+      fondly around Jimmy's large neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know why it is,&rdquo; said Jimmy, shaking his head dejectedly, &ldquo;but
+      every time Zoie Hardy's name is mentioned in this house it seems to stir
+      up some sort of a row between you and me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's because you're so prejudiced,&rdquo; answered Aggie with a touch of
+      irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There you go again,&rdquo; said Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't mean it!&rdquo; interposed Aggie contritely. &ldquo;Oh, come now, Jimmy,&rdquo;
+       she pleaded, &ldquo;let's trundle off to bed and forget all about it.&rdquo; And they
+      did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the next day, as Jimmy was heading for the La Salle restaurant to get
+      his luncheon, who should call to him airily from a passing taxi but Zoie.
+      It was apparent that she wished him to wait until she could alight; and in
+      spite of his disinclination to do so, he not only waited but followed the
+      taxi to its stopping place and helped the young woman to the pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you darling!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie, all of a flutter, and looking exactly
+      like an animated doll. &ldquo;You've just saved my life.&rdquo; She called to the taxi
+      driver to &ldquo;wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you in trouble?&rdquo; asked the guileless Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, dreadful,&rdquo; answered Zoie, and she thrust a half-dozen small parcels
+      into Jimmy's arms. &ldquo;I have to be at my dressmaker's in half an hour; and I
+      haven't had a bite of lunch. I'm miles and miles from home; and I can't go
+      into a restaurant and eat just by myself without being stared at. Wasn't
+      it lucky that I saw you when I did?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was really very little left for Jimmy to say, so he said it; and a
+      few minutes later they were seated tete-a-tete in one of Chicago's most
+      fashionable restaurants, and Zoie the unconscious flirt was looking up at
+      Jimmy with apparently adoring eyes, and suggesting all the eatables which
+      he particularly abominated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had the unfortunate man acquiesced in one thing and communicated
+      Zoie's wish to the waiter, than the flighty young person found something
+      else on the menu that she considered more tempting to her palate. Time and
+      again the waiter had to be recalled and the order had to be given over
+      until Jimmy felt himself laying up a store of nervous indigestion that
+      would doubtless last him for days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the coveted food at last arrived, Zoie had become completely
+      engrossed in the headgear of one of her neighbours, and it was only after
+      Jimmy had been induced to make himself ridiculous by craning his neck to
+      see things of no possible interest to him that Zoie at last gave her
+      attention to her plate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In obeyance of Jimmy's order the waiter managed to rush the lunch through
+      within three-quarters of an hour; but when Jimmy and Zoie at length rose
+      to go he was so insanely irritated, that he declared they had been in the
+      place for hours; demanded that the waiter hurry his bill; and then finally
+      departed in high dudgeon without leaving the customary &ldquo;tip&rdquo; behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But all this was without its effect upon Zoie, who, a few moments later
+      rode away in her taxi, waving gaily to Jimmy who was now late for business
+      and thoroughly at odds with himself and the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a result of the time lost at luncheon Jimmy missed an appointment that
+      had to wait over until after office hours, and as a result of this
+      postponement, he missed Aggie, who went to a friend's house for dinner,
+      leaving word for him to follow. For the first time in his life, Jimmy
+      disobeyed Aggie's orders, and, later on, when he &ldquo;trundled off to bed&rdquo;
+       alone, he again recalled that it was Zoie Hardy who was always causing
+      hard feeling between him and his spouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some hours later, when Aggie reached home with misgivings because Jimmy
+      had not joined her, she was surprised to find him sleeping as peacefully
+      as a cherub. &ldquo;Poor dear,&rdquo; she murmured, &ldquo;I hope he wasn't lonesome.&rdquo; And
+      she stole away to her room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning when Aggie did not appear at the breakfast table, Jimmy
+      rushed to her room in genuine alarm. It was now Aggie's turn to sleep
+      peacefully; and he stole dejectedly back to the dining-room and for the
+      first time since their marriage, he munched his cold toast and sipped his
+      coffee alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So thoroughly was his life now disorganised, and so low were his spirits
+      that he determined to walk to his office, relying upon the crisp morning
+      air to brace him for the day's encounters. By degrees, he regained his
+      good cheer and as usual when in rising spirits, his mind turned toward
+      Aggie. The second anniversary of their wedding was fast approaching&mdash;he
+      began to take notice of various window displays. By the time he had
+      reached his office, the weightiest decision on his mind lay in choosing
+      between a pearl pendant and a diamond bracelet for his now adorable
+      spouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But a more difficult problem awaited him. Before he was fairly in his
+      chair, the telephone bell rang violently. Never guessing who was at the
+      other end of the wire, he picked up his receiver and answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; he exclaimed in surprise. &ldquo;Mrs. Hardy?&rdquo; Several times he opened
+      his lips to ask a question, but it was apparent that the person at the
+      other end of the line had a great deal to say and very little time to say
+      it, and it was only after repeated attempts that he managed to get in a
+      word or so edgewise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's happened?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say nothing to anybody,&rdquo; was Zoie's noncommittal answer, &ldquo;not even to
+      Aggie. Jump in a taxi and come as quickly as you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what IS it?&rdquo; persisted Jimmy. The dull sound of the wire told him
+      that the person at the other end had &ldquo;hung up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy gazed about the room in perplexity. What was he to do? Why on earth
+      should he leave his letters unanswered and his mail topsy turvy to rush
+      forth in the shank of the morning at the bidding of a young woman whom he
+      abhorred. Ridiculous! He would do no such thing. He lit a cigar and began
+      to open a few letters marked &ldquo;private.&rdquo; For the life of him he could not
+      understand one word that he read. A worried look crossed his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose Zoie were really in need of help, Aggie would certainly never
+      forgive him if he failed her.&rdquo; He rose and walked up and down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why was he not to tell Aggie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where was Alfred?&rdquo; He stopped abruptly. His over excited imagination had
+      suggested a horrible but no doubt accurate answer. &ldquo;Wedded to an
+      abomination like Zoie, Alfred had sought the only escape possible to a man
+      of his honourable ideals&mdash;he had committed suicide.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Seizing his coat and hat Jimmy dashed through the outer office without
+      instructing his astonished staff as to when he might possibly return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Family troubles,&rdquo; said the secretary to himself as he appropriated one of
+      Jimmy's best cigars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      LESS than half an hour later, Jimmy's taxi stopped in front of the
+      fashionable Sherwood Apartments where Zoie had elected to live. Ascending
+      toward the fifth floor he scanned the face of the elevator boy expecting
+      to find it particularly solemn because of the tragedy that had doubtless
+      taken place upstairs. He was on the point of sending out a &ldquo;feeler&rdquo; about
+      the matter, when he remembered Zoie's solemn injunction to &ldquo;say nothing to
+      anybody.&rdquo; Perhaps it was even worse than suicide. He dared let his
+      imagination go no further. By the time he had put out his hand to touch
+      the electric button at Zoie's front door, his finger was trembling so that
+      he wondered whether he could hit the mark. The result was a very faint
+      note from the bell, but not so faint that it escaped the ear of the
+      anxious young wife, who had been pacing up and down the floor of her
+      charming living room for what seemed to her ages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hurry, hurry, hurry!&rdquo; Zoie cried through her tears to her neat little
+      maid servant, then reaching for her chatelaine, she daubed her small nose
+      and flushed cheeks with powder, after which she nodded to Mary to open the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Jimmy, the maid's pert &ldquo;good-morning&rdquo; seemed to be in very bad taste
+      and to properly reprove her he assumed a grave, dignified air out of which
+      he was promptly startled by Zoie's even more unseemly greeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Jimmy!&rdquo; she snapped. Her tone was certainly not that of a
+      heart-broken widow. &ldquo;It's TIME you got here,&rdquo; she added with an injured
+      air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy gazed at Zoie in astonishment. She was never what he would have
+      called a sympathetic woman, but really&mdash;&mdash;!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came the moment you 'phoned me,&rdquo; he stammered; &ldquo;what is it? What's the
+      matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's awful,&rdquo; sniffled Zoie. And she tore up and down the room regardless
+      of the fact that Jimmy was still unseated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Awful what?&rdquo; questioned Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Worst I've ever had,&rdquo; sobbed Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is anything wrong with Alfred?&rdquo; ventured Jimmy. And he braced himself for
+      her answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's gone,&rdquo; sobbed Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gone!&rdquo; echoed Jimmy, feeling sure that his worst fears were about to be
+      realised. &ldquo;Gone where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; sniffled Zoie, &ldquo;I just 'phoned his office. He isn't
+      there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, is that all?&rdquo; answered Jimmy, with a sigh of relief. &ldquo;Just another
+      little family tiff,&rdquo; he was unable to conceal a feeling of thankfulness.
+      &ldquo;What's up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie measured Jimmy with a dangerous gleam in her eyes. She resented the
+      patronising tone that he was adopting. How dare he be cheerful when she
+      was so unhappy&mdash;and because of him, too? She determined that his
+      self-complacency should be short-lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alfred has found out that I lied about the luncheon,&rdquo; she said, weighing
+      her words and their effect upon Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What luncheon?&rdquo; stuttered Jimmy, feeling sure that Zoie had suddenly
+      marked him for her victim, but puzzled as to what form her persecution was
+      about to take.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What luncheon?&rdquo; repeated Zoie, trying apparently to conceal her disgust
+      at his dulness. &ldquo;OUR luncheon yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you LIE,&rdquo; asked Jimmy, his eyes growing rounder and rounder with
+      wonder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't know he KNEW,&rdquo; answered Zoie innocently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knew what?&rdquo; questioned Jimmy, more and more befogged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I'd eaten with a man,&rdquo; concluded Zoie impatiently. Then she turned
+      her back upon Jimmy and again dashed up and down the room occupied with
+      her own thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was certainly difficult to get much understanding out of Zoie's
+      disjointed observations, but Jimmy was doing his best. He followed her
+      restless movements about the room with his eyes, and then ventured a timid
+      comment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He couldn't object to your eating with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, couldn't he?&rdquo; cried Zoie, and she turned upon him with a look of
+      contempt. &ldquo;If there's anything that he DOESN'T object to,&rdquo; she continued,
+      &ldquo;I haven't found it out yet.&rdquo; And with that she threw herself in a large
+      arm chair near the table, and left Jimmy to draw his own conclusions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy looked about the room as though expecting aid from some unseen
+      source; then his eyes sought the floor. Eventually they crept to the tip
+      of Zoie's tiny slipper as it beat a nervous tattoo on the rug. To save his
+      immortal soul, Jimmy could never help being hypnotised by Zoie's small
+      feet. He wondered now if they had been the reason of Alfred's first
+      downfall. He recalled with a sigh of relief that Aggie's feet were large
+      and reassuring. He also recalled an appropriate quotation: &ldquo;The path of
+      virtue is not for women with small feet,&rdquo; it ran. &ldquo;Yes, Aggie's feet are
+      undoubtedly large,&rdquo; he concluded. But all this was not solving Zoie's
+      immediate problem; and an impatient cough from her made him realise that
+      something was expected of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you lunch with me,&rdquo; he asked, with a touch of irritation, &ldquo;if you
+      thought he wouldn't like it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was hungry,&rdquo; snapped Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; grunted Jimmy, and in spite of his dislike of the small creature his
+      vanity resented the bald assertion that she had not lunched with him for
+      his company's sake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't have made an engagement with you of course,&rdquo; she continued,
+      with a frankness that vanquished any remaining conceit that Jimmy might
+      have brought with him. &ldquo;I explained to you how it was at the time. It was
+      merely a case of convenience. You know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy was beginning to see it more and more in the light of an
+      inconvenience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you hadn't been in front of that horrid old restaurant just when I was
+      passing,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;all this would never have happened. But you were
+      there, and you asked me to come in and have a bite with you; and I did,
+      and there you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, there I am,&rdquo; assented Jimmy dismally. There was no doubt about where
+      he was now, but where was he going to end? That was the question. &ldquo;See
+      here,&rdquo; he exclaimed with fast growing uneasiness, &ldquo;I don't like being
+      mixed up in this sort of thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you'd think of yourself first,&rdquo; sneered Zoie. &ldquo;That's just like
+      a man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I don't want to get your husband down on me,&rdquo; argued Jimmy
+      evasively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I didn't give YOU away,&rdquo; sneered Zoie. &ldquo;YOU needn't worry,&rdquo; and she
+      fixed her eyes upon him with a scornful expression that left no doubt as
+      to her opinion that he was a craven coward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you said he'd 'found out,'&rdquo; stammered Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's found out that I ate with a MAN,&rdquo; answered Zoie, more and more
+      aggrieved at having to employ so much detail in the midst of her distress.
+      &ldquo;He doesn't know it was you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Zoie&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; protested Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She lifted a small hand, begging him to spare her further questions. It
+      was apparent that she must explain each aspect of their present
+      difficulty, with as much patience as though Jimmy were in reality only a
+      child. She sank into her chair and then proceeded, with a martyred air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see it was like this,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Alfred came into the restaurant
+      just after we had gone out and Henri, the waiter who has taken care of him
+      for years, told him that I had just been in to luncheon with a gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy shifted about on the edge of his chair, ill at ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now if Alfred had only told me that in the first place,&rdquo; she continued,
+      &ldquo;I'd have known what to say, but he didn't. Oh no, he was as sweet as
+      could be all through breakfast and last night too, and then just as he was
+      leaving this morning, I said something about luncheon and he said, quite
+      casually, 'Where did you have luncheon YESTERDAY, my dear?' So I answered
+      quite carelessly, 'I had none, my love.' Well, I wish you could have seen
+      him. He called me dreadful things. He says I'm the one thing he can't
+      endure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that?&rdquo; questioned Jimmy, wondering how Alfred could confine
+      himself to any &ldquo;ONE thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He says I'm a liar!&rdquo; shrieked Zoie tearfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, aren't you?&rdquo; asked Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I am,&rdquo; declared Zoie; &ldquo;but why shouldn't I be?&rdquo; She looked at
+      Jimmy with such an air of self-approval that for the life of him he could
+      find no reason to offer. &ldquo;You know how jealous Alfred is,&rdquo; she continued.
+      &ldquo;He makes such a fuss about the slightest thing that I've got out of the
+      habit of EVER telling the TRUTH.&rdquo; She walked away from Jimmy as though
+      dismissing the entire matter; he shifted his position uneasily; she turned
+      to him again with mock sweetness. &ldquo;I suppose YOU told AGGIE all about it?&rdquo;
+       she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy's round eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped lower. &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;don't
+      believe I did,&rdquo; he stammered weakly. &ldquo;I didn't think of it again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank heaven for that!&rdquo; concluded Zoie with tightly pressed lips. Then
+      she knotted her small white brow in deep thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy regarded her with growing uneasiness. &ldquo;What are you up to now?&rdquo; he
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know yet,&rdquo; mused Zoie, &ldquo;BUT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TELL AGGIE&mdash;that's
+      ONE SURE thing.&rdquo; And she pinned him down with her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I certainly will tell her,&rdquo; asserted Jimmy, with a wag of his very round
+      head. &ldquo;Aggie is just the one to get you out of this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's just the one to make things worse,&rdquo; said Zoie decidedly. Then
+      seeing Jimmy's hurt look, she continued apologetically: &ldquo;Aggie MEANS all
+      right, but she has an absolute mania for mixing up in other people's
+      troubles. And you know how THAT always ends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never deceived my wife in all my life,&rdquo; declared Jimmy, with an air of
+      self approval that he was far from feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Jimmy,&rdquo; protested Zoie impatiently, &ldquo;you aren't going to have moral
+      hydrophobia just when I need your help!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not going to lie to Aggie, if that's what you mean,&rdquo; said Jimmy,
+      endeavouring not to wriggle under Zoie's disapproving gaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then don't,&rdquo; answered Zoie sweetly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy never feared Zoie more than when she APPEARED to agree with him. He
+      looked at her now with uneasy distrust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell her the truth,&rdquo; urged Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will,&rdquo; declared Jimmy with an emphatic nod.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I'LL DENY IT,&rdquo; concluded Zoie with an impudent toss of her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmy, and he felt himself getting onto his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've already denied it to Alfred,&rdquo; continued Zoie. &ldquo;I told him I'd never
+      been in that restaurant without him in all my life, that the waiter had
+      mistaken someone else for me.&rdquo; And again she turned her back upon Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But don't you see,&rdquo; protested Jimmy, &ldquo;this would all be so very much
+      simpler if you'd just own up to the truth now, before it's too late?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It IS too late,&rdquo; declared Zoie. &ldquo;Alfred wouldn't believe me now, whatever
+      I told him. He says a woman who lies once lies all the time. He'd think
+      I'd been carrying on with you ALL ALONG.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; groaned Jimmy as the full realisation of his predicament
+      thrust itself upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We don't DARE tell him now,&rdquo; continued Zoie, elated by the demoralised
+      state to which she was fast reducing him. &ldquo;For Heaven's sake, don't make
+      it any worse,&rdquo; she concluded; &ldquo;it's bad enough as it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It certainly is,&rdquo; agreed Jimmy, and he sank dejectedly into his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you DO tell him,&rdquo; threatened Zoie from the opposite side of the table,
+      &ldquo;I'll say you ENTICED me into the place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; shrieked Jimmy and again he found himself on his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will,&rdquo; insisted Zoie, &ldquo;I give you fair warning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at her in absolute horror. &ldquo;I don't believe you've any
+      conscience at all,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't,&rdquo; she sniffled. &ldquo;I'm too miserable.&rdquo; And throwing herself into
+      the nearest armchair she wept copiously at the thought of her many
+      injuries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Uncertain whether to fly or to remain, Jimmy gazed at her gloomily. &ldquo;Well,
+      I'M not laughing myself to death,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For answer Zoie turned upon him vehemently. &ldquo;I just wish I'd never laid
+      eyes on you, Jimmy,&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy was wishing the very same thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I cared about you,&rdquo; she sobbed, &ldquo;it wouldn't be so bad; but to think
+      of losing my Alfred for&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; words failed her and she trailed
+      off weakly,&mdash;&ldquo;for nothing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks,&rdquo; grunted Jimmy curtly. In spite of himself he was always miffed
+      by the uncomplimentary way in which she disposed of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His sarcasm was lost upon Zoie. Having finished all she had to say to him,
+      she was now apparently bent upon indulging herself in a first class fit of
+      hysterics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are critical moments in all of our lives when our future happiness
+      or woe hangs upon our own decision. Jimmy felt intuitively that he was
+      face to face with such a moment, but which way to turn? that was the
+      question. Being Jimmy, and soft-hearted in spite of his efforts to conceal
+      it, he naturally turned the wrong way, in other words, towards Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, come now,&rdquo; he said awkwardly, as he crossed to the arm of her chair.
+      &ldquo;This will soon blow over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie only sobbed the louder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This isn't the first time you and Alfred have called it all off,&rdquo; he
+      reminded her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again she sobbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy could never remember quite how it happened. But apparently he must
+      have patted Zoie on the shoulder. At any rate, something or other loosened
+      the flood-gates of her emotion, and before Jimmy could possibly escape
+      from her vicinity she had wheeled round in her chair, thrown her arms
+      about him, and buried her tear-stained face against his waist-coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmy, for the third time that morning, as he
+      glanced nervously toward the door; but Zoie was exclaiming in her own way
+      and sobbing louder and louder; furthermore she was compelling Jimmy to
+      listen to an exaggerated account of her many disappointments in her
+      unreasonable husband. Seeing no possibility of escape, without resorting
+      to physical violence, Jimmy stood his ground, wondering what to expect
+      next. He did not have long to wonder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      WITHIN an hour from the time Alfred had entered his office that morning he
+      was leaving it, in a taxi, with his faithful secretary at his side, and
+      his important papers in a bag at his feet. &ldquo;Take me to the Sherwood,&rdquo; he
+      commanded the driver, &ldquo;and be quick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As they neared Alfred's house, Johnson could feel waves of increasing
+      anger circling around his perturbed young employer and later when they
+      alighted from the taxi it was with the greatest difficulty that he could
+      keep pace with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unfortunately for Jimmy, the outer door of the Hardy apartment had been
+      left ajar, and thus it was that he was suddenly startled from Zoie's
+      unwelcome embraces by a sharp exclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So!&rdquo; cried Alfred, and he brought his fist down with emphasis on the
+      centre table at Jimmy's back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wheeling about, Jimmy beheld his friend face to face with him. Alfred's
+      lips were pressed tightly together, his eyes flashing fire. It was
+      apparent that he desired an immediate explanation. Jimmy turned to the
+      place where Zoie had been, to ask for help; like the traitress that she
+      was, he now saw her flying through her bedroom door. Again he glanced at
+      Alfred, who was standing like a sentry, waiting for the pass-word that
+      should restore his confidence in his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid I've disturbed you,&rdquo; sneered Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, not at all,&rdquo; answered Jimmy, affecting a careless indifference
+      that he did not feel and unconsciously shaking hands with the waiting
+      secretary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reminded of the secretary's presence in such a distinctly family scene,
+      Alfred turned to him with annoyance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go into my study,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'll be with you presently. Here's your
+      list,&rdquo; he added and he thrust a long memorandum into the secretary's hand.
+      Johnson retired as unobtrusively as possible and the two old friends were
+      left alone. There was another embarrassed silence which Jimmy, at least,
+      seemed powerless to break.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; questioned Alfred in a threatening tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tolerably well,&rdquo; answered Jimmy in his most pleasant but slightly nervous
+      manner. Then followed another pause in which Alfred continued to eye his
+      old friend with grave suspicion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fact is,&rdquo; stammered Jimmy, &ldquo;I just came over to bring Aggie&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+       he corrected himself&mdash;&ldquo;that is, to bring Zoie a little message from
+      Aggie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seemed to be a SAD one,&rdquo; answered Alfred, with a sarcastic smile, as
+      he recalled the picture of Zoie weeping upon his friend's sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no&mdash;no!&rdquo; answered Jimmy, with an elaborate attempt at
+      carelessness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you generally play the messenger during business hours?&rdquo; thundered
+      Alfred, becoming more and more enraged at Jimmy's petty evasions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just SOMETIMES,&rdquo; answered Jimmy, persisting in his amiable manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy,&rdquo; said Alfred, and there was a solemn warning in his voice, &ldquo;don't
+      YOU lie to me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy started as though shot. The consciousness of his guilt was strong
+      upon him. &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; he gasped, for the want of anything more
+      intelligent to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't do it well,&rdquo; continued Alfred, &ldquo;and you and I are old friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy's round eyes fixed themselves on the carpet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My wife has been telling you her troubles,&rdquo; surmised Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy tried to protest, but the lie would not come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; continued Alfred, &ldquo;I'll tell you something too. I've done
+      with her.&rdquo; He thrust his hands in his pockets and began to walk up and
+      down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a turbulent household,&rdquo; thought Jimmy and then he set out in pursuit
+      of his friend. &ldquo;I'm sorry you've had a misunderstanding,&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Misunderstanding!&rdquo; shouted Alfred, turning upon him so sharply that he
+      nearly tripped him up, &ldquo;we've never had anything else. There was never
+      anything else for us TO have. She's lied up hill and down dale from the
+      first time she clinched her baby fingers around my hand&mdash;&rdquo; he
+      imitated Zoie's dainty manner&mdash;&ldquo;and said 'pleased to meet you!' But
+      I've caught her with the goods this time,&rdquo; he shouted, &ldquo;and I've just
+      about got HIM.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Him!&rdquo; echoed Jimmy weakly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The wife-stealer,&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred, and he clinched his fists in
+      anticipation of the justice he would one day mete out to the despicable
+      creature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Jimmy had been called many things in his time, he realised that he
+      would doubtless be called many more things in the future, but never by the
+      wildest stretch of imagination, had he ever conceived of himself in the
+      role of &ldquo;wife-stealer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mistaking Jimmy's look of amazement for one of incredulity, Alfred
+      endeavoured to convince him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, YOU'LL meet a wife-stealer sooner or later,&rdquo; he assured him. &ldquo;You
+      needn't look so horrified.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy only stared at him and he continued excitedly: &ldquo;She's had the
+      effrontery&mdash;the bad taste&mdash;the idiocy to lunch in a public
+      restaurant with the blackguard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The mere sound of the word made Jimmy shudder, but engrossed in his own
+      troubles Alfred continued without heeding him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henri, the head-waiter, told me,&rdquo; explained Alfred, and Jimmy remembered
+      guiltily that he had been very bumptious with the fellow. &ldquo;You know the
+      place,&rdquo; continued Alfred, &ldquo;the LaSalle&mdash;a restaurant where I am known&mdash;where
+      she is known&mdash;where my best friends dine&mdash;where Henri has looked
+      after me for years. That shows how desperate she is. She must be mad about
+      the fool. She's lost all sense of decency.&rdquo; And again Alfred paced the
+      floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I wouldn't go as far as that,&rdquo; stammered Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, wouldn't you?&rdquo; cried Alfred, again turning so abruptly that Jimmy
+      caught his breath. Each word of Jimmy's was apparently goading him on to
+      greater anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now don't get hasty,&rdquo; Jimmy almost pleaded. &ldquo;The whole thing is no doubt
+      perfectly innocent. Talk to her gently. Win her confidence. Get her to
+      tell you the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The truth!&rdquo; shouted Alfred in derision. &ldquo;Zoie! The truth!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy feared that his young friend might actually become violent. Alfred
+      bore down upon him like a maniac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The truth!&rdquo; he repeated wildly. &ldquo;She wouldn't know the truth if she saw
+      it under a microscope. She's the most unconscionable little liar that ever
+      lured a man to the altar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy rolled his round eyes with feigned incredulity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I found it out before we'd been married a month,&rdquo; continued Alfred. &ldquo;She
+      used to sit evenings facing the clock. I sat with my back to it. I used to
+      ask her the time. Invariably she would lie half an hour, backward or
+      forward, just for practice. THAT was the BEGINNING. Here, listen to some
+      of these,&rdquo; he added, as he drew half a dozen telegrams from his inner
+      pocket, and motioned Jimmy to sit at the opposite side of the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy would have preferred to stand, but it was not a propitious time to
+      consult his own preferences. He allowed himself to be bullied into the
+      chair that Alfred suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Throwing himself into the opposite chair, Alfred selected various exhibits
+      from his collection of messages. &ldquo;I just brought these up from the
+      office,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;These are some of the telegrams that she sent me each
+      day last week while I was away. This is Monday's.&rdquo; And he proceeded to
+      read with a sneering imitation of Zoie's cloy sweetness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Darling, so lonesome without you. Cried all day. When are you coming
+      home to your wee sad wifie? Love and kisses. Zoie.'&rdquo; Tearing the
+      defenceless telegram into bits, Alfred threw it from him and waited for
+      his friend's verdict.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She sent that over the wire?&rdquo; gasped Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, that's nothing,&rdquo; answered Alfred. &ldquo;That's a mild one.&rdquo; And he
+      selected another from the same pocket. &ldquo;Here, listen to this. This is what
+      she REALLY did. This is from my secretary the same night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You spied upon her!&rdquo; asked Jimmy, feeling more and more convinced that
+      his own deceptions would certainly be run to earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I HAVE to spy upon her,&rdquo; answered Alfred, &ldquo;in self-defence. It's the only
+      way I can keep her from making me utterly ridiculous.&rdquo; And he proceeded to
+      read from the secretary's telegram. &ldquo;'Shopped all morning. Lunched at
+      Martingale's with man and woman unknown to me&mdash;Martingale's,'&rdquo; he
+      repeated with a sneer&mdash;&ldquo;'Motored through Park with Mrs. Wilmer until
+      five.' Mrs. Wilmer,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;there's a woman I've positively
+      forbidden her to speak to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy only shook his head and Alfred continued to read.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Had tea with Mr. and Mrs. Thompson and young Ardesley at the Park View.'
+      Ardesley is a young cub,&rdquo; explained Alfred, &ldquo;who spends his time running
+      around with married women while their husbands are away trying to make a
+      living for them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shocking!&rdquo; was the extent of Jimmy's comment, and Alfred resumed reading.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Dinner and theatre same party. Supper at Wellingford. Home two A. M.'&rdquo;
+       He looked at Jimmy, expecting to hear Zoie bitterly condemned. Jimmy only
+      stared at him blankly. &ldquo;That's pretty good,&rdquo; commented Alfred, &ldquo;for the
+      woman who 'CRIED' all day, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still Jimmy made no answer, and Alfred brought his fist down upon the
+      table impatiently. &ldquo;Isn't it?&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was a bit busy THAT day,&rdquo; admitted Jimmy uneasily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The truth!&rdquo; cried Alfred again, as he rose and paced about excitedly.
+      &ldquo;Getting the truth out of Zoie is like going to a fire in the night. You
+      think it's near, but you never get there. And when she begins by saying
+      that she's going to tell you the 'REAL truth'&rdquo;&mdash;he threw up his hands
+      in despair&mdash;&ldquo;well, then it's time to leave home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There was another pause, then Alfred drew in his breath and bore down upon
+      Jimmy with fresh vehemence. &ldquo;The only time I get even a semblance of truth
+      out of Zoie,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;is when I catch her red-handed.&rdquo; Again he pounded
+      the table and again Jimmy winced. &ldquo;And even then,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;she
+      colours it so with her affected innocence and her plea about just wishing
+      to be a 'good fellow,' that she almost makes me doubt my own eyes. She is
+      an artist,&rdquo; he declared with a touch of enforced admiration. &ldquo;There's no
+      use talking; that woman is an artist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you going to do?&rdquo; asked Jimmy, for the want of anything better
+      to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to leave her,&rdquo; declared Alfred emphatically. &ldquo;I am going
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A faint hope lit Jimmy's round childlike face. With Alfred away there
+      would be no further investigation of the luncheon incident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That might be a good idea,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's THE idea,&rdquo; said Alfred; &ldquo;most of my business is in Detroit anyhow.
+      I'm going to make that my headquarters and stay there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy was almost smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As for Zoie,&rdquo; continued Alfred, &ldquo;she can stay right here and go as far as
+      she likes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not with me,&rdquo; thought Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; shrieked Alfred, with renewed emphasis, &ldquo;I'm going to find out who
+      the FELLOW is. I'll have THAT satisfaction!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy's spirits fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henri knows the head-waiter of every restaurant in this town,&rdquo; said
+      Alfred, &ldquo;that is, every one where she'd be likely to go; and he says he'd
+      recognise the man she lunched with if he saw him again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy's features became suddenly distorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The minute she appears anywhere with anybody,&rdquo; explained Alfred, &ldquo;Henri
+      will be notified by 'phone. He'll identify the man and then he'll wire
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good will that do?&rdquo; asked Jimmy weakly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll take the first train home,&rdquo; declared Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For what?&rdquo; questioned Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To shoot him!&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; gasped Jimmy, almost losing his footing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred mistook Jimmy's concern for anxiety on his behalf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I'll be acquitted,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Don't you worry. I'll get my tale
+      of woe before the jury.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I say,&rdquo; protested Jimmy, too uneasy to longer conceal his real
+      emotions, &ldquo;why kill this one particular chap when there are so many
+      others?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's the only one she's ever lunched with, ALONE,&rdquo; said Alfred. &ldquo;She's
+      been giddy, but at least she's always been chaperoned, except with him.
+      He's the one all right; there's no doubt about it. He's the beginning of
+      the end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His own end, yes,&rdquo; assented Jimmy half to himself. &ldquo;Now, see here, old
+      man,&rdquo; he argued, &ldquo;I'd give that poor devil a chance to explain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Explain!&rdquo; shouted Alfred so sharply that Jimmy quickly retreated. &ldquo;I
+      wouldn't believe him now if he were one of the Twelve Apostles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's tough,&rdquo; murmured Jimmy as he saw the last avenue of honourable
+      escape closed to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tough!&rdquo; roared Alfred, thinking of himself. &ldquo;Hah.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the Apostles, I mean,&rdquo; explained Jimmy nervously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Alfred paced up and down the room, and again Jimmy tried to think of
+      some way to escape from his present difficulty. It was quite apparent that
+      his only hope lay not in his own candor, but in Alfred's absence. &ldquo;How
+      long do you expect to be away?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only until I hear from Henri,&rdquo; said Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henri?&rdquo; repeated Jimmy and again a gleam of hope shone on his dull
+      features. He had heard that waiters were often to be bribed. &ldquo;Nice fellow,
+      Henri,&rdquo; he ventured cautiously. &ldquo;Gets a large salary, no doubt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he!&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred, with a certain pride of proprietorship. &ldquo;No
+      tips could touch Henri, no indeed. He's not that sort of a person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the hope faded from Jimmy's round face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I look upon Henri as my friend,&rdquo; continued Alfred enthusiastically. &ldquo;He
+      speaks every language known to man. He's been in every country in the
+      world. HENRI UNDERSTANDS LIFE.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;LOTS of people UNDERSTAND LIFE,&rdquo; commented Jimmy dismally, &ldquo;but SOME
+      people don't APPRECIATE it. They value it too lightly, to MY way of
+      thinking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, but you have something to live for,&rdquo; argued Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have indeed; a great deal,&rdquo; agreed Jimmy, more and more abused at the
+      thought of what he was about to lose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that's different,&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred. &ldquo;But what have <i>I</i>?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy was in no frame of mind to consider his young friend's assets, he
+      was thinking of his own difficulties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm a laughing stock,&rdquo; shouted Alfred. &ldquo;I know it. A 'good thing' who
+      gives his wife everything she asks for, while she is running around with&mdash;with
+      my best friend, for all I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, no,&rdquo; protested Jimmy nervously. &ldquo;I wouldn't say that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even if she weren't running around,&rdquo; continued Alfred excitedly, without
+      heeding his friend's interruption, &ldquo;what have we to look forward to? What
+      have we to look backward to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Jimmy's face was a blank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred answered his own question by lifting his arms tragically toward
+      Heaven. &ldquo;One eternal round of wrangles and rows! A childless home! Do you
+      think she wants babies?&rdquo; he cried, wheeling about on Jimmy, and daring him
+      to answer in the affirmative. &ldquo;Oh, no!&rdquo; he sneered. &ldquo;All she wants is a
+      good time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; mumbled Jimmy, &ldquo;I can't see much in babies myself, fat, little,
+      red worms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred's breath went from him in astonishment
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Weren't YOU ever a fat, little, red worm?&rdquo; he hissed. &ldquo;Wasn't <i>I</i>
+      ever a little, fat, red&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; he paused in confusion, as his ear
+      became puzzled by the proper sequence of his adjectives, &ldquo;a fat, red,
+      little worm,&rdquo; he stammered; &ldquo;and see what we are now!&rdquo; He thrust out his
+      chest and strutted about in great pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Big red worms,&rdquo; admitted Jimmy gloomily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Alfred did not hear him. &ldquo;You and I ought to have SONS on the way to
+      what we are,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;and better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, better,&rdquo; agreed Jimmy, thinking of his present plight. &ldquo;Much
+      better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But HAVE we?&rdquo; demanded Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy glanced about the room, as though expecting an answering
+      demonstration from the ceiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have YOU?&rdquo; persisted Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy shook his head solemnly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have <i>I</i>?&rdquo; asked the irate husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Out of sheer absent mindedness Jimmy shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As usual Alfred answered his own question. &ldquo;Oh, no!&rdquo; he raged. &ldquo;YOU have a
+      wife who spends her time and money gadding about with&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy's face showed a new alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;my wife,&rdquo; concluded Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a wife,&rdquo; said Alfred, &ldquo;who spends her time and my money gadding
+      around with God knows whom. But I'll catch him!&rdquo; he cried with new fury.
+      &ldquo;Here,&rdquo; he said, pulling a roll of bills from his pocket. &ldquo;I'll bet you
+      I'll catch him. How much do you want to bet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Undesirous of offering any added inducements toward his own capture, Jimmy
+      backed away both literally and figuratively from Alfred's proposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the use of getting so excited?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mistaking Jimmy's unwillingness to bet for a disinclination to take
+      advantage of a friend's reckless mood, Alfred resented the implied insult
+      to his astuteness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think I can't catch him?&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Let's see the colour of your
+      money,&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But before Jimmy could comply, an unexpected voice broke into the argument
+      and brought them both round with a start.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Heavens,&rdquo; exclaimed Aggie, who had entered the room while Alfred was
+      talking his loudest. &ldquo;What a racket!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyes fell upon Jimmy who was teetering about uneasily just behind
+      Alfred. She stared at him in amazement. Was it possible that Jimmy, the
+      methodical, had left his office at this hour of the morning, and for what?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Avoiding the question in Aggie's eyes, Jimmy pretended to be searching for
+      his pocket handkerchief&mdash;but always with the vision of Aggie in her
+      new Fall gown and her large &ldquo;picture&rdquo; hat at his elbow. Never before had
+      she appeared so beautiful to him, so desirable&mdash;suppose he should
+      lose her? Life spread before him as a dreary waste. He tried to look up at
+      her; he could not. He feared she would read his guilt in his eyes. &ldquo;What
+      guilt?&rdquo; he asked himself. There was no longer any denying the fact&mdash;a
+      secret had sprung up between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Annoyed at receiving no greeting, Aggie continued in a rather hurt voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aren't you two going to speak to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred swallowed hard in an effort to regain his composure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-morning,&rdquo; he said curtly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fully convinced of a disagreement between the two old friends, Aggie
+      addressed herself in a reproachful tone to Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;what are you doing here this time of day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy felt Alfred's steely eyes upon him. &ldquo;Why!&rdquo; he stammered. &ldquo;Why, I
+      just came over to&mdash;bring your message.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My message?&rdquo; repeated Aggie in perplexity. &ldquo;What message?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred's eyebrows drew themselves sharply together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy had told so many lies this morning that another more or less could
+      not matter; moreover, this was not a time to hesitate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, the message you sent to Zoie,&rdquo; he answered boldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I sent no message to Zoie,&rdquo; said Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; thundered Alfred, so loud that Aggie's fingers involuntarily went
+      to her ears. She was more and more puzzled by the odd behaviour of the
+      two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean yesterday's message,&rdquo; corrected Jimmy. And he assumed an aggrieved
+      air toward Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You villain,&rdquo; exclaimed Aggie. &ldquo;I told you to 'phone her yesterday
+      morning from the office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know,&rdquo; agreed Jimmy placidly, &ldquo;but I forgot it and I just came
+      over to explain.&rdquo; Alfred's fixed stare was relaxing and at last Jimmy
+      could breathe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; murmured Aggie, with a wise little elevation of her eye-brows, &ldquo;then
+      that's why Zoie didn't keep her luncheon appointment with me yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy felt that if this were to go on much longer, he would utter one wild
+      shriek and give himself up for lost; but at present he merely swallowed
+      with an effort, and awaited developments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was now Alfred's turn to become excited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, IS it!&rdquo; he cried with hysterical laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie regarded him with astonishment. Was this her usually self-controlled
+      friend?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no!&rdquo; sneered Alfred with unmistakable pity for her credulity. &ldquo;That's
+      not why my wife didn't eat luncheon with you. She may TELL you that's why.
+      She undoubtedly will; but it's NOT why. Oh, no!&rdquo; and running his hands
+      through his hair, Alfred tore up and down the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean by that?&rdquo; Aggie asked in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your dear husband Jimmy will doubtless explain,&rdquo; answered Alfred with a
+      slur on the &ldquo;dear.&rdquo; Then he turned toward the door of his study. &ldquo;Pray
+      excuse me&mdash;I'M TOO BUSY,&rdquo; and with that he strode out of the room and
+      banged the study door behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goodness gracious!&rdquo; gasped Aggie. She looked after Alfred, then at Jimmy.
+      She was the picture of consternation. &ldquo;What's the matter with him?&rdquo; she
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just another little family tiff,&rdquo; answered Jimmy, trying to assume a
+      nonchalant manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not about YOU!&rdquo; gasped Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me!&rdquo; cried Jimmy, his equilibrium again upset. &ldquo;Certainly not!&rdquo; he
+      declared. &ldquo;What an idea!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, wasn't it?&rdquo; answered Aggie. &ldquo;That just shows how silly one can be. I
+      almost thought Alfred was going to say that Zoie had lunched with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me?&rdquo; again echoed Jimmy, and he wondered if everybody in the world had
+      conspired to make him the target of their attention. He caught Aggie's eye
+      and tried to laugh carelessly. &ldquo;That would have been funny, wouldn't it?&rdquo;
+       he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, wouldn't it,&rdquo; repeated Aggie, and he thought he detected a slight
+      uneasiness in her voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speaking of lunch,&rdquo; added Jimmy quickly, &ldquo;I think, dearie, that I'll come
+      home for lunch in the future.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; exclaimed Aggie in great amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those downtown places upset my digestion,&rdquo; explained Jimmy quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't this very SUDDEN,&rdquo; she asked, and again Jimmy fancied that there
+      was a shade of suspicion in her tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His face assumed a martyred expression. &ldquo;Of course, dear,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if
+      you insist upon my eating downtown, I'll do it; but I thought you'd be
+      glad to have me at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie turned to him with real concern. &ldquo;Why, Jimmy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;what's the
+      matter with you?&rdquo; She took a step toward him and anxiously studied his
+      face. &ldquo;I never heard you talk like that before. I don't think you're
+      well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's just what I'm telling you,&rdquo; insisted Jimmy vehemently, excited
+      beyond all reason by receiving even this small bit of sympathy. &ldquo;I'm ill,&rdquo;
+       he declared. No sooner had he made the declaration than he began to
+      believe in it. His doleful countenance increased Aggie's alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My angel-face,&rdquo; she purred, and she took his chubby cheeks in her hands
+      and looked down at him fondly. &ldquo;You know I ALWAYS want you to come home.&rdquo;
+       She stooped and kissed Jimmy's pouting lips. He held up his face for more.
+      She smoothed the hair from his worried brow and endeavoured to cheer him.
+      &ldquo;I'll run right home now,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and tell cook to get something nice
+      and tempting for you! I can see Zoie later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It doesn't matter,&rdquo; murmured Jimmy, as he followed her toward the door
+      with a doleful shake of his head. &ldquo;I don't suppose I shall ever enjoy my
+      luncheon again&mdash;as long as I live.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense,&rdquo; cried Aggie, &ldquo;come along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      WHEN Alfred returned to the living room he was followed by his secretary,
+      who carried two well-filled satchels. His temper was not improved by the
+      discovery that he had left certain important papers at his office.
+      Dispatching his man to get them and to meet him at the station with them,
+      he collected a few remaining letters from the drawer of the writing table,
+      then uneasy at remaining longer under the same roof with Zoie, he picked
+      up his hat, and started toward the hallway. For the first time his eye was
+      attracted by a thick layer of dust and lint on his coat sleeve. Worse
+      still, there was a smudge on his cuff. If there was one thing more than
+      another that Alfred detested it was untidiness. Putting his hat down with
+      a bang, he tried to flick the dust from his sleeve with his pocket
+      handkerchief; finding this impossible, he removed his coat and began to
+      shake it violently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was at this particular moment that Zoie's small face appeared
+      cautiously from behind the frame of the bedroom door. She was quick to
+      perceive Alfred's plight. Disappearing from view for an instant, she soon
+      reappeared with Alfred's favourite clothes-brush. She tiptoed into the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barely had Alfred drawn his coat on his shoulders, when he was startled by
+      a quick little flutter of the brush on his sleeve. He turned in surprise
+      and beheld Zoie, who looked up at him as penitent and irresistible as a
+      newly-punished child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; snarled Alfred, and he glared at her as though he would enjoy
+      strangling her on the spot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alfred,&rdquo; pouted Zoie, and he knew she was going to add her customary
+      appeal of &ldquo;Let's make up.&rdquo; But Alfred was in no mood for nonsense. He
+      thrust his hands in his pockets and made straight for the outer doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Smiling to herself as she saw him leaving without his hat, Zoie slipped it
+      quickly beneath a flounce of her skirt. No sooner had Alfred reached the
+      sill of the door than his hand went involuntarily to his head; he turned
+      to the table where he had left his hat. His face wore a puzzled look. He
+      glanced beneath the table, in the chair, behind the table, across the
+      piano, and then he began circling the room with pent up rage. He dashed
+      into his study and out again, he threw the chairs about with increasing
+      irritation, then giving up the search, he started hatless toward the
+      hallway. It was then that a soft babyish voice reached his ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you lost something, dear?&rdquo; cooed Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred hesitated. It was difficult to lower his dignity by answering her,
+      but he needed his headgear. &ldquo;I want my hat,&rdquo; he admitted shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your hat?&rdquo; repeated Zoie innocently and she glanced around the room with
+      mild interest. &ldquo;Maybe Mary took it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mary!&rdquo; cried Alfred, and thinking the mystery solved, he dashed toward
+      the inner hallway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let ME get it, dear,&rdquo; pleaded Zoie, and she laid a small detaining hand
+      upon his arm as he passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop it!&rdquo; commanded Alfred hotly, and he shook the small hand from his
+      sleeve as though it had been something poisonous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Allie,&rdquo; protested Zoie, pretending to be shocked and grieved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you 'but Allie' me,&rdquo; cried Alfred, turning upon her sharply. &ldquo;All I
+      want is my hat,&rdquo; and again he started in search of Mary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but&mdash;but Allie,&rdquo; stammered Zoie, as she followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but&mdash;but,&rdquo; repeated Alfred, turning on her in a fury.
+      &ldquo;You've butted me out of everything that I wanted all my life, but you're
+      not going to do it again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, you said it yourself,&rdquo; laughed Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Said WHAT,&rdquo; roared Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; tittered Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remnants of Alfred's self-control were forsaking him. He clinched his
+      fists hard in a final effort toward restraint. &ldquo;You'd just as well stop
+      all these baby tricks,&rdquo; he threatened between his teeth, &ldquo;they're not
+      going to work. THIS time my mind is made up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why are you afraid to talk to me?&rdquo; asked Zoie sweetly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who said I was afraid?&rdquo; demanded Alfred hotly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ACT like it,&rdquo; declared Zoie, with some truth on her side. &ldquo;You don't
+      want&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; she got no further.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All I want,&rdquo; interrupted Alfred, &ldquo;is to get out of this house once and
+      for all and to stay out of it.&rdquo; And again he started in pursuit of his
+      hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Allie,&rdquo; she gazed at him with deep reproach. &ldquo;You liked this place
+      so much when we first came here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Alfred picked at the lint on his coat sleeve. Edging her way toward
+      him cautiously she ventured to touch his sleeve with the brush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll attend to that myself,&rdquo; he said curtly, and he sank into the nearest
+      chair to tie a refractory shoe lace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me brush you, dear,&rdquo; pleaded Zoie. &ldquo;I don't wish you to start out in
+      the world looking unbrushed,&rdquo; she pouted. Then with a sly emphasis she
+      added teasingly, &ldquo;The OTHER women might not admire you that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred broke his shoe string then and there. While he stooped to tie a
+      knot in it, Zoie managed to perch on the arm of his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, Allie,&rdquo; she continued coaxingly, &ldquo;no one could ever love you as
+      I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Alfred broke his shoe lace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Allie!&rdquo; she exclaimed with a little ripple of childish laughter, &ldquo;do
+      you remember how absurdly poor we were when we were first married, and how
+      you refused to take any help from your family? And do you remember that
+      silly old pair of black trousers that used to get so thin on the knees and
+      how I used to put shoe-blacking underneath so the white wouldn't show
+      through?&rdquo; By this time her arm managed to get around his neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop it!&rdquo; shrieked Alfred as though mortal man could endure no more.
+      &ldquo;You've used those trousers to settle every crisis in our lives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie gazed at him without daring to breathe; even she was aghast at his
+      fury, but only temporarily. She recovered herself and continued sweetly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If everything is SETTLED,&rdquo; she argued, &ldquo;where's the harm in talking?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've DONE with talking,&rdquo; declared Alfred. &ldquo;From this on, I act.&rdquo; And
+      determined not to be cheated out of this final decision, he again started
+      for the hall door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Allie!&rdquo; cried Zoie in a tone of sharp alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of himself Alfred turned to learn the cause of her anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven't got your overshoes on,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Speechless with rage, Alfred continued on his way, but Zoie moved before
+      him swiftly. &ldquo;I'll get them for you, dear,&rdquo; she volunteered graciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; thundered Alfred. They were now face to face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you wouldn't roar like that,&rdquo; pouted Zoie, and the pink tips of
+      her fingers were thrust tight against her ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred drew in his breath and endeavoured for the last time to repress his
+      indignation. &ldquo;Either you can't, or you won't understand that it is
+      extremely unpleasant for me to even talk to you&mdash;much less to receive
+      your attentions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very likely,&rdquo; answered Zoie, unperturbed. &ldquo;But so long as I am your
+      lawful wedded wife&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; she emphasised the &ldquo;lawful&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      shan't let any harm come to you, if <i>I</i> can help it.&rdquo; She lifted her
+      eyes to heaven bidding it to bear witness to her martyrdom and looking for
+      all the world like a stained glass saint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no!&rdquo; shouted Alfred, almost hysterical at his apparent failure to
+      make himself understood. &ldquo;You wouldn't let any harm come to me. Oh, no.
+      You've only made me the greatest joke in Chicago,&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;You've
+      only made me such a laughing stock that I have to leave it. That's all&mdash;that's
+      all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave Chicago!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie incredulously. Then regaining her
+      self-composure, she edged her way close to him and looked up into his eyes
+      in baby-like wonderment. &ldquo;Why, Allie, where are we going?&rdquo; Her small arm
+      crept up toward his shoulder. Alfred pushed it from him rudely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WE are not going,&rdquo; he asserted in a firm, measured voice. &ldquo;<i>I</i> am
+      going. Where's my hat?&rdquo; And again he started in search of his absent
+      headgear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Allie!&rdquo; she exclaimed, and this time there was genuine alarm in her
+      voice, &ldquo;you wouldn't leave me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wouldn't I, though?&rdquo; sneered Alfred. Before he knew it, Zoie's arms were
+      about him&mdash;she was pleading desperately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now see here, Allie, you may call me all the names you like,&rdquo; she cried
+      with great self-abasement, &ldquo;but you shan't&mdash;you SHAN'T go away from
+      Chicago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, indeed?&rdquo; answered Alfred as he shook himself free of her. &ldquo;I suppose
+      you'd like me to go on with this cat and dog existence. You'd like me to
+      stay right here and pay the bills and take care of you, while you flirt
+      with every Tom, Dick and Harry in town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's only your horrid disposition that makes you talk like that,&rdquo;
+       whimpered Zoie. &ldquo;You know very well that I never cared for anybody but
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Until you GOT me, yes,&rdquo; assented Alfred, &ldquo;and NOW you care for everybody
+      BUT me.&rdquo; She was about to object, but he continued quickly. &ldquo;Where you
+      MEET your gentlemen friends is beyond me. <i>I</i> don't introduce them to
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should say not,&rdquo; agreed Zoie, and there was a touch of vindictiveness
+      in her voice. &ldquo;The only male creature that you ever introduced to me was
+      the family dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I introduce every man who's fit to meet you,&rdquo; declared Alfred with an air
+      of great pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That doesn't speak very well for your acquaintances,&rdquo; snipped Zoie. Even
+      HER temper was beginning to assert itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't bicker like this,&rdquo; declared Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's what you always say, when you can't think of an answer,&rdquo; retorted
+      Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean when I'm tired of answering your nonsense!&rdquo; thundered Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Realising that she was rapidly losing ground by exercising her advantage
+      over Alfred in the matter of quick retort, Zoie, with her customary
+      cunning, veered round to a more conciliatory tone. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she cooed,
+      &ldquo;suppose I DID eat lunch with a man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; shrieked Alfred, as though he had at last run his victim to earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She retreated with her fingers crossed. &ldquo;I only said suppose,&rdquo; she
+      reminded him quickly. Then she continued in a tone meant to draw from him
+      his heart's most secret confidence. &ldquo;Didn't you ever eat lunch with any
+      woman but me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never!&rdquo; answered Alfred firmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an unmistakable expression of pleasure on Zoie's small face, but
+      she forced back the smile that was trying to creep round her lips, and
+      sidled toward Alfred, with eyes properly downcast. &ldquo;Then I'm very sorry I
+      did it,&rdquo; she said solemnly, &ldquo;and I'll never do it again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So!&rdquo; cried Alfred with renewed indignation. &ldquo;You admit it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just to please you, dear,&rdquo; explained Zoie sweetly, as though she were
+      doing him the greatest possible favour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To please me?&rdquo; gasped Alfred. &ldquo;Do you suppose it pleases me to know that
+      you are carrying on the moment my back is turned, making a fool of me to
+      my friends?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your friends?&rdquo; cried Zoie with a sneer. This time it was her turn to be
+      angry. &ldquo;So! It's your FRIENDS that are worrying you!&rdquo; In her excitement
+      she tossed Alfred's now damaged hat into the chair just behind her. He was
+      far too overwrought to see it. &ldquo;<i>I</i> haven't done you any harm,&rdquo; she
+      continued wildly. &ldquo;It's only what you think your friends think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven't done me any harm?&rdquo; repeated Alfred, in her same tragic key,
+      &ldquo;Oh no! Oh no! You've only cheated me out of everything I expected to get
+      out of life! That's all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie came to a full stop and waited for him to enumerate the various
+      treasures that he had lost by marrying her. He did so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before we were married,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;you pretended to adore children.
+      You started your humbugging the first day I met you. I refer to little
+      Willie Peck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A hysterical giggle very nearly betrayed her. Alfred continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was fool enough to let you know that I admire women who like children.
+      From that day until the hour that I led you to the altar, you'd fondle the
+      ugliest little brats that we met in the street, but the moment you GOT me&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alfred!&rdquo; gasped Zoie. This was really going too far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I repeat it!&rdquo; shouted Alfred, pounding the table with his fist for
+      emphasis. &ldquo;The moment you GOT me, you declared that all children were
+      horrid little insects, and that someone ought to sprinkle bug-powder on
+      them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; protested Zoie, shocked less by Alfred's interpretation of her
+      sentiments, than by the vulgarity with which he expressed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On another occasion,&rdquo; declared Alfred, now carried away by the recital of
+      his long pent up wrongs, &ldquo;you told me that all babies should be put in
+      cages, shipped West, and kept in pens until they got to be of an
+      interesting age. 'Interesting age!'&rdquo; he repeated with a sneer, &ldquo;meaning
+      old enough to take YOU out to luncheon, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never said any such thing,&rdquo; objected Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that was the idea,&rdquo; insisted Alfred. &ldquo;I haven't your glib way of
+      expressing myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You manage to express yourself very well,&rdquo; retorted Zoie. &ldquo;When you have
+      anything DISAGREEABLE to say. As for babies,&rdquo; she continued tentatively,
+      &ldquo;I think they are all very well in their PLACE, but they were NEVER meant
+      for an APARTMENT.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I offered you a house in the country,&rdquo; shouted Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The country!&rdquo; echoed Zoie. &ldquo;How could I live in the country, with people
+      being murdered in their beds every night? Read the papers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Always an excuse,&rdquo; sighed Alfred resignedly. &ldquo;There always HAS been and
+      there always would be if I'd stay to listen. Well, for once,&rdquo; he declared,
+      &ldquo;I'm glad that we have no children. If we had, I might feel some
+      obligation to keep up this farce of a marriage. As it is,&rdquo; he continued,
+      &ldquo;YOU are free and <i>I</i> am free.&rdquo; And with a courtly wave of his arm,
+      he dismissed Zoie and the entire subject, and again he started in pursuit
+      of Mary and his hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it's your freedom you wish,&rdquo; pouted Zoie with an abused air, &ldquo;you
+      might have said so in the first place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred stopped in sheer amazement at the cleverness with which the little
+      minx turned his every statement against him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not very manly of you,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;to abuse me just because
+      you've found someone whom you like better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's not true,&rdquo; protested Alfred hotly, &ldquo;and you know it's not true.&rdquo;
+       Little did he suspect the trap into which she was leading him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you DON'T love anybody more than you do me?&rdquo; she cried eagerly, and
+      she gazed up at him with adoring eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't say any such thing,&rdquo; hedged Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you DO,&rdquo; she accused him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I DON'T,&rdquo; he declared in self defence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a cry of joy, she sprang into his arms, clasped her fingers tightly
+      behind his neck, and rained impulsive kisses upon his unsuspecting face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For an instant, Alfred looked down at Zoie, undecided whether to strangle
+      her or to return her embraces. As usual, his self-respect won the day for
+      him and, with a determined effort, he lifted her high in the air, so that
+      she lost her tenacious hold of him, and sat her down with a thud in the
+      very same chair in which she had lately dropped his hat. Having acted with
+      this admirable resolution, he strode majestically toward the inner hall,
+      but before he could reach it, Zoie was again on her feet, in a last vain
+      effort to conciliate him. Turning, Alfred caught sight of his poor
+      battered hat. This was the final spur to action. Snatching it up with one
+      hand, and throwing his latchkey on the table with the other, he made
+      determinedly for the outer door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Screaming hysterically, Zoie caught him just as he reached the threshold
+      and threw the whole weight of her body upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alfred,&rdquo; she pleaded, &ldquo;if you REALLY love me, you CAN'T leave me like
+      this!&rdquo; Her emotion was now genuine. He looked down at her gravely&mdash;then
+      into the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are other things more important than what YOU call 'love,'&rdquo; he
+      said, very solemnly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is such a thing as a soul, if you only knew it. And you have hurt
+      mine through and through.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how, Alfred, how?&rdquo; asked the small person, and there was a frown of
+      genuine perplexity on her tiny puckered brow. &ldquo;What have I REALLY DONE,&rdquo;
+       She stroked his hand fondly; her baby eyes searched his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't so much what people DO to us that counts,&rdquo; answered Alfred in a
+      proud hurt voice. &ldquo;It's how much they DISAPPOINT us in what they do. I
+      expected better of YOU,&rdquo; he said sadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll DO better,&rdquo; coaxed Zoie, &ldquo;if you'll only give me a chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was half inclined to believe her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Allie,&rdquo; she pleaded, perceiving that his resentment was dying and
+      resolved to, at last, adopt a straight course, &ldquo;if you'll only listen,
+      I'll tell you the REAL TRUTH.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Unprepared for the electrical effect of her remark, Zoie found herself
+      staggering to keep her feet. She gazed at Alfred in amazement. His arms
+      were lifted to Heaven, his breath was coming fast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'The REAL TRUTH!'&rdquo; he gasped, then bringing his crushed hat down on his
+      forehead with a resounding whack, he rushed from her sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clang of the closing elevator door brought Zoie to a realisation of
+      what had actually happened. Determined that Alfred should not escape her
+      she rushed to the hall door and called to him wildly. There was no answer.
+      Running back to the room, she threw open the window and threw herself half
+      out of it. She was just in time to see Alfred climb into a passing taxi.
+      &ldquo;Alfred!&rdquo; she cried. Then automatically she flew to the 'phone. &ldquo;Give me
+      4302 Main,&rdquo; she called and she tried to force back her tears. &ldquo;Is this
+      Hardy &amp; Company?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, this is Mrs. Hardy,&rdquo; she explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you'd ring me up the moment my husband comes in.&rdquo; There was a
+      slight pause, then she clutched the receiver harder. &ldquo;Not COMING back?&rdquo;
+       she gasped. &ldquo;Gone!&mdash;to Detroit?&rdquo; A short moan escaped her lips. She
+      let the receiver fall back on the hook and her head went forward on her
+      outstretched arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When Jimmy came home to luncheon that day, Aggie succeeded in getting a
+      general idea of the state of affairs in the Hardy household. Of course
+      Jimmy didn't tell the whole truth. Oh, no&mdash;far from it. In fact, he
+      appeared to be aggravatingly ignorant as to the exact cause of the Hardy
+      upheaval. Of ONE thing, however, he was certain. &ldquo;Alfred was going to quit
+      Chicago and leave Zoie to her own devices.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy!&rdquo; cried Aggie. &ldquo;How awful!&rdquo; and before Jimmy was fairly out of the
+      front gate, she had seized her hat and gloves and rushed to the rescue of
+      her friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not surprised at finding Zoie in a state of collapse, Aggie opened her
+      arms sympathetically to receive the weeping confidences that she was sure
+      would soon come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zoie dear,&rdquo; she said as the fragile mite rocked to and fro. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+       She pressed the soft ringlets from the girl's throbbing forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's Alfred,&rdquo; sobbed Zoie. &ldquo;He's gone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know,&rdquo; answered Aggie tenderly. &ldquo;Isn't it awful? Jimmy just told
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy told you WHAT?&rdquo; questioned Zoie, and she lifted her head and
+      regarded Aggie with sudden uneasiness. Her friend's answer raised Jimmy
+      considerably in Zoie's esteem. Apparently he had not breathed a word about
+      the luncheon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Jimmy told me,&rdquo; continued Aggie, &ldquo;that you and Alfred had had
+      another tiff, and that Alfred had gone for good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For GOOD!&rdquo; echoed Zoie and her eyes were wide with terror. &ldquo;Did Alfred
+      tell Jimmy that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then he MEANS it!&rdquo; cried Zoie, at last fully convinced of the strength of
+      Alfred's resolve. &ldquo;But he shan't,&rdquo; she declared emphatically. &ldquo;I won't let
+      him. I'll go after him. He has no right&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; By this time she
+      was running aimlessly about the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you do to him?&rdquo; asked Aggie, feeling sure that Zoie was as usual
+      at fault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; answered Zoie with wide innocent eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing?&rdquo; echoed Aggie, with little confidence in her friend's ability to
+      judge impartially about so personal a matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Absolutely nothing,&rdquo; affirmed Zoie. And there was no doubting that she at
+      least believed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does he SAY,&rdquo; questioned Aggie diplomatically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He SAYS I 'hurt his soul.' Whatever THAT is,&rdquo; answered Zoie, and her face
+      wore an injured expression. &ldquo;Isn't that a nice excuse,&rdquo; she continued,
+      &ldquo;for leaving your lawful wedded wife?&rdquo; It was apparent that she expected
+      Aggie to rally strongly to her defence. But at present Aggie was bent upon
+      getting facts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;HOW did you hurt him?&rdquo; she persisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ate lunch,&rdquo; said Zoie with the face of a cherub.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With whom?&rdquo; questioned Aggie slyly. She was beginning to scent the
+      probable origin of the misunderstanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's of no consequence,&rdquo; answered Zoie carelessly; &ldquo;I wouldn't have wiped
+      my feet on the man.&rdquo; By this time she had entirely forgotten Aggie's
+      proprietorship in the source of her trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But who WAS the man?&rdquo; urged Aggie, and in her mind, she had already
+      condemned him as a low, unprincipled creature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does that matter?&rdquo; asked Zoie impatiently. &ldquo;It's ANY man with Alfred&mdash;you
+      know that&mdash;ANY man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie sank in a chair and looked at her friend in despair. &ldquo;Why DO you do
+      these things,&rdquo; she said wearily, &ldquo;when you know how Alfred feels about
+      them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You talk as though I did nothing else,&rdquo; answered Zoie with an aggrieved
+      tone. &ldquo;It's the first time since I've been married that I've ever eaten
+      lunch with any man but Alfred. I thought you'd have a little sympathy with
+      me,&rdquo; she whimpered, &ldquo;instead of putting me on the gridiron like everyone
+      else does.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everyone else?&rdquo; questioned Aggie, with recurring suspicion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean Alfred,&rdquo; explained Zoie. &ldquo;HE'S 'everyone else' to me.&rdquo; And then
+      with a sudden abandonment of grief, she threw herself prostrate at her
+      friend's knees. &ldquo;Oh, Aggie, what can I do?&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Aggie was not satisfied with Zoie's fragmentary account of her latest
+      escapade. &ldquo;Is that the only thing that Alfred has against you?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the LATEST,&rdquo; sniffled Zoie, in a heap at Aggie's feet. And then
+      she continued in a much aggrieved tone, &ldquo;You know he's ALWAYS rowing
+      because we haven't as many babies as the cook has cats.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, why don't you get him a baby?&rdquo; asked the practical, far-seeing
+      Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's too late NOW,&rdquo; moaned Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; reassured Aggie. &ldquo;It's the very thing that would bring him
+      back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How COULD I get one?&rdquo; questioned Zoie, and she looked up at Aggie with
+      round astonished eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Adopt it,&rdquo; answered Aggie decisively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie regarded her friend with mingled disgust and disappointment. &ldquo;No,&rdquo;
+       she said with a sigh and a shake of her head, &ldquo;that wouldn't do any good.
+      Alfred's so fussy. He always wants his OWN things around.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He needn't know,&rdquo; declared Aggie boldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; whispered Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Drawing herself up with an air of great importance, and regarding the
+      wondering young person at her knee with smiling condescension, Aggie
+      prepared to make a most interesting disclosure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was a long article in the paper only this morning,&rdquo; she told Zoie,
+      &ldquo;saying that three thousand husbands in this VERY CITY are fondling babies
+      not their own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie turned her small head to one side, the better to study Aggie's face.
+      It was apparent to the latter that she must be much more explicit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Babies adopted in their absence,&rdquo; explained Aggie, &ldquo;while they were on
+      trips around the country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A dangerous light began to glitter in Zoie's eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aggie!&rdquo; she cried, bringing her small hands together excitedly, &ldquo;do you
+      think I COULD?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; asked Aggie, with a very superior air. Zoie's enthusiasm was
+      increasing her friend's admiration of her own scheme. &ldquo;This same paper
+      tells of a woman who adopted three sons while her husband was in Europe,
+      and he thinks each one of them is his.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where can we get some?&rdquo; cried Zoie, now thoroughly enamoured of the idea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can always get TONS of them at the Children's Home,&rdquo; answered Aggie
+      confidently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't endure babies,&rdquo; declared Zoie, &ldquo;but I'd do ANYTHING to get Alfred
+      back. Can we get one TO-DAY?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie looked at her small friend with positive pity. &ldquo;You don't WANT one
+      TO-DAY,&rdquo; she explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie rolled her large eyes inquiringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you were to get one to-day,&rdquo; continued Aggie, &ldquo;Alfred would know it
+      wasn't yours, wouldn't he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A light of understanding began to show on Zoie's small features.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was none when he left this morning,&rdquo; added Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's true,&rdquo; acquiesced Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must wait awhile,&rdquo; counselled Aggie, &ldquo;and then get a perfectly new
+      one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Zoie had never been taught to wait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now Aggie&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; she began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie continued without heeding her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After a few months,&rdquo; she explained, &ldquo;when Alfred's temper has had time to
+      cool, we'll get Jimmy to send him a wire that he has an heir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A few months!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie, as though Aggie had suggested an eternity.
+      &ldquo;I've never been away from Alfred that long in all my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie was visibly annoyed. &ldquo;Well, of course,&rdquo; she said coldly, as she rose
+      to go, &ldquo;if you can get Alfred back WITHOUT that&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I can't!&rdquo; cried Zoie, and she clung to her friend as to her last
+      remaining hope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; answered Aggie, somewhat mollified by Zoie's complete submission.
+      &ldquo;THIS is the only way. The President of the Children's Home is a great
+      friend of Jimmy's,&rdquo; she said proudly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was at this point that Zoie made her first practical suggestion. &ldquo;Then
+      we'll LET JIMMY GET IT,&rdquo; she declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; agreed Aggie enthusiastically, as though they would be
+      according the poor soul a rare privilege. &ldquo;Jimmy gives a hundred dollars
+      to the Home every Christmas,&rdquo;&mdash;additional proof why he should be
+      selected for this very important office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Heavens!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie with shocked surprise. &ldquo;If Alfred were to
+      give a hundred dollars to a Baby's Home, I should suspect him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be silly!&rdquo; snapped Aggie curtly. In spite of her firm faith in
+      Jimmy's innocence, she was undoubtedly annoyed by Zoie's unpleasant
+      suggestion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an instant's pause, then putting disagreeable thoughts from her
+      mind, Aggie turned to Zoie with renewed enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must get down to business,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;we'll begin on the baby's
+      outfit at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Its what?&rdquo; queried Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Its clothes,&rdquo; explained Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what fun!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie, and she clapped her hands merrily like a
+      very small child. A moment later she stopped with sudden misgiving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Aggie,&rdquo; she said fearfully, &ldquo;suppose Alfred shouldn't come back
+      after I've got the baby? I'd be a widow with a child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he's sure to come back!&rdquo; answered Aggie, with a confident air. &ldquo;He'll
+      take the first train, home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe he will,&rdquo; assented Zoie joyfully. All her clouds were again
+      dispelled. &ldquo;Aggie,&rdquo; she cried impulsively, &ldquo;you are a darling. You have
+      just saved my life.&rdquo; And she clasped her arms so tightly around Aggie's
+      neck that her friend was in danger of being suffocated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Releasing herself Aggie continued with a ruffled collar and raised vanity:
+      &ldquo;You can write him an insinuating letter now and then, just to lead up to
+      the good news gradually.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie tipped her small head to one side and studied her friend
+      thoughtfully. &ldquo;Do you know, Aggie,&rdquo; she said, with frank admiration, &ldquo;I
+      believe you are a better liar than I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm NOT a liar,&rdquo; objected Aggie vehemently, &ldquo;at least, not often,&rdquo; she
+      corrected. &ldquo;I've never lied to Jimmy in all my life.&rdquo; She drew herself up
+      with conscious pride. &ldquo;And Jimmy has NEVER LIED TO ME.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't that nice,&rdquo; sniffed Zoie and she pretended to be searching for her
+      pocket-handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Aggie did not see her. She was glancing at the clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must go now,&rdquo; she said. And she started toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Aggie&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; protested Zoie, unwilling to be left alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll run in again at tea time,&rdquo; promised Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't mind the DAYS,&rdquo; whined Zoie, &ldquo;but when NIGHT comes I just MUST
+      have somebody's arms around me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zoie!&rdquo; gasped Aggie, both shocked and alarmed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't help it,&rdquo; confessed Zoie; &ldquo;the moment it gets dark I'm just
+      scared stiff.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's no way for a MOTHER to talk,&rdquo; reproved Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A mother!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie, horrified at the sudden realisation that this
+      awful appellation would undoubtedly pursue her for the rest of her life.
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't call me that,&rdquo; she pleaded. &ldquo;You make me feel a thousand years
+      old.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense,&rdquo; laughed Aggie, and before Zoie could again detain her she was
+      out of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the outside door had closed behind her friend, Zoie gazed about the
+      room disconsolately, but her depression was short-lived. Remembering
+      Aggie's permission about the letter, she ran quickly to the writing table,
+      curled her small self up on one foot, placed a brand new pen in the
+      holder, then drew a sheet of paper toward her and, with shoulders hunched
+      high and her face close to the paper after the manner of a child, she
+      began to pen the first of a series of veiled communications that were
+      ultimately to fill her young husband with amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When Jimmy reached his office after his unforeseen call upon Zoie, his
+      subsequent encounter with Alfred, and his enforced luncheon at home with
+      Aggie, he found his mail, his 'phone calls, and his neglected appointments
+      in a state of hopeless congestion, and try as he would, he could not
+      concentrate upon their disentanglement. Growing more and more furious with
+      the long legged secretary who stood at the corner of his desk, looking
+      down upon him expectantly, and waiting for his tardy instructions, Jimmy
+      rose and looked out of the window. He could feel Andrew's reproachful eyes
+      following him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall Miss Perkins take your letters now?&rdquo; asked Andrew, and he wondered
+      how late the office staff would be kept to-night to make up for the time
+      that was now being wasted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming after repeated wounds from his nearest and dearest, Andrew's
+      implied reproach was too much for Jimmy's overwrought nerves. &ldquo;Get out!&rdquo;
+       he answered unceremoniously. And when Andrew could assure himself that he
+      had heard aright, he stalked out of the door with his head high in the
+      air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy looked after his departing secretary with positive hatred. It was
+      apparent to him that the whole world was against him. He had been too easy
+      he decided. His family, friends, and business associates had undoubtedly
+      lost all respect for him. From this day forth he was determined to show
+      himself to be a man of strong mettle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having made this important decision and having convinced himself that he
+      was about to start on a new life, Jimmy strode to the door of the office
+      and, without disturbing the injured Andrew, he called sharply to Miss
+      Perkins to come at once and take his letters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Jimmy! Again he tried in vain to concentrate upon the details of the
+      &ldquo;cut-glass&rdquo; industry. Invariably his mind would wander back to the
+      unexpected incidents of the morning. Stopping suddenly in the middle of a
+      letter to a competing firm, he began pacing hurriedly up and down the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had she not feared that her chief might misconstrue any suggestion from
+      her as an act of impertinence, Miss Perkins, having learned all the
+      company's cut-glass quotations by rote, could easily have supplied the
+      remainder of the letter. As it was, she waited impatiently, tapping the
+      corner of the desk with her idle pencil. Jimmy turned at the sound, and
+      glanced at the pencil with unmistakable disapproval. Miss Perkins waited
+      in silence. After one or two more uneasy laps about the room, Jimmy went
+      to his 'phone and called his house number.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's undoubtedly domestic trouble,&rdquo; decided Miss Perkins, and she
+      wondered whether it would be delicate of her, under the circumstances, to
+      remain in the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From her employer's conversation at the 'phone, it was clear to Miss
+      Perkins that Mrs. Jinks was spending the afternoon with Mrs Hardy, but why
+      this should have so annoyed MR. Jinks was a question that Miss Perkins
+      found it difficult to answer. Was it possible that Mr. Jinks's present
+      state of unrest could be traced to the door of the beautiful young wife of
+      his friend? &ldquo;Oh dear,&rdquo; thought Miss Perkins, &ldquo;how scandalous!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will do,&rdquo; commanded Jimmy, interrupting Miss Perkins's interesting
+      speculations, and he nodded toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; stammered Miss Perkins, as she glanced at the
+      unfinished letters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll call you when I need you,&rdquo; answered Jimmy gruffly. Miss Perkins left
+      the room in high dudgeon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'LL show them,&rdquo; said Jimmy to himself, determined to carry out his
+      recent resolve to be firm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then his mind wend back to his domestic troubles. &ldquo;Suppose, that Zoie,
+      after imposing secrecy upon him, should change that thing called her
+      'mind' and confide in Aggie about the luncheon?&rdquo; Jimmy was positively
+      pale. He decided to telephone to Zoie's house and find out how affairs
+      were progressing. At the 'phone he hesitated. &ldquo;If Aggie HAS found out
+      about the luncheon,&rdquo; he argued, &ldquo;my 'phoning to Zoie's will increase her
+      suspicions. If Zoie has told her nothing, she'll wonder why I'm 'phoning
+      to Zoie's house. There's only one thing to do,&rdquo; he decided. &ldquo;I must wait
+      and say nothing. I can tell from Aggie's face when I meet her at dinner
+      whether Zoie has betrayed me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having arrived at this conclusion, Jimmy resolved to get home as early as
+      possible, and again Miss Perkins was called to his aid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The flurry with which Jimmy despatched the day's remaining business
+      confirmed both Miss Perkins and Andrew in their previous opinion that &ldquo;the
+      boss&rdquo; had suddenly &ldquo;gone off his head.&rdquo; And when he at last left the
+      office and banged the door behind him there was a general sigh of relief
+      from his usually tranquil staff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of walking, as was his custom, Jimmy took a taxi to his home but
+      alas, to his surprise he found no wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Mrs. Jinks leave any word?&rdquo; he inquired from the butler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None at all,&rdquo; answered that unperturbed creature; and Jimmy felt sure
+      that the attitude of his office antagonists had communicated itself to his
+      household servants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Jimmy's anxious ear at last caught the rustle of a woman's dress in
+      the hallway, his dinner had been waiting half an hour, and he had worked
+      himself into a state of fierce antagonism toward everything and everybody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the sound of Aggie's voice however, his heart began to pound with fear.
+      &ldquo;Had she found him out for the weak miserable deceiver that he was? Would
+      she tell him that they were going to separate forever?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie's first words were reassuring. &ldquo;Awfully sorry to be so late, dear,&rdquo;
+       she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy felt her kiss upon his chubby cheek and her dear arms about his
+      neck. He decided forthwith to tell her everything, and never, never again
+      to run the risk of deceiving her; but before he could open his lips, she
+      continued gaily:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've brought Zoie home with me, dear. There's no sense in her eating all
+      alone, and she's going to have ALL her dinners with us.&rdquo; Jimmy groaned.
+      &ldquo;After dinner,&rdquo; continued Aggie, &ldquo;you and I can take her to the theatre
+      and all those places and keep her cheered until Alfred comes home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Home?&rdquo; repeated Jimmy in alarm. Was it possible that Alfred had already
+      relented?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he doesn't know it yet,&rdquo; explained Aggie, &ldquo;but he's coming. We'll
+      tell you all about it at dinner.&rdquo; And they did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While waiting for Aggie, Jimmy had thought himself hungry, but once the
+      two women had laid before him their &ldquo;nefarious baby-snatching scheme&rdquo;&mdash;food
+      lost its savour for him, and one course after another was taken away from
+      him untouched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each time that Jimmy ventured a mild objection to his part in the plan, as
+      scheduled by them, he met the threatening eye of Zoie; and by the time
+      that the three left the table he was so harassed and confused by the
+      chatter of the two excited women, that he was not only reconciled but
+      eager to enter into any scheme that might bring Alfred back, and free him
+      of the enforced companionship of Alfred's nerve-racking wife. True, he
+      reflected, it was possible that Alfred, on his return, might discover him
+      to be the culprit who lunched with Zoie and might carry out his murderous
+      threat; but even such a fate was certainly preferable to interminable
+      evenings spent under the same roof with Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All YOU need do, Jimmy,&rdquo; explained Aggie sweetly, when the three of them
+      were comfortably settled in the library, &ldquo;is to see your friend the
+      Superintendent of the Babies' Home, and tell him just what kind of a baby
+      we shall need, and when we shall need it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't we see it ourselves?&rdquo; chimed in Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, indeed,&rdquo; said Aggie confidently, and she turned to Jimmy with a
+      matter-of-fact tone. &ldquo;You'd better tell the Superintendent to have several
+      for us to look at when the time arrives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that's better,&rdquo; agreed Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Jimmy, he had long ceased to make any audible comment, but
+      internally he was saying to himself: &ldquo;man of strong mettle, indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll attend to all the clothes for the child,&rdquo; said Aggie generously to
+      Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want everything to be hand-made,&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie enthusiastically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can make a great many of the things ourselves, evenings,&rdquo; said Aggie,
+      &ldquo;while we sit here and talk to Jimmy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought we were going OUT evenings!&rdquo; objected Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy rolled his eyes toward her like a dumb beast of burden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;MOST evenings,&rdquo; assented Aggie. &ldquo;And then toward the last, you know, Zoie&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+       she hesitated to explain further, for Jimmy was already becoming visibly
+      embarrassed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, that's true,&rdquo; blushed Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an awkward pause, then Aggie turned again toward Jimmy, who was
+      pretending to rebuild the fire. &ldquo;Oh yes, one more thing,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;When
+      everything is quite ready for Alfred's return, we'll allow you, Jimmy
+      dear, to wire him the good news.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks, so much,&rdquo; said Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish it were time to wire now,&rdquo; said Zoie pensively, and in his mind,
+      Jimmy fervently agreed with that sentiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The next few months will slip by before you know it,&rdquo; declared Aggie
+      cheerfully. &ldquo;And by the way, Zoie,&rdquo; she added, &ldquo;why should you go back to
+      your lonesome flat to-night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie began to feel for her pocket handkerchief&mdash;Jimmy sat up to
+      receive the next blow. &ldquo;Stay here with us,&rdquo; suggested Aggie. &ldquo;We'll be so
+      glad to have you.&rdquo; She included Jimmy in her glance. &ldquo;Won't we, dear?&rdquo; she
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the two girls went upstairs arm in arm that night, Jimmy remained in
+      his chair by the fire, too exhausted to even prepare for bed. &ldquo;A man of
+      mettle!&rdquo; he said again to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This had certainly been the longest day of his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      WHEN Aggie predicted that the few months of waiting would pass quickly for
+      Zoie, she was quite correct. They passed quickly for Aggie as well; but
+      how about Jimmy? When he afterward recalled this interval in his life, it
+      was always associated with long strands of lace winding around the legs of
+      the library chairs, white things lying about in all the places where he
+      had once enjoyed sitting or lying, late dinners, lonely breakfasts, and a
+      sense of isolation from Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening when he had waited until he was out of all patience with
+      Aggie, he was told by his late and apologetical spouse that she had been
+      helping Zoie to redecorate her bedroom to fit the coming occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all done in pink and white,&rdquo; explained Aggie, and then followed
+      detailed accounts of the exquisite bed linens, the soft lovely hangings,
+      and even the entire relighting of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why pink?&rdquo; asked Jimmy, objecting to any scheme of Zoie's on general
+      principles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's Alfred's favourite colour,&rdquo; explained Aggie. &ldquo;Besides, it's so
+      becoming,&rdquo; she added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy could not help feeling that this lure to Alfred's senses was
+      absolutely indecent, and he said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon my word,&rdquo; answered Aggie, quite affronted, &ldquo;you are getting as
+      unreasonable as Alfred himself.&rdquo; Then as Jimmy prepared to sulk, she added
+      coaxingly, &ldquo;I was GOING to tell you about Zoie's lovely new negligee, and
+      about the dear little crib that just matches it. Everything is going to be
+      in harmony.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With Zoie in the house?&rdquo; asked Jimmy sceptically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't think why you've taken such a dislike to that helpless child,&rdquo;
+       said Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few days later, while in the midst of his morning's mail, Jimmy was
+      informed that it was now time for him to conduct Aggie and Zoie to the
+      Babies' Home to select the last, but most important, detail for their
+      coming campaign. According to instructions, Jimmy had been in
+      communication with the amused Superintendent of the Home, and he now led
+      the two women forth with the proud consciousness that he, at least, had
+      attended properly to his part of the business. By the time they reached
+      the Children's Home, several babies were on view for their critical
+      inspection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie stared into the various cribs containing the wee, red mites with
+      puckered faces. &ldquo;Oh dear!&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;haven't you any white ones?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These are supposed to be white,&rdquo; said the Superintendent, with an
+      indulgent smile, &ldquo;the black ones are on the other side of the room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Black ones!&rdquo; cried Zoie in horror, and she faced about quickly as though
+      expecting an attack from their direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which particular one of these would you recommend?&rdquo; asked the practical
+      Aggie of the Superintendent as she surveyed the first lot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it's largely a matter of taste, ma'am,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;This seems a
+      healthy little chap,&rdquo; he added, and seizing the long white clothes of the
+      nearest infant, he drew him across his arm and held him out for Aggie's
+      inspection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's see,&rdquo; cried Zoie, and she stood on tiptoe to peep over the
+      Superintendent's elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Jimmy, he stood gloomily apart. This was an ordeal for which he had
+      long been preparing himself, and he was resolved to accept it
+      philosophically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think much of that one,&rdquo; snipped Zoie. And in spite of himself.
+      Jimmy felt his temper rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie turned to him with a smile. &ldquo;Which one do YOU prefer, Jimmy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not MY affair,&rdquo; answered Jimmy curtly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since when?&rdquo; asked Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie perceived trouble brewing, and she turned to pacify Jimmy. &ldquo;Which
+      one do you think your FRIEND ALFRED would like?&rdquo; she persisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were in his place&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; began Jimmy hotly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but you AREN'T,&rdquo; interrupted Zoie; then she turned to the
+      Superintendent. &ldquo;What makes some of them so much larger than others?&rdquo; she
+      asked, glancing at the babies he had CALLED &ldquo;white.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you see they're of different ages,&rdquo; explained the Superintendent
+      indulgently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We told Mr. Jinks they must all be of the same age,&rdquo; said Zoie with a
+      reproachful look at Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What age is that?&rdquo; asked the Superintendent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should say a week old,&rdquo; said Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then this is the one for you,&rdquo; decided the Superintendent, designating
+      his first choice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think we'd better take the Superintendent's advice,&rdquo; said Aggie
+      complacently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie looked around the room with a dissatisfied air. Was it possible that
+      all babies were as homely as these?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, Zoie,&rdquo; explained Aggie, divining her thought, &ldquo;they get better
+      looking as they grow older.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They couldn't look worse!&rdquo; was Zoie's disgusted comment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fetch it home, Jimmy,&rdquo; said Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmy, who had considered his mission completed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't expect US to carry it, do you?&rdquo; asked Aggie in a hurt voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Superintendent settled the difficulty temporarily by informing them
+      that the baby could not possibly leave the home until the mother had
+      signed the necessary papers for its release.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought all those details had been attended to,&rdquo; said Aggie, and again
+      the two women surveyed Jimmy with grieved disappointment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll get the mother's signature the first thing in the morning,&rdquo;
+       volunteered the Superintendent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; said Zoie, &ldquo;and in the meantime, I'll send some new clothes
+      for it,&rdquo; and with a lofty farewell to the Superintendent, she and Aggie
+      followed Jimmy down stairs to the taxi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Zoie, when they were properly seated, &ldquo;let's stop at a
+      telegraph office and let Jimmy send a wire to Alfred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait until we get the baby,&rdquo; cautioned Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll have it the first thing in the morning,&rdquo; argued Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy can send him a night-letter,&rdquo; compromised Aggie, &ldquo;that way Alfred
+      won't get the news until morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes later, the taxi stopped in front of Jimmy's office and with
+      a sigh of thanksgiving he hurried upstairs to his unanswered mail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When Alfred Hardy found himself on the train bound for Detroit, he tried
+      to assure himself that he had done the right thing in breaking away from
+      an association that had kept him for months in a constant state of
+      ferment. His business must come first, he decided. Having settled this
+      point to his temporary satisfaction, he opened his afternoon paper and
+      leaned back in his seat, meaning to divert his mind from personal matters,
+      by learning what was going on in the world at large.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had his eye scanned the first headline than he was startled by a
+      boisterous greeting from a fellow traveller, who was just passing down the
+      aisle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Hardy!&rdquo; cried his well meaning acquaintance. &ldquo;Where are you bound
+      for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Detroit,&rdquo; answered Alfred, annoyed by the sudden interruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's the missus?&rdquo; asked the intruder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Chicago,&rdquo; was Alfred's short reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;THAT'S a funny thing,&rdquo; declared the convivial spirit, not guessing how
+      funny it really was. &ldquo;You know,&rdquo; he continued, so loud that everyone in
+      the vicinity could not fail to hear him, &ldquo;the last time I met you two, you
+      were on your honeymoon&mdash;on THIS VERY TRAIN,&rdquo; and with that the fellow
+      sat himself down, uninvited, by Alfred's side and started on a long list
+      of compliments about &ldquo;the fine little girl&rdquo; who had in his opinion done
+      Alfred a great favour when she consented to tie herself to a &ldquo;dull,
+      money-grubbing chap&rdquo; like him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So,&rdquo; thought Alfred, &ldquo;this is the way the world sees us.&rdquo; And he began to
+      frame inaudible but desperate defences of himself. Again he told himself
+      that he was right; but his friend's thoughtless words had planted an
+      uncomfortable doubt in his mind, and when he left the train to drive to
+      his hotel, he was thinking very little about the new business relations
+      upon which he was entering in Detroit, and very much about the domestic
+      relations which he had just severed in Chicago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had he been merely a &ldquo;dull money-grubber&rdquo;? Had he left his wife too much
+      alone? Was she not a mere child when he married her? Could he not, with
+      more consideration, have made of her a more understanding companion? These
+      were questions that were still unanswered in his mind when he arrived at
+      one of Detroit's most enterprising hotels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But later, having telephoned to his office and found that several matters
+      of importance were awaiting his decision, he forced himself to enter
+      immediately upon his business obligations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As might have been expected, Alfred soon won the respect and serious
+      consideration of most of his new business associates, and this in a
+      measure so mollified his hurt pride, that upon rare occasions he was
+      affable enough to accept the hospitality of their homes. But each
+      excursion that he made into the social life of these new friends, only
+      served to remind him of the unsettled state of his domestic affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How your wife must miss you!&rdquo; his hostess would remark before they were
+      fairly seated at table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They tell me she is so pretty,&rdquo; his vis-a-vis would exclaim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When is she going to join you?&rdquo; the lady on his left would ask.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then his host would laugh and tell the &ldquo;dear ladies&rdquo; that in HIS opinion,
+      Alfred was afraid to bring his wife to Detroit, lest he might lose her to
+      a handsomer man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred could never quite understand why remarks such as this annoyed him
+      almost to the point of declaring the whole truth. His LEAVING Zoie, and
+      his &ldquo;losing&rdquo; her, as these would-be comedians expressed it, were two
+      separate and distinct things in his mind, and he felt an almost
+      irresistible desire to make this plain to all concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But no sooner did he open his lips to do so, than a picture of Zoie in all
+      her child-like pleading loveliness, arose to dissuade him. He could
+      imagine his dinner companions all pretending to sympathise with him, while
+      they flayed poor Zoie alive. She would never have another chance to be
+      known as a respectable woman, and compared to most women of his
+      acquaintance, she WAS a respectable woman. True, according to
+      old-fashioned standards, she had been indiscreet, but apparently the
+      present day woman had a standard of her own. Alfred found his eye
+      wandering round the table surveying the wives of his friends. Was there
+      one of them, he wondered, who had never fibbed to her husband, or eaten a
+      simple luncheon unchaperoned by him? Of one thing he was certain, there
+      was not one of them so attractive as Zoie. Might she not be forgiven, to
+      some extent, if her physical charms had made her a source of dangerous
+      temptation to unprincipled scoundrels like the one with whom she had no
+      doubt lunched? Then, too, had she not offered at the moment of his
+      departure to tell him the &ldquo;real truth&rdquo;? Might this not have been the one
+      occasion upon which she would have done so? &ldquo;She seemed so sincere,&rdquo; he
+      ruminated, &ldquo;so truly penitent.&rdquo; Then again, how generous it was of her to
+      persist in writing to him with never an answer from him to encourage her.
+      If she cared for him so little as he had once imagined, why should she
+      wish to keep up even a presence of fondness? Her letters indicated an
+      undying devotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were some of the thoughts that were going through Alfred's mind just
+      three months after his departure from Chicago, and all the while his
+      hostess was mentally dubbing him a &ldquo;dull person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What an abstracted man he is!&rdquo; she said before he was down the front
+      steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he really so clever in business?&rdquo; a woman friend inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's hard to believe, isn't it?&rdquo; commented a third, and his host
+      apologised for the absent Alfred by saying that he was no doubt worried
+      about a particular business decision that had to be made the next morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was not the responsibility of this business decision that was
+      knotting Alfred's brow, as he walked hurriedly toward the hotel, where he
+      had told his office boy to leave the last mail. This had been the longest
+      interval that Zoie had ever let slip without writing. He recalled that her
+      last letters had hinted at a &ldquo;slight indisposition.&rdquo; In fact, she had even
+      mentioned &ldquo;seeing the doctor&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Good Heavens!&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;Suppose
+      she were really ill? Who would look after her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Alfred reached his rooms, the boy had not yet arrived. He crossed to
+      the library table and took from the drawer all the letters thus far
+      received from Zoie. He read them consecutively. &ldquo;How could he have been so
+      stupid as not to have realised sooner that her illness&mdash;whatever it
+      was&mdash;had been gradually creeping upon her from the very first day of
+      his departure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy arrived with the mail. It contained no letter from Zoie and Alfred
+      went to bed with an uneasy mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning he was down at his office early, still no letter from
+      Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Refusing his partner's invitation to lunch, Alfred sat alone in his
+      office, glad to be rid of intrusive eyes. &ldquo;He would write to Jimmy Jinks,&rdquo;
+       he decided, &ldquo;and find out whether Zoie were in any immediate danger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Not willing to await the return of his stenographer, or to acquaint her
+      with his personal affairs, Alfred drew pen and paper toward him and sat
+      helplessly before it. How could he inquire about Zoie without appearing to
+      invite a reconciliation with her? While he was trying to answer this vexed
+      question, a sharp knock came at the door. He turned to see a uniformed
+      messenger holding a telegram toward him. Intuitively he felt that it
+      contained some word about Zoie. His hand trembled so that he could
+      scarcely sign for the message before opening it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A moment later the messenger boy was startled out of his lethargy by a
+      succession of contradictory exclamations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; cried Alfred incredulously as he gazed in ecstasy at the telegram.
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; he shouted, excitedly, as he rose from his chair. &ldquo;Where's a time
+      table?&rdquo; he asked the astonished boy, and he began rummaging rapidly
+      through the drawers of his desk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any answer?&rdquo; inquired the messenger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take this,&rdquo; said Alfred. And he thrust a bill into the small boy's hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; answered the boy and disappeared quickly, lest this madman
+      might reconsider his generosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred threw down the time table in despair. &ldquo;No train for Chicago until
+      night,&rdquo; he cried; but his mind was working fast. The next moment he was at
+      the telephone, asking for the Division Superintendent of the railway line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Alfred's partner returned from luncheon he found a curt note
+      informing him that Alfred had left on a special for Chicago and would
+      &ldquo;write.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll bet it's his wife!&rdquo; said the partner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      During the evening of the same day that Alfred was enjoying such
+      pleasurable emotions, Zoie and Aggie were closeted in the pretty pink and
+      white bedroom that the latter had tried to describe to Jimmy. On a
+      rose-coloured couch in front of the fire sat Aggie threading ribbons
+      through various bits of soft white linen, and in front of her, at the foot
+      of a rose-draped bed, knelt Zoie. She was trying the effect of a large
+      pink bow against the lace flounce of an empty but inviting bassinette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How's that?&rdquo; she called to Aggie, as she turned her head to one side and
+      surveyed the result of her experiment with a critical eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie shot a grudging glance at the bassinette. &ldquo;I wish you wouldn't
+      bother me every moment,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I'll never get all these things
+      finished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Apparently Zoie decided that the bow was properly placed, for she applied
+      herself to sewing it fast to the lining. In her excitement she gave the
+      thread a vicious pull. &ldquo;Oh, dear, oh dear, my thread is always breaking!&rdquo;
+       she sighed in vexation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're excited,&rdquo; said Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wouldn't YOU be excited,&rdquo; questioned Zoie'&rdquo;if you were expecting a baby
+      and a husband in the morning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose I should,&rdquo; admitted Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a time the two friends sewed in silence, then Zoie looked up with
+      sudden anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're SURE Jimmy sent the wire?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw him write it,&rdquo; answered Aggie, &ldquo;while I was in the office to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When will Alfred get it?&rdquo; demanded Zoie eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he won't GET it until to-morrow morning,&rdquo; said Aggie. &ldquo;I told you
+      that to-day. It's a night message.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder what he'll be doing when he gets it?&rdquo; mused Zoie. There was a
+      suspicion of a smile around her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What will he do AFTER he gets it?&rdquo; questioned Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking up at her friend in alarm, Zoie suddenly ceased sewing. &ldquo;You don't
+      mean he won't come?&rdquo; she gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I don't,&rdquo; answered Aggie. &ldquo;He's only HUMAN if he is a husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a sceptical expression around Zoie's mouth, but she did not
+      pursue the subject. &ldquo;How do you suppose that red baby will ever look in
+      this pink basket?&rdquo; she asked. And then with a regretful little sigh, she
+      declared that she wished she'd &ldquo;used blue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't think the baby that we chose was so horribly red,&rdquo; said Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Red!&rdquo; cried Zoie, &ldquo;it's magenta.&rdquo; And again her thread broke. &ldquo;Oh, darn!&rdquo;
+       she exclaimed in annoyance, and once more rethreaded her needle. &ldquo;I
+      couldn't look at it,&rdquo; she continued with a disgusted little pucker of her
+      face. &ldquo;I wish they had let us take it this afternoon so I could have got
+      used to it before Alfred gets here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now don't be silly,&rdquo; scolded Aggie. &ldquo;You know very well that the
+      Superintendent can't let it leave the home until its mother signs the
+      papers. It will be here the first thing in the morning. You'll have all
+      day to get used to it before Alfred gets here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;ALL DAY,&rdquo; echoed Zoie, and the corners of her mouth began to droop.
+      &ldquo;Won't Alfred be here before TO-MORROW NIGHT?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie was becoming exasperated by Zoie's endless questions. &ldquo;I told you,&rdquo;
+       she explained wearily, &ldquo;that the wire won't be delivered until to-morrow
+      morning, it will take Alfred eight hours to get here, and there may not be
+      a train just that minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eight long hours,&rdquo; sighed Zoie dismally. And Aggie looked at her
+      reproachfully, forgetting that it is always the last hour that is hardest
+      to bear. Zoie resumed her sewing resignedly. Aggie was meditating whether
+      she should read her young friend a lecture on the value of patience, when
+      the telephone began to ring violently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie looked up from her sewing with a frown. &ldquo;You answer it, will you,
+      Aggie?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I can't let go this thread.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; called Aggie sweetly over the 'phone; then she added in surprise,
+      &ldquo;Is this you, Jimmy dear?&rdquo; Apparently it was; and as Zoie watched Aggie's
+      face, with its increasing distress she surmised that Jimmy's message was
+      anything but &ldquo;dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens!&rdquo; cried Aggie over the telephone, &ldquo;that's awful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't Alfred coming?&rdquo; was the first question that burst from Zoie's lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie motioned to Zoie to be quiet. &ldquo;TO-NIGHT!&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-night!&rdquo; echoed Zoie joyfully; and without waiting for more details and
+      with no thought beyond the moment, she flew to her dressing table and
+      began arranging her hair, powdering her face, perfuming her lips, and
+      making herself particularly alluring for the prodigal husband's return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the far-sighted Aggie was experiencing less pleasant sensations at the
+      phone. &ldquo;A special?&rdquo; she was saying to Jimmy. &ldquo;When did Alfred GET the
+      message?&rdquo; There was a slight pause. Then she asked irritably, &ldquo;Well,
+      didn't you mark it 'NIGHT message'?&rdquo; From the expression on Aggie's face
+      it was evident that he had not done so. &ldquo;But, Jimmy,&rdquo; protested Aggie,
+      &ldquo;this is dreadful! We haven't any baby!&rdquo; Then calling to him to wait a
+      minute, and leaving the receiver dangling, she crossed the room to Zoie,
+      who was now thoroughly engrossed in the making of a fresh toilet. &ldquo;Zoie!&rdquo;
+       she exclaimed excitedly, &ldquo;Jimmy made a mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course he'd do THAT,&rdquo; answered Zoie carelessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you don't understand,&rdquo; persisted Aggie. &ldquo;They sent the 'NIGHT
+      message' TO-DAY. Alfred's coming on a special. He'll be here tonight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank goodness for that!&rdquo; cried Zoie, and the next instant she was
+      waltzing gaily about the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all very well,&rdquo; answered Aggie, as she followed Zoie with anxious
+      eyes, &ldquo;but WHERE'S YOUR BABY?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens!&rdquo; cried Zoie, and for the first time she became conscious of
+      their predicament. She gazed at Aggie in consternation. &ldquo;I forgot all
+      about it,&rdquo; she said, and then asked with growing anxiety, &ldquo;What can we
+      DO?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do?&rdquo; echoed Aggie, scarcely knowing herself what answer to make, &ldquo;we've
+      got to GET it&mdash;TO-NIGHT. That's all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; protested Zoie, &ldquo;how CAN we get it when the mother hasn't signed
+      the papers yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy will have to arrange that with the Superintendent of the Home,&rdquo;
+       answered Aggie with decision, and she turned toward the 'phone to instruct
+      Jimmy accordingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that's right,&rdquo; assented Zoie, glad to be rid of all further
+      responsibility, &ldquo;we'll let Jimmy fix it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Jimmy,&rdquo; called Aggie excitedly, &ldquo;you'll have to go straight to the
+      Children's Home and get that baby just as quickly as you can. There's some
+      red tape about the mother signing papers, but don't mind about that. Make
+      them give it to you to-night. Hurry, Jimmy. Don't waste a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was evidently a protest from the other end of the wire, for Aggie
+      added impatiently, &ldquo;Go on, Jimmy, do! You can EAT any time.&rdquo; And with that
+      she hung up the receiver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Its clothes,&rdquo; called Zoie frantically. &ldquo;Tell him about the clothes. I
+      sent them this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind about the clothes,&rdquo; answered Aggie. &ldquo;We're lucky if we get the
+      baby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I have to mind,&rdquo; persisted Zoie. &ldquo;I gave all its other things to the
+      laundress. I wanted them to be nice and fresh. And now the horrid old
+      creature hasn't brought them back yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You get into your OWN things,&rdquo; commanded Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's my dressing gown?&rdquo; asked Zoie, her elation revived by the thought
+      of her fine raiment, and with that she flew to the foot of the bed and
+      snatched up two of the prettiest negligees ever imported from Paris.
+      &ldquo;Which do you like better?&rdquo; she asked, as she held them both aloft, &ldquo;the
+      pink or the blue?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It doesn't matter,&rdquo; answered Aggie wearily. &ldquo;Get into SOMETHING, that's
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then unhook me,&rdquo; commanded Zoie gaily, as she turned her back to Aggie,
+      and continued to admire the two &ldquo;creations&rdquo; on her arm. So pleased was she
+      with the picture of herself in either of the garments that she began
+      humming a gay waltz and swaying to the rhythm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stand still,&rdquo; commanded Aggie, but her warning was unnecessary, for at
+      that moment Zoie was transfixed by a horrible fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose,&rdquo; she said in alarm, &ldquo;that Jimmy can't GET the baby?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's GOT to get it,&rdquo; answered Aggie emphatically, and she undid the last
+      stubborn hook of Zoie's gown and put the girl from her. &ldquo;There, now,
+      you're all unfastened,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;hurry and get dressed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean undressed,&rdquo; laughed Zoie, as she let her pretty evening gown
+      fall lightly from her shoulders and drew on her pink negligee. &ldquo;Oh,
+      Aggie!&rdquo; she exclaimed, as she caught sight of her reflection in the
+      mirror, &ldquo;isn't it a love? And you know,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;Alfred just adores
+      pink.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silly!&rdquo; answered Aggie, but in spite of herself, she was quite thrilled
+      by the picture of the exquisite young creature before her. Zoie had
+      certainly never looked more irresistible. &ldquo;Can't you get some of that
+      colour out of your cheeks,&rdquo; asked Aggie in despair. &ldquo;You look like a
+      washerwoman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll put on some cold cream and powder,&rdquo; answered Zoie. She flew to her
+      dressing table; and in a moment there was a white cloud in her immediate
+      vicinity. She turned to Aggie to inquire the result. Again the 'phone
+      rang. &ldquo;Who's that?&rdquo; she exclaimed in alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll see,&rdquo; answered Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It couldn't be Alfred, could it?&rdquo; asked Zoie with mingled hope and dread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course not,&rdquo; answered Aggie, as she removed the receiver from the
+      hook. &ldquo;Alfred wouldn't 'phone, he would come right up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Discovering that it was merely Jimmy &ldquo;on the wire,&rdquo; Zoie's uneasiness
+      abated, but Aggie's anxiety was visibly increasing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where ARE you?&rdquo; she asked of her spouse. &ldquo;The Children's Home!&rdquo; she
+      repeated, then followed further explanations from Jimmy which were
+      apparently not satisfactory. &ldquo;Oh, Jimmy!&rdquo; cried his disturbed wife, &ldquo;it
+      can't be! That's horrible!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; shrieked Zoie, trying to get her small ear close enough to
+      the receiver to catch a bit of the obviously terrifying message.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a minute,&rdquo; called Aggie into the 'phone. Then she turned to Zoie
+      with a look of despair. &ldquo;The mother's changed her mind,&rdquo; she explained;
+      &ldquo;she won't give up the baby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; cried Zoie, and she sank into the nearest chair. For an
+      instant the two women looked at each other with blank faces. &ldquo;What can we
+      DO,&rdquo; asked Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie did not answer immediately. This was indeed a serious predicament;
+      but presently Zoie saw her friend's mouth becoming very resolute, and she
+      surmised that Aggie had solved the problem. &ldquo;We'll have to get ANOTHER
+      baby, that's all,&rdquo; decided Aggie. &ldquo;There must be OTHER babies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo; asked Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, in the Children's Home,&rdquo; answered Aggie with great confidence, and
+      she returned to the 'phone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie crossed to the bed and knelt at its foot in search of her little pink
+      slippers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Aggie,&rdquo; she sighed, &ldquo;the others were all so red!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Aggie did not heed her protest. &ldquo;Listen, Jimmy,&rdquo; she called in the
+      'phone, &ldquo;can't you get another baby?&rdquo; There was a pause, then Aggie
+      commanded hotly, &ldquo;Well, GET in the business!&rdquo; Another pause and then Aggie
+      continued very firmly, &ldquo;Tell the Superintendent that we JUST MUST have
+      one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie stopped in the act of putting on her second slipper and called a
+      reminder to Aggie. &ldquo;Tell him to get a HE one,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;Alfred wants a
+      boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take what you can get!&rdquo; answered Aggie impatiently, and again she gave
+      her attention to the 'phone. &ldquo;What!&rdquo; she cried, with growing despair, and
+      Zoie waited to hear what had gone wrong now. &ldquo;Nothing under three months,&rdquo;
+       explained Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won't that do?&rdquo; asked Zoie innocently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do!&rdquo; echoed Aggie in disgust. &ldquo;A three-months' old baby is as big as a
+      whale.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, can't we say it GREW UP?&rdquo; asked Zoie, priding herself on her power
+      of ready resource.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Overnight, like a mushroom?&rdquo; sneered Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost vanquished by her friend's new air of cold superiority, Zoie was
+      now on the verge of tears. &ldquo;Somebody must have a new baby,&rdquo; she faltered.
+      &ldquo;Somebody ALWAYS has a new baby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For their own personal USE, yes,&rdquo; admitted Aggie, &ldquo;but who has a new baby
+      for US?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do I know?&rdquo; asked Zoie helplessly. &ldquo;You're the one who ought to know.
+      You got me into this, and you've GOT to get me out of it. Can you
+      imagine,&rdquo; she asked, growing more and more unhappy, &ldquo;what would happen to
+      me if Alfred were to come home now and not find a baby? He wouldn't
+      forgive a LITTLE lie, what would he do with a WHOPPER like this?&rdquo; Then
+      with sudden decision, she rushed toward the 'phone. &ldquo;Let me talk to
+      Jimmy,&rdquo; she said, and the next moment she was chattering so rapidly and
+      incoherently over the 'phone that Aggie despaired of hearing one word that
+      she said, and retired to the next room to think out a new plan of action.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Jimmy,&rdquo; stammered Zoie into the 'phone, &ldquo;you've GOT to get me a
+      baby. If you don't, I'll kill myself! I will, Jimmy, I will. You got me
+      into this, Jimmy,&rdquo; she reminded him. &ldquo;You've GOT to get me out of it.&rdquo; And
+      then followed pleadings and coaxings and cajolings, and at length, a
+      pause, during which Jimmy was apparently able to get in a word or so. His
+      answer was not satisfactory to Zoie. &ldquo;What!&rdquo; she shrieked, tiptoeing to
+      get her lips closer to the receiver; then she added with conviction, &ldquo;the
+      mother has no business to change her mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Apparently Jimmy maintained that the mother had changed it none the less.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, take it away from her,&rdquo; commanded Zoie. &ldquo;Get it quick, while she
+      isn't looking.&rdquo; Then casting a furtive glance over her shoulder to make
+      sure that Aggie was still out of the room, she indulged in a few dark
+      threats to Jimmy, also some vehement reminders of how he had DRAGGED her
+      into that horrid old restaurant and been the immediate cause of all the
+      misfortunes that had ever befallen her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Could Jimmy have been sure that Aggie was out of ear-shot of Zoie's
+      conversation, the argument would doubtless have kept up indefinitely&mdash;as
+      it was&mdash;the result was a quick acquiescence on his part and by the
+      time that Aggie returned to the room, Zoie was wreathed in smiles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all right,&rdquo; she said sweetly. &ldquo;Jimmy's going to get it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie looked at her sceptically. &ldquo;Goodness knows I hope so,&rdquo; she said,
+      then added in despair, &ldquo;Look at your cheeks. They're flaming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more the powder puff was called into requisition, and Zoie turned a
+      temporarily blanched face to Aggie. &ldquo;Is that better?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very much,&rdquo; answered Aggie, &ldquo;but how about your hair?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter with it?&rdquo; asked Zoie. Her reflection betrayed a
+      coiffure that might have turned Marie Antoinette green with envy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would anybody think you'd been in bed for days?&rdquo; asked Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alfred likes it that way,&rdquo; was Zoie's defence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Turn around,&rdquo; said Aggie, without deigning to argue the matter further.
+      And she began to remove handfuls of hairpins from the yellow knotted
+      curls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you doing?&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie, as she sprayed her white neck and
+      arms with her favourite perfume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie leaned forward toward the mirror to smooth out her eyebrows with the
+      tips of her perfumed fingers. &ldquo;Good gracious,&rdquo; she cried in horror as she
+      caught sight of her reflection. &ldquo;You're not going to put my hair in a
+      pigtail!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the way invalids always have their hair,&rdquo; was Aggie's laconic
+      reply, and she continued to plait the obstinate curls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't have it like that!&rdquo; declared Zoie, and she shook herself free
+      from Aggie's unwelcome attentions and proceeded to unplait the hateful
+      pigtail. &ldquo;Alfred would leave me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie shrugged her shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you're going to make a perfect fright of me,&rdquo; pouted Zoie, &ldquo;I just
+      won't see him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He isn't coming to see YOU,&rdquo; reminded Aggie. &ldquo;He's coming to see the
+      baby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Jimmy doesn't come soon, I'll not HAVE any baby,&rdquo; answered Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get into bed,&rdquo; said Aggie, and she proceeded to turn down the soft lace
+      coverlets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did I put my cap?&rdquo; asked Zoie. Her eyes caught the small knot of
+      lace and ribbons for which she was looking, and she pinned it on top of
+      her saucy little curls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In you go,&rdquo; said Aggie, motioning to the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait,&rdquo; said Zoie impressively, &ldquo;wait till I get my rose lights on the
+      pillow.&rdquo; She pulled the slender gold chain of her night lamp; instantly
+      the large white pillows were bathed in a warm pink glow&mdash;she studied
+      the effect very carefully, then added a lingerie pillow to the two more
+      formal ones, kicked off her slippers and hopped into bed. One more glance
+      at the pillows, then she arranged the ribbons of her negligee to fall
+      &ldquo;carelessly&rdquo; outside the coverlet, threw one arm gracefully above her
+      head, half-closed her eyes, and sank languidly back against her pillows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How's that?&rdquo; she breathed faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Controlling her impulse to smile, Aggie crossed to the dressing-table with
+      a business-like air and applied to Zoie's pink cheeks a third coating of
+      powder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie sat bolt upright and began to sneeze. &ldquo;Aggie,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I just hate
+      you when you act like that.&rdquo; But suddenly she was seized with a new idea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; she mused as she looked across the room at the soft, pink sofa
+      bathed in firelight, &ldquo;I wonder if I shouldn't look better on that couch
+      under those roses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie was very emphatic in her opinion to the contrary. &ldquo;Certainly not!&rdquo;
+       she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; decided Zoie with a mischievous smile, &ldquo;I'll get Alfred to carry
+      me to the couch. That way I can get my arms around his neck. And once you
+      get your arms around a man's neck, you can MANAGE him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie looked down at the small person with distinct disapproval. &ldquo;Now,
+      don't you make too much fuss over Alfred,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;YOU'RE the one
+      who's to do the forgiving. Don't forget that! What's more,&rdquo; she reminded
+      Zoie, &ldquo;you're very, very weak.&rdquo; But before she had time to instruct Zoie
+      further there was a sharp, quick ring at the outer door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two women glanced at each other inquiringly. The next instant a man's
+      step was heard in the hallway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is she, Mary?&rdquo; demanded someone in a voice tense with anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's Alfred!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And we haven't any baby!&rdquo; gasped Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall I do?&rdquo; cried Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lie down,&rdquo; commanded Aggie, and Zoie had barely time to fall back limply
+      on the pillows when the excited young husband burst into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When Alfred entered Zoie's bedroom he glanced about him in bewilderment.
+      It appeared that he was in an enchanted chamber. Through the dim rose
+      light he could barely perceive his young wife. She was lying white and
+      apparently lifeless on her pillows. He moved cautiously toward the bed,
+      but Aggie raised a warning finger. Afraid to speak, he grasped Aggie's
+      hand and searched her face for reassurance; she nodded toward Zoie, whose
+      eyes were closed. He tiptoed to the bedside, sank on his knees and
+      reverently kissed the small hand that hung limply across the side of the
+      bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Alfred's intense surprise, his lips had barely touched Zoie's
+      fingertips when he felt his head seized in a frantic embrace. &ldquo;Alfred,
+      Alfred!&rdquo; cried Zoie in delight; then she smothered his face with kisses.
+      As she lifted her head to survey her astonished husband, she caught the
+      reproving eye of Aggie. With a weak little sigh, she relaxed her tenacious
+      hold of Alfred, breathed his name very faintly, and sank back, apparently
+      exhausted, upon her pillows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's been too much for her,&rdquo; said the terrified young husband, and he
+      glanced toward Aggie in anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie nodded assent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How pale she looks,&rdquo; added Alfred, as he surveyed the white face on the
+      pillows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's so weak, poor dear,&rdquo; sympathised Aggie, almost in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred nodded his understanding to Aggie. It was then that his attention
+      was for the first time attracted toward the crib.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My boy!&rdquo; he exclaimed. And again Zoie forgot Aggie's warning and sat
+      straight up in bed. But Alfred did not see her. He was making determinedly
+      for the crib, his heart beating high with the pride of possession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Throwing back the coverlets of the bassinette, Alfred stared at the empty
+      bed in silence, then he quickly turned to the two anxious women. &ldquo;Where is
+      he?&rdquo; he asked, his eyes wide with terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie's lips opened to answer, but no words came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred's eyes turned to Aggie. The look on her face increased his worst
+      fears. &ldquo;Don't tell me he's&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; he could not bring himself to
+      utter the word. He continued to look helplessly from one woman to the
+      other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In vain Zoie again tried to answer. Aggie also made an unsuccessful
+      attempt to speak. Then, driven to desperation by the strain of the
+      situation, Zoie declared boldly: &ldquo;He's out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out?&rdquo; echoed Alfred in consternation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With Jimmy,&rdquo; explained Aggie, coming to Zoie's rescue as well as she knew
+      how.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy!&rdquo; repeated Alfred in great astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just for a breath of air,&rdquo; explained Zoie sweetly She had now entirely
+      regained her self-possession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't he very young to be out at night?&rdquo; asked Alfred with a puzzled
+      frown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We told Jimmy that,&rdquo; answered Aggie, amazed at the promptness with which
+      each succeeding lie presented itself. &ldquo;But you see,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;Jimmy
+      is so crazy about the child that we can't do anything with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy crazy about my baby?&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred incredulously. &ldquo;He always
+      said babies were 'little red worms.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not this one,&rdquo; answered Zoie sweetly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indeed,&rdquo; chimed in Aggie. &ldquo;He acts as though he owned it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, DOES he?&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred hotly. &ldquo;I'll soon put a stop to that,&rdquo; he
+      declared. &ldquo;Where did he take him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the two women looked at each other inquiringly, then Aggie stammered
+      evasively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, j-just downstairs&mdash;somewhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll LOOK j-just downstairs somewhere,&rdquo; decided Alfred, and he snatched
+      up his hat and started toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alfred!&rdquo; cried Zoie in alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming back to her bedside to reassure her, Alfred was caught in a frantic
+      embrace. &ldquo;I'll be back in a minute, dear,&rdquo; he said, but Zoie clung to him
+      and pleaded desperately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You aren't going to leave me the very first thing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred hesitated. He had no wish to be cruel to Zoie, but the thought of
+      Jimmy out in the street with his baby at this hour of the night was not to
+      be borne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie renewed her efforts at persuasion. &ldquo;Now, dearie,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I wish
+      you'd go get shaved and wash up a bit. I don't wish baby to see you
+      looking so horrid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, do, Alfred,&rdquo; insisted Aggie. &ldquo;He's sure to be here in a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My boy won't care HOW his father looks,&rdquo; declared Alfred proudly, and
+      Zoie told Aggie afterward that his chest had momentarily expanded three
+      inches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But <i>I</i> care,&rdquo; persisted Zoie. &ldquo;First impressions are so important.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Zoie,&rdquo; cautioned Aggie, as she crossed toward the bed with affected
+      solicitude. &ldquo;You mustn't excite yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie was quick to understand the suggested change in her tactics, and
+      again she sank back on her pillows apparently ill and faint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Utterly vanquished by the dire result of his apparently inhuman
+      thoughtlessness, Alfred glanced at Aggie, uncertain as to how to repair
+      the injury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie beckoned to him to come away from the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let her have her own way,&rdquo; she whispered with a significant glance toward
+      Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred nodded understandingly and put a finger to his lips to signify that
+      he would henceforth speak in hushed tones, then he tiptoed back to the bed
+      and gently stroked the curls from Zoie's troubled forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There now, dear,&rdquo; he whispered, &ldquo;lie still and rest and I'll go shave and
+      wash up a bit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie sighed her acquiescence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mind,&rdquo; he whispered to Aggie, &ldquo;you are to call me the moment my boy
+      comes,&rdquo; and then he slipped quietly into the bedroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had Alfred crossed the threshold, than Zoie sat up in bed and
+      called in a sharp whisper to Aggie, &ldquo;What's keeping them?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't imagine,&rdquo; answered Aggie, also in whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I had Jimmy here,&rdquo; declared Zoie vindictively, &ldquo;I'd wring his little
+      fat neck,&rdquo; and slipping her little pink toes from beneath the covers, she
+      was about to get out of bed, when Aggie, who was facing Alfred's bedroom
+      door, gave her a warning signal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie had barely time to get back beneath the covers, when Alfred
+      re-entered the room in search of his satchel. Aggie found it for him
+      quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred glanced solicitously at Zoie's closed eyes. &ldquo;I'm so sorry,&rdquo; he
+      apologised to Aggie, and again he slipped softly out of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie and Zoie drew together for consultation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose Jimmy can't get the baby,&rdquo; whispered Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case, he'd have 'phoned,&rdquo; argued Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's 'phone to the Home,&rdquo; suggested Zoie, &ldquo;and find&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; She
+      was interrupted by Alfred's voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Aggie,&rdquo; called Alfred from the next room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; answered Aggie sweetly, and she crossed to the door and waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hasn't he come yet?&rdquo; called Alfred impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet, Alfred,&rdquo; said Aggie, and she closed the door very softly, lest
+      Alfred should hear her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never knew Alfred could be so silly!&rdquo; snapped Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh! sh!&rdquo; warned Aggie, and she glanced anxiously toward Alfred's door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He doesn't care a bit about me!&rdquo; complained Zoie. &ldquo;It's all that horrid
+      old baby that he's never seen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Jimmy doesn't come soon, he never WILL see it,&rdquo; declared Aggie, and
+      she started toward the window to look out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then there was a short quick ring of the bell. The two women glanced
+      at each other with mingled hope and fear. Then their eyes sought the door
+      expectantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      With the collar of his long ulster pushed high and the brim of his derby
+      hat pulled low, Jimmy Jinks crept cautiously into the room. When he at
+      length ceased to glance over his shoulder and came to a full stop, Aggie
+      perceived a bit of white flannel hanging beneath the hem of his tightly
+      buttoned coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've GOT it!&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is it?&rdquo; asked Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give it to me,&rdquo; demanded Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy stared at them as though stupefied, then glanced uneasily over his
+      shoulder, to make sure that no one was pursuing him. Aggie unbuttoned his
+      ulster, seized a wee mite wrapped in a large shawl, and clasped it to her
+      bosom with a sigh of relief. &ldquo;Thank heaven!&rdquo; she exclaimed, then crossed
+      quickly to the bassinette and deposited her charge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, having thrown discretion to the wind, Zoie had hopped out
+      of bed. As usual, her greeting to Jimmy was in the nature of a reproach.
+      &ldquo;What kept you?&rdquo; she demanded crossly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; chimed in Aggie, who was now bending over the crib. &ldquo;What made you
+      so long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See here!&rdquo; answered Jimmy hotly, &ldquo;if you two think you can do any better,
+      you're welcome to the job,&rdquo; and with that he threw off his overcoat and
+      sank sullenly on the couch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh! sh!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie and Aggie, simultaneously, and they glanced
+      nervously toward Alfred's bedroom door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy looked at them without comprehending why he should &ldquo;sh.&rdquo; They did
+      not bother to explain. Instead, Zoie turned her back upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's see it,&rdquo; she said, peeping into the bassinette. And then with a
+      little cry of disgust she again looked at Jimmy reproachfully. &ldquo;Isn't it
+      ugly?&rdquo; she said. Jimmy's contempt for woman's ingratitude was too deep for
+      words, and he only stared at her in injured silence. But his reflections
+      were quickly upset when Alfred called from the next room, to inquire again
+      about Baby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alfred's here!&rdquo; whispered Jimmy, beginning to realise the meaning of the
+      women's mysterious behaviour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh! sh!&rdquo; said Aggie again to Jimmy, and Zoie flew toward the bed, almost
+      vaulting over the footboard in her hurry to get beneath the covers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the present Alfred did not disturb them further. Apparently he was
+      still occupied with his shaving, but just as Jimmy was about to ask for
+      particulars, the 'phone rang. The three culprits glanced guiltily at each
+      other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's that?&rdquo; whispered Zoie in a frightened voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie crossed to the 'phone. &ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; she called softly. &ldquo;The Children's
+      Home?&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy paused in the act of sitting and turned his round eyes toward the
+      'phone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie's facial expression was not reassuring. &ldquo;But we can't,&rdquo; she was
+      saying; &ldquo;that's impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; called Zoie across the foot of the bed, unable longer to
+      endure the suspense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie did not answer. She was growing more and more excited. &ldquo;A thief!&rdquo;
+       she cried wildly, over the 'phone. &ldquo;How dare you call my husband a thief!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy was following the conversation with growing interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a minute,&rdquo; said Aggie, then she left the receiver hanging by the
+      cord and turned to the expectant pair behind her. &ldquo;It's the Children's
+      Home,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;That awful woman says Jimmy STOLE her baby!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie as though such depravity on Jimmy's part were
+      unthinkable. Then she looked at him accusingly, and asked in low, measured
+      tones, &ldquo;DID you STEAL HER BABY, JIMMY?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn't you tell me to?&rdquo; asked Jimmy hotly. &ldquo;Not literally,&rdquo; corrected
+      Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How else COULD I steal a baby?&rdquo; demanded Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie looked at the unfortunate creature as if she could strangle him, and
+      Aggie addressed him with a threat in her voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, the Superintendent says you've got to bring it straight back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd like to see myself!&rdquo; said Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He sha'n't bring it back,&rdquo; declared Zoie. &ldquo;I'll not let him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall I tell the Superintendent?&rdquo; asked Aggie, &ldquo;he's holding the
+      wire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell him he can't have it,&rdquo; answered Zoie, as though that were the end of
+      the whole matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; concluded Aggie, &ldquo;he says if Jimmy DOESN'T bring it back the
+      mother's coming after it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Jimmy, he bolted for the door. Aggie caught him by the sleeve as he
+      passed. &ldquo;Wait, Jimmy,&rdquo; she said peremptorily. There was a moment of awful
+      indecision, then something approaching an idea came to Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell the Superintendent that it isn't here,&rdquo; she whispered to Aggie
+      across the footboard. &ldquo;Tell him that Jimmy hasn't got here yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; agreed Jimmy, &ldquo;tell him I haven't got here yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie nodded wisely and returned to the 'phone. &ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; she called
+      pleasantly; then proceeded to explain. &ldquo;Mr. Jinks hasn't got here yet.&rdquo;
+       There was a pause, then she added in her most conciliatory tone, &ldquo;I'll
+      tell him what you say when he comes in.&rdquo; Another pause, and she hung up
+      the receiver with a most gracious good-bye and turned to the others with
+      increasing misgivings. &ldquo;He says he won't be responsible for that mother
+      much longer&mdash;she's half-crazy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What right has she to be crazy?&rdquo; demanded Zoie in an abused voice. &ldquo;She's
+      a widow. She doesn't need a baby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; decided Aggie after careful deliberation, &ldquo;you'd better take it
+      back, Jimmy, before Alfred sees it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie in protest. And again Jimmy bolted, but again he
+      failed to reach the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      His face covered with lather, and a shaving brush in one hand, Alfred
+      entered the room just as his friend was about to escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy!&rdquo; exclaimed the excited young father, &ldquo;you're back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes&mdash;yes,&rdquo; admitted Jimmy nervously, &ldquo;I'm back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My boy!&rdquo; cried Alfred, and he glanced toward the crib. &ldquo;He's here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes,&rdquo; agreed Aggie uneasily, as she tried to place herself
+      between Alfred and the bassinette. &ldquo;He's here, but you mayn't have him,
+      Alfred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred, trying to put her out of the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; protested Aggie, &ldquo;not just yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give him to me,&rdquo; demanded Alfred, and thrusting Aggie aside, he took
+      possession of the small mite in the cradle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but, Alfred,&rdquo; pleaded Aggie, &ldquo;your face. You'll get him all
+      wet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred did not heed her. He was bending over the cradle in an ecstasy. &ldquo;My
+      boy!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;my boy!&rdquo; Lifting the baby in his arms he circled the room
+      cooing to him delightedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was he away from home when his fadder came? Oh, me, oh, my! Coochy!
+      Coochy! Coochy!&rdquo; Suddenly he remembered to whom he owed this wondrous
+      treasure and forgetful of the lather on his unshaven face he rushed toward
+      Zoie with an overflowing heart. &ldquo;My precious!&rdquo; he exclaimed, and he
+      covered her cheek with kisses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go away!&rdquo; cried Zoie in disgust and she pushed Alfred from her and
+      brushed the hateful lather from her little pink check.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Alfred was not to be robbed of his exaltation, and again he circled
+      the room, making strange gurgling sounds to Baby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did a horrid old Jimmy take him away from fadder?&rdquo; he said
+      sympathetically, in the small person's ear; and he glanced at Jimmy with
+      frowning disapproval. &ldquo;I'd just like to see him get you away from me
+      again!&rdquo; he added to Baby, as he tickled the mite's ear with the end of his
+      shaving brush. &ldquo;Oh, me! oh, my!&rdquo; he exclaimed in trepidation, as he
+      perceived a bit of lather on the infant's cheek. Then lifting the boy high
+      in his arms and throwing out his chest with great pride, he looked at
+      Jimmy with an air of superiority. &ldquo;I guess I'm bad, aye?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy positively blushed. As for Zoie, she was growing more and more
+      impatient for a little attention to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rock-a-bye, Baby,&rdquo; sang Alfred in strident tones and he swung the child
+      high in his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy and Aggie gazed at Alfred as though hypnotised. They kept time to
+      his lullaby out of sheer nervousness. Suddenly Alfred stopped, held the
+      child from him and gazed at it in horror. &ldquo;Good heavens!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+      The others waited breathlessly. &ldquo;Look at that baby's face,&rdquo; commanded
+      Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie and Aggie exchanged alarmed glances, then Zoie asked in trepidation,
+      &ldquo;What's the matter with his face?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's got a fever,&rdquo; declared Alfred. And he started toward the bed to show
+      the child to its mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go away!&rdquo; shrieked Zoie, waving Alfred off in wild alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; asked Alfred, backing from her in surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie crossed quickly to Alfred's side and looked over his shoulder at the
+      boy. &ldquo;I don't see anything wrong with its face,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's scarlet!&rdquo; persisted Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Jimmy with a superior air, &ldquo;they're always like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing of the sort,&rdquo; snorted Alfred, and he glared at Jimmy
+      threateningly. &ldquo;You've frozen the child parading him around the streets.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me have him, Alfred,&rdquo; begged Aggie sweetly; &ldquo;I'll put him in his crib
+      and keep him warm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Reluctantly Alfred released the boy. His eyes followed him to the crib
+      with anxiety. &ldquo;Where's his nurse?&rdquo; he asked, as he glanced first from one
+      to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie and Jimmy stared about the room as though expecting the desired
+      person to drop from the ceiling. Then Zoie turned upon her unwary
+      accomplice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy,&rdquo; she called in a threatening tone, &ldquo;where IS his nurse?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Jimmy take the nurse out, too?&rdquo; demanded Alfred, more and more
+      annoyed by the privileges Jimmy had apparently been usurping in his
+      absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind about the nurse,&rdquo; interposed Aggie. &ldquo;Baby likes me better
+      anyway. I'll tuck him in,&rdquo; and she bent fondly over the crib, but Alfred
+      was not to be so easily pacified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to tell me,&rdquo; he exclaimed excitedly, &ldquo;that my boy hasn't any
+      nurse?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We HAD a nurse,&rdquo; corrected Zoie, &ldquo;but&mdash;but I had to discharge her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred glanced from one to the other for an explanation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Discharge her?&rdquo; he repeated, &ldquo;for what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was crazy,&rdquo; stammered Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred's eyes sought Aggie's for confirmation. She nodded. He directed his
+      steady gaze toward Jimmy. The latter jerked his head up and down in
+      nervous assent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Alfred, amazed at their apparent lack of resource, &ldquo;why
+      didn't you get ANOTHER nurse?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aggie is going to stay and take care of baby to-night,&rdquo; declared Zoie,
+      and then she beamed upon Aggie as only she knew how. &ldquo;Aren't you, dear?&rdquo;
+       she asked sweetly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed,&rdquo; answered Aggie, studiously avoiding Jimmy's eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Baby is going to sleep in the spare room with Aggie and Jimmy,&rdquo; said
+      Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmy, too desperate to care what Alfred might infer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ignoring Jimmy's implied protest, Zoie continued sweetly to Alfred:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, don't worry, dear; go back to your room and finish your shaving.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Finish shaving?&rdquo; repeated Alfred in a puzzled way. Then his hand went
+      mechanically to his cheek and he stared at Zoie in astonishment. &ldquo;By
+      Jove!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;I had forgotten all about it. That shows you how
+      excited I am.&rdquo; And with a reluctant glance toward the cradle, he went
+      quickly from the room, singing a high-pitched lullaby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as the three conspirators were drawing together for consultation,
+      Alfred returned to the room. It was apparent that there was something
+      important on his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the way,&rdquo; he said, glancing from one to another, &ldquo;I forgot to ask&mdash;what's
+      his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The conspirators looked at each other without answering. To Alfred their
+      delay was annoying. Of course his son had been given his father's name,
+      but he wished to HEAR someone say so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Baby's, I mean,&rdquo; he explained impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy felt instinctively that Zoie's eyes were upon him. He avoided her
+      gaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy!&rdquo; called Zoie, meaning only to appeal to him for a name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy!&rdquo; thundered the infuriated Alfred. &ldquo;You've called my boy 'Jimmy'?
+      Why 'Jimmy'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For once Zoie was without an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After waiting in vain for any response, Alfred advanced upon the
+      uncomfortable Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to be very popular around here,&rdquo; he sneered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and studied the pattern
+      of the rug upon which he was standing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After what seemed an age to Jimmy, Alfred turned his back upon his old
+      friend and started toward his bedroom. Jimmy peeped out uneasily from his
+      long eyelashes. When Alfred reached the threshold, he faced about quickly
+      and stared again at Jimmy for an explanation. It seemed to Jimmy that
+      Alfred's nostrils were dilating. He would not have been surprised to see
+      Alfred snort fire. He let his eyes fall before the awful spectacle of his
+      friend's wrath. Alfred's upper lip began to curl. He cast a last withering
+      look in Jimmy's direction, retired quickly from the scene and banged the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Jimmy again had the courage to lift his eyes he was confronted by the
+      contemptuous gaze of Zoie, who was sitting up in bed and regarding him
+      with undisguised disapproval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn't you tell him what the baby's name is?&rdquo; she demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do <i>I</i> know what the baby's name is?&rdquo; retorted Jimmy savagely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh! sh!&rdquo; cautioned Aggie as she glanced nervously toward the door through
+      which Alfred had just passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does it matter WHAT the baby's name is so long as we have to send it
+      back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll NOT send it back,&rdquo; declared Zoie emphatically, &ldquo;at least not until
+      morning. That will give Jimmy a whole night to get another one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another!&rdquo; shrieked Jimmy. &ldquo;See here, you two can't be changing babies
+      every five minutes without Alfred knowing it. Even HE has SOME sense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; answered Aggie shortly. &ldquo;You know perfectly well that all
+      young babies look just alike. Their own mothers couldn't tell them apart,
+      if it weren't for their clothes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where can we GET another?&rdquo; asked Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Aggie could answer, Alfred was again heard calling from the next
+      room. Apparently all his anger had subsided, for he inquired in the most
+      amiable tone as to what baby might be doing and how he might be feeling.
+      Aggie crossed quickly to the door, and sweetly reassured the anxious
+      father, then she closed the door softly and turned to Zoie and Jimmy with
+      a new inspiration lighting her face. &ldquo;I have it,&rdquo; she exclaimed
+      ecstatically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy regarded his spouse with grave suspicion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now see here,&rdquo; he objected, &ldquo;every time YOU 'HAVE IT,' I DO IT. The NEXT
+      time you 'HAVE IT' YOU DO IT!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The emphasis with which Jimmy made his declaration deserved consideration,
+      but to his amazement it was entirely ignored by both women. Hopping
+      quickly out of bed, without even glancing in his direction, Zoie gave her
+      entire attention to Aggie. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; she asked eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There must be OTHER babies' Homes,&rdquo; said Aggie, and she glanced at Jimmy
+      from her superior height.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They aren't open all night like corner drug stores,&rdquo; growled Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they ought to be,&rdquo; decided Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And surely,&rdquo; argued Aggie, &ldquo;in an extraordinary case&mdash;like&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This was an 'extraordinary case,'&rdquo; declared Jimmy, &ldquo;and you saw what
+      happened this time, and the Superintendent is a friend of mine&mdash;at
+      least he WAS a friend of mine.&rdquo; And with that Jimmy sat himself down on
+      the far corner of the couch and proceeded to ruminate on the havoc that
+      these two women had wrought in his once tranquil life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie gazed at Jimmy in deep disgust; her friend Aggie had made an
+      excellent suggestion, and instead of acting upon it with alacrity, here
+      sat Jimmy sulking like a stubborn child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; said Zoie, as her eyebrows assumed a bored angle, &ldquo;there are
+      SOME babies in the world outside of Children's Homes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; was Aggie's enthusiastic rejoinder; &ldquo;there's one born every
+      minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I was born BETWEEN minutes,&rdquo; protested Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's talking about you?&rdquo; snapped Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Aggie exclaimed that she &ldquo;had it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's got it twice as bad,&rdquo; groaned Jimmy, and he wondered what new form
+      her persecution of him was about to take.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is the morning paper?&rdquo; asked Aggie, excitedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can't advertise NOW,&rdquo; protested Zoie. &ldquo;It's too late for that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh! Sh!&rdquo; answered Aggie, as she snatched the paper quickly from the table
+      and began running her eyes up and down its third page. &ldquo;Married&mdash;married,&rdquo;
+       she murmured, and then with delight she found the half column for which
+      she was searching. &ldquo;Born,&rdquo; she exclaimed triumphantly. &ldquo;Here we are! Get a
+      pencil, Zoie, and we'll take down all the new ones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; agreed Zoie, clapping her hands in glee, &ldquo;and Jimmy can get a
+      taxi and look them right up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, CAN he?&rdquo; shouted Jimmy as he rose with clenched fists. &ldquo;Now you two,
+      see here&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Jimmy could complete his threat, there was a sharp ring of the door
+      bell. He looked at the two women inquiringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the mother,&rdquo; cried Zoie in a hoarse whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The mother!&rdquo; repeated Jimmy in terror and he glanced uncertainly from one
+      door to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cover up the baby!&rdquo; called Zoie, and drawing Jimmy's overcoat quickly
+      from his arm, Aggie threw it hurriedly over the cradle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For an instant Jimmy remained motionless in the centre of the room,
+      hatless, coatless, and shorn of ideas. A loud knock on the door decided
+      him and he sank with trembling knees behind the nearest armchair, just as
+      Zoie made a flying leap into the bed and prepared to draw the cover over
+      her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The knock was repeated and Aggie signalled to Zoie to answer it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in!&rdquo; called Zoie very faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      From his hiding-place Jimmy peeped around the edge of the armchair and saw
+      what seemed to be a large clothes basket entering the room. Closer
+      inspection revealed the small figure of Maggie, the washerwoman's
+      daughter, propelling the basket, which was piled high with freshly
+      laundered clothing. Jimmy drew a long sigh of relief, and unknotted his
+      cramped limbs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I lay the things on the sofa, mum?&rdquo; asked Maggie as she placed her
+      basket on the floor and waited for Zoie's instructions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, please,&rdquo; answered Zoie, too exhausted for further comment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking the laundry piece by piece from the basket, Maggie made excuses for
+      its delay, while she placed it on the couch. Deaf to Maggie's chatter,
+      Zoie lay back languidly on her pillows; but she soon heard something that
+      lifted her straight up in bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me mother is sorry she had to kape you waitin' this week,&rdquo; said Maggie
+      over her shoulder; &ldquo;but we've got twins at OUR house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twins!&rdquo; echoed Zoie and Aggie simultaneously. Then together they stared
+      at Maggie as though she had been dropped from another world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finding attention temporarily diverted from himself, Jimmy had begun to
+      rearrange both his mind and his cravat when he felt rather than saw that
+      his two persecutors were regarding him with a steady, determined gaze. In
+      spite of himself, Jimmy raised his eyes to theirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twins!&rdquo; was their laconic answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Jimmy had heard Maggie's announcement about the bountiful supply of
+      offspring lately arrived at her house, but not until he caught the
+      fanatical gleam in the eyes of his companions did he understand the part
+      they meant him to play in their next adventure. He waited for no
+      explanation&mdash;he bolted toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait, Jimmy,&rdquo; commanded Aggie. But it was not until she had laid firm
+      hold of him that he waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surprised by such strange behaviour on the part of those whom she
+      considered her superiors, Maggie looked first at Aggie, then at Jimmy,
+      then at Zoie, uncertain whether to go or to stay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anythin' to go back, mum?&rdquo; she stammered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie stared at Maggie solemnly from across the foot of the bed. &ldquo;Maggie,&rdquo;
+       she asked in a deep, sepulchral tone, &ldquo;where do you live?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just around the corner on High Street, mum,&rdquo; gasped Maggie. Then, keeping
+      her eyes fixed uneasily on Zoie she picked up her basket and backed
+      cautiously toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; commanded Zoie; and Maggie paused, one foot in mid-air. &ldquo;Wait in
+      the hall,&rdquo; said Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes'um,&rdquo; assented Maggie, almost in a whisper. Then she nodded her head
+      jerkily, cast another furtive glance at the three persons who were
+      regarding her so strangely, and slipped quickly through the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having crossed the room and stealthily closed the door, Aggie returned to
+      Jimmy, who was watching her with the furtive expression of a trapped
+      animal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's Providence,&rdquo; she declared, with a grave countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy looked up at Aggie with affected innocence, then rolled his round
+      eyes away from her. He was confronted by Zoie, who had approached from the
+      opposite side of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's Fate,&rdquo; declared Zoie, in awe-struck tones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy was beginning to wriggle, but he kept up a last desperate presence
+      of not understanding them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn't tell me I'm going to take the wash to the old lady,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;for I'm not going to do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't the WASH,&rdquo; said Aggie, and her tone warned him that she expected
+      no nonsense from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know what we are thinking about just as well as we do,&rdquo; said Zoie.
+      &ldquo;I'll write that washerwoman a note and tell her we must have one of those
+      babies right now.&rdquo; And with that she turned toward her desk and began
+      rummaging amongst her papers for a pencil and pad. &ldquo;The luck of these
+      poor,&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The luck of US,&rdquo; corrected Aggie, whose spirits were now soaring. Then
+      she turned to Jimmy with growing enthusiasm. &ldquo;Just think of it, dear,&rdquo; she
+      said, &ldquo;Fate has sent us a baby to our very door.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; declared Jimmy, again beginning to show signs of fight, &ldquo;if Fate
+      has sent a baby to the door, you don't need me,&rdquo; and with that he snatched
+      his coat from the crib.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait, Jimmy,&rdquo; again commanded Aggie, and she took his coat gently but
+      firmly from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, see here,&rdquo; argued Jimmy, trying to get free from his strong-minded
+      spouse, &ldquo;you know perfectly well that that washerwoman isn't going to let
+      us have that baby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense,&rdquo; called Zoie over her shoulder, while she scribbled a hurried
+      note to the washerwoman. &ldquo;If she won't let us have it 'for keeps,' I'll
+      just 'rent it.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmy in genuine horror. &ldquo;Warm, fresh, palpitating
+      babies rented as you would rent a gas stove!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all a pose,&rdquo; declared Aggie, in a matter-of-fact tone. &ldquo;You think
+      babies 'little red worms,' you've said so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy could not deny it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She'll be only too glad to rent it,&rdquo; declared Zoie, as she glanced
+      hurriedly through the note just written, and slipped it, together with a
+      bill, into an envelope. &ldquo;I'll pay her anything. It's only until I can get
+      another one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another!&rdquo; shouted Jimmy, and his eyes turned heavenward for help. &ldquo;An
+      endless chain with me to put the links together!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be so theatrical,&rdquo; said Aggie, irritably, as she took up Jimmy's
+      coat and prepared to get him into it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why DO you make such a fuss about NOTHING,&rdquo; sighed Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing?&rdquo; echoed Jimmy, and he looked at her with wondering eyes. &ldquo;I
+      crawl about like a thief in the night snatching babies from their mother's
+      breasts, and you call THAT nothing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't have to 'CRAWL,'&rdquo; reminded Zoie, &ldquo;you can take a taxi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's your coat, dear,&rdquo; said Aggie graciously, as she endeavoured to
+      slip Jimmy's limp arms into the sleeves of the garment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can take Maggie with you,&rdquo; said Zoie, with the air of conferring a
+      distinct favour upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the wash on my lap,&rdquo; added Jimmy sarcastically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Zoie, unruffled by Jimmy's ungracious behaviour. &ldquo;We'll send
+      the wash later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's very kind of you,&rdquo; sneered Jimmy, as he unconsciously allowed his
+      arms to slip into the sleeves of the coat Aggie was urging upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All you need to do,&rdquo; said Aggie complacently, &ldquo;is to get us the baby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Jimmy, &ldquo;and what do you suppose my friends would say if they
+      were to see me riding around town with the wash-lady's daughter and a baby
+      on my lap? What would YOU say?&rdquo; he asked Aggie, &ldquo;if you didn't know the
+      facts?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nobody's going to see you,&rdquo; answered Aggie impatiently; &ldquo;it's only around
+      the corner. Go on, Jimmy, be a good boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean a good thing,&rdquo; retorted Jimmy without budging from the spot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How ridiculous!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie; &ldquo;it's as easy as can be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, the FIRST one SOUNDED easy, too,&rdquo; said Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All you have to do,&rdquo; explained Zoie, trying to restrain her rising
+      intolerance of his stupidity, &ldquo;is to give this note to Maggie's mother.
+      She'll give you her baby, you bring it back here, we'll give you THIS one,
+      and you can take it right back to the Home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And meet the other mother,&rdquo; concluded Jimmy with a shake of his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a distinct threat in Zoie's voice when she again addressed the
+      stubborn Jimmy and the glitter of triumph was in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd better meet here THERE than HERE,&rdquo; she warned him; &ldquo;you know what
+      the Superintendent said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's true,&rdquo; agreed Aggie with an anxious face. &ldquo;Come now,&rdquo; she pleaded,
+      &ldquo;it will only take a minute; you can do the whole thing before you have
+      had time to think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before I have had time to think,&rdquo; repeated Jimmy excitedly. &ldquo;That's how
+      you get me to do everything. Well, this time I've HAD time to think and I
+      don't think I will!&rdquo; and with that he threw himself upon the couch,
+      unmindful of the damage to the freshly laundered clothes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get up,&rdquo; cried Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven't time to sit down,&rdquo; said Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll TAKE time,&rdquo; declared Jimmy. His eyes blinked ominously and he
+      remained glued to the couch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a short silence; the two women gazed at Jimmy in despair.
+      Remembering a fresh grievance, Jimmy turned upon them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the way,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;do you two know that I haven't had anything to eat
+      yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you know,&rdquo; said Zoie, &ldquo;that Alfred may be back at any minute? He
+      can't stay away forever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not unless he has cut his throat,&rdquo; rejoined Jimmy, &ldquo;and that's what I'd
+      do if I had a razor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie regarded Jimmy as though he were beyond redemption. &ldquo;Can't you ever
+      think of anybody but yourself?&rdquo; she asked, with a martyred air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had Jimmy been half his age, Aggie would have felt sure that she saw him
+      make a face at her friend for answer. As it was, she resolved to make one
+      last effort to awaken her unobliging spouse to a belated sense of duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you might better get the washerwoman's baby
+      than to go from house to house for one,&rdquo; and she glanced again toward the
+      paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; urged Zoie, &ldquo;and that's just what you'll HAVE to do, if you don't
+      get this one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy's head hung dejectedly. It was apparent that his courage was
+      slipping from him. Aggie was quick to realise her opportunity, and before
+      Jimmy could protect himself from her treacherous wiles, she had slipped
+      one arm coyly about his neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Jimmy,&rdquo; she pleaded as she pressed her soft cheek to his throbbing
+      temple, and toyed with the bay curl on his perspiring forehead, &ldquo;wont you
+      do this little teeny-weepy thing just for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy's lips puckered in a pout; he began to blink nervously. Aggie
+      slipped her other arm about his neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know,&rdquo; she continued with a baby whine, &ldquo;I got Zoie into this, and
+      I've just got to get her out of it. You're not going to desert me, are
+      you, Jimmy? You WILL help me, won't you, dear?&rdquo; Her breath was on Jimmy's
+      cheek; he could feel her lips stealing closer to his. He had not been
+      treated to much affection of late. His head drooped lower&mdash;he began
+      to twiddle the fob on his watch chain. &ldquo;Won't you?&rdquo; persisted Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy studied the toes of his boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won't you?&rdquo; she repeated, and her soft eyelashes just brushed the tip of
+      his retrousee nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy's head was now wagging from side to side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won't you?&rdquo; she entreated a fourth time, and she kissed him full on the
+      lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a resigned sigh, Jimmy rose mechanically from the heap of crushed
+      laundry and held out his fat chubby hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me the letter,&rdquo; he groaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here you are,&rdquo; said Zoie, taking Jimmy's acquiescence as a matter of
+      course; and she thrust the letter into the pocket of Jimmy's ulster. &ldquo;Now,
+      when you get back with the baby,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;don't come in all of a
+      sudden; just wait outside and whistle. You CAN WHISTLE, can't you?&rdquo; she
+      asked with a doubtful air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For answer, Jimmy placed two fingers between his lips and produced a
+      shrill whistle that made both Zoie and Aggie glance nervously toward
+      Alfred's bedroom door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, you can WHISTLE,&rdquo; admitted Zoie, then she continued her directions.
+      &ldquo;If Alfred is not in the room, I'll raise the shade and you can come right
+      up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if he is in the room?&rdquo; asked Jimmy with a fine shade of sarcasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he IS in the room,&rdquo; explained Zoie, &ldquo;you must wait outside until I can
+      get rid of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy turned his eyes toward Aggie to ask if it were possible that she
+      still approved of Zoie's inhuman plan. For answer Aggie stroked his coat
+      collar fondly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll give you the signal the moment the coast is clear,&rdquo; she said, then
+      she hurriedly buttoned Jimmy's large ulster and wound a muffler about his
+      neck. &ldquo;There now, dear, do go, you're all buttoned up,&rdquo; and with that she
+      urged him toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just a minute,&rdquo; protested Jimmy, as he paused on the threshold. &ldquo;Let me
+      get this right, if the shade is up, I stay down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; corrected Aggie and Zoie in a breath. &ldquo;If the shade is up,
+      you come up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy cast another martyred look in Zoie's direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won't hurry will you?&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you know it is only twenty-three
+      below zero and I haven't had anything to eat yet&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we know,&rdquo; interrupted the two women in chorus, and then Aggie added
+      wearily, &ldquo;go on, Jimmy; don't be funny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Funny?&rdquo; snorted Jimmy. &ldquo;With a baby on my lap and the wash lady's
+      daughter, I won't be funny, oh no!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It is doubtful whether Jimmy would not have worked himself into another
+      state of open rebellion had not Aggie put an end to his protests by
+      thrusting him firmly out of the room and closing the door behind him.
+      After this act of heroic decision on her part, the two women listened
+      intently, fearing that he might return; but presently they heard the bang
+      of the outer door, and at last they drew a long breath of relief. For the
+      first time since Alfred's arrival, Aggie was preparing to sink into a
+      chair, when she was startled by a sharp exclamation from Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens,&rdquo; cried Zoie, &ldquo;I forgot to ask Maggie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask her what?&rdquo; questioned Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Boys or girls,&rdquo; said Zoie, with a solemn look toward the door through
+      which Jimmy had just disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; decided Aggie, after a moment's reflection, &ldquo;it's too late now.
+      Anyway,&rdquo; she concluded philosophically, &ldquo;we couldn't CHANGE it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      With more or less damage to himself consequent on his excitement, Alfred
+      completed his shaving and hastened to return to his wife and the babe.
+      Finding the supposedly ill Zoie careering about the centre of the room
+      expostulating with Aggie, the young man stopped dumbfounded on the
+      threshold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zoie,&rdquo; he cried in astonishment. &ldquo;What are you doing out of bed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For an instant the startled Zoie gazed at him stupefied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I&mdash;I&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; Her eyes sought Aggie's for a suggestion;
+      there was no answer there. It was not until her gaze fell upon the cradle
+      that she was seized by the desired inspiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I just got up to see baby,&rdquo; she faltered, then putting one hand giddily
+      to her head, she pretended to sway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In an instant Alfred's arms were about her. He bore her quickly to the
+      bed. &ldquo;You stay here, my darling,&rdquo; he said tenderly. &ldquo;I'll bring baby to
+      you,&rdquo; and after a solicitous caress he turned toward baby's crib and bent
+      fondly over the little one. &ldquo;Ah, there's father's man,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Was he
+      lonesome baby? Oh, goodis g'acious,&rdquo; then followed an incoherent muttering
+      of baby talk, as he bore the youngster toward Zoie's bed. &ldquo;Come, my
+      precious,&rdquo; he called to Zoie, as he sank down on the edge of the bed. &ldquo;See
+      mother's boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother!&rdquo; shrieked Zoie in horror. It had suddenly dawned upon her that
+      this was the name by which Alfred would no doubt call her for the rest of
+      her life. She almost detested him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Alfred did not see the look of disgust on Zoie's face. He was wholly
+      absorbed by baby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a funny face,&rdquo; he cooed as he pinched the youngster's cheek. &ldquo;Great
+      Scott, what a grip,&rdquo; he cried as the infant's fingers closed around his
+      own. &ldquo;Will you look at the size of those hands,&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie and Aggie exchanged worried glances; the baby had no doubt inherited
+      his large hands from his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Aggie,&rdquo; called Alfred, &ldquo;what are all of these little specks on
+      baby's forehead?&rdquo; He pointed toward the infant's brow. &ldquo;One, two, three,&rdquo;
+       he counted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie was becoming more and more uncomfortable at the close proximity of
+      the little stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Aggie, with affected carelessness as she leaned over Alfred's
+      shoulder and glanced at baby's forehead. &ldquo;That is just a little rash.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A rash!&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred excitedly, &ldquo;that's dangerous, isn't it? We'd
+      better call up the doctor.&rdquo; And he rose and started hurriedly toward the
+      telephone, baby in arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be silly,&rdquo; called Zoie, filled with vague alarm at the thought of
+      the family physician's appearance and the explanations that this might
+      entail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stepping between Alfred and the 'phone, Aggie protested frantically. &ldquo;You
+      see, Alfred,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;it is better to have the rash OUT, it won't do
+      any harm unless it turns IN.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's perfectly well,&rdquo; declared Zoie, &ldquo;if you'll only put him in his crib
+      and leave him alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred looked down at his charge. &ldquo;Is that right, son?&rdquo; he asked, and he
+      tickled the little fellow playfully in the ribs. &ldquo;I'll tell you what,&rdquo; he
+      called over his shoulder to Zoie, &ldquo;he's a fine looking boy.&rdquo; And then with
+      a mysterious air, he nodded to Aggie to approach. &ldquo;Whom does he look
+      like?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Zoie sat up in anxiety. Aggie glanced at her, uncertain what answer
+      to make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I hadn't thought,&rdquo; she stammered weakly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on, go on,&rdquo; exclaimed the proud young father, &ldquo;you can't tell me that
+      you can look at that boy and not see the resemblance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To whom?&rdquo; asked Aggie, half fearfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said Alfred, &ldquo;he's the image of Zoie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie gazed at the puckered red face in Alfred's arms. &ldquo;What!&rdquo; she shrieked
+      in disgust, then fall back on her pillows and drew the lace coverlet over
+      her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mistaking Zoie's feeling for one of embarrassment at being over-praised,
+      Alfred bore the infant to her bedside. &ldquo;See, dear,&rdquo; he persisted, &ldquo;see for
+      yourself, look at his forehead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd rather look at you,&rdquo; pouted Zoie, peeping from beneath the coverlet,
+      &ldquo;if you would only put that thing down for a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thing?&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred, as though doubting his own ears. But before he
+      could remonstrate further, Zoie's arms were about his neck and she was
+      pleading jealously for his attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please, Alfred,&rdquo; she begged, &ldquo;I have scarcely had a look at you, yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred shook his head and turned to baby with an indulgent smile. It was
+      pleasant to have two such delightful creatures bidding for his entire
+      attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear me,&rdquo; he said to baby. &ldquo;Dear me, tink of mudder wanting to look at a
+      big u'gy t'ing like fadder, when she could look at a 'itty witty t'ing
+      like dis,&rdquo; and he rose and crossed to the crib where he deposited the
+      small creature with yet more gurgling and endearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie's dreams of rapture at Alfred's home coming had not included such
+      divided attention as he was now showing her and she was growing more and
+      more desperate at the turn affairs had taken. She resolved to put a stop
+      to his nonsense and to make him realise that she and no one else was the
+      lode star of his existence. She beckoned to Aggie to get out of the room
+      and to leave her a clear field and as soon as her friend had gone quietly
+      into the next room, she called impatiently to Alfred who was still cooing
+      rapturously over the young stranger. Finding Alfred deaf to her first
+      entreaty, Zoie shut her lips hard, rearranged her pretty head-dress, drew
+      one fascinating little curl down over her shoulder, reknotted the pink
+      ribbon of her negligee, and then issued a final and imperious order for
+      her husband to attend her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, dear,&rdquo; answered Alfred, with a shade of impatience. &ldquo;I'm
+      coming, I'm coming.&rdquo; And bidding a reluctant farewell to the small person
+      in the crib, he crossed to her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie caught Alfred's hand and drew him down to her; he smiled
+      complacently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said in the patronising tone that Zoie always resented. &ldquo;How is
+      hubby's little girl?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's about time,&rdquo; pouted Zoie, &ldquo;that you made a little fuss over me for a
+      change.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My own!&rdquo; murmured Alfred. He stooped to kiss the eager lips, but just as
+      his young wife prepared to lend herself to his long delayed embrace, his
+      mind was distracted by an uneasy thought. &ldquo;Do you think that Baby is&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was not permitted to finish the sentence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie drew him back to her with a sharp exclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think of ME for a while,&rdquo; she commanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My darling,&rdquo; expostulated Alfred with a shade of surprise at her
+      vehemence. &ldquo;How could I think of anyone else?&rdquo; Again he stooped to embrace
+      her and again his mind was directed otherwise. &ldquo;I wonder if Baby is warm
+      enough,&rdquo; he said and attempted to rise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wonder about ME for a while,&rdquo; snapped Zoie, clinging to him determinedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Alfred looked at her in amazement. Was it possible there was
+      anything besides Baby worth wondering about? Whether there was or not,
+      Zoie was no longer to be resisted and with a last regretful look at the
+      crib, he resigned himself to giving his entire attention to his spoiled
+      young wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gratified by her hard-won conquest, Zoie now settled herself in Alfred's
+      arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven't told me what you did all the time that you were away,&rdquo; she
+      reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, there was plenty to do,&rdquo; answered Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you think of me every minute?&rdquo; she asked jealously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That would be telling,&rdquo; laughed Alfred, as he pinched her small pink ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to be 'told,'&rdquo; declared Zoie; &ldquo;I don't suppose you realise it, but
+      if I were to live a THOUSAND YEARS, I'd never be quite sure what you did
+      during those FEW MONTHS.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was nothing that you wouldn't have been proud of,&rdquo; answered Alfred,
+      with an unconscious expansion of his chest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you love me as much as ever?&rdquo; asked Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Behave yourself,&rdquo; answered Alfred, trying not to appear flattered by the
+      discovery that his absence had undoubtedly caused her great uneasiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, SAY it!&rdquo; demanded Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know I do,&rdquo; answered Alfred, with the diffidence of a school boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then kiss me,&rdquo; concluded Zoie, with an air of finality that left Alfred
+      no alternative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, Alfred was no longer seeking an alternative. He was
+      again under the spell of his wife's adorable charms and he kissed her not
+      once, but many times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Foolish child,&rdquo; he murmured, then he laid her tenderly against the large
+      white pillows, remonstrating with her for being so spoiled, and cautioning
+      her to be a good little girl while he went again to see about Baby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie clung to his hand and feigned approaching tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You aren't thinking of me at all?&rdquo; she pouted. &ldquo;And kisses are no good
+      unless you put your whole mind on them. Give me a real kiss!&rdquo; she pleaded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Alfred stooped to humour the small importunate person who was so
+      jealous of his every thought, but just as his lips touched her forehead
+      his ear was arrested by a sound as yet new both to him and to Zoie. He
+      lifted his head and listened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was that?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; answered Zoie, wondering if the cat could have got into
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A redoubled effort on the part of the young stranger directed their
+      attention in the right direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God!&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred tragically, &ldquo;it's Baby. He's crying.&rdquo; And with
+      that, he rushed to the crib and clasped the small mite close to his
+      breast, leaving Zoie to pummel the pillows in an agony of vexation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After vain cajoling of the angry youngster, Alfred bore him excitedly to
+      Zoie's bedside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd better take him, dear,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the young husband's astonishment, Zoie waved him from her in terror,
+      and called loudly for Aggie. But no sooner had Aggie appeared on the
+      scene, than a sharp whistle was heard from the pavement below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pull down the shade!&rdquo; cried Zoie frantically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie hastened toward the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Attributing Zoie's uneasiness to a caprice of modesty, Alfred turned from
+      the cradle to reassure her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one can see in way up here,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Zoie's distress, the lowering of the shade was answered by a yet
+      shriller whistle from the street below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it 'up' or 'down'?&rdquo; cried Zoie to Aggie in an agony of doubt, as she
+      tried to recall her instructions to Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; answered Aggie. &ldquo;I've forgotten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another impatient whistle did not improve their memory. Alarmed by Zoie's
+      increasing excitement, and thinking she was troubled merely by a sick
+      woman's fancy that someone might see through the window, Alfred placed the
+      babe quickly in its cradle and crossed to the young wife's bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was up, dear,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You had Aggie put it down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I want it up,&rdquo; declared the seemingly perverse Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it was up,&rdquo; argued Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A succession of emotional whistles set Zoie to pounding the pillows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Put it down!&rdquo; she commanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Zoie&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; protested Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did I say 'up' or did I say 'down'?&rdquo; moaned the half-demented Zoie, while
+      long whistles and short whistles, appealing whistles and impatient
+      whistles followed each other in quick succession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said down, dear,&rdquo; persisted Alfred, now almost as distracted as his
+      wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie waved him from the room. &ldquo;I wish you'd get out of here,&rdquo; she cried;
+      &ldquo;you make me so nervous that I can't think at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, dear,&rdquo; murmured Alfred, &ldquo;if you wish it.&rdquo; And with a hurt and
+      perplexed expression on his face he backed quickly from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When Zoie's letter asking for the O'Flarety twin had reached that young
+      lady's astonished mother, Mrs. O'Flarety felt herself suddenly lifted to a
+      position of importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think of the purty Mrs. Hardy a wantin' my little Bridget,&rdquo; she
+      exclaimed, and she began to dwell upon the romantic possibilities of her
+      offspring's future under the care of such a &ldquo;foine stylish lady and
+      concluded by declaring it 'a lucky day entoirely.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy had his misgivings about it being Bridget's &ldquo;LUCKY day,&rdquo; but it was
+      not for him to delay matters by dwelling upon the eccentricities of Zoie's
+      character, and when Mrs. O'Flarety had deposited Bridget in Jimmy's short
+      arms and slipped a well filled nursing bottle into his overcoat pocket, he
+      took his leave hastily, lest the excited woman add Bridget's twin to her
+      willing offering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once out of sight of the elated mother, Jimmy thrust the defenceless
+      Bridget within the folds of his already snug ulster, buttoned the garment
+      in such places as it would meet, and made for the taxi which, owing to the
+      upset condition of the street, he had been obliged to abandon at the
+      corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether the driver had obtained a more promising &ldquo;fare&rdquo; or been run in by
+      the police, Jimmy never knew. At any rate it was in vain that he looked
+      for his vehicle. So intense was the cold that it was impossible to wait
+      for a chance taxi; furthermore, the meanness of the district made it
+      extremely unlikely that one would appear, and glancing guiltily behind him
+      to make sure that no one was taking cognisance of his strange exploit,
+      Jimmy began picking his way along dark lanes and avoiding the lighted
+      thoroughfare on which the &ldquo;Sherwood&rdquo; was situated, until he was within a
+      block of his destination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Panting with haste and excitement, he eventually gained courage to dash
+      through a side street that brought him within a few doors of the
+      &ldquo;Sherwood.&rdquo; Again glancing behind him, he turned the well lighted corner
+      and arrived beneath Zoie's window to find one shade up and one down. In
+      his perplexity he emitted a faint whistle. Immediately he saw the other
+      shade lowered. Uncertain as to what arrangement he had actually made with
+      Zoie, he ventured a second whistle. The result was a hysterical running up
+      and down of the shade which left him utterly bewildered as to what
+      disposition he was supposed to make of the wobbly bit of humanity pressed
+      against his shirt front.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reaching over his artificially curved figure to grasp a bit of white that
+      trailed below his coat, he looked up to see a passing policeman eyeing him
+      suspiciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Taking the air?&rdquo; asked the policeman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye-yes,&rdquo; mumbled Jimmy with affected nonchalence and he knocked the heels
+      of his boots together in order to keep his teeth from chattering. &ldquo;It's a
+      fi-fine ni-night for air,&rdquo; he stuttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it?&rdquo; said the policeman, and to Jimmy's horror, he saw the fellow's
+      eyes fix themselves on the bit of white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go-good-night,&rdquo; stammered Jimmy hurriedly, and trying to assume an easy
+      stride in spite of the uncomfortable addition to his already rotund
+      figure, he slipped into the hotel, where avoiding the lighted elevator, he
+      laboured quickly, up the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the very moment when Zoie was driving Alfred in consternation from the
+      room, Jimmy entered it uninvited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get out,&rdquo; was the inhospitable greeting received simultaneously from Zoie
+      and Aggie, and without waiting for further instructions he &ldquo;got.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately for all concerned, Alfred, who was at the same moment
+      departing by way of the bedroom door, did not look behind him; but it was
+      some minutes before Aggie who had followed Jimmy into the hall could
+      persuade him to return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After repeated and insistent signals both from Aggie and Zoie, Jimmy's
+      round red face appeared cautiously around the frame of the door. It bore
+      unmistakable indications of apoplexy. But the eyes of the women were not
+      upon Jimmy's face, they too had caught sight of the bit of white that hung
+      below his coat, and dragging him quickly into the room and closing the
+      door, Aggie proceeded without inquiry or thanks to unbutton his coat and
+      to take from beneath it the small object for which she and Zoie had been
+      eagerly waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank Heaven!&rdquo; sighed Zoie, as she saw Aggie bearing the latest
+      acquisition to Alfred's rapidly increasing family safely toward the crib.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly remembering something in his right hand coat pocket, Jimmy called
+      to Aggie, who turned to him and waited expectantly. After characteristic
+      fumbling, he produced a well filled nursing bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that?&rdquo; asked Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For HER,&rdquo; grunted Jimmy, and he nodded toward the bundle in Aggie's arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;HER!&rdquo; cried Zoie and Aggie in chorus. Zoie shut her lips hard and gazed
+      at him with contempt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I might have known you'd get the wrong kind,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What Jimmy thought about the ingratitude of woman was not to be expressed
+      in language. He controlled himself as well as he could and merely LOOKED
+      the things that he would like to have said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it can't be helped now,&rdquo; decided the philosophic Aggie; &ldquo;here,
+      Jimmy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you hold 'HER' a minute and I'll get you the other
+      one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Placing the small creature in Jimmy's protesting arms, Aggie turned toward
+      the cradle to make the proposed exchange when she was startled by the
+      unexpected return of Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thanks to the ample folds of Jimmy's ulster, he was able to effectually
+      conceal his charge and he started quickly toward the hall, but in making
+      the necessary detour around the couch he failed to reach the door before
+      Alfred, who had chosen a more direct way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold on, Jimmy,&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred good-naturedly, and he laid a detaining
+      hand on his friend's shoulder. &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be back,&rdquo; stammered Jimmy weakly, edging his way toward the door,
+      and contriving to keep his back toward Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a minute,&rdquo; said Alfred jovially, as he let his hand slip onto
+      Jimmy's arm, &ldquo;you haven't told me the news yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you later,&rdquo; mumbled Jimmy, still trying to escape. But Alfred's
+      eye had fallen upon a bit of white flannel dangling below the bottom of
+      Jimmy's ulster, it travelled upward to Jimmy's unusually rotund figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have you got there?&rdquo; he demanded to know, as he pointed toward the
+      centre button of Jimmy's overcoat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here?&rdquo; echoed Jimmy vapidly, glancing at the button in question, &ldquo;why,
+      that's just a little&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; There was a faint wail from the depths
+      of the ulster. Jimmy began to caper about with elephantine tread. &ldquo;Oochie,
+      coochie, oochie,&rdquo; he called excitedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter with you?&rdquo; asked Alfred. The wail became a shriek.
+      &ldquo;Good Heavens!&rdquo; cried the anxious father, &ldquo;it's my boy.&rdquo; And with that he
+      pounced upon Jimmy, threw wide his ulster and snatched from his arms
+      Jimmy's latest contribution to Zoie's scheme of things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Aggie had previously remarked, all young babies look very much alike,
+      and to the inexperienced eye of this new and overwrought father, there was
+      no difference between the infant that he now pressed to his breast, and
+      the one that, unsuspected by him, lay peacefully dozing in the crib, not
+      ten feet from him. He gazed at the face of the newcomer with the same
+      ecstasy that he had felt in the possession of her predecessor. But Zoie
+      and Aggie were looking at each other with something quite different from
+      ecstasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My boy,&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred, with deep emotion, as he clasped the tiny
+      creature to his breast. Then he turned to Jimmy. &ldquo;What were you doing with
+      my baby?&rdquo; he demanded hotly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I was just taking him out for a little walk!&rdquo; stammered Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You just try,&rdquo; threatened Alfred, and he towered over the intimidated
+      Jimmy. &ldquo;Are you crazy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy was of the opinion that he must be crazy or he would never have
+      found himself in such a predicament as this, but the anxious faces of Zoie
+      and Aggie, denied him the luxury of declaring himself so. He sank mutely
+      on the end of the couch and proceeded to sulk in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Aggie and Zoie, they continued to gaze open-mouthed at Alfred, who
+      was waltzing about the room transported into a new heaven of delight at
+      having snatched his heir from the danger of another night ramble with
+      Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did a horrid old Jimmy spoil his 'itty nap'?&rdquo; he gurgled to Baby. Then
+      with a sudden exclamation of alarm, he turned toward the anxious women.
+      &ldquo;Aggie!&rdquo; he cried, as he stared intently into Baby's face. &ldquo;Look&mdash;his
+      rash! It's turned IN!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie pretended to glance over Alfred's shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why so it has,&rdquo; she agreed nervously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall we do?&rdquo; cried the distraught Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all right now,&rdquo; counselled Aggie, &ldquo;so long as it didn't turn in too
+      suddenly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'd better keep him warm, hadn't we?&rdquo; suggested Alfred, remembering
+      Aggie's previous instructions on a similar occasion. &ldquo;I'll put him in his
+      crib,&rdquo; he decided, and thereupon he made a quick move toward the
+      bassinette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Staggering back from the cradle with the unsteadiness of a drunken man
+      Alfred called upon the Diety. &ldquo;What is THAT?&rdquo; he demanded as he pointed
+      toward the unexpected object before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither Zoie, Aggie, nor Jimmy could command words to assist Alfred's
+      rapidly waning powers of comprehension, and it was not until he had swept
+      each face for the third time with a look of inquiry that Zoie found breath
+      to stammer nervously, &ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;why, that's the OTHER one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The other one?&rdquo; echoed Alfred in a dazed manner; then he turned to Aggie
+      for further explanation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; affirmed Aggie, with an emphatic nod, &ldquo;the other one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An undescribable joy was dawning on Alfred's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't mean&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; He stared from the infant in his arms to
+      the one in the cradle, then back again at Aggie and Zoie. The women
+      solemnly nodded their heads. Even Jimmy unblushingly acquiesced. Alfred
+      turned toward Zoie for the final confirmation of his hopes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, dear,&rdquo; assented Zoie sweetly, &ldquo;that's Alfred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What Jimmy and the women saw next appeared to be the dance of a whirling
+      dervish; as a matter of fact, it was merely a man, mad with delight,
+      clasping two infants in long clothes and circling the room with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Alfred could again enunciate distinctly, he rushed to Zoie's side
+      with the babes in his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My darling,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;why didn't you tell me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was ashamed,&rdquo; whispered Zoie, hiding her head to shut out the sight of
+      the red faces pressed close to hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My angel!&rdquo; cried Alfred, struggling to control his complicated emotions;
+      then gazing at the precious pair in his arms, he cast his eyes devoutly
+      toward heaven, &ldquo;Was ever a man so blessed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie peeped from the covers with affected shyness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You love me just as much?&rdquo; she queried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I love you TWICE as much,&rdquo; declared Alfred, and with that he sank
+      exhausted on the foot of the bed, vainly trying to teeter one son on each
+      knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When Jimmy gained courage to turn his eyes in the direction of the family
+      group he had helped to assemble, he was not reassured by the reproachful
+      glances that he met from Aggie and Zoie. It was apparent that in their
+      minds, he was again to blame for something. Realising that they dared not
+      openly reproach him before Alfred, he decided to make his escape while his
+      friend was still in the room. He reached for his hat and tiptoed gingerly
+      toward the door, but just as he was congratulating himself upon his
+      decision, Alfred called to him with a mysterious air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;just a minute,&rdquo; and he nodded for Jimmy to approach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It must have been Jimmy's guilty conscience that made him powerless to
+      disobey Alfred's every command. Anyway, he slunk back to the fond parent's
+      side, where he ultimately allowed himself to be inveigled into swinging
+      his new watch before the unattentive eyes of the red-faced babes on
+      Alfred's knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lower, Jimmy, lower,&rdquo; called Alfred as Jimmy absent-mindedly allowed the
+      watch to swing out of the prescribed orbit. &ldquo;Look at the darlings, Jimmy,
+      look at them,&rdquo; he exclaimed as he gazed at the small creatures admiringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, look at them, Jimmy,&rdquo; repeated Zoie, and she glared at Jimmy behind
+      Alfred's back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you wish you had one of them, Jimmy?'&rdquo; asked Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, <i>I</i> wish he had,&rdquo; commented Zoie, and she wondered how she was
+      ever again to detach either of them from Alfred's breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before she could form any plan, the telephone rang loud and persistently.
+      Jimmy glanced anxiously toward the women for instructions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll answer it,&rdquo; said Aggie with suspicious alacrity, and she crossed
+      quickly toward the 'phone. The scattered bits of conversation that Zoie
+      was able to gather from Aggie's end of the wire did not tend to soothe her
+      over-excited nerves. As for Alfred, he was fortunately so engrossed with
+      the babies that he took little notice of what Aggie was saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What woman?&rdquo; asked Aggie into the 'phone. &ldquo;Where's she from?&rdquo; The answer
+      was evidently not reassuring. &ldquo;Certainly not,&rdquo; exclaimed Aggie, &ldquo;don't let
+      her come up; send her away. Mrs. Hardy can't see anyone at all.&rdquo; Then
+      followed a bit of pantomime between Zoie and Aggie, from which it appeared
+      that their troubles were multiplying, then Aggie again gave her attention
+      to the 'phone. &ldquo;I don't know anything about her,&rdquo; she fibbed, &ldquo;that woman
+      must have the wrong address.&rdquo; And with that she hung up the receiver and
+      came towards Alfred, anxious to get possession of his two small charges
+      and to get them from the room, lest the mother who was apparently
+      downstairs should thrust herself into their midst.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the trouble, Aggie?&rdquo; asked Alfred, and he nodded toward the
+      telephone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, just some woman with the wrong address,&rdquo; answered Aggie with affected
+      carelessness. &ldquo;You'd better let me take the babies now, Alfred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take them where?&rdquo; asked Alfred with surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To bed,&rdquo; answered Aggie sweetly, &ldquo;they are going to sleep in the next
+      room with Jimmy and me.&rdquo; She laid a detaining hand on Jimmy's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the hurry?&rdquo; asked Alfred a bit disgruntled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's very late,&rdquo; argued Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course it is,&rdquo; insisted Zoie. &ldquo;Please, Alfred,&rdquo; she pleaded, &ldquo;do let
+      Aggie take them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred rose reluctantly. &ldquo;Mother knows best,&rdquo; he sighed, but ignoring
+      Aggie's outstretched arms, he refused to relinquish the joy of himself
+      carrying the small mites to their room, and he disappeared with the two of
+      them, singing his now favourite lullaby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Alfred had left the room, Jimmy, who was now seated comfortably in
+      the rocker, was rudely startled by a sharp voice at either side of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well!&rdquo; shrieked Zoie, with all the disapproval that could be got into the
+      one small word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're very clever, aren't you?&rdquo; sneered Aggie at Jimmy's other elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy stared from one to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A nice fix you've got me into NOW,&rdquo; reproved Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn't you get out when you had the chance?&rdquo; demanded Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would take your own sweet time, wouldn't you,&rdquo; said Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did I tell you?&rdquo; asked Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does he care?&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie, and she walked up and down the room
+      excitedly, oblivious of the disarrangement of her flying negligee. &ldquo;He's
+      perfectly comfortable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes,&rdquo; assented Jimmy, as he sank back into the rocker and began
+      propelling himself to and fro. &ldquo;I never felt better,&rdquo; but a disinterested
+      observer would have seen in him the picture of discomfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're going to feel a great deal WORSE,&rdquo; he was warned by Aggie. &ldquo;Do you
+      know who that was on the telephone?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy looked at her mutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The mother!&rdquo; said Aggie emphatically
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's down stairs,&rdquo; explained Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy had stopped rocking&mdash;his face now wore an uneasy expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's time you showed a little human intelligence,&rdquo; taunted Zoie, then she
+      turned her back upon him and continued to Aggie, &ldquo;what did she say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She says,&rdquo; answered Aggie, with a threatening glance toward Jimmy, &ldquo;that
+      she won't leave this place until Jimmy gives her baby back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let her have her old baby,&rdquo; said Jimmy. &ldquo;I don't want it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't want it?&rdquo; snapped Zoie indignantly, &ldquo;what have YOU got to do
+      with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh nothing, nothing,&rdquo; acquiesced Jimmy meekly, &ldquo;I'm a mere detail.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lot you care what becomes of me,&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie reproachfully; then
+      she turned to Aggie with a decided nod. &ldquo;Well, I want it,&rdquo; she asserted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Zoie,&rdquo; protested Aggie in astonishment, &ldquo;you can't mean to keep BOTH
+      of them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I certainly DO,&rdquo; said Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; cried Aggie and Jimmy in concert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy has presented Alfred with twins,&rdquo; continued Zoie testily, &ldquo;and now,
+      he has to HAVE twins.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy's eyes were growing rounder and rounder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know,&rdquo; continued Zoie, with a growing sense of indignation, &ldquo;what
+      would happen to me if I told Alfred NOW that he WASN'T the father of
+      twins? He'd fly straight out of that door and I'd never see him again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie admitted that Zoie was no doubt speaking the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy has awakened Alfred's paternal instinct for twins,&rdquo; declared Zoie,
+      with another emphatic nod of her head, &ldquo;and now Jimmy must take the
+      consequences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy tried to frame a few faint objections, but Zoie waved him aside,
+      with a positive air. &ldquo;It's no use arguing. If it were only ONE, it
+      wouldn't be so bad, but to tell Alfred that he's lost twins, he couldn't
+      live through it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Zoie,&rdquo; argued Aggie, &ldquo;we can't have that mother hanging around down
+      stairs until that baby is an old man. She'll have us arrested, the next
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why arrest US?&rdquo; asked Zoie, with wide baby eyes. &ldquo;WE didn't take it. Old
+      slow-poke took it.&rdquo; And she nodded toward the now utterly vanquished
+      Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's right,&rdquo; murmured Jimmy, with a weak attempt at sarcasm, &ldquo;don't
+      leave me out of anything good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It doesn't matter WHICH one she arrests,&rdquo; decided the practical Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it matters to me,&rdquo; objected Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to me too, if it's all the same to you,&rdquo; protested Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whoever it is,&rdquo; continued Aggie, &ldquo;the truth is bound to come out. Alfred
+      will have to know sooner or later, so we might as well make a clean breast
+      of it, first as last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the first sensible thing you've said in three months,&rdquo; declared
+      Jimmy with reviving hope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, is that so?&rdquo; sneered Zoie, and she levelled her most malicious look
+      at Jimmy. &ldquo;What do you think Alfred would do to YOU, Mr. Jimmy, if he knew
+      the truth? YOU'RE the one who sent him the telegram; you are the one who
+      told him that he was a FATHER.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's true,&rdquo; admitted Aggie, with a wrinkled forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie was quick to see her advantage. She followed it up. &ldquo;And Alfred
+      hasn't any sense of humour, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could he have?&rdquo; groaned Jimmy; &ldquo;he's married.&rdquo; And with that he sank
+      into his habitual state of dumps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sarcasm will do a great deal of good,&rdquo; flashed Zoie. Then she
+      dismissed him with a nod, and crossed to her dressing table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Zoie,&rdquo; persisted Aggie, as she followed her young friend in
+      trepidation, &ldquo;don't you realise that if you persist in keeping this baby,
+      that mother will dog Jimmy's footsteps for the rest of his life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will be nice,&rdquo; murmured Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie busied herself with her toilet, and turned a deaf ear to Aggie. There
+      was a touch of genuine emotion in Aggie's voice when she continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just think of it, Zoie, Jimmy will never be able to come and go like a
+      free man again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do I care how he comes and goes?&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie impatiently. &ldquo;If
+      Jimmy had gone when we told him to go, that woman would have had her old
+      baby by now; but he didn't, oh no! All he ever does is to sit around and
+      talk about his dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; cried Jimmy hotly, &ldquo;and that's about as far as I ever GET with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll never get anywhere with anything,&rdquo; was Zoie's exasperating answer.
+      &ldquo;You're too slow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, there's nothing slow about you,&rdquo; retorted Jimmy, stung to a frenzy
+      by her insolence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh please, please,&rdquo; interposed Aggie, desperately determined to keep
+      these two irascible persons to the main issue. &ldquo;What are we going to tell
+      that mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can tell her whatever you like,&rdquo; answered Zoie, with an impudent toss
+      of her head, &ldquo;but I'll NOT give up that baby until I get ANOTHER one.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another?&rdquo; almost shrieked Jimmy. It was apparent that he must needs
+      increase the number of his brain cells if he were to follow this
+      extraordinary young woman's line of thought much further. &ldquo;You don't
+      expect to go on multiplying them forever, do you?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;YOU are the one who has been multiplying them,&rdquo; was Zoie's disconcerting
+      reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was evident to Jimmy that he could not think fast enough nor clearly
+      enough to save himself from a mental disaster if he continued to argue
+      with the shameless young woman, so he contented himself by rocking to and
+      fro and murmuring dismally that he had &ldquo;known from the first that it was
+      to be an endless chain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While Zoie and Jimmy had been wrangling, Aggie had been weighing the pros
+      and cons of the case. She now turned to Jimmy with a tone of firm but
+      motherly decision. &ldquo;Zoie is quite right,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy rolled his large eyes up at his spouse with a &ldquo;you too, Brutus,&rdquo;
+       expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie continued mercilessly, &ldquo;It's the only way, Jimmy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had Aggie arrived at her decision than Zoie upset her
+      tranquillity by a triumphant expression of &ldquo;I have it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy and Aggie gazed at Zoie's radiant face in consternation. They were
+      accustomed to see only reproach there. Her sudden enthusiasm increased
+      Jimmy's uneasiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;YOU have it,&rdquo; he grunted without attempting to conceal his disgust.
+      &ldquo;SHE'S the one who generally has it.&rdquo; And he nodded toward Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Inflamed by her young friend's enthusiasm, Aggie rushed to her eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Zoie?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The washerwoman!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie, as though the revelation had come
+      straight from heaven. &ldquo;SHE HAD TWINS,&rdquo; and with that, two pairs of eyes
+      turned expectantly toward the only man in the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tracing the pattern of the rug with his toe, Jimmy remained stubbornly
+      oblivious of their attentions. He rearranged the pillows on the couch, and
+      finally, for want of a better occupation, he wound his watch. All to no
+      avail. He could feel Zoie's cat-like gaze upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy can get the other one,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The hell I can,&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmy, starting to his feet and no longer
+      considering time or place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two women gazed at him reproachfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy!&rdquo; cried Aggie, in a shocked, hurt voice. &ldquo;That's the first time
+      I've ever heard you swear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it won't be the LAST time,&rdquo; declared Jimmy hotly, &ldquo;if THIS keeps
+      up.&rdquo; His eyes were blazing. He paced to and fro like an infuriated lion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dearest,&rdquo; said Aggie, &ldquo;you look almost imposing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense,&rdquo; interrupted Zoie, who found Jimmy unusually ridiculous. &ldquo;If
+      I'd known that Jimmy was going to put such an idea into Alfred's head, I'd
+      have got the two in the first place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will she let us HAVE the other?&rdquo; asked Aggie with some misgiving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course she will,&rdquo; answered Zoie, leaving Jimmy entirely out of the
+      conversation. &ldquo;She's as poor as a church mouse. I'll pay her well. She'll
+      never miss it. What could she do with one twin, anyway?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A snort of rage from Jimmy did not disturb Zoie's enthusiasm. She
+      proceeded to elaborate her plan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll adopt them,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;I'll leave them all Alfred's money.
+      Think of Alfred having real live twins for keeps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be nice, wouldn't it?&rdquo; commented Jimmy sarcastically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie turned to Jimmy, as though they were on the best of terms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much money have you?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Jimmy could declare himself penniless, Aggie answered for him with
+      the greatest enthusiasm, &ldquo;He has a whole lot; he drew some today.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie to the abashed Jimmy, and then she continued in a
+      matter-of-fact tone, &ldquo;Now, Jimmy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you go give the washwoman
+      what money you have on account, then tell her to come around here in the
+      morning when Alfred has gone out and I'll settle all the details with her.
+      Go on now, Jimmy,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;you don't need another letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; chimed in Aggie sweetly; &ldquo;you know her now, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; corroborated Jimmy, with a sarcastic smile and without budging
+      from the spot on which he stood, &ldquo;we are great pals now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter?&rdquo; asked Zoie, astonished that Jimmy was not starting on
+      his mission with alacrity. &ldquo;What are you waiting for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy merely continued to smile enigmatically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know what happened the last time you hesitated,&rdquo; warned Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what happened when I DIDN'T hesitate,&rdquo; ruminated Jimmy, still
+      holding his ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie's eyes were wide with surprise. &ldquo;You don't mean to say,&rdquo; she
+      exclaimed incredulously, &ldquo;that you aren't GOING&mdash;after we have
+      thought all this out just to SAVE you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; answered Jimmy, with a confidential air, &ldquo;do me a favour, will you?
+      Stop thinking out things to 'save me.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Jimmy&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; protested both women simultaneously; but before
+      they could get further Alfred's distressed voice reached them from the
+      next room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aggie!&rdquo; he called frantically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      What seemed to be a streak of pink through the room was in reality Zoie
+      bolting for the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Zoie hastened to snuggle comfortably under the covers, Aggie tried
+      without avail to get Jimmy started on his errand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Getting no response from Aggie, Alfred, bearing one infant in his arms,
+      came in search of her. Apparently he was having difficulty with the
+      unfastening of baby's collar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aggie,&rdquo; he called sharply, &ldquo;how on earth do you get this fool pin out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take him back, Alfred,&rdquo; answered Aggie impatiently; &ldquo;I'll be there in a
+      minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Alfred had apparently made up his mind that he was not a success as a
+      nurse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd better take him now, Aggie,&rdquo; he decided, as he offered the small
+      person to the reluctant Aggie. &ldquo;I'll stay here and talk to Jimmy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but Jimmy was just going out,&rdquo; answered Aggie; then she turned to her
+      obdurate spouse with mock sweetness, &ldquo;Weren't you, dear?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; affirmed Zoie, with a threatening glance toward Jimmy. &ldquo;He was
+      going, just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still Jimmy remained rooted to the spot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out?&rdquo; questioned Alfred. &ldquo;What for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just for a little air,&rdquo; explained Aggie blandly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; growled Jimmy, &ldquo;another little heir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Air?&rdquo; repeated Alfred in surprise. &ldquo;He had air a while ago with my son.
+      He is going to stay here and tell me the news. Sit down, Jimmy,&rdquo; he
+      commanded, and to the intense annoyance of Aggie and Zoie, Jimmy sank
+      resignedly on the couch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred was about to seat himself beside his friend, when the 'phone rang
+      violently. Being nearest to the instrument, Alfred reached it first and
+      Zoie and Aggie awaited the consequences in dread. What they heard did not
+      reassure them nor Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still down there?&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred into the 'phone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy began to wriggle with a vague uneasiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; continued Alfred at the 'phone, &ldquo;that woman has the wrong number.&rdquo;
+       Then with a peremptory &ldquo;Wait a minute,&rdquo; he turned to Zoie, &ldquo;The hall boy
+      says that woman who called a while ago is still down stairs and she won't
+      go away until she has seen you, Zoie. She has some kind of an idiotic idea
+      that you know where her baby is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How absurd,&rdquo; sneered Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How silly,&rdquo; added Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How foolish,&rdquo; grunted Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; decided Alfred, &ldquo;I'd better go down stairs and see what's the
+      matter with her,&rdquo; and he turned toward the door to carry out his
+      intention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alfred!&rdquo; called Zoie sharply. She was half out of bed in her anxiety.
+      &ldquo;You'll do no such thing. 'Phone down to the boy to send her away. She's
+      crazy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Alfred, &ldquo;then she's been here before? Who is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is she?&rdquo; answered Zoie, trying to gain time for a new inspiration.
+      &ldquo;Why, she's&mdash;she's&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; her face lit up with satisfaction&mdash;the
+      idea had arrived. &ldquo;She's the nurse,&rdquo; she concluded emphatically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The nurse?&rdquo; repeated Alfred, a bit confused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered Zoie, pretending to be annoyed with his dull memory.
+      &ldquo;She's the one I told you about, the one I had to discharge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Alfred, with the relief of sudden comprehension; &ldquo;the crazy
+      one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie and Zoie nodded their heads and smiled at him tolerantly, then Zoie
+      continued to elaborate. &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;the poor creature was so
+      insane about little Jimmy that I couldn't go near the child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred in a mighty rage. &ldquo;I'll soon tell the boy what to
+      do with her,&rdquo; he declared, and he rushed to the 'phone. Barely had Alfred
+      taken the receiver from the hook when the outer door was heard to bang.
+      Before he could speak a distracted young woman, whose excitable manner
+      bespoke her foreign origin, swept through the door without seeing him and
+      hurled herself at the unsuspecting Zoie. The woman's black hair was
+      dishevelled, and her large shawl had fallen from her shoulders. To Jimmy,
+      who was crouching behind an armchair, she seemed a giantess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My baby!&rdquo; cried the frenzied mother, with what was unmistakably an
+      Italian accent. &ldquo;Where is he?&rdquo; There was no answer; her eyes sought the
+      cradle. &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she shrieked, then upon finding the cradle empty, she
+      redoubled her lamentations and again she bore down upon the terrified
+      Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;you know where my baby is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For answer, Zoie sank back amongst her pillows and drew the bed covers
+      completely over her head. Alfred approached the bed to protect his young
+      wife; the Italian woman wheeled about and perceived a small child in his
+      arms. She threw herself upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew it,&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;I knew it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Managing to disengage himself from what he considered a mad woman, and
+      elevating one elbow between her and the child, Alfred prevented the mother
+      from snatching the small creature from his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Calm yourself, madam,&rdquo; he commanded with a superior air. &ldquo;We are very
+      sorry for you, of course, but we can't have you coming here and going on
+      like this. He's OUR baby and&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's NOT your baby!&rdquo; cried the infuriated mother; &ldquo;he's MY baby. Give him
+      to me. Give him to me,&rdquo; and with that she sprang upon the uncomfortable
+      Alfred like a tigress. Throwing her whole weight on his uplifted elbow,
+      she managed to pull down his arm until she could look into the face of the
+      washerwoman's promising young offspring. The air was rent by a scream that
+      made each individual hair of Jimmy's head stand up in its own defence. He
+      could feel a sickly sensation at the top of his short thick neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's NOT my baby,&rdquo; wailed the now demented mother, little dreaming that
+      the infant for which she was searching was now reposing comfortably on a
+      soft pillow in the adjoining room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Alfred, all of this was merely confirmation of Zoie's statement
+      that this poor soul was crazy, and he was tempted to dismiss her with
+      worthy forbearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad, madam,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that you are coming to your senses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, all would have gone well and the bewildered mother would no doubt
+      have left the room convinced of her mistake, had not Jimmy's nerves got
+      the better of his judgment. Having slipped cautiously from his position
+      behind the armchair he was tiptoeing toward the door, and was flattering
+      himself on his escape, when suddenly, as his forward foot cautiously
+      touched the threshold, he heard the cry of the captor in his wake, and
+      before he could possibly command the action of his other foot, he felt
+      himself being forcibly drawn backward by what appeared to be his too
+      tenacious coat-tails.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If only they would tear,&rdquo; thought Jimmy, but thanks to the excellence of
+      the tailor that Aggie had selected for him, they did NOT &ldquo;tear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Not until she had anchored Jimmy safely to the centre of the rug did the
+      irate mother pour out the full venom of her resentment toward him. From
+      the mixture of English and Italian that followed, it was apparent that she
+      was accusing Jimmy of having stolen her baby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take me to him,&rdquo; she demanded tragically; &ldquo;my baby&mdash;take me to him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy appealed to Aggie and Zoie. Their faces were as blank as his own. He
+      glanced at Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humour her,&rdquo; whispered Alfred, much elated by the evidence of his own
+      self-control as compared to Jimmy's utter demoralisation under the
+      apparently same circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still Jimmy did not budge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred was becoming vexed; he pointed first to his own forehead, then to
+      that of Jimmy's hysterical captor. He even illustrated his meaning by
+      making a rotary motion with his forefinger, intended to remind Jimmy that
+      the woman was a lunatic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still Jimmy only stared at him and all the while the woman was becoming
+      more and more emphatic in her declaration that Jimmy knew where her baby
+      was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure, Jimmy,&rdquo; said Alfred, out of all patience with Jimmy's stupidity and
+      tiring of the strain of the woman's presence. &ldquo;You know where her baby
+      is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; cried the mother, and she towered over Jimmy with a wild light in
+      her eyes. &ldquo;Take me to him,&rdquo; she demanded; &ldquo;take me to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy rolled his large eyes first toward Aggie, then toward Zoie and at
+      last toward Alfred. There was no mercy to be found anywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take her to him, Jimmy,&rdquo; commanded a concert of voices; and pursued by a
+      bundle of waving colours and a medley of discordant sounds, Jimmy shot
+      from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The departure of Jimmy and the crazed mother was the occasion for a
+      general relaxing among the remaining occupants of the room. Exhausted by
+      what had passed Zoie had ceased to interest herself in the future. It was
+      enough for the present that she could sink back upon her pillows and draw
+      a long breath without an evil face bending over her, and without the air
+      being rent by screams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Aggie, she fell back upon the window seat and closed her eyes. The
+      horrors into which Jimmy might be rushing had not yet presented themselves
+      to her imagination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the three, Alfred was the only one who had apparently received
+      exhilaration from the encounter. He was strutting about the room with the
+      babe in his arms, undoubtedly enjoying the sensations of a hero. When he
+      could sufficiently control his feeling of elation, he looked down at the
+      small person with an air of condescension and again lent himself to the
+      garbled sort of language with which defenceless infants are inevitably
+      persecuted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tink of dat horrid old woman wanting to steal our own little oppsie,
+      woppsie, toppsie babykins,&rdquo; he said. Then he turned to Zoie with an air of
+      great decision. &ldquo;That woman ought to be locked up,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;she's
+      dangerous,&rdquo; and with that he crossed to Aggie and hurriedly placed the
+      infant in her unsuspecting arms. &ldquo;Here, Aggie,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you take Alfred
+      and get him into bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Glad of an excuse to escape to the next room and recover her self control,
+      Aggie quickly disappeared with the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For some moments Alfred continued to pace up and down the room; then he
+      came to a full stop before Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll have to have something done to that woman,&rdquo; he declared
+      emphatically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy will do enough to her,&rdquo; sighed Zoie, weakly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's no business to be at large,&rdquo; continued Alfred; then, with a
+      business-like air, he started toward the telephone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; asked Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred did not answer. He was now calling into the 'phone, &ldquo;Give me
+      information.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What on earth are you doing?&rdquo; demanded Zoie, more and more disturbed by
+      his mysterious manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One can't be too careful,&rdquo; retorted Alfred in his most paternal fashion;
+      &ldquo;there's an awful lot of kidnapping going on these days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you don't suspect information, do you?&rdquo; asked Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Alfred ignored her; he was intent upon things of more importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; he called into the 'phone, &ldquo;is this information?&rdquo; Apparently it
+      was for he continued, with a satisfied air, &ldquo;Well, give me the Fullerton
+      Street Police Station.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Police?&rdquo; cried Zoie, sitting up in bed and looking about the room
+      with a new sense of alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aggie!&rdquo; shrieked the over-wrought young wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred attempted to reassure her. &ldquo;Now, now, dear, don't get nervous,&rdquo; he
+      said, &ldquo;I am only taking the necessary precautions.&rdquo; And again he turned to
+      the 'phone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alarmed by Zoie's summons, Aggie entered the room hastily. She was not
+      reassured upon hearing Alfred's further conversation at the 'phone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is this the Fullerton Street Police Station?&rdquo; asked Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Police!&rdquo; echoed Aggie, and her eyes sought Zoie's inquiringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh! Sh!&rdquo; called Alfred over his shoulder to the excited Aggie, then he
+      continued into the 'phone. &ldquo;Is Donneghey there?&rdquo; There was a pause. Alfred
+      laughed jovially. &ldquo;It is? Well, hello, Donneghey, this is your old friend
+      Hardy, Alfred Hardy at the Sherwood. I've just got back,&rdquo; then he broke
+      the happy news to the no doubt appreciative Donneghey. &ldquo;What do you
+      think?&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I'm a happy father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie puckered her small face in disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred continued to elucidate joyfully at the 'phone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doubles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;yes&mdash;sure&mdash;on the level.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know why you have to tell the whole neighbourhood,&rdquo; snapped Zoie.
+      Her colour was visibly rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Alfred was now in the full glow of his genial account to his friend.
+      &ldquo;Set 'em up?&rdquo; he repeated in answer to an evident suggestion from the
+      other end of the line, &ldquo;I should say I would. The drinks are on me. Tell
+      the boys I'll be right over. And say, Donneghey,&rdquo; he added, in a more
+      confidential tone, &ldquo;I want to bring one of the men home with me. I want
+      him to keep an eye on the house to-night&rdquo;; then after a pause, he
+      concluded confidentially, &ldquo;I'll tell you all about it when I get there. It
+      looks like a kidnapping scheme to me,&rdquo; and with that he hung up the
+      receiver, unmistakably pleased with himself, and turned his beaming face
+      toward Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all right, dear,&rdquo; he said, rubbing his hands together with evident
+      satisfaction, &ldquo;Donneghey is going to let us have a Special Officer to
+      watch the house to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't HAVE a special officer,&rdquo; declared Zoie vehemently; then becoming
+      aware of Alfred's great surprise, she explained half-tearfully, &ldquo;I'm not
+      going to have the police hanging around our very door. I would feel as
+      though I were in prison.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ARE in prison, my dear,&rdquo; returned the now irrepressible Alfred. &ldquo;A
+      prison of love&mdash;you and our precious boys.&rdquo; He stooped and implanted
+      a gracious kiss on her forehead, then turned toward the table for his hat.
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I'll just run around the corner, set up the drinks for
+      the boys, and bring the officer home with me,&rdquo; and drawing himself up
+      proudly, he cried gaily in parting, &ldquo;I'll bet there's not another man in
+      Chicago who has what I have to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope not,&rdquo; groaned Zoie. as the door closed behind him. Then, thrusting
+      her two small feet from beneath the coverlet and perching on the side of
+      the bed, she declared to Aggie that &ldquo;Alfred was getting more idiotic every
+      minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's worse than idiotic,&rdquo; corrected Aggie. &ldquo;He's getting dangerous. If he
+      gets the police around here before we give that baby back, they'll get the
+      mother. She'll tell all she knows and that will be the end of Jimmy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;End of Jimmy?&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie, &ldquo;it'll be the end of ALL of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can see our pictures in the papers, right now,&rdquo; groaned Aggie. &ldquo;Jimmy
+      will be the villain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy IS a villain,&rdquo; declared Zoie. &ldquo;Where is he? Why doesn't he come
+      back? How am I ever going to get that other twin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is only one thing to do,&rdquo; decided Aggie, &ldquo;I must go for it myself.&rdquo;
+       And she snatched up her cape from the couch and started toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You?&rdquo; cried Zoie, in alarm, &ldquo;and leave me alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's our only chance,&rdquo; argued Aggie. &ldquo;I'll have to do it now, before
+      Alfred gets back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Aggie,&rdquo; protested Zoie, clinging to her departing friend, &ldquo;suppose
+      that crazy mother should come back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense,&rdquo; replied Aggie, and before Zoie could actually realise what was
+      happening the bang of the outside door told her that she was alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Wondering what new terrors awaited her, Zoie glanced uncertainly from door
+      to door. So strong had become her habit of taking refuge in the bed, that
+      unconsciously she backed toward it now. Barely had she reached the centre
+      of the room when a terrific crash of breaking glass from the adjoining
+      room sent her shrieking in terror over the footboard, and head first under
+      the covers. Here she would doubtless have remained until suffocated, had
+      not Jimmy in his backward flight from one of the inner rooms overturned a
+      large rocker. This additional shock to Zoie's overstrung nerves forced a
+      wild scream from her lips, and an answering exclamation from the
+      nerve-racked Jimmy made her sit bolt upright. She gazed at him in
+      astonishment. His tie was awry, one end of his collar had taken leave of
+      its anchorage beneath his stout chin, and was now just tickling the edge
+      of his red, perspiring brow. His hair was on end and his feelings were
+      undeniably ruffled. As usual Zoie's greeting did not tend to conciliate
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did YOU get here?&rdquo; she asked with an air of reproach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fire-escape,&rdquo; panted Jimmy and he nodded mysteriously toward the
+      inner rooms of the apartment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fire-escape?&rdquo; echoed Zoie. There was only one and that led through the
+      bathroom window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy explained no further. He was now peeping cautiously out of the
+      window toward the pavement below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's the mother?&rdquo; demanded Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy jerked his thumb in the direction of the street. Zoie gazed at him
+      with grave apprehension.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;You haven't killed her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy shook his head and continued to peer cautiously out of the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you do with her?&rdquo; called the now exasperated Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did <i>I</i> do with her?&rdquo; repeated Jimmy, a flash of his old
+      resentment returning. &ldquo;What did SHE do with ME?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time, Zoie became fully conscious of Jimmy's ludicrous
+      appearance. Her overstrained nerves gave way and she began to laugh
+      hysterically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; shouted Jimmy, towering over the bed and devoutly wishing that she
+      were his wife so that he might strike her with impunity. &ldquo;Don't you sic
+      any more lunatics onto me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It is doubtful whether Zoie's continued laughter might not have provoked
+      Jimmy to desperate measures, had not the 'phone at that moment directed
+      their thoughts toward worse possibilities. After the instrument had
+      continued to ring persistently for what seemed to Zoie an age, she
+      motioned to Jimmy to answer it. He responded by retreating to the other
+      side of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may be Aggie,&rdquo; suggested Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time, Jimmy became aware that Aggie was nowhere in the
+      apartment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; he exclaimed, as he realised that he was again tete-a-tete
+      with the terror of his dreams. &ldquo;Where IS Aggie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gone to do what YOU should have done,&rdquo; was Zoie's characteristic answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; answered Jimmy hotly, &ldquo;it's about time that somebody besides me
+      did something around this place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;YOU,&rdquo; mocked Zoie, &ldquo;all YOU'VE ever done was to hoodoo me from the very
+      beginning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you'd taken my advice,&rdquo; answered Jimmy, &ldquo;and told your husband the
+      truth about the luncheon, there'd never have been any 'beginning.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If, if, if,&rdquo; cried Zoie, in an agony of impatience, &ldquo;if you'd tipped that
+      horrid old waiter enough, he'd never have told anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not buying waiters to cover up your crimes,&rdquo; announced Jimmy with his
+      most self-righteous air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll be buying more than that to cover up your OWN crimes before you've
+      finished,&rdquo; retorted Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before I've finished with YOU, yes,&rdquo; agreed Jimmy. He wheeled upon her
+      with increasing resentment. &ldquo;Do you know where I expect to end up?&rdquo; he
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know where you OUGHT to end up,&rdquo; snapped Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll finish in the electric chair,&rdquo; said Jimmy. &ldquo;I can feel blue
+      lightning chasing up and down my spine right now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I wish you HAD finished in the electric chair,&rdquo; declared Zoie,
+      &ldquo;before you ever dragged me into that awful old restaurant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you do, do you?&rdquo; answered Jimmy shaking his fist at her across the
+      foot of the bed. For the want of adequate words to express his further
+      feelings, Jimmy was beginning to jibber, when the outer door was heard to
+      close, and he turned to behold Aggie entering hurriedly with something
+      partly concealed by her long cape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all right,&rdquo; explained Aggie triumphantly to Zoie. &ldquo;I've got it.&rdquo; She
+      threw her cape aside and disclosed the fruits of her conquest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So,&rdquo; snorted Jimmy in disgust, slightly miffed by the apparent ease with
+      which Aggie had accomplished a task about which he had made so much ado,
+      &ldquo;you've gone into the business too, have you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie deigned no reply to him. She continued in a businesslike tone to
+      Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's Alfred?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still out,&rdquo; answered Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank Heaven,&rdquo; sighed Aggie, then she turned to Jimmy and addressed him
+      in rapid, decided tones. &ldquo;Now, dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I'll just put the new
+      baby to bed, then I'll give you the other one and you can take it right
+      down to the mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy made a vain start in the direction of the fire-escape. Four
+      detaining hands were laid upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't try anything like that,&rdquo; warned Aggie; &ldquo;you can't get out of this
+      house without that baby. The mother is down stairs now. She's guarding the
+      door. I saw her.&rdquo; And Aggie sailed triumphantly out of the room to make
+      the proposed exchange of babies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Jimmy was able to suggest to himself an escape from Aggie's last
+      plan of action, the telephone again began to cry for attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither Jimmy nor Zoie could summon courage to approach the impatient
+      instrument, and as usual Zoie cried frantically for Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aggie was not long in returning to the room and this time she bore in her
+      arms the infant so strenuously demanded by its mad mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here you are, Jimmy,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;here's the other one. Now take him down
+      stairs quickly before Alfred gets back.&rdquo; She attempted to place the
+      unresisting babe in Jimmy's chubby arms, but Jimmy's freedom was not to be
+      so easily disposed of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; he exclaimed, backing away from the small creature in fear and
+      abhorrence, &ldquo;take that bundle of rags down to the hotel office and have
+      that woman hystericing all over me. No, thanks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh well,&rdquo; answered Aggie, distracted by the persistent ringing of the
+      'phone, &ldquo;then hold him a minute until I answer the 'phone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This at least was a compromise, and reluctantly Jimmy allowed the now
+      wailing infant to be placed in his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jig it, Jimmy, jig it,&rdquo; cried Zoie. Jimmy looked down helplessly at the
+      baby's angry red face, but before he had made much headway with the
+      &ldquo;jigging,&rdquo; Aggie returned to them, much excited by the message which she
+      had just received over the telephone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That mother is making a scene down stairs in the office,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You hear,&rdquo; chided Zoie, in a fury at Jimmy, &ldquo;what did Aggie tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If she wants this thing,&rdquo; maintained Jimmy, looking down at the bundle in
+      his arms, &ldquo;she can come after it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can't have her up here,&rdquo; objected Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alfred may be back at any minute. He'd catch her. You know what happened
+      the last time we tried to change them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can send it down the chimney, for all I care,&rdquo; concluded Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have it!&rdquo; exclaimed Aggie, her face suddenly illumined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh Lord,&rdquo; groaned Jimmy, who had come to regard any elation on Zoie's or
+      Aggie's part as a sure forewarner of ultimate discomfort for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Aggie had recourse to the 'phone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; she called to the office boy, &ldquo;tell that woman to go around to
+      the back door, and we'll send something down to her.&rdquo; There was a slight
+      pause, then Aggie added sweetly, &ldquo;Yes, tell her to wait at the foot of the
+      fire-escape.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie had already caught the drift of Aggie's intention and she now fixed
+      her glittering eyes upon Jimmy, who was already shifting about uneasily
+      and glancing at Aggie, who approached him with a business-like air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, dear,&rdquo; said Aggie, &ldquo;come with me. I'll hand Baby out through the
+      bathroom window and you can run right down the fire-escape with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I do run down the fire-escape,&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmy, wagging his large
+      head from side to side, &ldquo;I'll keep right on RUNNING. That's the last
+      you'll ever see of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Jimmy,&rdquo; protested Aggie, slightly hurt by his threat, &ldquo;once that
+      woman gets her baby you'll have no more trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With you two still alive?&rdquo; asked Jimmy, looking from one to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She'll be up here if you don't hurry,&rdquo; urged Aggie impatiently, and with
+      that she pulled Jimmy toward the bedroom door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let her come,&rdquo; said Jimmy, planting his feet so as to resist Aggie's
+      repeated tugs, &ldquo;I'm going to South America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why will you act like this,&rdquo; cried Aggie, in utter desperation, &ldquo;when we
+      have so little time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; said Jimmy irrelevantly, &ldquo;do you know that I haven't had any&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; interrupted Aggie and Zoie in chorus, &ldquo;we know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long,&rdquo; continued Zoie impatiently, &ldquo;is it going to take you to slip
+      down that fire-escape?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That depends on how fast I 'slip,'&rdquo; answered Jimmy doggedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll 'slip' all right,&rdquo; sneered Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Further exchange of pleasantries between these two antagonists was cut
+      short by the banging of the outside door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Heavens!&rdquo; exclaimed Aggie, glancing nervously over her shoulder,
+      &ldquo;there's Alfred now. Hurry, Jimmy, hurry,&rdquo; she cried, and with that she
+      fairly forced Jimmy out through the bedroom door, and followed in his wake
+      to see him safely down the fire-escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Zoie had barely time to arrange herself after the manner of an interesting
+      invalid, when Alfred entered the room in the gayest of spirits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, dearie,&rdquo; he cried as he crossed quickly to her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Already?&rdquo; asked Zoie faintly and she glanced uneasily toward the door,
+      through which Jimmy and Aggie had just disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you I shouldn't be long,&rdquo; said Alfred jovially, and he implanted a
+      condescending kiss on her forehead. &ldquo;How is the little mother, eh?&rdquo; he
+      asked, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're all cold,&rdquo; pouted Zoie, edging away, &ldquo;and you've been drinking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had to have one or two with the boys,&rdquo; said Alfred, throwing out his
+      chest and strutting about the room, &ldquo;but never again. From now on I cut
+      out all drinks and cigars. This is where I begin to live my life for our
+      sons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about your life for me?&rdquo; asked Zoie, as she began to see long years
+      of boredom stretching before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You and our boys are one and the same, dear,&rdquo; answered Alfred, coming
+      back to her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean you couldn't go on loving ME if it weren't for the BOYS?&rdquo; asked
+      Zoie, with anxiety. She was beginning to realise how completely her hold
+      upon him depended upon her hideous deception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I could, Zoie,&rdquo; answered Alfred, flattered by what he
+      considered her desire for his complete devotion, &ldquo;but&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But not so MUCH,&rdquo; pouted Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, of course, dear,&rdquo; admitted Alfred evasively, as he sank down upon
+      the edge of the bed by her side&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn't say another word,&rdquo; interrupted Zoie, and then with a shade of
+      genuine repentance, she declared shame-facedly that she hadn't been &ldquo;much
+      of a wife&rdquo; to Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; contradicted the proud young father, &ldquo;you've given me the ONE
+      thing that I wanted most in the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you see, dear,&rdquo; said Zoie, as she wound her little white arms about
+      his neck, and looked up into his face adoringly, &ldquo;YOU'VE been the 'ONE'
+      thing that I wanted 'MOST' and I never realised until to-night how&mdash;how
+      crazy you are about things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What things?&rdquo; asked Alfred, a bit puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Zoie, letting her eyes fall before his and picking at a bit
+      of imaginary lint on the coverlet, &ldquo;babies and things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Alfred, and he was about to proceed when she again interrupted
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But now that I DO realise it,&rdquo; continued Zoie, earnestly, her fingers on
+      his lips, lest he again interrupt, &ldquo;if you'll only have a little patience
+      with me, I'll&mdash;I'll&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; again her eyes fell bashfully to
+      the coverlet, as she considered the possibility of being ultimately
+      obliged to replace the bogus twins with real ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the patience in the world,&rdquo; answered Alfred, little dreaming of the
+      problem that confronted the contrite Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all I ask,&rdquo; declared Zoie, her assurance completely restored, &ldquo;and
+      in case anything SHOULD happen to THESE&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; she glanced
+      anxiously toward the door through which Aggie had borne the twins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But nothing is going to happen to these, dear,&rdquo; interrupted Alfred,
+      rising and again assuming an air of fatherly protection. &ldquo;I'll attend to
+      that. There, there,&rdquo; he added, patting her small shoulder and nodding his
+      head wisely. &ldquo;That crazy woman has got on your nerves, but you needn't
+      worry, I've got everything fixed. Donneghey sent a special officer over
+      with me. He's outside watching the house, now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now!&rdquo; shrieked Zoie, fixing her eyes on the bedroom door, through which
+      Jimmy had lately disappeared and wondering whether he had yet &ldquo;slipped&rdquo;
+       down the fire-escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; continued Alfred, walking up and down the floor with a masterly
+      stride. &ldquo;If that woman is caught hanging around here again, she'll get a
+      little surprise. My boys are safe now, God bless them!&rdquo; Then reminded of
+      the fact that he had not seen them since his return, he started quickly
+      toward the bedroom door. &ldquo;I'll just have a look at the little rascals,&rdquo; he
+      decided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, dear,&rdquo; cried Zoie. She caught Alfred's arm as he passed the side of
+      her bed, and clung to him in desperation. &ldquo;Wait a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred looked down at her in surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned her face toward the door, and called lustily, &ldquo;Aggie! Aggie!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, dear?&rdquo; questioned Alfred, thinking Zoie suddenly ill, &ldquo;can I
+      get you something?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Zoie was obliged to reply, Aggie answered her summons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you call?&rdquo; she asked, glancing inquiringly into Zoie's distressed
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alfred's here,&rdquo; said Zoie, with a sickly smile as she stroked his hand
+      and glanced meaningly at Aggie. &ldquo;He's GOT the OFFICER!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The OFFICER?&rdquo; cried Aggie, and involuntarily she took a step backward, as
+      though to guard the bedroom door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Alfred, mistaking Aggie's surprise for a compliment to his
+      resource; &ldquo;and now, Aggie, if you'll just stay with Zoie for a minute I'll
+      have a look at my boys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no!&rdquo; exclaimed Aggie, nervously, and she placed herself again in
+      front of the bedroom door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred was plainly annoyed by her proprietory air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're asleep,&rdquo; explained Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll not WAKE them,&rdquo; persisted Alfred, &ldquo;I just wish to have a LOOK at
+      them,&rdquo; and with that he again made a move toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Alfred,&rdquo; protested Zoie, still clinging to his hand, &ldquo;you're not
+      going to leave me again&mdash;so soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred was becoming more and more restive under the seeming absurdity of
+      their persistent opposition, but before he could think of a polite way of
+      over-ruling them, Aggie continued persuasively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You stay with Zoie,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I'll bring the boys in here and you can
+      both have a look at them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Aggie,&rdquo; argued Alfred, puzzled by her illogical behaviour, &ldquo;would it
+      be wise to wake them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just this once,&rdquo; said Aggie. &ldquo;Now you stay here and I'll get them.&rdquo;
+       Before Alfred could protest further she was out of the room and the door
+      had closed behind her, so he resigned himself to her decision, banished
+      his temporary annoyance at her obstinacy, and glanced about the room with
+      a new air of proprietorship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is certainly a great night, Zoie,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It certainly is,&rdquo; acquiesced Zoie, with an over emphasis that made Alfred
+      turn to her with new concern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid that mad woman made you very nervous, dear,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She certainly did,&rdquo; said Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie's nerves were destined to bear still further strain, for at that
+      moment, there came a sharp ring at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beside herself with anxiety Zoie threw her arms about Alfred, who had
+      advanced to soothe her, drew him down by her side and buried her head on
+      his breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ARE jumpy,&rdquo; said Alfred, and at that instant a wrangle of loud
+      voices, and a general commotion was heard in the outer hall. &ldquo;What's
+      that?&rdquo; asked Alfred, endeavouring to disentangle himself from Zoie's
+      frantic embrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie clung to him so tightly that he was unable to rise, but his alert ear
+      caught the sound of a familiar voice rising above the din of dispute in
+      the hallway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That sounds like the officer,&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The officer?&rdquo; cried Zoie, and she wound her arms more tightly about him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Propelled by a large red fist, attached to the back of his badly wilted
+      collar, the writhing form of Jimmy was now thrust through the outer door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let go of me,&rdquo; shouted the hapless Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The answer was a spasmodic shaking administered by the fist; then a large
+      burly officer, carrying a small babe in his arms, shoved the reluctant
+      Jimmy into the centre of the room and stood guard over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got him for you, sir,&rdquo; announced the officer proudly, to the astonished
+      Alfred, who had just managed to untwine Zoie's arms and to struggle to his
+      feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred's eyes fell first upon the dejected Jimmy, then they travelled to
+      the bundle of long clothes in the officer's arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My boy!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;My boy!&rdquo; He snatched the infant from the officer and
+      pressed him jealously to his breast. &ldquo;I don't understand,&rdquo; he said, gazing
+      at the officer in stupefaction. &ldquo;Where was he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean this one?&rdquo; asked the officer, nodding toward the unfortunate
+      Jimmy. &ldquo;I caught him slipping down your fire-escape.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I KNEW it,&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie in a rage, and she cast a vindictive look at
+      Jimmy for his awkwardness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knew WHAT, dear?&rdquo; asked Alfred, now thoroughly puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie did not answer. Her powers of resource were fast waning. Alfred
+      turned again to the officer, then to Jimmy, who was still flashing
+      defiance into the officer's threatening eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;this is awful. What's the matter with you, Jimmy?
+      This is the third time that you have tried to take my baby out into the
+      night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you've had trouble with him before?&rdquo; remarked the officer. He
+      studied Jimmy with new interest, proud in the belief that he had brought a
+      confirmed &ldquo;baby-snatcher&rdquo; to justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've had a little trouble myself,&rdquo; declared Jimmy hotly, now resolved to
+      make a clean breast of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not asking about your troubles,&rdquo; interrupted the officer savagely,
+      and Jimmy felt the huge creature's obnoxious fingers tightening again on
+      his collar. &ldquo;Go ahead, sir,&rdquo; said the officer to Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; began Alfred, nodding toward the now livid Jimmy, &ldquo;he was out with
+      my boy when I arrived. I stopped him from going out with him a second
+      time, and now you, officer, catch him slipping down the fire-escape. I
+      don't know what to say,&rdquo; he finished weakly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>I</i> do,&rdquo; exclaimed Jimmy, feeling more and more like a high
+      explosive, &ldquo;and I'll say it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cut it,&rdquo; shouted the officer. And before Jimmy could get further, Alfred
+      resumed with fresh vehemence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's supposed to be a friend of mine,&rdquo; he explained to the officer, as he
+      nodded toward the wriggling Jimmy. &ldquo;He was all right when I left him a few
+      months ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll think I'm all right again,&rdquo; shouted Jimmy, trying to get free from
+      the officer, &ldquo;before I've finished telling all I&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That won't help any,&rdquo; interrupted the officer firmly, and with another
+      twist of Jimmy's badly wilted collar he turned to Alfred with his most
+      civil manner, &ldquo;What shall I do with him, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; said Alfred, convinced that his friend was a fit subject
+      for a straight jacket. &ldquo;This is horrible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's absurd,&rdquo; cried Zoie, on the verge of hysterics, and in utter despair
+      of ever disentangling the present complication without ultimately losing
+      Alfred, &ldquo;you're all absurd,&rdquo; she cried wildly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Absurd?&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred, turning upon her in amazement, &ldquo;what do you
+      mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a joke,&rdquo; said Zoie, without the slightest idea of where the joke
+      lay. &ldquo;If you had any sense you could see it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I DON'T see it,&rdquo; said Alfred, with hurt dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither do I,&rdquo; said Jimmy, with boiling resentment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you call it a joke,&rdquo; asked Alfred, incredulously, &ldquo;to have our boy&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+       He stopped suddenly, remembering that there was a companion piece to this
+      youngster. &ldquo;The other one!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;our other boy&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; He
+      rushed to the crib, found it empty, and turned a terrified face to Zoie.
+      &ldquo;Where is he?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Alfred,&rdquo; pleaded Zoie, &ldquo;don't get excited; he's all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know?&rdquo; asked the distracted father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie did not know, but at that moment her eyes fell upon Jimmy, and as
+      usual he was the source of an inspiration for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy never cared for the other one,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;did you, Jimmy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred turned to the officer, with a tone of command. &ldquo;Wait,&rdquo; he said,
+      then he started toward the bedroom door to make sure that his other boy
+      was quite safe. The picture that confronted him brought the hair straight
+      up on his head. True to her promise, and ignorant of Jimmy's return with
+      the first baby, Aggie had chosen this ill-fated moment to appear on the
+      threshold with one babe on each arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here they are,&rdquo; she said graciously, then stopped in amazement at sight
+      of the horrified Alfred, clasping a third infant to his breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred, stroking his forehead with his unoccupied
+      hand, and gazing at what he firmly believed must be an apparition, &ldquo;THOSE
+      aren't MINE,&rdquo; he pointed to the two red mites in Aggie's arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wh&mdash;why not, Alfred?&rdquo; stammered Aggie for the want of something
+      better to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; shrieked Alfred. Then he turned in appeal to his young wife, whose
+      face had now become utterly expressionless. &ldquo;Zoie?&rdquo; he entreated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an instant's pause, then the blood returned to Zoie's face and
+      she proved herself the artist that Alfred had once declared her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;OURS, dear,&rdquo; she murmured softly, with a bashful droop of her lids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But THIS one?&rdquo; persisted Alfred, pointing to the baby in his arms, and
+      feeling sure that his mind was about to give way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;why,&rdquo; stuttered Zoie, &ldquo;THAT'S the JOKE.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The joke?&rdquo; echoed Alfred, looking as though he found it anything but
+      such.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; added Aggie, sharing Zoie's desperation to get out of their
+      temporary difficulty, no matter at what cost in the future. &ldquo;Didn't Jimmy
+      tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me WHAT?&rdquo; stammered Alfred, &ldquo;what IS there to tell?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you see,&rdquo; said Aggie, growing more enthusiastic with each
+      elaboration of Zoie's lie, &ldquo;we didn't dare to break it to you too
+      suddenly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Break it to me?&rdquo; gasped Alfred; a new light was beginning to dawn on his
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So,&rdquo; concluded Zoie, now thoroughly at home in the new situation, &ldquo;we
+      asked Jimmy to take THAT one OUT.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy cast an inscrutable glance in Zoie's direction. Was it possible that
+      she was at last assisting him out of a difficulty?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You 'ASKED Jimmy'?&rdquo; repeated Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; confirmed Aggie, with easy confidence, &ldquo;we wanted you to get used
+      to the idea gradually.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The idea,&rdquo; echoed Alfred. He was afraid to allow his mind to accept too
+      suddenly the whole significance of their disclosure, lest his joy
+      over-power him. &ldquo;You&mdash;you&mdash;do&mdash;don't mean&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; he
+      stuttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, dear,&rdquo; sighed Zoie, with the face of an angel, and then with a
+      languid sigh, she sank back contentedly on her pillows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My boys! My boys!&rdquo; cried Alfred, now delirious with delight. &ldquo;Give them
+      to me,&rdquo; he called to Aggie, and he snatched the surprised infants savagely
+      from her arms. &ldquo;Give me ALL of them, ALL of them.&rdquo; He clasped the three
+      babes to his breast, then dashed to the bedside of the unsuspecting Zoie
+      and covered her small face with rapturous kisses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feeling the red faces of the little strangers in such close proximity to
+      hers, Zoie drew away from them with abhorrence, but unconscious of her
+      unmotherly action, Alfred continued his mad career about the room, his
+      heart overflowing with gratitude toward Zoie in particular and mankind in
+      general. Finding Aggie in the path of his wild jubilee, he treated that
+      bewildered young matron to an unwelcome kiss. A proceeding which Jimmy did
+      not at all approve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hardly had Aggie recovered from her surprise when the disgruntled Jimmy
+      was startled out of his dark mood by the supreme insult of a loud
+      resounding kiss implanted on his own cheek by his excitable young friend.
+      Jimmy raised his arm to resist a second assault, and Alfred veered off in
+      the direction of the officer, who stepped aside just in time to avoid
+      similar demonstration from the indiscriminating young father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finding a wide circle prescribed about himself and the babies, Alfred
+      suddenly stopped and gazed about from one astonished face to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the officer, regarding Alfred with an injured air, and
+      feeling much downcast at being so ignominiously deprived of his
+      short-lived heroism in capturing a supposed criminal, &ldquo;if this is all a
+      joke, I'll let the woman go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The woman,&rdquo; repeated Alfred; &ldquo;what woman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I nabbed a woman at the foot of the fire-escape,&rdquo; explained the officer.
+      Zoie and Aggie glanced at each other inquiringly. &ldquo;I thought she might be
+      an accomplice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does she look like, officer?&rdquo; asked Alfred. His manner was becoming
+      more paternal, not to say condescending, with the arrival of each new
+      infant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be silly, Alfred,&rdquo; snapped Zoie, really ashamed that Alfred was
+      making such an idiot of himself. &ldquo;It's only the nurse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, that's it,&rdquo; said Alfred, with a wise nod of comprehension; &ldquo;the
+      nurse, then she's in the joke too?&rdquo; He glanced from one to the other. They
+      all nodded. &ldquo;You're all in it,&rdquo; he exclaimed, flattered to think that they
+      had considered it necessary to combine the efforts of so many of them to
+      deceive him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; assented Jimmy sadly, &ldquo;we are all 'in it.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, she's a great actress,&rdquo; decided Alfred, with the air of a
+      connoisseur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She sure is,&rdquo; admitted Donneghey, more and more disgruntled as he felt
+      his reputation for detecting fraud slipping from him. &ldquo;She put up a phoney
+      story about the kid being hers,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;But I could tell she wasn't on
+      the level. Good-night, sir,&rdquo; he called to Alfred, and ignoring Jimmy, he
+      passed quickly from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, officer,&rdquo; Alfred called after him. &ldquo;Hang around downstairs. I'll be
+      down later and fix things up with you.&rdquo; Again Alfred gave his whole
+      attention to his new-found family. He leaned over the cradle and gazed
+      ecstatically into the three small faces below his. &ldquo;This is too much,&rdquo; he
+      murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Much too much,&rdquo; agreed Jimmy, who was now sitting hunched up on the couch
+      in his customary attitude of gloom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were right not to break it to me too suddenly,&rdquo; said Alfred, and with
+      his arms encircling three infants he settled himself on the couch by
+      Jimmy's side. &ldquo;You're a cute one,&rdquo; he continued to Jimmy, who was edging
+      away from the three mites with aversion. In the absence of any answer from
+      Jimmy, Alfred appealed to Zoie, &ldquo;Isn't he a cute one, dear?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, VERY,&rdquo; answered Zoie, sarcastically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shutting his lips tight and glancing at Zoie with a determined effort at
+      self restraint, Jimmy rose from the couch and started toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you women are done with me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I'll clear out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Clear out?&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred, rising quickly and placing himself between
+      his old friend and the door. &ldquo;What a chance,&rdquo; and he laughed boisterously.
+      &ldquo;You're not going to get out of my sight this night,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I'm
+      just beginning to appreciate all you've done for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So am I,&rdquo; assented Jimmy, and unconsciously his hand sought the spot
+      where his dinner should have been, but Alfred was not to be resisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A man needs someone around,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;when he's going through a
+      thing like this. I need all of you, all of you,&rdquo; and with his eyes he
+      embraced the weary circle of faces about him. &ldquo;I feel as though I could go
+      out of my head,&rdquo; he explained and with that he began tucking the three
+      small mites in the pink and white crib designed for but one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie regarded him with a bored expression'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You act as though you WERE out of your head,&rdquo; she commented, but Alfred
+      did not heed her. He was now engaged in the unhoped for bliss of singing
+      three babies to sleep with one lullaby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other occupants of the room were just beginning to relax and to show
+      some resemblance to their natural selves, when their features were again
+      simultaneously frozen by a ring at the outside door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Annoyed at being interrupted in the midst of his lullaby, to three, Alfred
+      looked up to see Maggie, hatless and out of breath, bursting into the
+      room, and destroying what was to him an ideally tranquil home scene. But
+      Maggie paid no heed to Alfred's look of inquiry. She made directly for the
+      side of Zoie's bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you plaze, mum,&rdquo; she panted, looking down at Zoie, and wringing her
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked Aggie, who had now reached the side of the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Scuse me for comin' right in&rdquo;&mdash;Maggie was breathing hard&mdash;&ldquo;but
+      me mother sint me to tell you that me father is jus afther comin' home
+      from work, and he's fightin' mad about the babies, mum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh! Sh!&rdquo; cautioned Aggie and Zoie, as they glanced nervously toward
+      Alfred who was rising from his place beside the cradle with increasing
+      interest in Maggie's conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Babies?&rdquo; he repeated, &ldquo;your father is mad about babies?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all right, dear,&rdquo; interrupted Zoie nervously; &ldquo;you see,&rdquo; she went on
+      to explain, pointing toward the trembling Maggie, &ldquo;this is our
+      washerwoman's little girl. Our washerwoman has had twins, too, and it made
+      the wash late, and her husband is angry about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Alfred, with a comprehensive nod, but Maggie was not to be so
+      easily disposed of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please, mum,&rdquo; she objected, &ldquo;it ain't about the wash. It's about
+      our baby girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Girls?&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie involuntarily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Girls?&rdquo; repeated Alfred, drawing himself up in the fond conviction that
+      all his heirs were boys, &ldquo;No wonder your pa's angry. I'd be angry too.
+      Come now,&rdquo; he said to Maggie, patting the child on the shoulder and
+      regarding her indulgently, &ldquo;you go straight home and tell your father that
+      what HE needs is BOYS.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, of course, sir,&rdquo; answered the bewildered Maggie, thinking that
+      Alfred meant to reflect upon the gender of the offspring donated by her
+      parents, &ldquo;if you ain't afther likin' girls, me mother sint the money
+      back,&rdquo; and with that she began to feel for the pocket in her red flannel
+      petticoat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The money?&rdquo; repeated Alfred, in a puzzled way, &ldquo;what money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was again Zoie's time to think quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The money for the wash, dear,&rdquo; she explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; retorted Alfred, positively beaming generosity, &ldquo;who talks of
+      money at such a time as this?&rdquo; And taking a ten dollar bill from his
+      pocket, he thrust it in Maggie's outstretched hand, while she was trying
+      to return to him the original purchase money. &ldquo;Here,&rdquo; he said to the
+      astonished girl, &ldquo;you take this to your father. Tell him I sent it to him
+      for his babies. Tell him to start a bank account with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was clearly not a case with which one small addled mind could deal,
+      or at least, so Maggie decided. She had a hazy idea that Alfred was adding
+      something to the original purchase price of her young sisters, but she was
+      quite at a loss to know how to refuse the offer of such a &ldquo;grand 'hoigh&rdquo;
+       gentleman, even though her failure to do so would no doubt result in a
+      beating when she reached home. She stared at Alfred undecided what to do,
+      the money still lay in her outstretched hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid Pa'll niver loike it, sir,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like it?&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred in high feather, and he himself closed her red
+      little fingers over the bill, &ldquo;he's GOT to like it. He'll GROW to like it.
+      Now you run along,&rdquo; he concluded to Maggie, as he urged her toward the
+      door, &ldquo;and tell him what I say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; murmured Maggie, far from sharing Alfred's enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feeling no desire to renew his acquaintance with Maggie, particularly
+      under Alfred's watchful eye, Jimmy had sought his old refuge, the high
+      backed chair. As affairs progressed and there seemed no doubt of Zoie's
+      being able to handle the situation to the satisfaction of all concerned,
+      Jimmy allowed exhaustion and the warmth of the firelight to have their way
+      with him. His mind wandered toward other things and finally into space.
+      His head dropped lower and lower on his chest; his breathing became
+      laboured&mdash;so laboured in fact that it attracted the attention of
+      Maggie, who was about to pass him on her way to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure an it's Mr. Jinks!&rdquo; exclaimed Maggie. Then coming close to the side
+      of the unsuspecting sleeper, she hissed a startling message in his ear.
+      &ldquo;Me mother said to tell you that me fadder's hoppin' mad at you, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy sat up and rubbed his eyes. He studied the young person at his
+      elbow, then he glanced at Alfred, utterly befuddled as to what had
+      happened while he had been on a journey to happier scenes. Apparently
+      Maggie was waiting for an answer to something, but to what? Jimmy thought
+      he detected an ominous look in Alfred's eyes. Letting his hand fall over
+      the arm of the chair so that Alfred could not see it, Jimmy began to make
+      frantic signals to Maggie to depart; she stared at him the harder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go away,&rdquo; whispered Jimmy, but Maggie did not move. &ldquo;Shoo, shoo!&rdquo; he
+      said, and waved her off with his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Puzzled by Jimmy's sudden aversion to this apparently harmless child,
+      Alfred turned to Maggie with a puckered brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father's mad at Jimmy?&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;What about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For once Jimmy found it in his heart to be grateful to Zoie for the prompt
+      answer that came from her direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The wash, dear,&rdquo; said Zoie to Alfred; &ldquo;Jimmy had to go after the wash,&rdquo;
+       and then with a look which Maggie could not mistake for an invitation to
+      stop longer, Zoie called to her haughtily, &ldquo;You needn't wait, Maggie; we
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure, an' it's more 'an I do,&rdquo; answered Maggie, and shaking her head
+      sadly, she slipped from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Alfred could not immediately dismiss from his mind the picture of
+      Maggie's inhuman parent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just fancy,&rdquo; he said, turning his head to one side meditatively, &ldquo;fancy
+      any man not liking to be the father of twins,&rdquo; and with that he again bent
+      over the cradle and surveyed its contents. &ldquo;Think, Jimmy,&rdquo; he said, when
+      he had managed to get the three youngsters in his arms, &ldquo;just think of the
+      way THAT father feels, and then think of the way <i>I</i> feel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then think of the way <i>I</i> feel,&rdquo; grumbled Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred; &ldquo;what have you to feel about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Jimmy could answer, the air was rent by a piercing scream and a
+      crash of glass from the direction of the inner rooms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that?&rdquo; whispered Aggie, with an anxious glance toward Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sounded like breaking glass,&rdquo; said Alfred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Burglars!&rdquo; exclaimed Zoie, for want of anything better to suggest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Burglars?&rdquo; repeated Alfred with a superior air; &ldquo;nonsense! Nonsense!
+      Here,&rdquo; he said, turning to Jimmy, &ldquo;you hold the boys and I'll go see&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+       and before Jimmy was aware of the honour about to be thrust upon him, he
+      felt three red, spineless morsels, wriggling about in his arms. He made
+      what lap he could for the armful, and sat up in a stiff, strained attitude
+      on the edge of the couch. In the meantime, Alfred had strode into the
+      adjoining room with the air of a conqueror. Aggie looked at Zoie, with
+      dreadful foreboding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't suppose it could be?&rdquo; she paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My baby!&rdquo; shrieked the voice of the Italian mother from the adjoining
+      room. &ldquo;Where IS he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Regardless of the discomfort of his three disgruntled charges, Jimmy began
+      to circle the room. So agitated was his mind that he could scarcely hear
+      Aggie, who was reporting proceedings from her place at the bedroom door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's come up the fire-escape,&rdquo; cried Aggie; &ldquo;she's beating Alfred to
+      death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; shrieked Zoie, making a flying leap from her coverlets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's locking him in the bathroom,&rdquo; declared Aggie, and with that she
+      disappeared from the room, bent on rescue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Alfred!&rdquo; cried Zoie, tragically, and she started in pursuit of Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a minute,&rdquo; called Jimmy, who had not yet been able to find a
+      satisfactory place in which to deposit his armful of clothes and humanity.
+      &ldquo;What shall I do with these things?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eat 'em,&rdquo; was Zoie's helpful retort, as the trailing end of her negligee
+      disappeared from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Now, had Jimmy been less perturbed during the latter part of this
+      commotion, he might have heard the bell of the outside door, which had
+      been ringing violently for some minutes. As it was, he was wholly
+      unprepared for the flying advent of Maggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, plaze, sir,&rdquo; she cried, pointing with trembling fingers toward the
+      babes in Jimmy's arms, &ldquo;me fadder's coming right behind me. He's a-lookin'
+      for you sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For me,&rdquo; murmured Jimmy, wondering vaguely why everybody on earth seemed
+      to be looking for HIM.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Put 'em down, sir,&rdquo; cried Maggie, still pointing to the three babies,
+      &ldquo;put 'em down. He's liable to wallop you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Put 'em where?&rdquo; asked Jimmy, now utterly confused as to which way to
+      turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There,&rdquo; said Maggie, and she pointed to the cradle beneath his very eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; said Jimmy vapidly, and he sank on his knees and strove to
+      let the wobbly creatures down easily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bang went the outside door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's Pa now,&rdquo; cried Maggie. &ldquo;Oh hide, sir, hide.&rdquo; And with that
+      disconcerting warning, she too deserted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hide where?&rdquo; gasped Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment's awful silence. Jimmy rose very cautiously from the
+      cradle, his eyes sought the armchair. It had always betrayed him. He
+      glanced toward the window. It was twelve stories to the pavement. He
+      looked towards the opposite door; beyond that was the mad Italian woman.
+      His one chance lay in slipping unnoticed through the hallway; he made a
+      determined dash in that direction, but no sooner had he put his head
+      through the door, than he drew it back quickly. The conversation between
+      O'Flarety and the maid in the hallway was not reassuring. Jimmy decided to
+      take a chance with the Italian mother, and as fast as he could, he
+      streaked it toward the opposite door. The shrieks and denunciations that
+      he met from this direction were more disconcerting than those of the Irish
+      father. For an instant he stood in the centre of the room, wavering as to
+      which side to surrender himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thunderous tones of the enraged father drew nearer; he threw himself
+      on the floor and attempted to roll under the bed; the space between the
+      railing and the floor was far too narrow. Why had he disregarded Aggie's
+      advice as to diet? The knob of the door handle was turning&mdash;he
+      vaulted into the bed and drew the covers over his head just as O'Flarety,
+      trembling with excitement, and pursued by Maggie, burst into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lave go of me,&rdquo; cried O'Flarety to Maggie, who clung to his arm in a vain
+      effort to soothe him, and flinging her off, he made straight for the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; he cried, gazing with dilated nostrils at the trembling object
+      beneath the covers, &ldquo;there you are, mum,&rdquo; and he shook his fist above what
+      he believed to be the cowardly Mrs. Hardy. &ldquo;'Tis well ye may cover up your
+      head,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;for shame on yez! Me wife may take in washing, but when I
+      comes home at night I wants me kids, and I'll be after havin' 'em too.
+      Where ar' they?&rdquo; he demanded. Then getting no response from the agitated
+      covers, he glanced wildly about the room. &ldquo;Glory be to God!&rdquo; he exclaimed
+      as his eyes fell on the crib; but he stopped short in astonishment, when
+      upon peering into it, he found not one, or two, but three &ldquo;barren.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're child stalers, that's what they are,&rdquo; he declared to Maggie, as
+      he snatched Bridget and Norah to his no doubt comforting breast. &ldquo;Me
+      little Biddy,&rdquo; he crooned over his much coveted possession. &ldquo;Me little
+      Norah,&rdquo; he added fondly, looking down at his second. The thought of his
+      narrow escape from losing these irreplaceable treasures rekindled his
+      wrath. Again he strode toward the bed and looked down at the now
+      semi-quiet comforter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The black heart of ye, mum,&rdquo; he roared, then ordering Maggie to give back
+      &ldquo;every penny of that shameless creetur's money&rdquo; he turned toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So intense had been O'Flarety's excitement and so engrossed was he in his
+      denunciation that he had failed to see the wild-eyed Italian woman rushing
+      toward him from the opposite door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, you!&rdquo; cried the frenzied woman and, to O'Flarety's astonishment, she
+      laid two strong hands upon his arm and drew him round until he faced her.
+      &ldquo;Where are you going with my baby?&rdquo; she asked, then peering into the face
+      of the infant nearest to her, she uttered a disappointed moan. &ldquo;'Tis not
+      my baby!&rdquo; she cried. She scanned the face of the second infant&mdash;again
+      she moaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having begun to identify this hysterical creature as the possible mother
+      of the third infant, O'Flarety jerked his head in the direction of the
+      cradle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess you'll find what you're lookin' for in there,&rdquo; he said. Then
+      bidding Maggie to &ldquo;git along out o' this&rdquo; and shrugging his shoulders to
+      convey his contempt for the fugitive beneath the coverlet, he swept
+      quickly from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Clasping her long-sought darling to her heart and weeping with delight,
+      the Italian mother was about to follow O'Flarety through the door when
+      Zoie staggered into the room, weak and exhausted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, you!&rdquo; called the indignant Zoie to the departing mother. &ldquo;How dare
+      you lock my husband in the bathroom?&rdquo; She pointed to the key, which the
+      woman still unconsciously clasped in her hand. &ldquo;Give me that key,&rdquo; she
+      demanded, &ldquo;give it to me this instant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take your horrid old key,&rdquo; said the mother, and she threw it on the
+      floor. &ldquo;If you ever try to get my baby again, I'll lock your husband in
+      JAIL,&rdquo; and murmuring excited maledictions in her native tongue, she took
+      her welcome departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie stooped for the key, one hand to her giddy head, but Aggie, who had
+      just returned to the room, reached the key first and volunteered to go to
+      the aid of the captive Alfred, who was pounding desperately on the
+      bathroom door and demanding his instant release.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll let him out,&rdquo; said Aggie. &ldquo;You get into bed,&rdquo; and she slipped
+      quickly from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Utterly exhausted and half blind with fatigue Zoie lifted the coverlet and
+      slipped beneath it. Her first sensation was of touching something rough
+      and scratchy, then came the awful conviction that the thing against which
+      she lay was alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without stopping to investigate the identity of her uninvited bed-fellow,
+      or even daring to look behind her, Zoie fled from the room emitting a
+      series of screams that made all her previous efforts in that direction
+      seem mere baby cries. So completely had Jimmy been enveloped in the
+      coverlets and for so long a time that he had acquired a vague feeling of
+      aloftness toward the rest of his fellows, and had lost all knowledge of
+      their goings and comings. But when his unexpected companion was thrust
+      upon him he was galvanised into sudden action by her scream, and swathed
+      in a large pink comforter, he rolled ignominiously from the upper side of
+      the bed, where he lay on the floor panting and enmeshed, awaiting further
+      developments. Of one thing he was certain, a great deal had transpired
+      since he had sought the friendly solace of the covers and he had no mind
+      to lose so good a friend as the pink comforter. By the time he had
+      summoned sufficient courage to peep from under its edge, a babel of voices
+      was again drawing near, and he hastily drew back in his shell and waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not daring to glance at the scene of her fright, Zoie pushed Aggie before
+      her into the room and demanded that she look in the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing the bed quite empty and noticing nothing unusual in the fact that
+      the pink comforter, along with other covers, had slipped down behind it,
+      Aggie hastened to reassure her terrified friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You imagined it, Zoie,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;look for yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie's small face peeped cautiously around the edge of the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, perhaps I did,&rdquo; she admitted; then she slipped gingerly into the
+      room, &ldquo;my nerves are jumping like fizzy water.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were soon to &ldquo;jump&rdquo; more, for at this instant, Alfred, burning with
+      anger at the indignity of having been locked in the bathroom, entered the
+      room, demanding to know the whereabouts of the lunatic mother, who had
+      dared to make him a captive in his own house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is she?&rdquo; he called to Zoie and Aggie, and his eye roved wildly
+      about the room. Then his mind reverted with anxiety to his newly acquired
+      offspring. &ldquo;My boys!&rdquo; he cried, and he rushed toward the crib. &ldquo;They're
+      gone!&rdquo; he declared tragically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gone?&rdquo; echoed Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not ALL of them,&rdquo; said Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All,&rdquo; insisted Alfred, and his hands went distractedly toward his head.
+      &ldquo;She's taken them all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie and Aggie looked at each other in a dazed way. They had a hazy
+      recollection of having seen one babe disappear with the Italian woman, but
+      what had become of the other two?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did they go?&rdquo; asked Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; said Zoie, with the first truth she had spoken that night,
+      &ldquo;I left them with Jimmy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy!&rdquo; shrieked Alfred, and a diabolical light lit his features.
+      &ldquo;Jimmy!&rdquo; he snorted, with sudden comprehension, &ldquo;then he's at it again.
+      He's crazy as she is. This is inhuman. This joke has got to stop!&rdquo; And
+      with that decision he started toward the outer door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Allie!&rdquo; protested Zoie, really alarmed by the look that she saw on
+      his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred turned to his trembling wife with suppressed excitement, and patted
+      her shoulder condescendingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Control yourself, my dear,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Control yourself; I'll get your
+      babies for you&mdash;trust me, I'll get them. And then,&rdquo; he added with
+      parting emphasis from the doorway, &ldquo;I'll SETTLE WITH JIMMY!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By uncovering one eye, Jimmy could now perceive that Zoie and Aggie were
+      engaged in a heated argument at the opposite side of the room. By
+      uncovering one ear he learned that they were arranging a line of action
+      for him immediately upon his reappearance. He determined not to wait for
+      the details.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fixing himself cautiously on all fours, and making sure that he was well
+      covered by the pink comforter, he began to crawl slowly toward the bedroom
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turning away from Aggie with an impatient exclamation, Zoie suddenly
+      beheld what seemed to her a large pink monster with protruding claws
+      wriggling its way hurriedly toward the inner room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look!&rdquo; she screamed, and pointing in horror toward the dreadful creature
+      now dragging itself across the threshold, she sank fainting into Aggie's
+      outstretched arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Having dragged the limp form of her friend to the near-by couch, Aggie was
+      bending over her to apply the necessary restoratives, when Alfred returned
+      in triumph. He was followed by the officer in whose arms were three
+      infants, and behind whom was the irate O'Flarety, the hysterical Italian
+      woman, and last of all, Maggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bring them all in here, officer,&rdquo; called Alfred over his shoulder. &ldquo;I'll
+      soon prove to you whose babies those are.&rdquo; Then turning to Aggie, who
+      stood between him and the fainting Zoie he cried triumphantly, &ldquo;I've got
+      them Aggie, I've got them.&rdquo; He glanced toward the empty bed. &ldquo;Where's
+      Zoie?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's fainted,&rdquo; said Aggie, and stepping from in front of the young wife,
+      she pointed toward the couch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my darling!&rdquo; cried Alfred, with deep concern as he rushed to Zoie and
+      began frantically patting her hands. &ldquo;My poor frightened darling!&rdquo; Then he
+      turned to the officer, his sense of injury welling high within him, &ldquo;You
+      see what these people have done to my wife? She's fainted.&rdquo; Ignoring the
+      uncomplimentary remarks of O'Flarety, he again bent over Zoie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rouse yourself, my dear,&rdquo; he begged of her. &ldquo;Look at me,&rdquo; he pleaded.
+      &ldquo;Your babies are safe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;HER babies!&rdquo; snorted O'Flarety, unable longer to control his pent up
+      indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll let you know when I want to hear from you,&rdquo; snarled the officer to
+      O'Flarety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they're NOT her babies,&rdquo; protested the Italian woman desperately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cut it,&rdquo; shouted the officer, and with low mutterings, the outraged
+      parents were obliged to bide their time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lifting Zoie to a sitting posture Alfred fanned her gently until she
+      regained her senses. &ldquo;Your babies are all right,&rdquo; he assured her. &ldquo;I've
+      brought them all back to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All?&rdquo; gasped Zoie weakly, and she wondered what curious fate had been
+      intervening to assist Alfred in such a prodigious undertaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, dear,&rdquo; said Alfred, &ldquo;every one,&rdquo; and he pointed toward the three
+      infants in the officer's arms. &ldquo;See, dear, see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie turned her eyes upon what SEEMED to her numberless red faces. &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo;
+       she moaned and again she swooned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you she'd be afraid to face us,&rdquo; shouted the now triumphant
+      O'Flarety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You brute!&rdquo; retorted the still credulous Alfred, &ldquo;how dare you persecute
+      this poor demented mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred's persistent solicitude for Zoie was too much for the resentful
+      Italian woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She didn't persecute me, oh no!&rdquo; she exclaimed sarcastically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep still, you!&rdquo; commanded the officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Zoie was reviving and again Alfred lifted her in his arms and begged
+      her to assure the officer that the babies in question were hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's hear her SAY it,&rdquo; demanded O'Flarety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You SHALL hear her,&rdquo; answered Alfred, with confidence. Then he beckoned
+      to the officer to approach, explaining that Zoie was very weak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; said the officer; then planting himself directly in front of
+      Zoie's half closed eyes, he thrust the babies upon her attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, Zoie!&rdquo; pleaded Alfred. &ldquo;Look!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie opened her eyes to see three small red faces immediately opposite her
+      own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take them away!&rdquo; she cried, with a frantic wave of her arm, &ldquo;take them
+      away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred in astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did I tell you?&rdquo; shouted O'Flarety. This hateful reminder brought
+      Alfred again to the protection of his young and defenceless wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The excitement has unnerved her,&rdquo; he said to the officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't you about done with my kids?&rdquo; asked O'Flarety, marvelling how any
+      man with so little penetration as the officer, managed to hold down a
+      &ldquo;good payin' job.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want for your proof anyway?&rdquo; asked the mother. But Alfred's
+      faith in the validity of his new parenthood was not to be so easily
+      shaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My wife is in no condition to be questioned,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;She's out of
+      her head, and if you don't&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stepped suddenly, for without warning, the door was thrown open and a
+      second officer strode into their midst dragging by the arm the reluctant
+      Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I've got somethin' here that you folks need in your business,&rdquo; he
+      called, nodding toward the now utterly demoralised Jimmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy!&rdquo; exclaimed Aggie, having at last got her breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Joker!&rdquo; cried Alfred, bearing down upon the panting Jimmy with a
+      ferocious expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I caught him slipping down the fire-escape,&rdquo; explained the officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Again?&rdquo; exclaimed Aggie and Alfred in tones of deep reproach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jimmy,&rdquo; said Alfred, coming close to his friend, and fixing his eyes upon
+      him in a determined effort to control the poor creature's fast failing
+      faculties, &ldquo;you know the truth of this thing. You are the one who sent me
+      that telegram, you are the one who told me that I was a father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, aren't you a father?&rdquo; asked Aggie, trying to protect her dejected
+      spouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I am,&rdquo; replied Alfred, with every confidence, &ldquo;but I have to
+      prove it to the officer. Jimmy knows,&rdquo; he concluded. Then turning to the
+      uncomfortable man at his side, he demanded imperatively, &ldquo;Tell the officer
+      the truth, you idiot. No more of your jokes. Am I a father or am I not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you're depending on ME for your future offspring,&rdquo; answered Jimmy,
+      wagging his head with the air of a man reckless of consequences, &ldquo;you are
+      NOT a father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Depending on YOU?&rdquo; gasped Alfred, and he stared at his friend in
+      bewilderment. &ldquo;What do you mean by that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask them,&rdquo; answered Jimmy, and he nodded toward Zoie and Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred appealed to Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask Zoie,&rdquo; said Aggie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred bent over the form of the again prostrate Zoie. &ldquo;My darling,&rdquo; he
+      entreated, &ldquo;rouse yourself.&rdquo; Slowly she opened her eyes. &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said
+      Alfred, with enforced self-control, &ldquo;you must look the officer squarely in
+      the eye and tell him whose babies those are,&rdquo; and he nodded toward the
+      officer, who was now beginning to entertain grave doubts on the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How should <i>I</i> know?&rdquo; cried Zoie, too exhausted for further lying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; exclaimed Alfred, his hand on his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I only borrowed them,&rdquo; said Zoie, &ldquo;to get you home,&rdquo; and with that she
+      sank back on the couch and closed her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did I tell you?&rdquo; cried the triumphant O'Flarety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess they're your'n all right,&rdquo; admitted the officer doggedly, and he
+      grudgingly released the three infants to their rightful parents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess they'd better be,&rdquo; shouted O'Flarety; then he and the Italian
+      woman made for the door with their babes pressed close to their hearts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a minute,&rdquo; cried Alfred. &ldquo;I want an understanding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      O'Flarety turned in the doorway and raised a warning fist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don't leave my kids alone, you'll GIT 'an understanding.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me too,&rdquo; added the mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On your way,&rdquo; commanded the officer to the pair of them, and together
+      with Maggie and the officer, they disappeared forever from the Hardy
+      household.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfred gazed about the room. &ldquo;My God!&rdquo; he exclaimed; then he turned to
+      Jimmy who was still in the custody of the second officer: &ldquo;If I'm not a
+      father, what am I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd hate to tell you,&rdquo; was Jimmy's unsympathetic reply, and in utter
+      dejection Alfred sank on the foot of the bed and buried his head in his
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall I do with this one, sir?&rdquo; asked the officer, undecided as to
+      Jimmy's exact standing in the household.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shoot him, for all I care,&rdquo; groaned Alfred, and he rocked to and fro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How ungrateful!&rdquo; exclaimed Aggie, then she signalled to the officer to
+      go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more of your funny business,&rdquo; said the officer with a parting nod at
+      Jimmy and a vindictive light in his eyes when he remembered the bruises
+      that Jimmy had left on his shins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Jimmy!&rdquo; said Aggie sympathetically, and she pressed her hot face
+      against his round apoplectic cheek. &ldquo;You poor dear! And after all you have
+      done for us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; sneered Zoie, having regained sufficient strength to stagger to her
+      feet, &ldquo;he's done a lot, hasn't he?&rdquo; And then forgetting that her original
+      adventure with Jimmy which had brought about such disastrous results was
+      still unknown to Aggie and Alfred, she concluded bitterly, &ldquo;All this would
+      never have happened, if it hadn't been for Jimmy and his horrid old
+      luncheon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jimmy was startled. This was too much, and just as he had seemed to be
+      well out of complications for the remainder of his no doubt short life. He
+      turned to bolt for the door but Aggie's eyes were upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Luncheon?&rdquo; exclaimed Aggie and she regarded him with a puzzled frown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie's hand was already over her lips, but too late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Recovering from his somewhat bewildering sense of loss, Alfred, too, was
+      now beginning to sit up and take notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What luncheon?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zoie gazed from Alfred to Aggie, then at Jimmy, then resolving to make a
+      clean breast of the matter, she sidled toward Alfred with her most
+      ingratiating manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Alfred,&rdquo; she purred, as she endeavoured to act one arm about his
+      unsuspecting neck, &ldquo;if you'll only listen, I'll tell you the REAL TRUTH.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A wild despairing cry from Alfred, a dash toward the door by Jimmy, and a
+      determined effort on Aggie's part to detain her spouse, temporarily
+      interrupted Zoie's narrative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in spite of these discouragements, Zoie did eventually tell Alfred the
+      real truth, and before the sun had risen on the beginning of another day,
+      she had added to her confession, promises whose happy fulfillment was
+      evidenced for many years after by the chatter of glad young voices, up and
+      down the stairway of Alfred's new suburban home, and the flutter of golden
+      curls in and out amongst the sunlight and shadows of his ample, well kept
+      grounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
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diff --git a/860.txt b/860.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Baby Mine, by Margaret Mayo
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Baby Mine
+
+Author: Margaret Mayo
+
+Posting Date: July 21, 2008 [EBook #860]
+Release Date: March, 1997
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BABY MINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Keller
+
+
+
+
+
+BABY MINE
+
+By Margaret Mayo
+
+
+To my Helper and Husband
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Even in college Alfred Hardy was a young man of fixed ideas and high
+ideals and proud of it.
+
+His friend, Jimmy Jinks, had few ideas and no ideals, and was glad of
+it, and before half of their first college term had passed, Jimmy
+had ridded himself of all such worries as making up his own mind or
+directing his own morals. Alfred did all these things so much better,
+argued Jimmy, furthermore, Alfred LIKED to do them--Jimmy owed it to his
+friend to give him that pleasure.
+
+The fact that Jimmy was several years Alfred's senior and twice his
+size, in no way altered his opinion of Alfred's judgment, and through
+their entire college course they agreed as one man in all their
+discussions--or rather--in all Alfred's discussions.
+
+But it was not until the close of their senior year that Alfred favoured
+Jimmy with his views on matrimony.
+
+Sitting alone in a secluded corner of the campus waiting for Alfred to
+solve a problem in higher mathematics, Jimmy now recalled fragments of
+Alfred's last conversation.
+
+"No twelve dollar shoes and forty dollar hats for MY wife," his young
+friend had raged and he condemned to Jimmy the wicked extravagance of
+his own younger sisters. "The woman who gets me must be a home-maker.
+I'll take her to the theatre occasionally, and now and then we'll have a
+few friends in for the evening; but the fireside must be her magnet, and
+I'll be right by her side each night with my books and my day's worries.
+She shall be taken into my confidence completely; and I'll take good
+care to let her know, before I marry her, just what I expect in return."
+
+"Alfred certainly has the right idea about marriage," mused Jimmy, as
+the toe of his boot shoved the gravel up and down the path. "There's
+just one impractical feature about it." He was conscious of a slight
+feeling of heresy when he admitted even ONE flaw in his friend's scheme
+of things. "Where is Alfred to find such a wife?"
+
+Jimmy ran through the list of unattached girls to whom Alfred had thus
+far presented him. It was no doubt due to his lack of imagination, but
+try as he would, he could not see any one of these girls sitting by the
+fireside listening to Alfred's "worries" for four or five nights each
+week. He recalled all the married women whom he had been obliged,
+through no fault of his own, to observe.
+
+True, all of them did not boast twelve dollar shoes or forty dollar
+hats--for the very simple reason that the incomes or the tempers of
+their husbands did not permit of it. In any case, Jimmy did not remember
+having seen them spend many evenings by the fireside. Where then was
+Alfred to find the exceptional creature who was to help "systematise his
+life"? Jimmy was not above hoping that Alfred's search might be a long
+one. He was content for his friend to go jogging along by his side,
+theorising about marriage and taking no chances with facts. Having come
+to this conclusion, he began to feel uneasy at Alfred's non-appearance.
+Alfred had promised to meet him on this spot at four-thirty, and Alfred
+had decided ideas about punctuality. It was now five-thirty. Ought Jimmy
+to look for him, or would he be wiser to remain comfortably seated and
+to try to digest another of his friend's theories?
+
+While Jimmy was trying to decide this vexed question, his ear caught the
+sound of a girlish titter. Turning in embarrassment toward a secluded
+path just behind him, whom did he see coming toward him but Alfred, with
+what appeared to be a bunch of daffodils; but as Alfred drew nearer,
+Jimmy began to perceive at his elbow a large flower-trimmed hat,
+and--"horrors!"--beneath it, with a great deal of filmy white and yellow
+floating from it, was a small pink and white face.
+
+Barely had Jimmy reversed himself and rearranged his round, astonished
+features, when Alfred, beaming and buoyant, brought the bundle of fluff
+to a full stop before him.
+
+"Sorry to be late, old chap," said Alfred. "I have brought my excuse
+with me. I want you to know Miss Merton." Then turning to the small
+creature, whose head peeped just above his elbow, Alfred explained
+to her graciously that Jimmy Jinks was his very best friend, present
+company excepted, of course, and added that she and Jimmy would no doubt
+"see a great deal of each other in the future."
+
+In his embarrassment, Jimmy's eyes went straight to the young lady's
+shoes. It was possible that there might be more expensive shoes in this
+world, but Jimmy had certainly never seen daintier.
+
+"I hope we didn't disturb you," a small voice was chirping; and innocent
+and conventional as the remark surely was, Jimmy was certain of an
+undercurrent of mischief in it. He glanced up to protest, but two
+baby-blue eyes fixed upon him in apparent wonderment, made him certain
+that anything he could say would seem rude or ridiculous; so, as usual
+when in a plight, he looked to Alfred for the answer.
+
+Slapping Jimmy upon the shoulder in a condescending spirit, Alfred
+suggested that they all sit down and have a chat.
+
+"Oh, how nice," chirped the small person.
+
+Jimmy felt an irresistible desire to run, but the picture of himself,
+in his very stout person, streaking across the campus to the giggled
+delight of Miss Fluff, soon brought him submissively to the seat,
+where he sat twiddling his straw hat between his fingers, and glancing
+uncertainly at Alfred, who was thoughtful enough to sit next him.
+
+"Goodness, one could almost dance out here, couldn't one?" said the
+small person, named Zoie, as her eyes roved over the bit of level green
+before them.
+
+"Would you like to try?" asked Alfred, apparently agreeable to her every
+caprice.
+
+"I'd love it!" cried Zoie. "Come along." She sprang up and held out her
+hands to him.
+
+"I'm going to be unselfish," answered Alfred, "and let Jimmy have that
+fun."
+
+By this time, Jimmy had been seized with an intuitive feeling that his
+friend was in immediate danger.
+
+"Was this the young woman who was to sit opposite the fireside five
+nights a week and systematise Alfred's life?"
+
+Jimmy stared at the intruder blankly. For answer, two small hands were
+thrust out toward him and an impatient little voice was commanding him
+to "Come, dance." He heard Alfred's laughter. He had no intention of
+accommodating the small person in this or any other matter, yet, before
+he realised quite how it had happened, he was two-stepping up and down
+the grass to her piping little voice; nor did she release him until the
+perspiration came rolling from his forehead; and, horror of horrors, his
+one-time friend, Alfred, seemed to find this amusing, and laughed louder
+and louder when Jimmy sank by his side exhausted.
+
+When Jimmy was again able to think consecutively, he concluded that
+considerable conversation must have taken place between Alfred and
+the small one, while he was recovering his breath and re-adjusting his
+wilted neckwear. He was now thrown into a fresh panic by an exclamation
+from the excitable Zoie.
+
+"You must both meet my friend, Aggie Darling," she was saying. "I am
+bringing her with me to the hop to-night. She is not at all like me.
+You will like her dreadfully." She smiled at Jimmy as though she were
+conferring a great favour upon him.
+
+"Like her dreadfully," commented Jimmy to himself. "It was just the kind
+of expression one might expect from a mind in such disorder as hers.
+'Systematise Alfred's life,' indeed!"
+
+There was more nonsensical chatter, or so it seemed to Jimmy, then Zoie
+and Alfred rose to go, and Jimmy was told by both of them that he was to
+put in an appearance at the Fraternity "hop" that night.
+
+"I'll see you at dinner," called Alfred gaily over his shoulder and
+Jimmy was left to grapple with his first disappointment at his friend's
+lack of discrimination.
+
+"It's her fault," concluded Jimmy, as he lifted himself heavily off
+the bench and started down the campus, resolved to console himself with
+food.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Now Jimmy had no intention of going to the "hop." He had tried to
+tell Alfred so a dozen times during dinner, but each time he had been
+interrupted by one of Alfred's enthusiastic rhapsodies about Zoie.
+
+"Most marvellous girl I have ever met!" exclaimed Alfred over his soup.
+"So sensible; so modest. And did you see how simply she dresses?" he
+asked. Jimmy recalled his first vision of billowy fluff; but before he
+could answer, Alfred had continued excitedly:
+
+"I'll tell you what first attracted me toward her." He looked at Jimmy
+as though he expected some especial mark of gratitude for the favour
+about to be bestowed; then he explained with a serious weighing of his
+words, "It was her love of children. I had barely been introduced to
+her when she turned her back upon me and gave her whole attention to
+Professor Peck's little boy Willie. I said to myself, 'any girl of that
+age who prefers children to young chaps of my age, is the girl for me.'"
+
+"I see," assented Jimmy lamely. It was his first remark during dinner.
+
+"After that, I no longer hesitated. You know, Jimmy, I have decision."
+
+"Yes, I have noticed," admitted Jimmy, without conviction.
+
+"In fifteen minutes," said Alfred, "I had learned all about the young
+lady's antecedents."
+
+Having finished his soup, and resisted a childish impulse to tip the
+plate and scrape the bottom of it, Jimmy was now looking anxiously
+toward the door through which the roast ought to come.
+
+"I'll tell you all about her," volunteered Alfred. But Jimmy's eyes
+were upon Alfred's plate; his friend had not yet devoured more than two
+spoonfuls of soup; at that rate, argued Jimmy, the roast would reach
+them about the time that he was usually trying to make his dessert last
+as long as possible.
+
+"She is here with her aunt," continued Alfred. "They are on a short
+visit to Professor Peck."
+
+Jimmy approved of the "short."
+
+"That's good," he murmured, hopeful that a separation from the minx
+might restore his friend's reason.
+
+"And Jimmy," exclaimed Alfred with glistening eyes, "what do you think?"
+
+Jimmy thought a great deal but he forebore to say it, and Alfred
+continued very enthusiastically.
+
+"She lives right in the same town with us."
+
+"What!" ejaculated Jimmy, and he felt his appetite going.
+
+"Within a stone's throw of my house--and yours," added Alfred
+triumphantly. "Think of our never having met her before!"
+
+"I am thinking," said Jimmy.
+
+"Of course she has been away from home a great deal," went on Alfred.
+"She's been in school in the East; but there were the summers."
+
+"So there were," assented Jimmy, thinking of his hitherto narrow
+escapes.
+
+"Her father is old John Merton," continued Alfred. "Merton the
+stationer--you know him, Jimmy. Unfortunately, he has a great deal of
+money; but that hasn't spoilt her. Oh no! She is just as simple and
+considerate in her behaviour as if she were some poor little struggling
+school teacher. She is the one for me, Jimmy. There is no doubt about
+it, and I'll tell you a secret."
+
+Jimmy looked at him blankly.
+
+"I am going to propose to her this very night."
+
+"Good Lord!" groaned Jimmy, as if his friend had been suddenly struck
+down in the flower of his youth.
+
+"That's why you simply must come with me to the hop," continued Alfred.
+"I want you to take care of her friend Aggie, and leave me alone with
+Zoie as much as possible."
+
+"Zoie!" sniffed Jimmy. The name to him was as flippant as its owner.
+
+"True, strong name," commented Alfred. "So simple, so direct, so like
+her. I'll have to leave you now," he said, rising. "I must send her some
+flowers for the dance." He turned at the door. Suppose I add a few from
+you for Aggie."
+
+"What!" exploded Jimmy.
+
+"Just by way of introduction," called Alfred gaily. "It's a good idea."
+
+Before Jimmy could protest further, he found himself alone for the
+second time that day. He ate his roast in gloomy silence. It seemed dry
+and tasteless. Even his favourite desert of plum pudding failed to rouse
+him from his dark meditations, and he rose from the table dejected and
+forlorn.
+
+A few hours later, when Alfred led Jimmy into the ballroom, the latter
+was depressed, not only by his friend's impending danger, but he felt
+an uneasy foreboding as to his own future. With his college course
+practically finished and Alfred attaching himself to unforeseen
+entities, Jimmy had come to the ball with a curious feeling of having
+been left suspended in mid-air.
+
+Before he could voice his misgivings to Alfred, the young men were
+surrounded by a circle of chattering females. And then it was that Jimmy
+found himself looking into a pair of level brown eyes, and felt himself
+growing hot and cold by turns. When the little knot of youths and
+maidens disentangled itself into pairs of dancers, it became clear to
+Jimmy that he had been introduced to Aggie, and that he was expected to
+dance with her.
+
+As a matter of fact, Jimmy had danced with many girls; true, it was
+usually when there was no other man left to "do duty"; but still he
+had done it. Why then should he feel such distressing hesitation about
+placing his arm around the waist of this brown-eyed Diana? Try as he
+would he could not find words to break the silence that had fallen
+between them. She was so imposing; so self-controlled. It really seemed
+to Jimmy that she should be the one to ask him to dance. As a matter
+of fact, that was just what happened; and after the dance she suggested
+that they sit in the garden; and in the garden, with the moonlight
+barely peeping through the friendly overhanging boughs of the trees,
+Jimmy found Aggie capable of a courage that filled him with amazement;
+and later that night, when he and Alfred exchanged confidences, it
+became apparent to the latter that Aggie had volunteered to undertake
+the responsibility of outlining Jimmy's entire future.
+
+He was to follow his father's wishes and take up a business career in
+Chicago at once; and as soon as all the relatives concerned on both
+sides had been duly consulted, he and Aggie were to embark upon
+matrimony.
+
+"Good!" cried Alfred, when Jimmy had managed to stammer his shame-faced
+confession. "We'll make it a double wedding. I can be ready to-morrow,
+so far as I'm concerned." And then followed another rhapsody upon the
+fitness of Zoie as the keeper of his future home and hearth, and the
+mother of his future sons and daughters. In fact, it was far into the
+night when the two friends separated--separated in more than one sense,
+as they afterward learned.
+
+While Alfred and Jimmy were saying "good-night" to each other, Zoie and
+Aggie in one of the pretty chintz bedrooms of Professor Peck's modest
+home, were still exchanging mutual confidences.
+
+"The thing I like about Alfred," said Zoie, as she gazed at the tip of
+her dainty satin slipper, and turned her head meditatively to one side,
+"is his positive nature. I've never before met any one like him. Do you
+know," she added with a sly twinkle in her eye, "it was all I could do
+to keep from laughing at him. He's so awfully serious." She giggled to
+herself at the recollection of him; then she leaned forward to Aggie,
+her small hands clasped across her knees and her face dimpling with
+mischief. "He hasn't the remotest idea what I'm like."
+
+Aggie studied her young friend with unmistakable reproach. "I MADE
+Jimmy know what I'M like," she said. "I told him ALL my ideas about
+everything."
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Zoie in shocked surprise.
+
+"He's sure to find out sooner or later," said Aggie sagely. "I think
+that's the only sensible way to begin."
+
+"If I'd told Alfred all MY ideas about things," smiled Zoie, "there'd
+have BEEN no beginning."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Aggie, with a troubled look.
+
+"Well, take our meeting," explained Zoie. "Just as we were introduced,
+that horrid little Willie Peck caught his heel in a flounce of my skirt.
+I turned round to slap him, but I saw Alfred looking, so I patted his
+ugly little red curls instead. And what do you think? Alfred told me
+to-night that it was my devotion to Willie that first made him adore
+me."
+
+"And you didn't explain to him?" asked Aggie in amazement.
+
+"And lose him before I'd got him!" exclaimed Zoie.
+
+"It might be better than losing him AFTER you've got him," concluded the
+elder girl.
+
+"Oh, Aggie," pouted Zoie, "I think you are horrid. You're just trying to
+spoil all the fun of my engagement."
+
+"I am not," cried Aggie, and the next moment she was sitting on the arm
+of Zoie's chair.
+
+"Goose!" she said, "how dare you be cross with me?"
+
+"I am NOT cross," declared Zoie, and after the customary apologies from
+Aggie, confidence was fully restored on both sides and Zoie continued
+gaily: "Don't you worry about Alfred and me," she said as she kicked off
+her tiny slippers and hopped into bed. "Just you wait until I get him.
+I'll manage him all right."
+
+"I dare say," answered Aggie; not without misgivings, as she turned off
+the light.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The double wedding of four of Chicago's "Younger Set" had been
+adequately noticed in the papers, the conventional "honeymoon" journey
+had been made, and Alfred Hardy and Jimmy Jinks had now settled down to
+the routine of their respective business interests.
+
+Having plunged into his office work with the same vigour with which
+he had attacked higher mathematics, Alfred had quickly gained the
+confidence of the elders of his firm, and they had already begun to give
+way to him in many important decisions. In fact, he was now practically
+at the head of his particular department with one office doing well in
+Chicago and a second office promising well in Detroit.
+
+As for Jimmy, he had naturally started his business career with fewer
+pyrotechnics; but he was none the less contented. He seldom saw his old
+friend Alfred now, but Aggie kept more or less in touch with Zoie;
+and over the luncheon table the affairs of the two husbands were often
+discussed by their wives. It was after one of these luncheons that Aggie
+upset Jimmy's evening repose by the fireside by telling him that she was
+a wee bit worried about Zoie and Alfred.
+
+"Alfred is so unreasonable," said Aggie, "so peevish."
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Jimmy shortly. "If he's peevish he has some good
+reason. You can be sure of that."
+
+"You needn't get cross with me, Jimmy," said Aggie in a hurt voice.
+
+"Why should I be cross with you?" snapped Jimmy. "It isn't YOUR fault
+if Alfred's made a fool of himself by marrying the last person on earth
+whom he should have married."
+
+"I think he was very lucky to get her," argued Aggie in defence of her
+friend.
+
+"Oh, you do, do you?" answered Jimmy in a very aggrieved tone.
+
+"She is one of the prettiest girls in Chicago," said Aggie.
+
+"You're pretty too," answered Jimmy, "but it doesn't make an idiot of
+you."
+
+"It's TIME you said something nice to me," purred Aggie; and her arm
+stole fondly around Jimmy's large neck.
+
+"I don't know why it is," said Jimmy, shaking his head dejectedly, "but
+every time Zoie Hardy's name is mentioned in this house it seems to stir
+up some sort of a row between you and me."
+
+"That's because you're so prejudiced," answered Aggie with a touch of
+irritation.
+
+"There you go again," said Jimmy.
+
+"I didn't mean it!" interposed Aggie contritely. "Oh, come now, Jimmy,"
+she pleaded, "let's trundle off to bed and forget all about it." And
+they did.
+
+But the next day, as Jimmy was heading for the La Salle restaurant to
+get his luncheon, who should call to him airily from a passing taxi
+but Zoie. It was apparent that she wished him to wait until she could
+alight; and in spite of his disinclination to do so, he not only waited
+but followed the taxi to its stopping place and helped the young woman
+to the pavement.
+
+"Oh, you darling!" exclaimed Zoie, all of a flutter, and looking exactly
+like an animated doll. "You've just saved my life." She called to the
+taxi driver to "wait."
+
+"Are you in trouble?" asked the guileless Jimmy.
+
+"Yes, dreadful," answered Zoie, and she thrust a half-dozen small
+parcels into Jimmy's arms. "I have to be at my dressmaker's in half an
+hour; and I haven't had a bite of lunch. I'm miles and miles from home;
+and I can't go into a restaurant and eat just by myself without being
+stared at. Wasn't it lucky that I saw you when I did?"
+
+There was really very little left for Jimmy to say, so he said it; and a
+few minutes later they were seated tete-a-tete in one of Chicago's most
+fashionable restaurants, and Zoie the unconscious flirt was looking up
+at Jimmy with apparently adoring eyes, and suggesting all the eatables
+which he particularly abominated.
+
+No sooner had the unfortunate man acquiesced in one thing and
+communicated Zoie's wish to the waiter, than the flighty young person
+found something else on the menu that she considered more tempting to
+her palate. Time and again the waiter had to be recalled and the order
+had to be given over until Jimmy felt himself laying up a store of
+nervous indigestion that would doubtless last him for days.
+
+When the coveted food at last arrived, Zoie had become completely
+engrossed in the headgear of one of her neighbours, and it was only
+after Jimmy had been induced to make himself ridiculous by craning his
+neck to see things of no possible interest to him that Zoie at last gave
+her attention to her plate.
+
+In obeyance of Jimmy's order the waiter managed to rush the lunch
+through within three-quarters of an hour; but when Jimmy and Zoie at
+length rose to go he was so insanely irritated, that he declared they
+had been in the place for hours; demanded that the waiter hurry his
+bill; and then finally departed in high dudgeon without leaving the
+customary "tip" behind him.
+
+But all this was without its effect upon Zoie, who, a few moments
+later rode away in her taxi, waving gaily to Jimmy who was now late for
+business and thoroughly at odds with himself and the world.
+
+As a result of the time lost at luncheon Jimmy missed an appointment
+that had to wait over until after office hours, and as a result of this
+postponement, he missed Aggie, who went to a friend's house for dinner,
+leaving word for him to follow. For the first time in his life, Jimmy
+disobeyed Aggie's orders, and, later on, when he "trundled off to bed"
+alone, he again recalled that it was Zoie Hardy who was always causing
+hard feeling between him and his spouse.
+
+Some hours later, when Aggie reached home with misgivings because Jimmy
+had not joined her, she was surprised to find him sleeping as peacefully
+as a cherub. "Poor dear," she murmured, "I hope he wasn't lonesome." And
+she stole away to her room.
+
+The next morning when Aggie did not appear at the breakfast table, Jimmy
+rushed to her room in genuine alarm. It was now Aggie's turn to sleep
+peacefully; and he stole dejectedly back to the dining-room and for the
+first time since their marriage, he munched his cold toast and sipped
+his coffee alone.
+
+So thoroughly was his life now disorganised, and so low were his spirits
+that he determined to walk to his office, relying upon the crisp morning
+air to brace him for the day's encounters. By degrees, he regained his
+good cheer and as usual when in rising spirits, his mind turned toward
+Aggie. The second anniversary of their wedding was fast approaching--he
+began to take notice of various window displays. By the time he had
+reached his office, the weightiest decision on his mind lay in choosing
+between a pearl pendant and a diamond bracelet for his now adorable
+spouse.
+
+But a more difficult problem awaited him. Before he was fairly in his
+chair, the telephone bell rang violently. Never guessing who was at the
+other end of the wire, he picked up his receiver and answered.
+
+"What?" he exclaimed in surprise. "Mrs. Hardy?" Several times he opened
+his lips to ask a question, but it was apparent that the person at the
+other end of the line had a great deal to say and very little time to
+say it, and it was only after repeated attempts that he managed to get
+in a word or so edgewise.
+
+"What's happened?" he asked.
+
+"Say nothing to anybody," was Zoie's noncommittal answer, "not even to
+Aggie. Jump in a taxi and come as quickly as you can."
+
+"But what IS it?" persisted Jimmy. The dull sound of the wire told him
+that the person at the other end had "hung up."
+
+Jimmy gazed about the room in perplexity. What was he to do? Why on
+earth should he leave his letters unanswered and his mail topsy turvy to
+rush forth in the shank of the morning at the bidding of a young woman
+whom he abhorred. Ridiculous! He would do no such thing. He lit a cigar
+and began to open a few letters marked "private." For the life of him he
+could not understand one word that he read. A worried look crossed his
+face.
+
+"Suppose Zoie were really in need of help, Aggie would certainly never
+forgive him if he failed her." He rose and walked up and down.
+
+"Why was he not to tell Aggie?"
+
+"Where was Alfred?" He stopped abruptly. His over excited imagination
+had suggested a horrible but no doubt accurate answer. "Wedded to an
+abomination like Zoie, Alfred had sought the only escape possible to a
+man of his honourable ideals--he had committed suicide."
+
+Seizing his coat and hat Jimmy dashed through the outer office without
+instructing his astonished staff as to when he might possibly return.
+
+"Family troubles," said the secretary to himself as he appropriated one
+of Jimmy's best cigars.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+LESS than half an hour later, Jimmy's taxi stopped in front of the
+fashionable Sherwood Apartments where Zoie had elected to live.
+Ascending toward the fifth floor he scanned the face of the elevator boy
+expecting to find it particularly solemn because of the tragedy that
+had doubtless taken place upstairs. He was on the point of sending out
+a "feeler" about the matter, when he remembered Zoie's solemn injunction
+to "say nothing to anybody." Perhaps it was even worse than suicide. He
+dared let his imagination go no further. By the time he had put out his
+hand to touch the electric button at Zoie's front door, his finger was
+trembling so that he wondered whether he could hit the mark. The result
+was a very faint note from the bell, but not so faint that it escaped
+the ear of the anxious young wife, who had been pacing up and down the
+floor of her charming living room for what seemed to her ages.
+
+"Hurry, hurry, hurry!" Zoie cried through her tears to her neat little
+maid servant, then reaching for her chatelaine, she daubed her small
+nose and flushed cheeks with powder, after which she nodded to Mary to
+open the door.
+
+To Jimmy, the maid's pert "good-morning" seemed to be in very bad taste
+and to properly reprove her he assumed a grave, dignified air out of
+which he was promptly startled by Zoie's even more unseemly greeting.
+
+"Hello, Jimmy!" she snapped. Her tone was certainly not that of a
+heart-broken widow. "It's TIME you got here," she added with an injured
+air.
+
+Jimmy gazed at Zoie in astonishment. She was never what he would have
+called a sympathetic woman, but really----!
+
+"I came the moment you 'phoned me," he stammered; "what is it? What's
+the matter?"
+
+"It's awful," sniffled Zoie. And she tore up and down the room
+regardless of the fact that Jimmy was still unseated.
+
+"Awful what?" questioned Jimmy.
+
+"Worst I've ever had," sobbed Zoie.
+
+"Is anything wrong with Alfred?" ventured Jimmy. And he braced himself
+for her answer.
+
+"He's gone," sobbed Zoie.
+
+"Gone!" echoed Jimmy, feeling sure that his worst fears were about to be
+realised. "Gone where?"
+
+"I don't know," sniffled Zoie, "I just 'phoned his office. He isn't
+there."
+
+"Oh, is that all?" answered Jimmy, with a sigh of relief. "Just another
+little family tiff," he was unable to conceal a feeling of thankfulness.
+"What's up?"
+
+Zoie measured Jimmy with a dangerous gleam in her eyes. She resented the
+patronising tone that he was adopting. How dare he be cheerful when
+she was so unhappy--and because of him, too? She determined that his
+self-complacency should be short-lived.
+
+"Alfred has found out that I lied about the luncheon," she said,
+weighing her words and their effect upon Jimmy.
+
+"What luncheon?" stuttered Jimmy, feeling sure that Zoie had suddenly
+marked him for her victim, but puzzled as to what form her persecution
+was about to take.
+
+"What luncheon?" repeated Zoie, trying apparently to conceal her disgust
+at his dulness. "OUR luncheon yesterday."
+
+"Why did you LIE," asked Jimmy, his eyes growing rounder and rounder
+with wonder.
+
+"I didn't know he KNEW," answered Zoie innocently.
+
+"Knew what?" questioned Jimmy, more and more befogged.
+
+"That I'd eaten with a man," concluded Zoie impatiently. Then she turned
+her back upon Jimmy and again dashed up and down the room occupied with
+her own thoughts.
+
+It was certainly difficult to get much understanding out of Zoie's
+disjointed observations, but Jimmy was doing his best. He followed her
+restless movements about the room with his eyes, and then ventured a
+timid comment.
+
+"He couldn't object to your eating with me."
+
+"Oh, couldn't he?" cried Zoie, and she turned upon him with a look
+of contempt. "If there's anything that he DOESN'T object to," she
+continued, "I haven't found it out yet." And with that she threw herself
+in a large arm chair near the table, and left Jimmy to draw his own
+conclusions.
+
+Jimmy looked about the room as though expecting aid from some unseen
+source; then his eyes sought the floor. Eventually they crept to the tip
+of Zoie's tiny slipper as it beat a nervous tattoo on the rug. To save
+his immortal soul, Jimmy could never help being hypnotised by Zoie's
+small feet. He wondered now if they had been the reason of Alfred's
+first downfall. He recalled with a sigh of relief that Aggie's feet were
+large and reassuring. He also recalled an appropriate quotation: "The
+path of virtue is not for women with small feet," it ran. "Yes, Aggie's
+feet are undoubtedly large," he concluded. But all this was not solving
+Zoie's immediate problem; and an impatient cough from her made him
+realise that something was expected of him.
+
+"Why did you lunch with me," he asked, with a touch of irritation, "if
+you thought he wouldn't like it?"
+
+"I was hungry," snapped Zoie.
+
+"Oh," grunted Jimmy, and in spite of his dislike of the small creature
+his vanity resented the bald assertion that she had not lunched with him
+for his company's sake.
+
+"I wouldn't have made an engagement with you of course," she continued,
+with a frankness that vanquished any remaining conceit that Jimmy might
+have brought with him. "I explained to you how it was at the time. It
+was merely a case of convenience. You know that."
+
+Jimmy was beginning to see it more and more in the light of an
+inconvenience.
+
+"If you hadn't been in front of that horrid old restaurant just when I
+was passing," she continued, "all this would never have happened. But
+you were there, and you asked me to come in and have a bite with you;
+and I did, and there you are."
+
+"Yes, there I am," assented Jimmy dismally. There was no doubt about
+where he was now, but where was he going to end? That was the question.
+"See here," he exclaimed with fast growing uneasiness, "I don't like
+being mixed up in this sort of thing."
+
+"Of course you'd think of yourself first," sneered Zoie. "That's just
+like a man."
+
+"Well, I don't want to get your husband down on me," argued Jimmy
+evasively.
+
+"Oh, I didn't give YOU away," sneered Zoie. "YOU needn't worry," and she
+fixed her eyes upon him with a scornful expression that left no doubt as
+to her opinion that he was a craven coward.
+
+"But you said he'd 'found out,'" stammered Jimmy.
+
+"He's found out that I ate with a MAN," answered Zoie, more and more
+aggrieved at having to employ so much detail in the midst of her
+distress. "He doesn't know it was you."
+
+"But Zoie----" protested Jimmy.
+
+She lifted a small hand, begging him to spare her further questions.
+It was apparent that she must explain each aspect of their present
+difficulty, with as much patience as though Jimmy were in reality only a
+child. She sank into her chair and then proceeded, with a martyred air.
+
+"You see it was like this," she said. "Alfred came into the restaurant
+just after we had gone out and Henri, the waiter who has taken care
+of him for years, told him that I had just been in to luncheon with a
+gentleman."
+
+Jimmy shifted about on the edge of his chair, ill at ease.
+
+"Now if Alfred had only told me that in the first place," she continued,
+"I'd have known what to say, but he didn't. Oh no, he was as sweet as
+could be all through breakfast and last night too, and then just as he
+was leaving this morning, I said something about luncheon and he said,
+quite casually, 'Where did you have luncheon YESTERDAY, my dear?' So I
+answered quite carelessly, 'I had none, my love.' Well, I wish you could
+have seen him. He called me dreadful things. He says I'm the one thing
+he can't endure."
+
+"What's that?" questioned Jimmy, wondering how Alfred could confine
+himself to any "ONE thing."
+
+"He says I'm a liar!" shrieked Zoie tearfully.
+
+"Well, aren't you?" asked Jimmy.
+
+"Of course I am," declared Zoie; "but why shouldn't I be?" She looked
+at Jimmy with such an air of self-approval that for the life of him he
+could find no reason to offer. "You know how jealous Alfred is," she
+continued. "He makes such a fuss about the slightest thing that I've got
+out of the habit of EVER telling the TRUTH." She walked away from
+Jimmy as though dismissing the entire matter; he shifted his position
+uneasily; she turned to him again with mock sweetness. "I suppose YOU
+told AGGIE all about it?" she said.
+
+Jimmy's round eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped lower. "I--I--don't
+believe I did," he stammered weakly. "I didn't think of it again."
+
+"Thank heaven for that!" concluded Zoie with tightly pressed lips. Then
+she knotted her small white brow in deep thought.
+
+Jimmy regarded her with growing uneasiness. "What are you up to now?" he
+asked.
+
+"I don't know yet," mused Zoie, "BUT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TELL
+AGGIE--that's ONE SURE thing." And she pinned him down with her eyes.
+
+"I certainly will tell her," asserted Jimmy, with a wag of his very
+round head. "Aggie is just the one to get you out of this."
+
+"She's just the one to make things worse," said Zoie decidedly. Then
+seeing Jimmy's hurt look, she continued apologetically: "Aggie MEANS
+all right, but she has an absolute mania for mixing up in other people's
+troubles. And you know how THAT always ends."
+
+"I never deceived my wife in all my life," declared Jimmy, with an air
+of self approval that he was far from feeling.
+
+"Now, Jimmy," protested Zoie impatiently, "you aren't going to have
+moral hydrophobia just when I need your help!"
+
+"I'm not going to lie to Aggie, if that's what you mean," said Jimmy,
+endeavouring not to wriggle under Zoie's disapproving gaze.
+
+"Then don't," answered Zoie sweetly.
+
+Jimmy never feared Zoie more than when she APPEARED to agree with him.
+He looked at her now with uneasy distrust.
+
+"Tell her the truth," urged Zoie.
+
+"I will," declared Jimmy with an emphatic nod.
+
+"And I'LL DENY IT," concluded Zoie with an impudent toss of her head.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Jimmy, and he felt himself getting onto his feet.
+
+"I've already denied it to Alfred," continued Zoie. "I told him I'd
+never been in that restaurant without him in all my life, that the
+waiter had mistaken someone else for me." And again she turned her back
+upon Jimmy.
+
+"But don't you see," protested Jimmy, "this would all be so very much
+simpler if you'd just own up to the truth now, before it's too late?"
+
+"It IS too late," declared Zoie. "Alfred wouldn't believe me now,
+whatever I told him. He says a woman who lies once lies all the time.
+He'd think I'd been carrying on with you ALL ALONG."
+
+"Good Lord!" groaned Jimmy as the full realisation of his predicament
+thrust itself upon him.
+
+"We don't DARE tell him now," continued Zoie, elated by the demoralised
+state to which she was fast reducing him. "For Heaven's sake, don't make
+it any worse," she concluded; "it's bad enough as it is."
+
+"It certainly is," agreed Jimmy, and he sank dejectedly into his chair.
+
+"If you DO tell him," threatened Zoie from the opposite side of the
+table, "I'll say you ENTICED me into the place."
+
+"What!" shrieked Jimmy and again he found himself on his feet.
+
+"I will," insisted Zoie, "I give you fair warning."
+
+He stared at her in absolute horror. "I don't believe you've any
+conscience at all," he said.
+
+"I haven't," she sniffled. "I'm too miserable." And throwing herself
+into the nearest armchair she wept copiously at the thought of her many
+injuries.
+
+Uncertain whether to fly or to remain, Jimmy gazed at her gloomily.
+"Well, I'M not laughing myself to death," he said.
+
+For answer Zoie turned upon him vehemently. "I just wish I'd never laid
+eyes on you, Jimmy," she cried.
+
+Jimmy was wishing the very same thing.
+
+"If I cared about you," she sobbed, "it wouldn't be so bad; but to
+think of losing my Alfred for----" words failed her and she trailed off
+weakly,--"for nothing!"
+
+"Thanks," grunted Jimmy curtly. In spite of himself he was always miffed
+by the uncomplimentary way in which she disposed of him.
+
+His sarcasm was lost upon Zoie. Having finished all she had to say to
+him, she was now apparently bent upon indulging herself in a first class
+fit of hysterics.
+
+There are critical moments in all of our lives when our future happiness
+or woe hangs upon our own decision. Jimmy felt intuitively that he was
+face to face with such a moment, but which way to turn? that was the
+question. Being Jimmy, and soft-hearted in spite of his efforts to
+conceal it, he naturally turned the wrong way, in other words, towards
+Zoie.
+
+"Oh, come now," he said awkwardly, as he crossed to the arm of her
+chair. "This will soon blow over."
+
+Zoie only sobbed the louder.
+
+"This isn't the first time you and Alfred have called it all off," he
+reminded her.
+
+Again she sobbed.
+
+Jimmy could never remember quite how it happened. But apparently he
+must have patted Zoie on the shoulder. At any rate, something or other
+loosened the flood-gates of her emotion, and before Jimmy could possibly
+escape from her vicinity she had wheeled round in her chair, thrown her
+arms about him, and buried her tear-stained face against his waist-coat.
+
+"Good Lord!" exclaimed Jimmy, for the third time that morning, as he
+glanced nervously toward the door; but Zoie was exclaiming in her own
+way and sobbing louder and louder; furthermore she was compelling Jimmy
+to listen to an exaggerated account of her many disappointments in her
+unreasonable husband. Seeing no possibility of escape, without resorting
+to physical violence, Jimmy stood his ground, wondering what to expect
+next. He did not have long to wonder.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WITHIN an hour from the time Alfred had entered his office that morning
+he was leaving it, in a taxi, with his faithful secretary at his
+side, and his important papers in a bag at his feet. "Take me to the
+Sherwood," he commanded the driver, "and be quick."
+
+As they neared Alfred's house, Johnson could feel waves of increasing
+anger circling around his perturbed young employer and later when they
+alighted from the taxi it was with the greatest difficulty that he could
+keep pace with him.
+
+Unfortunately for Jimmy, the outer door of the Hardy apartment had been
+left ajar, and thus it was that he was suddenly startled from Zoie's
+unwelcome embraces by a sharp exclamation.
+
+"So!" cried Alfred, and he brought his fist down with emphasis on the
+centre table at Jimmy's back.
+
+Wheeling about, Jimmy beheld his friend face to face with him. Alfred's
+lips were pressed tightly together, his eyes flashing fire. It was
+apparent that he desired an immediate explanation. Jimmy turned to the
+place where Zoie had been, to ask for help; like the traitress that she
+was, he now saw her flying through her bedroom door. Again he glanced at
+Alfred, who was standing like a sentry, waiting for the pass-word that
+should restore his confidence in his friend.
+
+"I'm afraid I've disturbed you," sneered Alfred.
+
+"Oh, no, not at all," answered Jimmy, affecting a careless indifference
+that he did not feel and unconsciously shaking hands with the waiting
+secretary.
+
+Reminded of the secretary's presence in such a distinctly family scene,
+Alfred turned to him with annoyance.
+
+"Go into my study," he said. "I'll be with you presently. Here's your
+list," he added and he thrust a long memorandum into the secretary's
+hand. Johnson retired as unobtrusively as possible and the two old
+friends were left alone. There was another embarrassed silence which
+Jimmy, at least, seemed powerless to break.
+
+"Well?" questioned Alfred in a threatening tone.
+
+"Tolerably well," answered Jimmy in his most pleasant but slightly
+nervous manner. Then followed another pause in which Alfred continued to
+eye his old friend with grave suspicion.
+
+"The fact is," stammered Jimmy, "I just came over to bring Aggie----" he
+corrected himself--"that is, to bring Zoie a little message from Aggie."
+
+"It seemed to be a SAD one," answered Alfred, with a sarcastic smile, as
+he recalled the picture of Zoie weeping upon his friend's sleeve.
+
+"Oh no--no!" answered Jimmy, with an elaborate attempt at carelessness.
+
+"Do you generally play the messenger during business hours?" thundered
+Alfred, becoming more and more enraged at Jimmy's petty evasions.
+
+"Just SOMETIMES," answered Jimmy, persisting in his amiable manner.
+
+"Jimmy," said Alfred, and there was a solemn warning in his voice,
+"don't YOU lie to me!"
+
+Jimmy started as though shot. The consciousness of his guilt was strong
+upon him. "I beg your pardon," he gasped, for the want of anything more
+intelligent to say.
+
+"You don't do it well," continued Alfred, "and you and I are old
+friends."
+
+Jimmy's round eyes fixed themselves on the carpet.
+
+"My wife has been telling you her troubles," surmised Alfred.
+
+Jimmy tried to protest, but the lie would not come.
+
+"Very well," continued Alfred, "I'll tell you something too. I've done
+with her." He thrust his hands in his pockets and began to walk up and
+down.
+
+"What a turbulent household," thought Jimmy and then he set out in
+pursuit of his friend. "I'm sorry you've had a misunderstanding," he
+began.
+
+"Misunderstanding!" shouted Alfred, turning upon him so sharply that he
+nearly tripped him up, "we've never had anything else. There was never
+anything else for us TO have. She's lied up hill and down dale from the
+first time she clinched her baby fingers around my hand--" he imitated
+Zoie's dainty manner--"and said 'pleased to meet you!' But I've caught
+her with the goods this time," he shouted, "and I've just about got
+HIM."
+
+"Him!" echoed Jimmy weakly.
+
+"The wife-stealer," exclaimed Alfred, and he clinched his fists in
+anticipation of the justice he would one day mete out to the despicable
+creature.
+
+Now Jimmy had been called many things in his time, he realised that he
+would doubtless be called many more things in the future, but never by
+the wildest stretch of imagination, had he ever conceived of himself in
+the role of "wife-stealer."
+
+Mistaking Jimmy's look of amazement for one of incredulity, Alfred
+endeavoured to convince him.
+
+"Oh, YOU'LL meet a wife-stealer sooner or later," he assured him. "You
+needn't look so horrified."
+
+Jimmy only stared at him and he continued excitedly: "She's had the
+effrontery--the bad taste--the idiocy to lunch in a public restaurant
+with the blackguard."
+
+The mere sound of the word made Jimmy shudder, but engrossed in his own
+troubles Alfred continued without heeding him.
+
+"Henri, the head-waiter, told me," explained Alfred, and Jimmy
+remembered guiltily that he had been very bumptious with the fellow.
+"You know the place," continued Alfred, "the LaSalle--a restaurant where
+I am known--where she is known--where my best friends dine--where Henri
+has looked after me for years. That shows how desperate she is. She
+must be mad about the fool. She's lost all sense of decency." And again
+Alfred paced the floor.
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't go as far as that," stammered Jimmy.
+
+"Oh, wouldn't you?" cried Alfred, again turning so abruptly that Jimmy
+caught his breath. Each word of Jimmy's was apparently goading him on to
+greater anger.
+
+"Now don't get hasty," Jimmy almost pleaded. "The whole thing is no
+doubt perfectly innocent. Talk to her gently. Win her confidence. Get
+her to tell you the truth."
+
+"The truth!" shouted Alfred in derision. "Zoie! The truth!"
+
+Jimmy feared that his young friend might actually become violent. Alfred
+bore down upon him like a maniac.
+
+"The truth!" he repeated wildly. "She wouldn't know the truth if she saw
+it under a microscope. She's the most unconscionable little liar that
+ever lured a man to the altar."
+
+Jimmy rolled his round eyes with feigned incredulity.
+
+"I found it out before we'd been married a month," continued Alfred.
+"She used to sit evenings facing the clock. I sat with my back to it.
+I used to ask her the time. Invariably she would lie half an hour,
+backward or forward, just for practice. THAT was the BEGINNING. Here,
+listen to some of these," he added, as he drew half a dozen telegrams
+from his inner pocket, and motioned Jimmy to sit at the opposite side of
+the table.
+
+Jimmy would have preferred to stand, but it was not a propitious time to
+consult his own preferences. He allowed himself to be bullied into the
+chair that Alfred suggested.
+
+Throwing himself into the opposite chair, Alfred selected various
+exhibits from his collection of messages. "I just brought these up from
+the office," he said. "These are some of the telegrams that she sent me
+each day last week while I was away. This is Monday's." And he proceeded
+to read with a sneering imitation of Zoie's cloy sweetness.
+
+"'Darling, so lonesome without you. Cried all day. When are you coming
+home to your wee sad wifie? Love and kisses. Zoie.'" Tearing the
+defenceless telegram into bits, Alfred threw it from him and waited for
+his friend's verdict.
+
+"She sent that over the wire?" gasped Jimmy.
+
+"Oh, that's nothing," answered Alfred. "That's a mild one." And he
+selected another from the same pocket. "Here, listen to this. This is
+what she REALLY did. This is from my secretary the same night."
+
+"You spied upon her!" asked Jimmy, feeling more and more convinced that
+his own deceptions would certainly be run to earth.
+
+"I HAVE to spy upon her," answered Alfred, "in self-defence. It's the
+only way I can keep her from making me utterly ridiculous." And he
+proceeded to read from the secretary's telegram. "'Shopped all
+morning. Lunched at Martingale's with man and woman unknown to
+me--Martingale's,'" he repeated with a sneer--"'Motored through Park
+with Mrs. Wilmer until five.' Mrs. Wilmer," he exclaimed, "there's a
+woman I've positively forbidden her to speak to."
+
+Jimmy only shook his head and Alfred continued to read.
+
+"'Had tea with Mr. and Mrs. Thompson and young Ardesley at the Park
+View.' Ardesley is a young cub," explained Alfred, "who spends his time
+running around with married women while their husbands are away trying
+to make a living for them."
+
+"Shocking!" was the extent of Jimmy's comment, and Alfred resumed
+reading.
+
+"'Dinner and theatre same party. Supper at Wellingford. Home two A. M.'"
+He looked at Jimmy, expecting to hear Zoie bitterly condemned. Jimmy
+only stared at him blankly. "That's pretty good," commented Alfred, "for
+the woman who 'CRIED' all day, isn't it?"
+
+Still Jimmy made no answer, and Alfred brought his fist down upon the
+table impatiently. "Isn't it?" he repeated.
+
+"She was a bit busy THAT day," admitted Jimmy uneasily.
+
+"The truth!" cried Alfred again, as he rose and paced about excitedly.
+"Getting the truth out of Zoie is like going to a fire in the night. You
+think it's near, but you never get there. And when she begins by saying
+that she's going to tell you the 'REAL truth'"--he threw up his hands in
+despair--"well, then it's time to leave home."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+There was another pause, then Alfred drew in his breath and bore down
+upon Jimmy with fresh vehemence. "The only time I get even a semblance
+of truth out of Zoie," he cried, "is when I catch her red-handed."
+Again he pounded the table and again Jimmy winced. "And even then," he
+continued, "she colours it so with her affected innocence and her plea
+about just wishing to be a 'good fellow,' that she almost makes me doubt
+my own eyes. She is an artist," he declared with a touch of enforced
+admiration. "There's no use talking; that woman is an artist."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Jimmy, for the want of anything better
+to say.
+
+"I am going to leave her," declared Alfred emphatically. "I am going
+away."
+
+A faint hope lit Jimmy's round childlike face. With Alfred away there
+would be no further investigation of the luncheon incident.
+
+"That might be a good idea," he said.
+
+"It's THE idea," said Alfred; "most of my business is in Detroit anyhow.
+I'm going to make that my headquarters and stay there."
+
+Jimmy was almost smiling.
+
+"As for Zoie," continued Alfred, "she can stay right here and go as far
+as she likes."
+
+"Not with me," thought Jimmy.
+
+"But," shrieked Alfred, with renewed emphasis, "I'm going to find out
+who the FELLOW is. I'll have THAT satisfaction!"
+
+Jimmy's spirits fell.
+
+"Henri knows the head-waiter of every restaurant in this town," said
+Alfred, "that is, every one where she'd be likely to go; and he says
+he'd recognise the man she lunched with if he saw him again."
+
+Jimmy's features became suddenly distorted.
+
+"The minute she appears anywhere with anybody," explained Alfred, "Henri
+will be notified by 'phone. He'll identify the man and then he'll wire
+me."
+
+"What good will that do?" asked Jimmy weakly.
+
+"I'll take the first train home," declared Alfred.
+
+"For what?" questioned Jimmy.
+
+"To shoot him!" exclaimed Alfred.
+
+"What!" gasped Jimmy, almost losing his footing.
+
+Alfred mistook Jimmy's concern for anxiety on his behalf.
+
+"Oh, I'll be acquitted," he declared. "Don't you worry. I'll get my tale
+of woe before the jury."
+
+"But I say," protested Jimmy, too uneasy to longer conceal his real
+emotions, "why kill this one particular chap when there are so many
+others?"
+
+"He's the only one she's ever lunched with, ALONE," said Alfred. "She's
+been giddy, but at least she's always been chaperoned, except with him.
+He's the one all right; there's no doubt about it. He's the beginning of
+the end."
+
+"His own end, yes," assented Jimmy half to himself. "Now, see here, old
+man," he argued, "I'd give that poor devil a chance to explain."
+
+"Explain!" shouted Alfred so sharply that Jimmy quickly retreated. "I
+wouldn't believe him now if he were one of the Twelve Apostles."
+
+"That's tough," murmured Jimmy as he saw the last avenue of honourable
+escape closed to him.
+
+"Tough!" roared Alfred, thinking of himself. "Hah."
+
+"On the Apostles, I mean," explained Jimmy nervously.
+
+Again Alfred paced up and down the room, and again Jimmy tried to think
+of some way to escape from his present difficulty. It was quite apparent
+that his only hope lay not in his own candor, but in Alfred's absence.
+"How long do you expect to be away?" he asked.
+
+"Only until I hear from Henri," said Alfred.
+
+"Henri?" repeated Jimmy and again a gleam of hope shone on his dull
+features. He had heard that waiters were often to be bribed. "Nice
+fellow, Henri," he ventured cautiously. "Gets a large salary, no doubt?"
+
+"Does he!" exclaimed Alfred, with a certain pride of proprietorship. "No
+tips could touch Henri, no indeed. He's not that sort of a person."
+
+Again the hope faded from Jimmy's round face.
+
+"I look upon Henri as my friend," continued Alfred enthusiastically. "He
+speaks every language known to man. He's been in every country in the
+world. HENRI UNDERSTANDS LIFE."
+
+"LOTS of people UNDERSTAND LIFE," commented Jimmy dismally, "but SOME
+people don't APPRECIATE it. They value it too lightly, to MY way of
+thinking."
+
+"Ah, but you have something to live for," argued Alfred.
+
+"I have indeed; a great deal," agreed Jimmy, more and more abused at the
+thought of what he was about to lose.
+
+"Ah, that's different," exclaimed Alfred. "But what have _I_?"
+
+Jimmy was in no frame of mind to consider his young friend's assets, he
+was thinking of his own difficulties.
+
+"I'm a laughing stock," shouted Alfred. "I know it. A 'good thing' who
+gives his wife everything she asks for, while she is running around
+with--with my best friend, for all I know."
+
+"Oh, no, no," protested Jimmy nervously. "I wouldn't say that."
+
+"Even if she weren't running around," continued Alfred excitedly,
+without heeding his friend's interruption, "what have we to look forward
+to? What have we to look backward to?"
+
+Again Jimmy's face was a blank.
+
+Alfred answered his own question by lifting his arms tragically toward
+Heaven. "One eternal round of wrangles and rows! A childless home! Do
+you think she wants babies?" he cried, wheeling about on Jimmy, and
+daring him to answer in the affirmative. "Oh, no!" he sneered. "All she
+wants is a good time."
+
+"Well," mumbled Jimmy, "I can't see much in babies myself, fat, little,
+red worms."
+
+Alfred's breath went from him in astonishment
+
+"Weren't YOU ever a fat, little, red worm?" he hissed. "Wasn't _I_
+ever a little, fat, red----" he paused in confusion, as his ear became
+puzzled by the proper sequence of his adjectives, "a fat, red, little
+worm," he stammered; "and see what we are now!" He thrust out his chest
+and strutted about in great pride.
+
+"Big red worms," admitted Jimmy gloomily.
+
+But Alfred did not hear him. "You and I ought to have SONS on the way to
+what we are," he declared, "and better."
+
+"Oh yes, better," agreed Jimmy, thinking of his present plight. "Much
+better."
+
+"But HAVE we?" demanded Alfred.
+
+Jimmy glanced about the room, as though expecting an answering
+demonstration from the ceiling.
+
+"Have YOU?" persisted Alfred.
+
+Jimmy shook his head solemnly.
+
+"Have _I_?" asked the irate husband.
+
+Out of sheer absent mindedness Jimmy shrugged his shoulders.
+
+As usual Alfred answered his own question. "Oh, no!" he raged. "YOU have
+a wife who spends her time and money gadding about with----"
+
+Jimmy's face showed a new alarm.
+
+"--my wife," concluded Alfred.
+
+Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+"I have a wife," said Alfred, "who spends her time and my money gadding
+around with God knows whom. But I'll catch him!" he cried with new fury.
+"Here," he said, pulling a roll of bills from his pocket. "I'll bet you
+I'll catch him. How much do you want to bet?"
+
+Undesirous of offering any added inducements toward his own capture,
+Jimmy backed away both literally and figuratively from Alfred's
+proposition.
+
+"What's the use of getting so excited?" he asked.
+
+Mistaking Jimmy's unwillingness to bet for a disinclination to take
+advantage of a friend's reckless mood, Alfred resented the implied
+insult to his astuteness.
+
+"You think I can't catch him?" he exclaimed. "Let's see the colour of
+your money," he demanded.
+
+But before Jimmy could comply, an unexpected voice broke into the
+argument and brought them both round with a start.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+"Good Heavens," exclaimed Aggie, who had entered the room while Alfred
+was talking his loudest. "What a racket!"
+
+Her eyes fell upon Jimmy who was teetering about uneasily just behind
+Alfred. She stared at him in amazement. Was it possible that Jimmy, the
+methodical, had left his office at this hour of the morning, and for
+what?
+
+Avoiding the question in Aggie's eyes, Jimmy pretended to be searching
+for his pocket handkerchief--but always with the vision of Aggie in her
+new Fall gown and her large "picture" hat at his elbow. Never before had
+she appeared so beautiful to him, so desirable--suppose he should lose
+her? Life spread before him as a dreary waste. He tried to look up at
+her; he could not. He feared she would read his guilt in his eyes. "What
+guilt?" he asked himself. There was no longer any denying the fact--a
+secret had sprung up between them.
+
+Annoyed at receiving no greeting, Aggie continued in a rather hurt
+voice:
+
+"Aren't you two going to speak to me?"
+
+Alfred swallowed hard in an effort to regain his composure.
+
+"Good-morning," he said curtly.
+
+Fully convinced of a disagreement between the two old friends, Aggie
+addressed herself in a reproachful tone to Jimmy.
+
+"My dear," she said, "what are you doing here this time of day?"
+
+Jimmy felt Alfred's steely eyes upon him. "Why!" he stammered. "Why, I
+just came over to--bring your message."
+
+"My message?" repeated Aggie in perplexity. "What message?"
+
+Alfred's eyebrows drew themselves sharply together.
+
+Jimmy had told so many lies this morning that another more or less could
+not matter; moreover, this was not a time to hesitate.
+
+"Why, the message you sent to Zoie," he answered boldly.
+
+"But I sent no message to Zoie," said Aggie.
+
+"What!" thundered Alfred, so loud that Aggie's fingers involuntarily
+went to her ears. She was more and more puzzled by the odd behaviour of
+the two.
+
+"I mean yesterday's message," corrected Jimmy. And he assumed an
+aggrieved air toward Aggie.
+
+"You villain," exclaimed Aggie. "I told you to 'phone her yesterday
+morning from the office."
+
+"Yes, I know," agreed Jimmy placidly, "but I forgot it and I just came
+over to explain." Alfred's fixed stare was relaxing and at last Jimmy
+could breathe.
+
+"Oh," murmured Aggie, with a wise little elevation of her eye-brows,
+"then that's why Zoie didn't keep her luncheon appointment with me
+yesterday."
+
+Jimmy felt that if this were to go on much longer, he would utter one
+wild shriek and give himself up for lost; but at present he merely
+swallowed with an effort, and awaited developments.
+
+It was now Alfred's turn to become excited.
+
+"Oh, IS it!" he cried with hysterical laughter.
+
+Aggie regarded him with astonishment. Was this her usually
+self-controlled friend?
+
+"Oh, no!" sneered Alfred with unmistakable pity for her credulity.
+"That's not why my wife didn't eat luncheon with you. She may TELL you
+that's why. She undoubtedly will; but it's NOT why. Oh, no!" and running
+his hands through his hair, Alfred tore up and down the room.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" Aggie asked in amazement.
+
+"Your dear husband Jimmy will doubtless explain," answered Alfred with
+a slur on the "dear." Then he turned toward the door of his study. "Pray
+excuse me--I'M TOO BUSY," and with that he strode out of the room and
+banged the study door behind him.
+
+"Goodness gracious!" gasped Aggie. She looked after Alfred, then at
+Jimmy. She was the picture of consternation. "What's the matter with
+him?" she asked.
+
+"Just another little family tiff," answered Jimmy, trying to assume a
+nonchalant manner.
+
+"Not about YOU!" gasped Aggie.
+
+"Me!" cried Jimmy, his equilibrium again upset. "Certainly not!" he
+declared. "What an idea!"
+
+"Yes, wasn't it?" answered Aggie. "That just shows how silly one can
+be. I almost thought Alfred was going to say that Zoie had lunched with
+you."
+
+"Me?" again echoed Jimmy, and he wondered if everybody in the world had
+conspired to make him the target of their attention. He caught Aggie's
+eye and tried to laugh carelessly. "That would have been funny, wouldn't
+it?" he said.
+
+"Yes, wouldn't it," repeated Aggie, and he thought he detected a slight
+uneasiness in her voice.
+
+"Speaking of lunch," added Jimmy quickly, "I think, dearie, that I'll
+come home for lunch in the future."
+
+"What?" exclaimed Aggie in great amazement.
+
+"Those downtown places upset my digestion," explained Jimmy quickly.
+
+"Isn't this very SUDDEN," she asked, and again Jimmy fancied that there
+was a shade of suspicion in her tone.
+
+His face assumed a martyred expression. "Of course, dear," he said, "if
+you insist upon my eating downtown, I'll do it; but I thought you'd be
+glad to have me at home."
+
+Aggie turned to him with real concern. "Why, Jimmy," she said, "what's
+the matter with you?" She took a step toward him and anxiously studied
+his face. "I never heard you talk like that before. I don't think you're
+well."
+
+"That's just what I'm telling you," insisted Jimmy vehemently, excited
+beyond all reason by receiving even this small bit of sympathy. "I'm
+ill," he declared. No sooner had he made the declaration than he began
+to believe in it. His doleful countenance increased Aggie's alarm.
+
+"My angel-face," she purred, and she took his chubby cheeks in her
+hands and looked down at him fondly. "You know I ALWAYS want you to come
+home." She stooped and kissed Jimmy's pouting lips. He held up his face
+for more. She smoothed the hair from his worried brow and endeavoured
+to cheer him. "I'll run right home now," she said, "and tell cook to get
+something nice and tempting for you! I can see Zoie later."
+
+"It doesn't matter," murmured Jimmy, as he followed her toward the door
+with a doleful shake of his head. "I don't suppose I shall ever enjoy my
+luncheon again--as long as I live."
+
+"Nonsense," cried Aggie, "come along."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WHEN Alfred returned to the living room he was followed by his
+secretary, who carried two well-filled satchels. His temper was not
+improved by the discovery that he had left certain important papers
+at his office. Dispatching his man to get them and to meet him at the
+station with them, he collected a few remaining letters from the drawer
+of the writing table, then uneasy at remaining longer under the same
+roof with Zoie, he picked up his hat, and started toward the hallway.
+For the first time his eye was attracted by a thick layer of dust and
+lint on his coat sleeve. Worse still, there was a smudge on his cuff.
+If there was one thing more than another that Alfred detested it was
+untidiness. Putting his hat down with a bang, he tried to flick the dust
+from his sleeve with his pocket handkerchief; finding this impossible,
+he removed his coat and began to shake it violently.
+
+It was at this particular moment that Zoie's small face appeared
+cautiously from behind the frame of the bedroom door. She was quick to
+perceive Alfred's plight. Disappearing from view for an instant, she
+soon reappeared with Alfred's favourite clothes-brush. She tiptoed into
+the room.
+
+Barely had Alfred drawn his coat on his shoulders, when he was startled
+by a quick little flutter of the brush on his sleeve. He turned
+in surprise and beheld Zoie, who looked up at him as penitent and
+irresistible as a newly-punished child.
+
+"Oh," snarled Alfred, and he glared at her as though he would enjoy
+strangling her on the spot.
+
+"Alfred," pouted Zoie, and he knew she was going to add her customary
+appeal of "Let's make up." But Alfred was in no mood for nonsense. He
+thrust his hands in his pockets and made straight for the outer doorway.
+
+Smiling to herself as she saw him leaving without his hat, Zoie slipped
+it quickly beneath a flounce of her skirt. No sooner had Alfred reached
+the sill of the door than his hand went involuntarily to his head; he
+turned to the table where he had left his hat. His face wore a puzzled
+look. He glanced beneath the table, in the chair, behind the table,
+across the piano, and then he began circling the room with pent up rage.
+He dashed into his study and out again, he threw the chairs about with
+increasing irritation, then giving up the search, he started hatless
+toward the hallway. It was then that a soft babyish voice reached his
+ear.
+
+"Have you lost something, dear?" cooed Zoie.
+
+Alfred hesitated. It was difficult to lower his dignity by answering
+her, but he needed his headgear. "I want my hat," he admitted shortly.
+
+"Your hat?" repeated Zoie innocently and she glanced around the room
+with mild interest. "Maybe Mary took it."
+
+"Mary!" cried Alfred, and thinking the mystery solved, he dashed toward
+the inner hallway.
+
+"Let ME get it, dear," pleaded Zoie, and she laid a small detaining hand
+upon his arm as he passed.
+
+"Stop it!" commanded Alfred hotly, and he shook the small hand from his
+sleeve as though it had been something poisonous.
+
+"But Allie," protested Zoie, pretending to be shocked and grieved.
+
+"Don't you 'but Allie' me," cried Alfred, turning upon her sharply. "All
+I want is my hat," and again he started in search of Mary.
+
+"But--but--but Allie," stammered Zoie, as she followed him.
+
+"But--but--but," repeated Alfred, turning on her in a fury. "You've
+butted me out of everything that I wanted all my life, but you're not
+going to do it again."
+
+"You see, you said it yourself," laughed Zoie.
+
+"Said WHAT," roared Alfred.
+
+"But," tittered Zoie.
+
+The remnants of Alfred's self-control were forsaking him. He clinched
+his fists hard in a final effort toward restraint. "You'd just as well
+stop all these baby tricks," he threatened between his teeth, "they're
+not going to work. THIS time my mind is made up."
+
+"Then why are you afraid to talk to me?" asked Zoie sweetly.
+
+"Who said I was afraid?" demanded Alfred hotly.
+
+"You ACT like it," declared Zoie, with some truth on her side. "You
+don't want----" she got no further.
+
+"All I want," interrupted Alfred, "is to get out of this house once and
+for all and to stay out of it." And again he started in pursuit of his
+hat.
+
+"Why, Allie," she gazed at him with deep reproach. "You liked this place
+so much when we first came here."
+
+Again Alfred picked at the lint on his coat sleeve. Edging her way
+toward him cautiously she ventured to touch his sleeve with the brush.
+
+"I'll attend to that myself," he said curtly, and he sank into the
+nearest chair to tie a refractory shoe lace.
+
+"Let me brush you, dear," pleaded Zoie. "I don't wish you to start out
+in the world looking unbrushed," she pouted. Then with a sly emphasis
+she added teasingly, "The OTHER women might not admire you that way."
+
+Alfred broke his shoe string then and there. While he stooped to tie a
+knot in it, Zoie managed to perch on the arm of his chair.
+
+"You know, Allie," she continued coaxingly, "no one could ever love you
+as I do."
+
+Again Alfred broke his shoe lace.
+
+"Oh, Allie!" she exclaimed with a little ripple of childish laughter,
+"do you remember how absurdly poor we were when we were first married,
+and how you refused to take any help from your family? And do you
+remember that silly old pair of black trousers that used to get so thin
+on the knees and how I used to put shoe-blacking underneath so the white
+wouldn't show through?" By this time her arm managed to get around his
+neck.
+
+"Stop it!" shrieked Alfred as though mortal man could endure no more.
+"You've used those trousers to settle every crisis in our lives."
+
+Zoie gazed at him without daring to breathe; even she was aghast at his
+fury, but only temporarily. She recovered herself and continued sweetly:
+
+"If everything is SETTLED," she argued, "where's the harm in talking?"
+
+"We've DONE with talking," declared Alfred. "From this on, I act."
+And determined not to be cheated out of this final decision, he again
+started for the hall door.
+
+"Oh, Allie!" cried Zoie in a tone of sharp alarm.
+
+In spite of himself Alfred turned to learn the cause of her anxiety.
+
+"You haven't got your overshoes on," she said.
+
+Speechless with rage, Alfred continued on his way, but Zoie moved before
+him swiftly. "I'll get them for you, dear," she volunteered graciously.
+
+"Stop!" thundered Alfred. They were now face to face.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't roar like that," pouted Zoie, and the pink tips of
+her fingers were thrust tight against her ears.
+
+Alfred drew in his breath and endeavoured for the last time to repress
+his indignation. "Either you can't, or you won't understand that it is
+extremely unpleasant for me to even talk to you--much less to receive
+your attentions."
+
+"Very likely," answered Zoie, unperturbed. "But so long as I am your
+lawful wedded wife----" she emphasised the "lawful"--"I shan't let any
+harm come to you, if _I_ can help it." She lifted her eyes to heaven
+bidding it to bear witness to her martyrdom and looking for all the
+world like a stained glass saint.
+
+"Oh, no!" shouted Alfred, almost hysterical at his apparent failure to
+make himself understood. "You wouldn't let any harm come to me. Oh, no.
+You've only made me the greatest joke in Chicago," he shouted. "You've
+only made me such a laughing stock that I have to leave it. That's
+all--that's all!"
+
+"Leave Chicago!" exclaimed Zoie incredulously. Then regaining her
+self-composure, she edged her way close to him and looked up into his
+eyes in baby-like wonderment. "Why, Allie, where are we going?" Her
+small arm crept up toward his shoulder. Alfred pushed it from him
+rudely.
+
+"WE are not going," he asserted in a firm, measured voice. "_I_ am
+going. Where's my hat?" And again he started in search of his absent
+headgear.
+
+"Oh, Allie!" she exclaimed, and this time there was genuine alarm in her
+voice, "you wouldn't leave me?"
+
+"Wouldn't I, though?" sneered Alfred. Before he knew it, Zoie's arms
+were about him--she was pleading desperately.
+
+"Now see here, Allie, you may call me all the names you like," she cried
+with great self-abasement, "but you shan't--you SHAN'T go away from
+Chicago."
+
+"Oh, indeed?" answered Alfred as he shook himself free of her. "I
+suppose you'd like me to go on with this cat and dog existence. You'd
+like me to stay right here and pay the bills and take care of you, while
+you flirt with every Tom, Dick and Harry in town."
+
+"It's only your horrid disposition that makes you talk like that,"
+whimpered Zoie. "You know very well that I never cared for anybody but
+you."
+
+"Until you GOT me, yes," assented Alfred, "and NOW you care for
+everybody BUT me." She was about to object, but he continued quickly.
+"Where you MEET your gentlemen friends is beyond me. _I_ don't introduce
+them to you."
+
+"I should say not," agreed Zoie, and there was a touch of vindictiveness
+in her voice. "The only male creature that you ever introduced to me was
+the family dog."
+
+"I introduce every man who's fit to meet you," declared Alfred with an
+air of great pride.
+
+"That doesn't speak very well for your acquaintances," snipped Zoie.
+Even HER temper was beginning to assert itself.
+
+"I won't bicker like this," declared Alfred.
+
+"That's what you always say, when you can't think of an answer,"
+retorted Zoie.
+
+"You mean when I'm tired of answering your nonsense!" thundered Alfred.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Realising that she was rapidly losing ground by exercising her advantage
+over Alfred in the matter of quick retort, Zoie, with her customary
+cunning, veered round to a more conciliatory tone. "Well," she cooed,
+"suppose I DID eat lunch with a man?"
+
+"Ah!" shrieked Alfred, as though he had at last run his victim to earth.
+
+She retreated with her fingers crossed. "I only said suppose," she
+reminded him quickly. Then she continued in a tone meant to draw from
+him his heart's most secret confidence. "Didn't you ever eat lunch with
+any woman but me?"
+
+"Never!" answered Alfred firmly.
+
+There was an unmistakable expression of pleasure on Zoie's small face,
+but she forced back the smile that was trying to creep round her lips,
+and sidled toward Alfred, with eyes properly downcast. "Then I'm very
+sorry I did it," she said solemnly, "and I'll never do it again."
+
+"So!" cried Alfred with renewed indignation. "You admit it?"
+
+"Just to please you, dear," explained Zoie sweetly, as though she were
+doing him the greatest possible favour.
+
+"To please me?" gasped Alfred. "Do you suppose it pleases me to know
+that you are carrying on the moment my back is turned, making a fool of
+me to my friends?"
+
+"Your friends?" cried Zoie with a sneer. This time it was her turn to be
+angry. "So! It's your FRIENDS that are worrying you!" In her excitement
+she tossed Alfred's now damaged hat into the chair just behind her. He
+was far too overwrought to see it. "_I_ haven't done you any harm," she
+continued wildly. "It's only what you think your friends think."
+
+"You haven't done me any harm?" repeated Alfred, in her same tragic key,
+"Oh no! Oh no! You've only cheated me out of everything I expected to
+get out of life! That's all!"
+
+Zoie came to a full stop and waited for him to enumerate the various
+treasures that he had lost by marrying her. He did so.
+
+"Before we were married," he continued, "you pretended to adore
+children. You started your humbugging the first day I met you. I refer
+to little Willie Peck."
+
+A hysterical giggle very nearly betrayed her. Alfred continued:
+
+"I was fool enough to let you know that I admire women who like
+children. From that day until the hour that I led you to the altar,
+you'd fondle the ugliest little brats that we met in the street, but the
+moment you GOT me----"
+
+"Alfred!" gasped Zoie. This was really going too far.
+
+"Yes, I repeat it!" shouted Alfred, pounding the table with his fist for
+emphasis. "The moment you GOT me, you declared that all children were
+horrid little insects, and that someone ought to sprinkle bug-powder on
+them."
+
+"Oh!" protested Zoie, shocked less by Alfred's interpretation of her
+sentiments, than by the vulgarity with which he expressed them.
+
+"On another occasion," declared Alfred, now carried away by the recital
+of his long pent up wrongs, "you told me that all babies should be put
+in cages, shipped West, and kept in pens until they got to be of an
+interesting age. 'Interesting age!'" he repeated with a sneer, "meaning
+old enough to take YOU out to luncheon, I suppose."
+
+"I never said any such thing," objected Zoie.
+
+"Well, that was the idea," insisted Alfred. "I haven't your glib way of
+expressing myself."
+
+"You manage to express yourself very well," retorted Zoie. "When
+you have anything DISAGREEABLE to say. As for babies," she continued
+tentatively, "I think they are all very well in their PLACE, but they
+were NEVER meant for an APARTMENT."
+
+"I offered you a house in the country," shouted Alfred.
+
+"The country!" echoed Zoie. "How could I live in the country, with
+people being murdered in their beds every night? Read the papers."
+
+"Always an excuse," sighed Alfred resignedly. "There always HAS been
+and there always would be if I'd stay to listen. Well, for once," he
+declared, "I'm glad that we have no children. If we had, I might feel
+some obligation to keep up this farce of a marriage. As it is," he
+continued, "YOU are free and _I_ am free." And with a courtly wave of
+his arm, he dismissed Zoie and the entire subject, and again he started
+in pursuit of Mary and his hat.
+
+"If it's your freedom you wish," pouted Zoie with an abused air, "you
+might have said so in the first place."
+
+Alfred stopped in sheer amazement at the cleverness with which the
+little minx turned his every statement against him.
+
+"It's not very manly of you," she continued, "to abuse me just because
+you've found someone whom you like better."
+
+"That's not true," protested Alfred hotly, "and you know it's not true."
+Little did he suspect the trap into which she was leading him.
+
+"Then you DON'T love anybody more than you do me?" she cried eagerly,
+and she gazed up at him with adoring eyes.
+
+"I didn't say any such thing," hedged Alfred.
+
+"Then you DO," she accused him.
+
+"I DON'T," he declared in self defence.
+
+With a cry of joy, she sprang into his arms, clasped her fingers tightly
+behind his neck, and rained impulsive kisses upon his unsuspecting face.
+
+For an instant, Alfred looked down at Zoie, undecided whether to
+strangle her or to return her embraces. As usual, his self-respect won
+the day for him and, with a determined effort, he lifted her high in the
+air, so that she lost her tenacious hold of him, and sat her down with
+a thud in the very same chair in which she had lately dropped his hat.
+Having acted with this admirable resolution, he strode majestically
+toward the inner hall, but before he could reach it, Zoie was again
+on her feet, in a last vain effort to conciliate him. Turning, Alfred
+caught sight of his poor battered hat. This was the final spur to
+action. Snatching it up with one hand, and throwing his latchkey on the
+table with the other, he made determinedly for the outer door.
+
+Screaming hysterically, Zoie caught him just as he reached the threshold
+and threw the whole weight of her body upon him.
+
+"Alfred," she pleaded, "if you REALLY love me, you CAN'T leave me like
+this!" Her emotion was now genuine. He looked down at her gravely--then
+into the future.
+
+"There are other things more important than what YOU call 'love,'" he
+said, very solemnly.
+
+"There is such a thing as a soul, if you only knew it. And you have hurt
+mine through and through."
+
+"But how, Alfred, how?" asked the small person, and there was a frown of
+genuine perplexity on her tiny puckered brow. "What have I REALLY DONE,"
+She stroked his hand fondly; her baby eyes searched his face.
+
+"It isn't so much what people DO to us that counts," answered Alfred in
+a proud hurt voice. "It's how much they DISAPPOINT us in what they do. I
+expected better of YOU," he said sadly.
+
+"I'll DO better," coaxed Zoie, "if you'll only give me a chance."
+
+He was half inclined to believe her.
+
+"Now, Allie," she pleaded, perceiving that his resentment was dying and
+resolved to, at last, adopt a straight course, "if you'll only listen,
+I'll tell you the REAL TRUTH."
+
+Unprepared for the electrical effect of her remark, Zoie found herself
+staggering to keep her feet. She gazed at Alfred in amazement. His arms
+were lifted to Heaven, his breath was coming fast.
+
+"'The REAL TRUTH!'" he gasped, then bringing his crushed hat down on his
+forehead with a resounding whack, he rushed from her sight.
+
+The clang of the closing elevator door brought Zoie to a realisation of
+what had actually happened. Determined that Alfred should not escape
+her she rushed to the hall door and called to him wildly. There was no
+answer. Running back to the room, she threw open the window and threw
+herself half out of it. She was just in time to see Alfred climb into
+a passing taxi. "Alfred!" she cried. Then automatically she flew to the
+'phone. "Give me 4302 Main," she called and she tried to force back her
+tears. "Is this Hardy & Company?" she asked.
+
+"Well, this is Mrs. Hardy," she explained.
+
+"I wish you'd ring me up the moment my husband comes in." There was a
+slight pause, then she clutched the receiver harder. "Not COMING back?"
+she gasped. "Gone!--to Detroit?" A short moan escaped her lips. She
+let the receiver fall back on the hook and her head went forward on her
+outstretched arms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+When Jimmy came home to luncheon that day, Aggie succeeded in getting a
+general idea of the state of affairs in the Hardy household. Of course
+Jimmy didn't tell the whole truth. Oh, no--far from it. In fact, he
+appeared to be aggravatingly ignorant as to the exact cause of the Hardy
+upheaval. Of ONE thing, however, he was certain. "Alfred was going to
+quit Chicago and leave Zoie to her own devices."
+
+"Jimmy!" cried Aggie. "How awful!" and before Jimmy was fairly out of
+the front gate, she had seized her hat and gloves and rushed to the
+rescue of her friend.
+
+Not surprised at finding Zoie in a state of collapse, Aggie opened her
+arms sympathetically to receive the weeping confidences that she was
+sure would soon come.
+
+"Zoie dear," she said as the fragile mite rocked to and fro. "What is
+it?" She pressed the soft ringlets from the girl's throbbing forehead.
+
+"It's Alfred," sobbed Zoie. "He's gone!"
+
+"Yes, I know," answered Aggie tenderly. "Isn't it awful? Jimmy just told
+me."
+
+"Jimmy told you WHAT?" questioned Zoie, and she lifted her head and
+regarded Aggie with sudden uneasiness. Her friend's answer raised Jimmy
+considerably in Zoie's esteem. Apparently he had not breathed a word
+about the luncheon.
+
+"Why, Jimmy told me," continued Aggie, "that you and Alfred had had
+another tiff, and that Alfred had gone for good."
+
+"For GOOD!" echoed Zoie and her eyes were wide with terror. "Did Alfred
+tell Jimmy that?"
+
+Aggie nodded.
+
+"Then he MEANS it!" cried Zoie, at last fully convinced of the strength
+of Alfred's resolve. "But he shan't," she declared emphatically. "I
+won't let him. I'll go after him. He has no right----" By this time she
+was running aimlessly about the room.
+
+"What did you do to him?" asked Aggie, feeling sure that Zoie was as
+usual at fault.
+
+"Nothing," answered Zoie with wide innocent eyes.
+
+"Nothing?" echoed Aggie, with little confidence in her friend's ability
+to judge impartially about so personal a matter.
+
+"Absolutely nothing," affirmed Zoie. And there was no doubting that she
+at least believed it.
+
+"What does he SAY," questioned Aggie diplomatically.
+
+"He SAYS I 'hurt his soul.' Whatever THAT is," answered Zoie, and
+her face wore an injured expression. "Isn't that a nice excuse," she
+continued, "for leaving your lawful wedded wife?" It was apparent that
+she expected Aggie to rally strongly to her defence. But at present
+Aggie was bent upon getting facts.
+
+"HOW did you hurt him?" she persisted.
+
+"I ate lunch," said Zoie with the face of a cherub.
+
+"With whom?" questioned Aggie slyly. She was beginning to scent the
+probable origin of the misunderstanding.
+
+"It's of no consequence," answered Zoie carelessly; "I wouldn't have
+wiped my feet on the man." By this time she had entirely forgotten
+Aggie's proprietorship in the source of her trouble.
+
+"But who WAS the man?" urged Aggie, and in her mind, she had already
+condemned him as a low, unprincipled creature.
+
+"What does that matter?" asked Zoie impatiently. "It's ANY man with
+Alfred--you know that--ANY man!"
+
+Aggie sank in a chair and looked at her friend in despair. "Why DO you
+do these things," she said wearily, "when you know how Alfred feels
+about them?"
+
+"You talk as though I did nothing else," answered Zoie with an aggrieved
+tone. "It's the first time since I've been married that I've ever eaten
+lunch with any man but Alfred. I thought you'd have a little sympathy
+with me," she whimpered, "instead of putting me on the gridiron like
+everyone else does."
+
+"Everyone else?" questioned Aggie, with recurring suspicion.
+
+"I mean Alfred," explained Zoie. "HE'S 'everyone else' to me." And then
+with a sudden abandonment of grief, she threw herself prostrate at her
+friend's knees. "Oh, Aggie, what can I do?" she cried.
+
+But Aggie was not satisfied with Zoie's fragmentary account of her
+latest escapade. "Is that the only thing that Alfred has against you?"
+she asked.
+
+"That's the LATEST," sniffled Zoie, in a heap at Aggie's feet. And then
+she continued in a much aggrieved tone, "You know he's ALWAYS rowing
+because we haven't as many babies as the cook has cats."
+
+"Well, why don't you get him a baby?" asked the practical, far-seeing
+Aggie.
+
+"It's too late NOW," moaned Zoie.
+
+"Not at all," reassured Aggie. "It's the very thing that would bring him
+back."
+
+"How COULD I get one?" questioned Zoie, and she looked up at Aggie with
+round astonished eyes.
+
+"Adopt it," answered Aggie decisively.
+
+Zoie regarded her friend with mingled disgust and disappointment. "No,"
+she said with a sigh and a shake of her head, "that wouldn't do any
+good. Alfred's so fussy. He always wants his OWN things around."
+
+"He needn't know," declared Aggie boldly.
+
+"What do you mean?" whispered Zoie.
+
+Drawing herself up with an air of great importance, and regarding the
+wondering young person at her knee with smiling condescension, Aggie
+prepared to make a most interesting disclosure.
+
+"There was a long article in the paper only this morning," she told
+Zoie, "saying that three thousand husbands in this VERY CITY are
+fondling babies not their own."
+
+Zoie turned her small head to one side, the better to study Aggie's
+face. It was apparent to the latter that she must be much more explicit.
+
+"Babies adopted in their absence," explained Aggie, "while they were on
+trips around the country."
+
+A dangerous light began to glitter in Zoie's eyes.
+
+"Aggie!" she cried, bringing her small hands together excitedly, "do you
+think I COULD?"
+
+"Why not?" asked Aggie, with a very superior air. Zoie's enthusiasm was
+increasing her friend's admiration of her own scheme. "This same paper
+tells of a woman who adopted three sons while her husband was in Europe,
+and he thinks each one of them is his."
+
+"Where can we get some?" cried Zoie, now thoroughly enamoured of the
+idea.
+
+"You can always get TONS of them at the Children's Home," answered Aggie
+confidently.
+
+"I can't endure babies," declared Zoie, "but I'd do ANYTHING to get
+Alfred back. Can we get one TO-DAY?" she asked.
+
+Aggie looked at her small friend with positive pity. "You don't WANT one
+TO-DAY," she explained.
+
+Zoie rolled her large eyes inquiringly.
+
+"If you were to get one to-day," continued Aggie, "Alfred would know it
+wasn't yours, wouldn't he?"
+
+A light of understanding began to show on Zoie's small features.
+
+"There was none when he left this morning," added Aggie.
+
+"That's true," acquiesced Zoie.
+
+"You must wait awhile," counselled Aggie, "and then get a perfectly new
+one."
+
+But Zoie had never been taught to wait.
+
+"Now Aggie----" she began.
+
+Aggie continued without heeding her.
+
+"After a few months," she explained, "when Alfred's temper has had time
+to cool, we'll get Jimmy to send him a wire that he has an heir."
+
+"A few months!" exclaimed Zoie, as though Aggie had suggested an
+eternity. "I've never been away from Alfred that long in all my life."
+
+Aggie was visibly annoyed. "Well, of course," she said coldly, as she
+rose to go, "if you can get Alfred back WITHOUT that----"
+
+"But I can't!" cried Zoie, and she clung to her friend as to her last
+remaining hope.
+
+"Then," answered Aggie, somewhat mollified by Zoie's complete
+submission. "THIS is the only way. The President of the Children's Home
+is a great friend of Jimmy's," she said proudly.
+
+It was at this point that Zoie made her first practical suggestion.
+"Then we'll LET JIMMY GET IT," she declared.
+
+"Of course," agreed Aggie enthusiastically, as though they would be
+according the poor soul a rare privilege. "Jimmy gives a hundred
+dollars to the Home every Christmas,"--additional proof why he should be
+selected for this very important office.
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Zoie with shocked surprise. "If Alfred were to
+give a hundred dollars to a Baby's Home, I should suspect him."
+
+"Don't be silly!" snapped Aggie curtly. In spite of her firm faith in
+Jimmy's innocence, she was undoubtedly annoyed by Zoie's unpleasant
+suggestion.
+
+There was an instant's pause, then putting disagreeable thoughts from
+her mind, Aggie turned to Zoie with renewed enthusiasm.
+
+"We must get down to business," she said, "we'll begin on the baby's
+outfit at once."
+
+"Its what?" queried Zoie.
+
+"Its clothes," explained Aggie.
+
+"Oh, what fun!" exclaimed Zoie, and she clapped her hands merrily like a
+very small child. A moment later she stopped with sudden misgiving.
+
+"But, Aggie," she said fearfully, "suppose Alfred shouldn't come back
+after I've got the baby? I'd be a widow with a child."
+
+"Oh, he's sure to come back!" answered Aggie, with a confident air.
+"He'll take the first train, home."
+
+"I believe he will," assented Zoie joyfully. All her clouds were again
+dispelled. "Aggie," she cried impulsively, "you are a darling. You have
+just saved my life." And she clasped her arms so tightly around Aggie's
+neck that her friend was in danger of being suffocated.
+
+Releasing herself Aggie continued with a ruffled collar and raised
+vanity: "You can write him an insinuating letter now and then, just to
+lead up to the good news gradually."
+
+Zoie tipped her small head to one side and studied her friend
+thoughtfully. "Do you know, Aggie," she said, with frank admiration, "I
+believe you are a better liar than I am."
+
+"I'm NOT a liar," objected Aggie vehemently, "at least, not often," she
+corrected. "I've never lied to Jimmy in all my life." She drew herself
+up with conscious pride. "And Jimmy has NEVER LIED TO ME."
+
+"Isn't that nice," sniffed Zoie and she pretended to be searching for
+her pocket-handkerchief.
+
+But Aggie did not see her. She was glancing at the clock.
+
+"I must go now," she said. And she started toward the door.
+
+"But, Aggie----" protested Zoie, unwilling to be left alone.
+
+"I'll run in again at tea time," promised Aggie.
+
+"I don't mind the DAYS," whined Zoie, "but when NIGHT comes I just MUST
+have somebody's arms around me."
+
+"Zoie!" gasped Aggie, both shocked and alarmed.
+
+"I can't help it," confessed Zoie; "the moment it gets dark I'm just
+scared stiff."
+
+"That's no way for a MOTHER to talk," reproved Aggie.
+
+"A mother!" exclaimed Zoie, horrified at the sudden realisation that
+this awful appellation would undoubtedly pursue her for the rest of
+her life. "Oh, don't call me that," she pleaded. "You make me feel a
+thousand years old."
+
+"Nonsense," laughed Aggie, and before Zoie could again detain her she
+was out of the room.
+
+When the outside door had closed behind her friend, Zoie gazed about
+the room disconsolately, but her depression was short-lived. Remembering
+Aggie's permission about the letter, she ran quickly to the writing
+table, curled her small self up on one foot, placed a brand new pen in
+the holder, then drew a sheet of paper toward her and, with shoulders
+hunched high and her face close to the paper after the manner of a
+child, she began to pen the first of a series of veiled communications
+that were ultimately to fill her young husband with amazement.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+When Jimmy reached his office after his unforeseen call upon Zoie, his
+subsequent encounter with Alfred, and his enforced luncheon at home
+with Aggie, he found his mail, his 'phone calls, and his neglected
+appointments in a state of hopeless congestion, and try as he would, he
+could not concentrate upon their disentanglement. Growing more and more
+furious with the long legged secretary who stood at the corner of his
+desk, looking down upon him expectantly, and waiting for his tardy
+instructions, Jimmy rose and looked out of the window. He could feel
+Andrew's reproachful eyes following him.
+
+"Shall Miss Perkins take your letters now?" asked Andrew, and he
+wondered how late the office staff would be kept to-night to make up for
+the time that was now being wasted.
+
+Coming after repeated wounds from his nearest and dearest, Andrew's
+implied reproach was too much for Jimmy's overwrought nerves. "Get out!"
+he answered unceremoniously. And when Andrew could assure himself that
+he had heard aright, he stalked out of the door with his head high in
+the air.
+
+Jimmy looked after his departing secretary with positive hatred. It was
+apparent to him that the whole world was against him. He had been
+too easy he decided. His family, friends, and business associates
+had undoubtedly lost all respect for him. From this day forth he was
+determined to show himself to be a man of strong mettle.
+
+Having made this important decision and having convinced himself that he
+was about to start on a new life, Jimmy strode to the door of the office
+and, without disturbing the injured Andrew, he called sharply to Miss
+Perkins to come at once and take his letters.
+
+Poor Jimmy! Again he tried in vain to concentrate upon the details of
+the "cut-glass" industry. Invariably his mind would wander back to the
+unexpected incidents of the morning. Stopping suddenly in the middle of
+a letter to a competing firm, he began pacing hurriedly up and down the
+room.
+
+Had she not feared that her chief might misconstrue any suggestion from
+her as an act of impertinence, Miss Perkins, having learned all the
+company's cut-glass quotations by rote, could easily have supplied the
+remainder of the letter. As it was, she waited impatiently, tapping the
+corner of the desk with her idle pencil. Jimmy turned at the sound, and
+glanced at the pencil with unmistakable disapproval. Miss Perkins waited
+in silence. After one or two more uneasy laps about the room, Jimmy went
+to his 'phone and called his house number.
+
+"It's undoubtedly domestic trouble," decided Miss Perkins, and she
+wondered whether it would be delicate of her, under the circumstances,
+to remain in the room.
+
+From her employer's conversation at the 'phone, it was clear to Miss
+Perkins that Mrs. Jinks was spending the afternoon with Mrs Hardy,
+but why this should have so annoyed MR. Jinks was a question that Miss
+Perkins found it difficult to answer. Was it possible that Mr. Jinks's
+present state of unrest could be traced to the door of the beautiful
+young wife of his friend? "Oh dear," thought Miss Perkins, "how
+scandalous!"
+
+"That will do," commanded Jimmy, interrupting Miss Perkins's interesting
+speculations, and he nodded toward the door.
+
+"But----" stammered Miss Perkins, as she glanced at the unfinished
+letters.
+
+"I'll call you when I need you," answered Jimmy gruffly. Miss Perkins
+left the room in high dudgeon.
+
+"I'LL show them," said Jimmy to himself, determined to carry out his
+recent resolve to be firm.
+
+Then his mind wend back to his domestic troubles. "Suppose, that Zoie,
+after imposing secrecy upon him, should change that thing called her
+'mind' and confide in Aggie about the luncheon?" Jimmy was positively
+pale. He decided to telephone to Zoie's house and find out how affairs
+were progressing. At the 'phone he hesitated. "If Aggie HAS found out
+about the luncheon," he argued, "my 'phoning to Zoie's will increase her
+suspicions. If Zoie has told her nothing, she'll wonder why I'm 'phoning
+to Zoie's house. There's only one thing to do," he decided. "I must wait
+and say nothing. I can tell from Aggie's face when I meet her at dinner
+whether Zoie has betrayed me."
+
+Having arrived at this conclusion, Jimmy resolved to get home as early
+as possible, and again Miss Perkins was called to his aid.
+
+The flurry with which Jimmy despatched the day's remaining business
+confirmed both Miss Perkins and Andrew in their previous opinion that
+"the boss" had suddenly "gone off his head." And when he at last left
+the office and banged the door behind him there was a general sigh of
+relief from his usually tranquil staff.
+
+Instead of walking, as was his custom, Jimmy took a taxi to his home but
+alas, to his surprise he found no wife.
+
+"Did Mrs. Jinks leave any word?" he inquired from the butler.
+
+"None at all," answered that unperturbed creature; and Jimmy felt sure
+that the attitude of his office antagonists had communicated itself to
+his household servants.
+
+When Jimmy's anxious ear at last caught the rustle of a woman's dress in
+the hallway, his dinner had been waiting half an hour, and he had
+worked himself into a state of fierce antagonism toward everything and
+everybody.
+
+At the sound of Aggie's voice however, his heart began to pound with
+fear. "Had she found him out for the weak miserable deceiver that he
+was? Would she tell him that they were going to separate forever?"
+
+Aggie's first words were reassuring. "Awfully sorry to be so late,
+dear," she said.
+
+Jimmy felt her kiss upon his chubby cheek and her dear arms about his
+neck. He decided forthwith to tell her everything, and never, never
+again to run the risk of deceiving her; but before he could open his
+lips, she continued gaily:
+
+"I've brought Zoie home with me, dear. There's no sense in her eating
+all alone, and she's going to have ALL her dinners with us." Jimmy
+groaned. "After dinner," continued Aggie, "you and I can take her to
+the theatre and all those places and keep her cheered until Alfred comes
+home."
+
+"Home?" repeated Jimmy in alarm. Was it possible that Alfred had already
+relented?
+
+"Oh, he doesn't know it yet," explained Aggie, "but he's coming. We'll
+tell you all about it at dinner." And they did.
+
+While waiting for Aggie, Jimmy had thought himself hungry, but once
+the two women had laid before him their "nefarious baby-snatching
+scheme"--food lost its savour for him, and one course after another was
+taken away from him untouched.
+
+Each time that Jimmy ventured a mild objection to his part in the plan,
+as scheduled by them, he met the threatening eye of Zoie; and by the
+time that the three left the table he was so harassed and confused by
+the chatter of the two excited women, that he was not only reconciled
+but eager to enter into any scheme that might bring Alfred back, and
+free him of the enforced companionship of Alfred's nerve-racking wife.
+True, he reflected, it was possible that Alfred, on his return, might
+discover him to be the culprit who lunched with Zoie and might carry out
+his murderous threat; but even such a fate was certainly preferable to
+interminable evenings spent under the same roof with Zoie.
+
+"All YOU need do, Jimmy," explained Aggie sweetly, when the three of
+them were comfortably settled in the library, "is to see your friend
+the Superintendent of the Babies' Home, and tell him just what kind of a
+baby we shall need, and when we shall need it."
+
+"Can't we see it ourselves?" chimed in Zoie.
+
+"Oh yes, indeed," said Aggie confidently, and she turned to Jimmy with
+a matter-of-fact tone. "You'd better tell the Superintendent to have
+several for us to look at when the time arrives."
+
+"Yes, that's better," agreed Zoie.
+
+As for Jimmy, he had long ceased to make any audible comment, but
+internally he was saying to himself: "man of strong mettle, indeed!"
+
+"We'll attend to all the clothes for the child," said Aggie generously
+to Jimmy.
+
+"I want everything to be hand-made," exclaimed Zoie enthusiastically.
+
+"We can make a great many of the things ourselves, evenings," said
+Aggie, "while we sit here and talk to Jimmy."
+
+"I thought we were going OUT evenings!" objected Zoie.
+
+Jimmy rolled his eyes toward her like a dumb beast of burden.
+
+"MOST evenings," assented Aggie. "And then toward the last, you know,
+Zoie----" she hesitated to explain further, for Jimmy was already
+becoming visibly embarrassed.
+
+"Oh, yes, that's true," blushed Zoie.
+
+There was an awkward pause, then Aggie turned again toward Jimmy, who
+was pretending to rebuild the fire. "Oh yes, one more thing," she said.
+"When everything is quite ready for Alfred's return, we'll allow you,
+Jimmy dear, to wire him the good news."
+
+"Thanks, so much," said Jimmy.
+
+"I wish it were time to wire now," said Zoie pensively, and in his mind,
+Jimmy fervently agreed with that sentiment.
+
+"The next few months will slip by before you know it," declared Aggie
+cheerfully. "And by the way, Zoie," she added, "why should you go back
+to your lonesome flat to-night?"
+
+Zoie began to feel for her pocket handkerchief--Jimmy sat up to receive
+the next blow. "Stay here with us," suggested Aggie. "We'll be so glad
+to have you." She included Jimmy in her glance. "Won't we, dear?" she
+asked.
+
+When the two girls went upstairs arm in arm that night, Jimmy remained
+in his chair by the fire, too exhausted to even prepare for bed. "A man
+of mettle!" he said again to himself.
+
+This had certainly been the longest day of his life.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+WHEN Aggie predicted that the few months of waiting would pass quickly
+for Zoie, she was quite correct. They passed quickly for Aggie as well;
+but how about Jimmy? When he afterward recalled this interval in his
+life, it was always associated with long strands of lace winding around
+the legs of the library chairs, white things lying about in all the
+places where he had once enjoyed sitting or lying, late dinners, lonely
+breakfasts, and a sense of isolation from Aggie.
+
+One evening when he had waited until he was out of all patience with
+Aggie, he was told by his late and apologetical spouse that she had been
+helping Zoie to redecorate her bedroom to fit the coming occasion.
+
+"It is all done in pink and white," explained Aggie, and then followed
+detailed accounts of the exquisite bed linens, the soft lovely hangings,
+and even the entire relighting of the room.
+
+"Why pink?" asked Jimmy, objecting to any scheme of Zoie's on general
+principles.
+
+"It's Alfred's favourite colour," explained Aggie. "Besides, it's so
+becoming," she added.
+
+Jimmy could not help feeling that this lure to Alfred's senses was
+absolutely indecent, and he said so.
+
+"Upon my word," answered Aggie, quite affronted, "you are getting as
+unreasonable as Alfred himself." Then as Jimmy prepared to sulk, she
+added coaxingly, "I was GOING to tell you about Zoie's lovely new
+negligee, and about the dear little crib that just matches it.
+Everything is going to be in harmony."
+
+"With Zoie in the house?" asked Jimmy sceptically.
+
+"I can't think why you've taken such a dislike to that helpless child,"
+said Aggie.
+
+A few days later, while in the midst of his morning's mail, Jimmy was
+informed that it was now time for him to conduct Aggie and Zoie to the
+Babies' Home to select the last, but most important, detail for
+their coming campaign. According to instructions, Jimmy had been in
+communication with the amused Superintendent of the Home, and he now led
+the two women forth with the proud consciousness that he, at least, had
+attended properly to his part of the business. By the time they reached
+the Children's Home, several babies were on view for their critical
+inspection.
+
+Zoie stared into the various cribs containing the wee, red mites with
+puckered faces. "Oh dear!" she exclaimed, "haven't you any white ones?"
+
+"These are supposed to be white," said the Superintendent, with an
+indulgent smile, "the black ones are on the other side of the room."
+
+"Black ones!" cried Zoie in horror, and she faced about quickly as
+though expecting an attack from their direction.
+
+"Which particular one of these would you recommend?" asked the practical
+Aggie of the Superintendent as she surveyed the first lot.
+
+"Well, it's largely a matter of taste, ma'am," he answered. "This seems
+a healthy little chap," he added, and seizing the long white clothes
+of the nearest infant, he drew him across his arm and held him out for
+Aggie's inspection.
+
+"Let's see," cried Zoie, and she stood on tiptoe to peep over the
+Superintendent's elbow.
+
+As for Jimmy, he stood gloomily apart. This was an ordeal for which
+he had long been preparing himself, and he was resolved to accept it
+philosophically.
+
+"I don't think much of that one," snipped Zoie. And in spite of himself.
+Jimmy felt his temper rising.
+
+Aggie turned to him with a smile. "Which one do YOU prefer, Jimmy?"
+
+"It's not MY affair," answered Jimmy curtly.
+
+"Since when?" asked Zoie.
+
+Aggie perceived trouble brewing, and she turned to pacify Jimmy. "Which
+one do you think your FRIEND ALFRED would like?" she persisted.
+
+"If I were in his place----" began Jimmy hotly.
+
+"Oh, but you AREN'T," interrupted Zoie; then she turned to the
+Superintendent. "What makes some of them so much larger than others?"
+she asked, glancing at the babies he had CALLED "white."
+
+"Well, you see they're of different ages," explained the Superintendent
+indulgently.
+
+"We told Mr. Jinks they must all be of the same age," said Zoie with a
+reproachful look at Jimmy.
+
+"What age is that?" asked the Superintendent.
+
+"I should say a week old," said Aggie.
+
+"Then this is the one for you," decided the Superintendent, designating
+his first choice.
+
+"I think we'd better take the Superintendent's advice," said Aggie
+complacently.
+
+Zoie looked around the room with a dissatisfied air. Was it possible
+that all babies were as homely as these?
+
+"You know, Zoie," explained Aggie, divining her thought, "they get
+better looking as they grow older."
+
+"They couldn't look worse!" was Zoie's disgusted comment.
+
+"Fetch it home, Jimmy," said Aggie.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Jimmy, who had considered his mission completed.
+
+"You don't expect US to carry it, do you?" asked Aggie in a hurt voice.
+
+The Superintendent settled the difficulty temporarily by informing them
+that the baby could not possibly leave the home until the mother had
+signed the necessary papers for its release.
+
+"I thought all those details had been attended to," said Aggie, and
+again the two women surveyed Jimmy with grieved disappointment.
+
+"I'll get the mother's signature the first thing in the morning,"
+volunteered the Superintendent.
+
+"Very well," said Zoie, "and in the meantime, I'll send some new clothes
+for it," and with a lofty farewell to the Superintendent, she and Aggie
+followed Jimmy down stairs to the taxi.
+
+"Now," said Zoie, when they were properly seated, "let's stop at a
+telegraph office and let Jimmy send a wire to Alfred."
+
+"Wait until we get the baby," cautioned Aggie.
+
+"We'll have it the first thing in the morning," argued Zoie.
+
+"Jimmy can send him a night-letter," compromised Aggie, "that way Alfred
+won't get the news until morning."
+
+A few minutes later, the taxi stopped in front of Jimmy's office and
+with a sigh of thanksgiving he hurried upstairs to his unanswered mail.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+When Alfred Hardy found himself on the train bound for Detroit, he tried
+to assure himself that he had done the right thing in breaking away
+from an association that had kept him for months in a constant state of
+ferment. His business must come first, he decided. Having settled this
+point to his temporary satisfaction, he opened his afternoon paper
+and leaned back in his seat, meaning to divert his mind from personal
+matters, by learning what was going on in the world at large.
+
+No sooner had his eye scanned the first headline than he was startled by
+a boisterous greeting from a fellow traveller, who was just passing down
+the aisle.
+
+"Hello, Hardy!" cried his well meaning acquaintance. "Where are you
+bound for?"
+
+"Detroit," answered Alfred, annoyed by the sudden interruption.
+
+"Where's the missus?" asked the intruder.
+
+"Chicago," was Alfred's short reply.
+
+"THAT'S a funny thing," declared the convivial spirit, not guessing how
+funny it really was. "You know," he continued, so loud that everyone in
+the vicinity could not fail to hear him, "the last time I met you two,
+you were on your honeymoon--on THIS VERY TRAIN," and with that the
+fellow sat himself down, uninvited, by Alfred's side and started on a
+long list of compliments about "the fine little girl" who had in his
+opinion done Alfred a great favour when she consented to tie herself to
+a "dull, money-grubbing chap" like him.
+
+"So," thought Alfred, "this is the way the world sees us." And he began
+to frame inaudible but desperate defences of himself. Again he told
+himself that he was right; but his friend's thoughtless words had
+planted an uncomfortable doubt in his mind, and when he left the
+train to drive to his hotel, he was thinking very little about the new
+business relations upon which he was entering in Detroit, and very much
+about the domestic relations which he had just severed in Chicago.
+
+Had he been merely a "dull money-grubber"? Had he left his wife too much
+alone? Was she not a mere child when he married her? Could he not, with
+more consideration, have made of her a more understanding companion?
+These were questions that were still unanswered in his mind when he
+arrived at one of Detroit's most enterprising hotels.
+
+But later, having telephoned to his office and found that several
+matters of importance were awaiting his decision, he forced himself to
+enter immediately upon his business obligations.
+
+As might have been expected, Alfred soon won the respect and serious
+consideration of most of his new business associates, and this in a
+measure so mollified his hurt pride, that upon rare occasions he was
+affable enough to accept the hospitality of their homes. But each
+excursion that he made into the social life of these new friends, only
+served to remind him of the unsettled state of his domestic affairs.
+
+"How your wife must miss you!" his hostess would remark before they were
+fairly seated at table.
+
+"They tell me she is so pretty," his vis-a-vis would exclaim.
+
+"When is she going to join you?" the lady on his left would ask.
+
+Then his host would laugh and tell the "dear ladies" that in HIS
+opinion, Alfred was afraid to bring his wife to Detroit, lest he might
+lose her to a handsomer man.
+
+Alfred could never quite understand why remarks such as this annoyed him
+almost to the point of declaring the whole truth. His LEAVING Zoie, and
+his "losing" her, as these would-be comedians expressed it, were
+two separate and distinct things in his mind, and he felt an almost
+irresistible desire to make this plain to all concerned.
+
+But no sooner did he open his lips to do so, than a picture of Zoie in
+all her child-like pleading loveliness, arose to dissuade him. He could
+imagine his dinner companions all pretending to sympathise with him,
+while they flayed poor Zoie alive. She would never have another chance
+to be known as a respectable woman, and compared to most women of
+his acquaintance, she WAS a respectable woman. True, according to
+old-fashioned standards, she had been indiscreet, but apparently the
+present day woman had a standard of her own. Alfred found his eye
+wandering round the table surveying the wives of his friends. Was there
+one of them, he wondered, who had never fibbed to her husband, or eaten
+a simple luncheon unchaperoned by him? Of one thing he was certain,
+there was not one of them so attractive as Zoie. Might she not be
+forgiven, to some extent, if her physical charms had made her a source
+of dangerous temptation to unprincipled scoundrels like the one with
+whom she had no doubt lunched? Then, too, had she not offered at the
+moment of his departure to tell him the "real truth"? Might this not
+have been the one occasion upon which she would have done so? "She seemed
+so sincere," he ruminated, "so truly penitent." Then again, how generous
+it was of her to persist in writing to him with never an answer from
+him to encourage her. If she cared for him so little as he had once
+imagined, why should she wish to keep up even a presence of fondness?
+Her letters indicated an undying devotion.
+
+These were some of the thoughts that were going through Alfred's mind
+just three months after his departure from Chicago, and all the while
+his hostess was mentally dubbing him a "dull person."
+
+"What an abstracted man he is!" she said before he was down the front
+steps.
+
+"Is he really so clever in business?" a woman friend inquired.
+
+"It's hard to believe, isn't it?" commented a third, and his host
+apologised for the absent Alfred by saying that he was no doubt worried
+about a particular business decision that had to be made the next
+morning.
+
+But it was not the responsibility of this business decision that was
+knotting Alfred's brow, as he walked hurriedly toward the hotel, where
+he had told his office boy to leave the last mail. This had been
+the longest interval that Zoie had ever let slip without writing. He
+recalled that her last letters had hinted at a "slight indisposition."
+In fact, she had even mentioned "seeing the doctor"--"Good Heavens!" he
+thought, "Suppose she were really ill? Who would look after her?"
+
+When Alfred reached his rooms, the boy had not yet arrived. He crossed
+to the library table and took from the drawer all the letters thus far
+received from Zoie. He read them consecutively. "How could he have been
+so stupid as not to have realised sooner that her illness--whatever it
+was--had been gradually creeping upon her from the very first day of his
+departure?"
+
+The boy arrived with the mail. It contained no letter from Zoie and
+Alfred went to bed with an uneasy mind.
+
+The next morning he was down at his office early, still no letter from
+Zoie.
+
+Refusing his partner's invitation to lunch, Alfred sat alone in his
+office, glad to be rid of intrusive eyes. "He would write to Jimmy
+Jinks," he decided, "and find out whether Zoie were in any immediate
+danger."
+
+Not willing to await the return of his stenographer, or to acquaint her
+with his personal affairs, Alfred drew pen and paper toward him and sat
+helplessly before it. How could he inquire about Zoie without appearing
+to invite a reconciliation with her? While he was trying to answer
+this vexed question, a sharp knock came at the door. He turned to see a
+uniformed messenger holding a telegram toward him. Intuitively he felt
+that it contained some word about Zoie. His hand trembled so that he
+could scarcely sign for the message before opening it.
+
+A moment later the messenger boy was startled out of his lethargy by a
+succession of contradictory exclamations.
+
+"No!" cried Alfred incredulously as he gazed in ecstasy at the telegram.
+"Yes!" he shouted, excitedly, as he rose from his chair. "Where's a
+time table?" he asked the astonished boy, and he began rummaging rapidly
+through the drawers of his desk.
+
+"Any answer?" inquired the messenger.
+
+"Take this," said Alfred. And he thrust a bill into the small boy's
+hand.
+
+"Yes, sir," answered the boy and disappeared quickly, lest this madman
+might reconsider his generosity.
+
+Alfred threw down the time table in despair. "No train for Chicago until
+night," he cried; but his mind was working fast. The next moment he was
+at the telephone, asking for the Division Superintendent of the railway
+line.
+
+When Alfred's partner returned from luncheon he found a curt note
+informing him that Alfred had left on a special for Chicago and would
+"write."
+
+"I'll bet it's his wife!" said the partner.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+During the evening of the same day that Alfred was enjoying such
+pleasurable emotions, Zoie and Aggie were closeted in the pretty pink
+and white bedroom that the latter had tried to describe to Jimmy. On
+a rose-coloured couch in front of the fire sat Aggie threading ribbons
+through various bits of soft white linen, and in front of her, at the
+foot of a rose-draped bed, knelt Zoie. She was trying the effect of
+a large pink bow against the lace flounce of an empty but inviting
+bassinette.
+
+"How's that?" she called to Aggie, as she turned her head to one side
+and surveyed the result of her experiment with a critical eye.
+
+Aggie shot a grudging glance at the bassinette. "I wish you wouldn't
+bother me every moment," she said. "I'll never get all these things
+finished."
+
+Apparently Zoie decided that the bow was properly placed, for she
+applied herself to sewing it fast to the lining. In her excitement she
+gave the thread a vicious pull. "Oh, dear, oh dear, my thread is always
+breaking!" she sighed in vexation.
+
+"You're excited," said Aggie.
+
+"Wouldn't YOU be excited," questioned Zoie'"if you were expecting a baby
+and a husband in the morning?"
+
+"I suppose I should," admitted Aggie.
+
+For a time the two friends sewed in silence, then Zoie looked up with
+sudden anxiety.
+
+"You're SURE Jimmy sent the wire?" she asked.
+
+"I saw him write it," answered Aggie, "while I was in the office
+to-day."
+
+"When will Alfred get it?" demanded Zoie eagerly.
+
+"Oh, he won't GET it until to-morrow morning," said Aggie. "I told you
+that to-day. It's a night message."
+
+"I wonder what he'll be doing when he gets it?" mused Zoie. There was a
+suspicion of a smile around her lips.
+
+"What will he do AFTER he gets it?" questioned Aggie.
+
+Looking up at her friend in alarm, Zoie suddenly ceased sewing. "You
+don't mean he won't come?" she gasped.
+
+"Of course I don't," answered Aggie. "He's only HUMAN if he is a
+husband."
+
+There was a sceptical expression around Zoie's mouth, but she did not
+pursue the subject. "How do you suppose that red baby will ever look in
+this pink basket?" she asked. And then with a regretful little sigh, she
+declared that she wished she'd "used blue."
+
+"I didn't think the baby that we chose was so horribly red," said Aggie.
+
+"Red!" cried Zoie, "it's magenta." And again her thread broke. "Oh,
+darn!" she exclaimed in annoyance, and once more rethreaded her needle.
+"I couldn't look at it," she continued with a disgusted little pucker of
+her face. "I wish they had let us take it this afternoon so I could have
+got used to it before Alfred gets here."
+
+"Now don't be silly," scolded Aggie. "You know very well that the
+Superintendent can't let it leave the home until its mother signs the
+papers. It will be here the first thing in the morning. You'll have all
+day to get used to it before Alfred gets here."
+
+"ALL DAY," echoed Zoie, and the corners of her mouth began to droop.
+"Won't Alfred be here before TO-MORROW NIGHT?"
+
+Aggie was becoming exasperated by Zoie's endless questions. "I told
+you," she explained wearily, "that the wire won't be delivered until
+to-morrow morning, it will take Alfred eight hours to get here, and
+there may not be a train just that minute."
+
+"Eight long hours," sighed Zoie dismally. And Aggie looked at her
+reproachfully, forgetting that it is always the last hour that
+is hardest to bear. Zoie resumed her sewing resignedly. Aggie was
+meditating whether she should read her young friend a lecture on the
+value of patience, when the telephone began to ring violently.
+
+Zoie looked up from her sewing with a frown. "You answer it, will you,
+Aggie?" she said. "I can't let go this thread."
+
+"Hello," called Aggie sweetly over the 'phone; then she added in
+surprise, "Is this you, Jimmy dear?" Apparently it was; and as Zoie
+watched Aggie's face, with its increasing distress she surmised that
+Jimmy's message was anything but "dear."
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Aggie over the telephone, "that's awful!"
+
+"Isn't Alfred coming?" was the first question that burst from Zoie's
+lips.
+
+Aggie motioned to Zoie to be quiet. "TO-NIGHT!" she exclaimed.
+
+"To-night!" echoed Zoie joyfully; and without waiting for more details
+and with no thought beyond the moment, she flew to her dressing table
+and began arranging her hair, powdering her face, perfuming her lips,
+and making herself particularly alluring for the prodigal husband's
+return.
+
+Now the far-sighted Aggie was experiencing less pleasant sensations at
+the phone. "A special?" she was saying to Jimmy. "When did Alfred GET
+the message?" There was a slight pause. Then she asked irritably, "Well,
+didn't you mark it 'NIGHT message'?" From the expression on Aggie's face
+it was evident that he had not done so. "But, Jimmy," protested Aggie,
+"this is dreadful! We haven't any baby!" Then calling to him to wait a
+minute, and leaving the receiver dangling, she crossed the room to
+Zoie, who was now thoroughly engrossed in the making of a fresh toilet.
+"Zoie!" she exclaimed excitedly, "Jimmy made a mistake."
+
+"Of course he'd do THAT," answered Zoie carelessly.
+
+"But you don't understand," persisted Aggie. "They sent the 'NIGHT
+message' TO-DAY. Alfred's coming on a special. He'll be here tonight."
+
+"Thank goodness for that!" cried Zoie, and the next instant she was
+waltzing gaily about the room.
+
+"That's all very well," answered Aggie, as she followed Zoie with
+anxious eyes, "but WHERE'S YOUR BABY?"
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Zoie, and for the first time she became conscious
+of their predicament. She gazed at Aggie in consternation. "I forgot all
+about it," she said, and then asked with growing anxiety, "What can we
+DO?"
+
+"Do?" echoed Aggie, scarcely knowing herself what answer to make, "we've
+got to GET it--TO-NIGHT. That's all!"
+
+"But," protested Zoie, "how CAN we get it when the mother hasn't signed
+the papers yet?"
+
+"Jimmy will have to arrange that with the Superintendent of the Home,"
+answered Aggie with decision, and she turned toward the 'phone to
+instruct Jimmy accordingly.
+
+"Yes, that's right," assented Zoie, glad to be rid of all further
+responsibility, "we'll let Jimmy fix it."
+
+"Say, Jimmy," called Aggie excitedly, "you'll have to go straight to the
+Children's Home and get that baby just as quickly as you can. There's
+some red tape about the mother signing papers, but don't mind about
+that. Make them give it to you to-night. Hurry, Jimmy. Don't waste a
+minute."
+
+There was evidently a protest from the other end of the wire, for Aggie
+added impatiently, "Go on, Jimmy, do! You can EAT any time." And with
+that she hung up the receiver.
+
+"Its clothes," called Zoie frantically. "Tell him about the clothes. I
+sent them this evening."
+
+"Never mind about the clothes," answered Aggie. "We're lucky if we get
+the baby."
+
+"But I have to mind," persisted Zoie. "I gave all its other things to
+the laundress. I wanted them to be nice and fresh. And now the horrid
+old creature hasn't brought them back yet."
+
+"You get into your OWN things," commanded Aggie.
+
+"Where's my dressing gown?" asked Zoie, her elation revived by the
+thought of her fine raiment, and with that she flew to the foot of the
+bed and snatched up two of the prettiest negligees ever imported from
+Paris. "Which do you like better?" she asked, as she held them both
+aloft, "the pink or the blue?"
+
+"It doesn't matter," answered Aggie wearily. "Get into SOMETHING, that's
+all."
+
+"Then unhook me," commanded Zoie gaily, as she turned her back to Aggie,
+and continued to admire the two "creations" on her arm. So pleased was
+she with the picture of herself in either of the garments that she began
+humming a gay waltz and swaying to the rhythm.
+
+"Stand still," commanded Aggie, but her warning was unnecessary, for at
+that moment Zoie was transfixed by a horrible fear.
+
+"Suppose," she said in alarm, "that Jimmy can't GET the baby?"
+
+"He's GOT to get it," answered Aggie emphatically, and she undid the
+last stubborn hook of Zoie's gown and put the girl from her. "There,
+now, you're all unfastened," she said, "hurry and get dressed."
+
+"You mean undressed," laughed Zoie, as she let her pretty evening gown
+fall lightly from her shoulders and drew on her pink negligee. "Oh,
+Aggie!" she exclaimed, as she caught sight of her reflection in the
+mirror, "isn't it a love? And you know," she added. "Alfred just adores
+pink."
+
+"Silly!" answered Aggie, but in spite of herself, she was quite thrilled
+by the picture of the exquisite young creature before her. Zoie had
+certainly never looked more irresistible. "Can't you get some of that
+colour out of your cheeks," asked Aggie in despair. "You look like a
+washerwoman."
+
+"I'll put on some cold cream and powder," answered Zoie. She flew to her
+dressing table; and in a moment there was a white cloud in her immediate
+vicinity. She turned to Aggie to inquire the result. Again the 'phone
+rang. "Who's that?" she exclaimed in alarm.
+
+"I'll see," answered Aggie.
+
+"It couldn't be Alfred, could it?" asked Zoie with mingled hope and
+dread.
+
+"Of course not," answered Aggie, as she removed the receiver from the
+hook. "Alfred wouldn't 'phone, he would come right up."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Discovering that it was merely Jimmy "on the wire," Zoie's uneasiness
+abated, but Aggie's anxiety was visibly increasing.
+
+"Where ARE you?" she asked of her spouse. "The Children's Home!" she
+repeated, then followed further explanations from Jimmy which were
+apparently not satisfactory. "Oh, Jimmy!" cried his disturbed wife, "it
+can't be! That's horrible!"
+
+"What is it?" shrieked Zoie, trying to get her small ear close enough to
+the receiver to catch a bit of the obviously terrifying message.
+
+"Wait a minute," called Aggie into the 'phone. Then she turned to Zoie
+with a look of despair. "The mother's changed her mind," she explained;
+"she won't give up the baby."
+
+"Good Lord!" cried Zoie, and she sank into the nearest chair. For an
+instant the two women looked at each other with blank faces. "What can
+we DO," asked Zoie.
+
+Aggie did not answer immediately. This was indeed a serious predicament;
+but presently Zoie saw her friend's mouth becoming very resolute, and
+she surmised that Aggie had solved the problem. "We'll have to get
+ANOTHER baby, that's all," decided Aggie. "There must be OTHER babies."
+
+"Where?" asked Zoie.
+
+"There, in the Children's Home," answered Aggie with great confidence,
+and she returned to the 'phone.
+
+Zoie crossed to the bed and knelt at its foot in search of her little
+pink slippers.
+
+"Oh, Aggie," she sighed, "the others were all so red!"
+
+But Aggie did not heed her protest. "Listen, Jimmy," she called in the
+'phone, "can't you get another baby?" There was a pause, then Aggie
+commanded hotly, "Well, GET in the business!" Another pause and then
+Aggie continued very firmly, "Tell the Superintendent that we JUST MUST
+have one."
+
+Zoie stopped in the act of putting on her second slipper and called a
+reminder to Aggie. "Tell him to get a HE one," she said, "Alfred wants a
+boy."
+
+"Take what you can get!" answered Aggie impatiently, and again she gave
+her attention to the 'phone. "What!" she cried, with growing despair,
+and Zoie waited to hear what had gone wrong now. "Nothing under three
+months," explained Aggie.
+
+"Won't that do?" asked Zoie innocently.
+
+"Do!" echoed Aggie in disgust. "A three-months' old baby is as big as a
+whale."
+
+"Well, can't we say it GREW UP?" asked Zoie, priding herself on her
+power of ready resource.
+
+"Overnight, like a mushroom?" sneered Aggie.
+
+Almost vanquished by her friend's new air of cold superiority, Zoie
+was now on the verge of tears. "Somebody must have a new baby," she
+faltered. "Somebody ALWAYS has a new baby."
+
+"For their own personal USE, yes," admitted Aggie, "but who has a new
+baby for US?"
+
+"How do I know?" asked Zoie helplessly. "You're the one who ought to
+know. You got me into this, and you've GOT to get me out of it. Can you
+imagine," she asked, growing more and more unhappy, "what would happen
+to me if Alfred were to come home now and not find a baby? He wouldn't
+forgive a LITTLE lie, what would he do with a WHOPPER like this?" Then
+with sudden decision, she rushed toward the 'phone. "Let me talk to
+Jimmy," she said, and the next moment she was chattering so rapidly and
+incoherently over the 'phone that Aggie despaired of hearing one word
+that she said, and retired to the next room to think out a new plan of
+action.
+
+"Say, Jimmy," stammered Zoie into the 'phone, "you've GOT to get me a
+baby. If you don't, I'll kill myself! I will, Jimmy, I will. You got me
+into this, Jimmy," she reminded him. "You've GOT to get me out of it."
+And then followed pleadings and coaxings and cajolings, and at length,
+a pause, during which Jimmy was apparently able to get in a word or so.
+His answer was not satisfactory to Zoie. "What!" she shrieked, tiptoeing
+to get her lips closer to the receiver; then she added with conviction,
+"the mother has no business to change her mind."
+
+Apparently Jimmy maintained that the mother had changed it none the
+less.
+
+"Well, take it away from her," commanded Zoie. "Get it quick, while she
+isn't looking." Then casting a furtive glance over her shoulder to make
+sure that Aggie was still out of the room, she indulged in a few dark
+threats to Jimmy, also some vehement reminders of how he had DRAGGED her
+into that horrid old restaurant and been the immediate cause of all the
+misfortunes that had ever befallen her.
+
+Could Jimmy have been sure that Aggie was out of ear-shot of Zoie's
+conversation, the argument would doubtless have kept up indefinitely--as
+it was--the result was a quick acquiescence on his part and by the time
+that Aggie returned to the room, Zoie was wreathed in smiles.
+
+"It's all right," she said sweetly. "Jimmy's going to get it."
+
+Aggie looked at her sceptically. "Goodness knows I hope so," she said,
+then added in despair, "Look at your cheeks. They're flaming."
+
+Once more the powder puff was called into requisition, and Zoie turned a
+temporarily blanched face to Aggie. "Is that better?" she asked.
+
+"Very much," answered Aggie, "but how about your hair?"
+
+"What's the matter with it?" asked Zoie. Her reflection betrayed a
+coiffure that might have turned Marie Antoinette green with envy.
+
+"Would anybody think you'd been in bed for days?" asked Aggie.
+
+"Alfred likes it that way," was Zoie's defence.
+
+"Turn around," said Aggie, without deigning to argue the matter further.
+And she began to remove handfuls of hairpins from the yellow knotted
+curls.
+
+"What are you doing?" exclaimed Zoie, as she sprayed her white neck and
+arms with her favourite perfume.
+
+Aggie did not answer.
+
+Zoie leaned forward toward the mirror to smooth out her eyebrows with
+the tips of her perfumed fingers. "Good gracious," she cried in horror
+as she caught sight of her reflection. "You're not going to put my hair
+in a pigtail!"
+
+"That's the way invalids always have their hair," was Aggie's laconic
+reply, and she continued to plait the obstinate curls.
+
+"I won't have it like that!" declared Zoie, and she shook herself free
+from Aggie's unwelcome attentions and proceeded to unplait the hateful
+pigtail. "Alfred would leave me."
+
+Aggie shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"If you're going to make a perfect fright of me," pouted Zoie, "I just
+won't see him."
+
+"He isn't coming to see YOU," reminded Aggie. "He's coming to see the
+baby."
+
+"If Jimmy doesn't come soon, I'll not HAVE any baby," answered Zoie.
+
+"Get into bed," said Aggie, and she proceeded to turn down the soft lace
+coverlets.
+
+"Where did I put my cap?" asked Zoie. Her eyes caught the small knot of
+lace and ribbons for which she was looking, and she pinned it on top of
+her saucy little curls.
+
+"In you go," said Aggie, motioning to the bed.
+
+"Wait," said Zoie impressively, "wait till I get my rose lights on the
+pillow." She pulled the slender gold chain of her night lamp; instantly
+the large white pillows were bathed in a warm pink glow--she studied
+the effect very carefully, then added a lingerie pillow to the two
+more formal ones, kicked off her slippers and hopped into bed. One more
+glance at the pillows, then she arranged the ribbons of her negligee to
+fall "carelessly" outside the coverlet, threw one arm gracefully above
+her head, half-closed her eyes, and sank languidly back against her
+pillows.
+
+"How's that?" she breathed faintly.
+
+Controlling her impulse to smile, Aggie crossed to the dressing-table
+with a business-like air and applied to Zoie's pink cheeks a third
+coating of powder.
+
+Zoie sat bolt upright and began to sneeze. "Aggie," she said, "I just
+hate you when you act like that." But suddenly she was seized with a new
+idea.
+
+"I wonder," she mused as she looked across the room at the soft, pink
+sofa bathed in firelight, "I wonder if I shouldn't look better on that
+couch under those roses."
+
+Aggie was very emphatic in her opinion to the contrary. "Certainly not!"
+she said.
+
+"Then," decided Zoie with a mischievous smile, "I'll get Alfred to carry
+me to the couch. That way I can get my arms around his neck. And once
+you get your arms around a man's neck, you can MANAGE him."
+
+Aggie looked down at the small person with distinct disapproval. "Now,
+don't you make too much fuss over Alfred," she continued. "YOU'RE the
+one who's to do the forgiving. Don't forget that! What's more," she
+reminded Zoie, "you're very, very weak." But before she had time to
+instruct Zoie further there was a sharp, quick ring at the outer door.
+
+The two women glanced at each other inquiringly. The next instant a
+man's step was heard in the hallway.
+
+"How is she, Mary?" demanded someone in a voice tense with anxiety.
+
+"It's Alfred!" exclaimed Zoie.
+
+"And we haven't any baby!" gasped Aggie.
+
+"What shall I do?" cried Zoie.
+
+"Lie down," commanded Aggie, and Zoie had barely time to fall back
+limply on the pillows when the excited young husband burst into the
+room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+When Alfred entered Zoie's bedroom he glanced about him in bewilderment.
+It appeared that he was in an enchanted chamber. Through the dim rose
+light he could barely perceive his young wife. She was lying white and
+apparently lifeless on her pillows. He moved cautiously toward the bed,
+but Aggie raised a warning finger. Afraid to speak, he grasped Aggie's
+hand and searched her face for reassurance; she nodded toward Zoie,
+whose eyes were closed. He tiptoed to the bedside, sank on his knees and
+reverently kissed the small hand that hung limply across the side of the
+bed.
+
+To Alfred's intense surprise, his lips had barely touched Zoie's
+fingertips when he felt his head seized in a frantic embrace. "Alfred,
+Alfred!" cried Zoie in delight; then she smothered his face with kisses.
+As she lifted her head to survey her astonished husband, she caught
+the reproving eye of Aggie. With a weak little sigh, she relaxed her
+tenacious hold of Alfred, breathed his name very faintly, and sank back,
+apparently exhausted, upon her pillows.
+
+"It's been too much for her," said the terrified young husband, and he
+glanced toward Aggie in anxiety.
+
+Aggie nodded assent.
+
+"How pale she looks," added Alfred, as he surveyed the white face on the
+pillows.
+
+"She's so weak, poor dear," sympathised Aggie, almost in a whisper.
+
+Alfred nodded his understanding to Aggie. It was then that his attention
+was for the first time attracted toward the crib.
+
+"My boy!" he exclaimed. And again Zoie forgot Aggie's warning and
+sat straight up in bed. But Alfred did not see her. He was making
+determinedly for the crib, his heart beating high with the pride of
+possession.
+
+Throwing back the coverlets of the bassinette, Alfred stared at the
+empty bed in silence, then he quickly turned to the two anxious women.
+"Where is he?" he asked, his eyes wide with terror.
+
+Zoie's lips opened to answer, but no words came.
+
+Alfred's eyes turned to Aggie. The look on her face increased his worst
+fears. "Don't tell me he's----" he could not bring himself to utter the
+word. He continued to look helplessly from one woman to the other.
+
+In vain Zoie again tried to answer. Aggie also made an unsuccessful
+attempt to speak. Then, driven to desperation by the strain of the
+situation, Zoie declared boldly: "He's out."
+
+"Out?" echoed Alfred in consternation.
+
+"With Jimmy," explained Aggie, coming to Zoie's rescue as well as she
+knew how.
+
+"Jimmy!" repeated Alfred in great astonishment.
+
+"Just for a breath of air," explained Zoie sweetly She had now entirely
+regained her self-possession.
+
+"Isn't he very young to be out at night?" asked Alfred with a puzzled
+frown.
+
+"We told Jimmy that," answered Aggie, amazed at the promptness
+with which each succeeding lie presented itself. "But you see," she
+continued, "Jimmy is so crazy about the child that we can't do anything
+with him."
+
+"Jimmy crazy about my baby?" exclaimed Alfred incredulously. "He always
+said babies were 'little red worms.'"
+
+"Not this one," answered Zoie sweetly.
+
+"No, indeed," chimed in Aggie. "He acts as though he owned it."
+
+"Oh, DOES he?" exclaimed Alfred hotly. "I'll soon put a stop to that,"
+he declared. "Where did he take him?"
+
+Again the two women looked at each other inquiringly, then Aggie
+stammered evasively.
+
+"Oh, j-just downstairs--somewhere."
+
+"I'll LOOK j-just downstairs somewhere," decided Alfred, and he snatched
+up his hat and started toward the door.
+
+"Alfred!" cried Zoie in alarm.
+
+Coming back to her bedside to reassure her, Alfred was caught in a
+frantic embrace. "I'll be back in a minute, dear," he said, but Zoie
+clung to him and pleaded desperately.
+
+"You aren't going to leave me the very first thing?"
+
+Alfred hesitated. He had no wish to be cruel to Zoie, but the thought of
+Jimmy out in the street with his baby at this hour of the night was not
+to be borne.
+
+Zoie renewed her efforts at persuasion. "Now, dearie," she said, "I
+wish you'd go get shaved and wash up a bit. I don't wish baby to see you
+looking so horrid."
+
+"Yes, do, Alfred," insisted Aggie. "He's sure to be here in a minute."
+
+"My boy won't care HOW his father looks," declared Alfred proudly, and
+Zoie told Aggie afterward that his chest had momentarily expanded three
+inches.
+
+"But _I_ care," persisted Zoie. "First impressions are so important."
+
+"Now, Zoie," cautioned Aggie, as she crossed toward the bed with
+affected solicitude. "You mustn't excite yourself."
+
+Zoie was quick to understand the suggested change in her tactics, and
+again she sank back on her pillows apparently ill and faint.
+
+Utterly vanquished by the dire result of his apparently inhuman
+thoughtlessness, Alfred glanced at Aggie, uncertain as to how to repair
+the injury.
+
+Aggie beckoned to him to come away from the bed.
+
+"Let her have her own way," she whispered with a significant glance
+toward Zoie.
+
+Alfred nodded understandingly and put a finger to his lips to signify
+that he would henceforth speak in hushed tones, then he tiptoed back to
+the bed and gently stroked the curls from Zoie's troubled forehead.
+
+"There now, dear," he whispered, "lie still and rest and I'll go shave
+and wash up a bit."
+
+Zoie sighed her acquiescence.
+
+"Mind," he whispered to Aggie, "you are to call me the moment my boy
+comes," and then he slipped quietly into the bedroom.
+
+No sooner had Alfred crossed the threshold, than Zoie sat up in bed and
+called in a sharp whisper to Aggie, "What's keeping them?" she asked.
+
+"I can't imagine," answered Aggie, also in whisper.
+
+"If I had Jimmy here," declared Zoie vindictively, "I'd wring his little
+fat neck," and slipping her little pink toes from beneath the covers,
+she was about to get out of bed, when Aggie, who was facing Alfred's
+bedroom door, gave her a warning signal.
+
+Zoie had barely time to get back beneath the covers, when Alfred
+re-entered the room in search of his satchel. Aggie found it for him
+quickly.
+
+Alfred glanced solicitously at Zoie's closed eyes. "I'm so sorry," he
+apologised to Aggie, and again he slipped softly out of the room.
+
+Aggie and Zoie drew together for consultation.
+
+"Suppose Jimmy can't get the baby," whispered Zoie.
+
+"In that case, he'd have 'phoned," argued Aggie.
+
+"Let's 'phone to the Home," suggested Zoie, "and find----" She was
+interrupted by Alfred's voice.
+
+"Say, Aggie," called Alfred from the next room.
+
+"Yes?" answered Aggie sweetly, and she crossed to the door and waited.
+
+"Hasn't he come yet?" called Alfred impatiently.
+
+"Not yet, Alfred," said Aggie, and she closed the door very softly, lest
+Alfred should hear her.
+
+"I never knew Alfred could be so silly!" snapped Zoie.
+
+"Sh! sh!" warned Aggie, and she glanced anxiously toward Alfred's door.
+
+"He doesn't care a bit about me!" complained Zoie. "It's all that horrid
+old baby that he's never seen."
+
+"If Jimmy doesn't come soon, he never WILL see it," declared Aggie, and
+she started toward the window to look out.
+
+Just then there was a short quick ring of the bell. The two women
+glanced at each other with mingled hope and fear. Then their eyes sought
+the door expectantly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+With the collar of his long ulster pushed high and the brim of his derby
+hat pulled low, Jimmy Jinks crept cautiously into the room. When he at
+length ceased to glance over his shoulder and came to a full stop, Aggie
+perceived a bit of white flannel hanging beneath the hem of his tightly
+buttoned coat.
+
+"You've GOT it!" she cried.
+
+"Where is it?" asked Zoie.
+
+"Give it to me," demanded Aggie.
+
+Jimmy stared at them as though stupefied, then glanced uneasily over his
+shoulder, to make sure that no one was pursuing him. Aggie unbuttoned
+his ulster, seized a wee mite wrapped in a large shawl, and clasped it
+to her bosom with a sigh of relief. "Thank heaven!" she exclaimed, then
+crossed quickly to the bassinette and deposited her charge.
+
+In the meantime, having thrown discretion to the wind, Zoie had hopped
+out of bed. As usual, her greeting to Jimmy was in the nature of a
+reproach. "What kept you?" she demanded crossly.
+
+"Yes," chimed in Aggie, who was now bending over the crib. "What made
+you so long?"
+
+"See here!" answered Jimmy hotly, "if you two think you can do any
+better, you're welcome to the job," and with that he threw off his
+overcoat and sank sullenly on the couch.
+
+"Sh! sh!" exclaimed Zoie and Aggie, simultaneously, and they glanced
+nervously toward Alfred's bedroom door.
+
+Jimmy looked at them without comprehending why he should "sh." They did
+not bother to explain. Instead, Zoie turned her back upon him.
+
+"Let's see it," she said, peeping into the bassinette. And then with a
+little cry of disgust she again looked at Jimmy reproachfully. "Isn't it
+ugly?" she said. Jimmy's contempt for woman's ingratitude was too
+deep for words, and he only stared at her in injured silence. But his
+reflections were quickly upset when Alfred called from the next room, to
+inquire again about Baby.
+
+"Alfred's here!" whispered Jimmy, beginning to realise the meaning of
+the women's mysterious behaviour.
+
+"Sh! sh!" said Aggie again to Jimmy, and Zoie flew toward the bed,
+almost vaulting over the footboard in her hurry to get beneath the
+covers.
+
+For the present Alfred did not disturb them further. Apparently he was
+still occupied with his shaving, but just as Jimmy was about to ask for
+particulars, the 'phone rang. The three culprits glanced guiltily at
+each other.
+
+"Who's that?" whispered Zoie in a frightened voice.
+
+Aggie crossed to the 'phone. "Hello," she called softly. "The Children's
+Home?" she exclaimed.
+
+Jimmy paused in the act of sitting and turned his round eyes toward the
+'phone.
+
+Aggie's facial expression was not reassuring. "But we can't," she was
+saying; "that's impossible."
+
+"What is it?" called Zoie across the foot of the bed, unable longer to
+endure the suspense.
+
+Aggie did not answer. She was growing more and more excited. "A thief!"
+she cried wildly, over the 'phone. "How dare you call my husband a
+thief!"
+
+Jimmy was following the conversation with growing interest.
+
+"Wait a minute," said Aggie, then she left the receiver hanging by the
+cord and turned to the expectant pair behind her. "It's the Children's
+Home," she explained. "That awful woman says Jimmy STOLE her baby!"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Zoie as though such depravity on Jimmy's part were
+unthinkable. Then she looked at him accusingly, and asked in low,
+measured tones, "DID you STEAL HER BABY, JIMMY?"
+
+"Didn't you tell me to?" asked Jimmy hotly. "Not literally," corrected
+Aggie.
+
+"How else COULD I steal a baby?" demanded Jimmy.
+
+Zoie looked at the unfortunate creature as if she could strangle him,
+and Aggie addressed him with a threat in her voice.
+
+"Well, the Superintendent says you've got to bring it straight back."
+
+"I'd like to see myself!" said Jimmy.
+
+"He sha'n't bring it back," declared Zoie. "I'll not let him!"
+
+"What shall I tell the Superintendent?" asked Aggie, "he's holding the
+wire."
+
+"Tell him he can't have it," answered Zoie, as though that were the end
+of the whole matter.
+
+"Well," concluded Aggie, "he says if Jimmy DOESN'T bring it back the
+mother's coming after it."
+
+"Good Lord!" exclaimed Zoie.
+
+As for Jimmy, he bolted for the door. Aggie caught him by the sleeve as
+he passed. "Wait, Jimmy," she said peremptorily. There was a moment of
+awful indecision, then something approaching an idea came to Zoie.
+
+"Tell the Superintendent that it isn't here," she whispered to Aggie
+across the footboard. "Tell him that Jimmy hasn't got here yet."
+
+"Yes," agreed Jimmy, "tell him I haven't got here yet."
+
+Aggie nodded wisely and returned to the 'phone. "Hello," she called
+pleasantly; then proceeded to explain. "Mr. Jinks hasn't got here yet."
+There was a pause, then she added in her most conciliatory tone, "I'll
+tell him what you say when he comes in." Another pause, and she hung up
+the receiver with a most gracious good-bye and turned to the others with
+increasing misgivings. "He says he won't be responsible for that mother
+much longer--she's half-crazy."
+
+"What right has she to be crazy?" demanded Zoie in an abused voice.
+"She's a widow. She doesn't need a baby."
+
+"Well," decided Aggie after careful deliberation, "you'd better take it
+back, Jimmy, before Alfred sees it."
+
+"What?" exclaimed Zoie in protest. And again Jimmy bolted, but again he
+failed to reach the door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+His face covered with lather, and a shaving brush in one hand, Alfred
+entered the room just as his friend was about to escape.
+
+"Jimmy!" exclaimed the excited young father, "you're back."
+
+"Oh, yes--yes," admitted Jimmy nervously, "I'm back."
+
+"My boy!" cried Alfred, and he glanced toward the crib. "He's here!"
+
+"Yes--yes," agreed Aggie uneasily, as she tried to place herself between
+Alfred and the bassinette. "He's here, but you mayn't have him, Alfred."
+
+"What?" exclaimed Alfred, trying to put her out of the way.
+
+"Not yet," protested Aggie, "not just yet."
+
+"Give him to me," demanded Alfred, and thrusting Aggie aside, he took
+possession of the small mite in the cradle.
+
+"But--but, Alfred," pleaded Aggie, "your face. You'll get him all wet."
+
+Alfred did not heed her. He was bending over the cradle in an ecstasy.
+"My boy!" he cried, "my boy!" Lifting the baby in his arms he circled
+the room cooing to him delightedly.
+
+"Was he away from home when his fadder came? Oh, me, oh, my! Coochy!
+Coochy! Coochy!" Suddenly he remembered to whom he owed this wondrous
+treasure and forgetful of the lather on his unshaven face he rushed
+toward Zoie with an overflowing heart. "My precious!" he exclaimed, and
+he covered her cheek with kisses.
+
+"Go away!" cried Zoie in disgust and she pushed Alfred from her and
+brushed the hateful lather from her little pink check.
+
+But Alfred was not to be robbed of his exaltation, and again he circled
+the room, making strange gurgling sounds to Baby.
+
+"Did a horrid old Jimmy take him away from fadder?" he said
+sympathetically, in the small person's ear; and he glanced at Jimmy with
+frowning disapproval. "I'd just like to see him get you away from me
+again!" he added to Baby, as he tickled the mite's ear with the end of
+his shaving brush. "Oh, me! oh, my!" he exclaimed in trepidation, as he
+perceived a bit of lather on the infant's cheek. Then lifting the boy
+high in his arms and throwing out his chest with great pride, he looked
+at Jimmy with an air of superiority. "I guess I'm bad, aye?" he said.
+
+Jimmy positively blushed. As for Zoie, she was growing more and more
+impatient for a little attention to herself.
+
+"Rock-a-bye, Baby," sang Alfred in strident tones and he swung the child
+high in his arms.
+
+Jimmy and Aggie gazed at Alfred as though hypnotised. They kept time to
+his lullaby out of sheer nervousness. Suddenly Alfred stopped, held the
+child from him and gazed at it in horror. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed.
+The others waited breathlessly. "Look at that baby's face," commanded
+Alfred.
+
+Zoie and Aggie exchanged alarmed glances, then Zoie asked in
+trepidation, "What's the matter with his face?"
+
+"He's got a fever," declared Alfred. And he started toward the bed to
+show the child to its mother.
+
+"Go away!" shrieked Zoie, waving Alfred off in wild alarm.
+
+"What?" asked Alfred, backing from her in surprise.
+
+Aggie crossed quickly to Alfred's side and looked over his shoulder at
+the boy. "I don't see anything wrong with its face," she said.
+
+"It's scarlet!" persisted Alfred.
+
+"Oh," said Jimmy with a superior air, "they're always like that."
+
+"Nothing of the sort," snorted Alfred, and he glared at Jimmy
+threateningly. "You've frozen the child parading him around the
+streets."
+
+"Let me have him, Alfred," begged Aggie sweetly; "I'll put him in his
+crib and keep him warm."
+
+Reluctantly Alfred released the boy. His eyes followed him to the crib
+with anxiety. "Where's his nurse?" he asked, as he glanced first from
+one to the other.
+
+Zoie and Jimmy stared about the room as though expecting the desired
+person to drop from the ceiling. Then Zoie turned upon her unwary
+accomplice.
+
+"Jimmy," she called in a threatening tone, "where IS his nurse?"
+
+"Does Jimmy take the nurse out, too?" demanded Alfred, more and more
+annoyed by the privileges Jimmy had apparently been usurping in his
+absence.
+
+"Never mind about the nurse," interposed Aggie. "Baby likes me better
+anyway. I'll tuck him in," and she bent fondly over the crib, but Alfred
+was not to be so easily pacified.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," he exclaimed excitedly, "that my boy hasn't
+any nurse?"
+
+"We HAD a nurse," corrected Zoie, "but--but I had to discharge her."
+
+Alfred glanced from one to the other for an explanation.
+
+"Discharge her?" he repeated, "for what?"
+
+"She was crazy," stammered Zoie.
+
+Alfred's eyes sought Aggie's for confirmation. She nodded. He directed
+his steady gaze toward Jimmy. The latter jerked his head up and down in
+nervous assent.
+
+"Well," said Alfred, amazed at their apparent lack of resource, "why
+didn't you get ANOTHER nurse?"
+
+"Aggie is going to stay and take care of baby to-night," declared Zoie,
+and then she beamed upon Aggie as only she knew how. "Aren't you, dear?"
+she asked sweetly.
+
+"Yes, indeed," answered Aggie, studiously avoiding Jimmy's eye.
+
+"Baby is going to sleep in the spare room with Aggie and Jimmy," said
+Zoie.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Jimmy, too desperate to care what Alfred might infer.
+
+Ignoring Jimmy's implied protest, Zoie continued sweetly to Alfred:
+
+"Now, don't worry, dear; go back to your room and finish your shaving."
+
+"Finish shaving?" repeated Alfred in a puzzled way. Then his hand went
+mechanically to his cheek and he stared at Zoie in astonishment. "By
+Jove!" he exclaimed, "I had forgotten all about it. That shows you how
+excited I am." And with a reluctant glance toward the cradle, he went
+quickly from the room, singing a high-pitched lullaby.
+
+Just as the three conspirators were drawing together for consultation,
+Alfred returned to the room. It was apparent that there was something
+important on his mind.
+
+"By the way," he said, glancing from one to another, "I forgot to
+ask--what's his name?"
+
+The conspirators looked at each other without answering. To Alfred their
+delay was annoying. Of course his son had been given his father's name,
+but he wished to HEAR someone say so.
+
+"Baby's, I mean," he explained impatiently.
+
+Jimmy felt instinctively that Zoie's eyes were upon him. He avoided her
+gaze.
+
+"Jimmy!" called Zoie, meaning only to appeal to him for a name.
+
+"Jimmy!" thundered the infuriated Alfred. "You've called my boy 'Jimmy'?
+Why 'Jimmy'?"
+
+For once Zoie was without an answer.
+
+After waiting in vain for any response, Alfred advanced upon the
+uncomfortable Jimmy.
+
+"You seem to be very popular around here," he sneered.
+
+Jimmy shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and studied the
+pattern of the rug upon which he was standing.
+
+After what seemed an age to Jimmy, Alfred turned his back upon his old
+friend and started toward his bedroom. Jimmy peeped out uneasily from
+his long eyelashes. When Alfred reached the threshold, he faced about
+quickly and stared again at Jimmy for an explanation. It seemed to Jimmy
+that Alfred's nostrils were dilating. He would not have been surprised
+to see Alfred snort fire. He let his eyes fall before the awful
+spectacle of his friend's wrath. Alfred's upper lip began to curl. He
+cast a last withering look in Jimmy's direction, retired quickly from
+the scene and banged the door.
+
+When Jimmy again had the courage to lift his eyes he was confronted by
+the contemptuous gaze of Zoie, who was sitting up in bed and regarding
+him with undisguised disapproval.
+
+"Why didn't you tell him what the baby's name is?" she demanded.
+
+"How do _I_ know what the baby's name is?" retorted Jimmy savagely.
+
+"Sh! sh!" cautioned Aggie as she glanced nervously toward the door
+through which Alfred had just passed.
+
+"What does it matter WHAT the baby's name is so long as we have to send
+it back?"
+
+"I'll NOT send it back," declared Zoie emphatically, "at least not until
+morning. That will give Jimmy a whole night to get another one."
+
+"Another!" shrieked Jimmy. "See here, you two can't be changing babies
+every five minutes without Alfred knowing it. Even HE has SOME sense."
+
+"Nonsense!" answered Aggie shortly. "You know perfectly well that all
+young babies look just alike. Their own mothers couldn't tell them
+apart, if it weren't for their clothes."
+
+"But where can we GET another?" asked Zoie.
+
+Before Aggie could answer, Alfred was again heard calling from the next
+room. Apparently all his anger had subsided, for he inquired in the most
+amiable tone as to what baby might be doing and how he might be feeling.
+Aggie crossed quickly to the door, and sweetly reassured the anxious
+father, then she closed the door softly and turned to Zoie and Jimmy
+with a new inspiration lighting her face. "I have it," she exclaimed
+ecstatically.
+
+Jimmy regarded his spouse with grave suspicion.
+
+"Now see here," he objected, "every time YOU 'HAVE IT,' I DO IT. The
+NEXT time you 'HAVE IT' YOU DO IT!"
+
+The emphasis with which Jimmy made his declaration deserved
+consideration, but to his amazement it was entirely ignored by both
+women. Hopping quickly out of bed, without even glancing in his
+direction, Zoie gave her entire attention to Aggie. "What is it?" she
+asked eagerly.
+
+"There must be OTHER babies' Homes," said Aggie, and she glanced at
+Jimmy from her superior height.
+
+"They aren't open all night like corner drug stores," growled Jimmy.
+
+"Well, they ought to be," decided Zoie.
+
+"And surely," argued Aggie, "in an extraordinary case--like----"
+
+"This was an 'extraordinary case,'" declared Jimmy, "and you saw what
+happened this time, and the Superintendent is a friend of mine--at least
+he WAS a friend of mine." And with that Jimmy sat himself down on the
+far corner of the couch and proceeded to ruminate on the havoc that
+these two women had wrought in his once tranquil life.
+
+Zoie gazed at Jimmy in deep disgust; her friend Aggie had made an
+excellent suggestion, and instead of acting upon it with alacrity, here
+sat Jimmy sulking like a stubborn child.
+
+"I suppose," said Zoie, as her eyebrows assumed a bored angle, "there
+are SOME babies in the world outside of Children's Homes."
+
+"Of course," was Aggie's enthusiastic rejoinder; "there's one born every
+minute."
+
+"But I was born BETWEEN minutes," protested Jimmy.
+
+"Who's talking about you?" snapped Zoie.
+
+Again Aggie exclaimed that she "had it."
+
+"She's got it twice as bad," groaned Jimmy, and he wondered what new
+form her persecution of him was about to take.
+
+"Where is the morning paper?" asked Aggie, excitedly.
+
+"We can't advertise NOW," protested Zoie. "It's too late for that."
+
+"Sh! Sh!" answered Aggie, as she snatched the paper quickly from
+the table and began running her eyes up and down its third page.
+"Married--married," she murmured, and then with delight she found
+the half column for which she was searching. "Born," she exclaimed
+triumphantly. "Here we are! Get a pencil, Zoie, and we'll take down all
+the new ones."
+
+"Of course," agreed Zoie, clapping her hands in glee, "and Jimmy can get
+a taxi and look them right up."
+
+"Oh, CAN he?" shouted Jimmy as he rose with clenched fists. "Now you
+two, see here----"
+
+Before Jimmy could complete his threat, there was a sharp ring of the
+door bell. He looked at the two women inquiringly.
+
+"It's the mother," cried Zoie in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"The mother!" repeated Jimmy in terror and he glanced uncertainly from
+one door to the other.
+
+"Cover up the baby!" called Zoie, and drawing Jimmy's overcoat quickly
+from his arm, Aggie threw it hurriedly over the cradle.
+
+For an instant Jimmy remained motionless in the centre of the room,
+hatless, coatless, and shorn of ideas. A loud knock on the door decided
+him and he sank with trembling knees behind the nearest armchair, just
+as Zoie made a flying leap into the bed and prepared to draw the cover
+over her head.
+
+The knock was repeated and Aggie signalled to Zoie to answer it.
+
+"Come in!" called Zoie very faintly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+From his hiding-place Jimmy peeped around the edge of the armchair and
+saw what seemed to be a large clothes basket entering the room. Closer
+inspection revealed the small figure of Maggie, the washerwoman's
+daughter, propelling the basket, which was piled high with freshly
+laundered clothing. Jimmy drew a long sigh of relief, and unknotted his
+cramped limbs.
+
+"Shall I lay the things on the sofa, mum?" asked Maggie as she placed
+her basket on the floor and waited for Zoie's instructions.
+
+"Yes, please," answered Zoie, too exhausted for further comment.
+
+Taking the laundry piece by piece from the basket, Maggie made excuses
+for its delay, while she placed it on the couch. Deaf to Maggie's
+chatter, Zoie lay back languidly on her pillows; but she soon heard
+something that lifted her straight up in bed.
+
+"Me mother is sorry she had to kape you waitin' this week," said Maggie
+over her shoulder; "but we've got twins at OUR house."
+
+"Twins!" echoed Zoie and Aggie simultaneously. Then together they stared
+at Maggie as though she had been dropped from another world.
+
+Finding attention temporarily diverted from himself, Jimmy had begun to
+rearrange both his mind and his cravat when he felt rather than saw that
+his two persecutors were regarding him with a steady, determined gaze.
+In spite of himself, Jimmy raised his eyes to theirs.
+
+"Twins!" was their laconic answer.
+
+Now, Jimmy had heard Maggie's announcement about the bountiful supply
+of offspring lately arrived at her house, but not until he caught the
+fanatical gleam in the eyes of his companions did he understand the
+part they meant him to play in their next adventure. He waited for no
+explanation--he bolted toward the door.
+
+"Wait, Jimmy," commanded Aggie. But it was not until she had laid firm
+hold of him that he waited.
+
+Surprised by such strange behaviour on the part of those whom she
+considered her superiors, Maggie looked first at Aggie, then at Jimmy,
+then at Zoie, uncertain whether to go or to stay.
+
+"Anythin' to go back, mum?" she stammered.
+
+Zoie stared at Maggie solemnly from across the foot of the bed.
+"Maggie," she asked in a deep, sepulchral tone, "where do you live?"
+
+"Just around the corner on High Street, mum," gasped Maggie. Then,
+keeping her eyes fixed uneasily on Zoie she picked up her basket and
+backed cautiously toward the door.
+
+"Wait!" commanded Zoie; and Maggie paused, one foot in mid-air. "Wait in
+the hall," said Zoie.
+
+"Yes'um," assented Maggie, almost in a whisper. Then she nodded her
+head jerkily, cast another furtive glance at the three persons who were
+regarding her so strangely, and slipped quickly through the door.
+
+Having crossed the room and stealthily closed the door, Aggie returned
+to Jimmy, who was watching her with the furtive expression of a trapped
+animal.
+
+"It's Providence," she declared, with a grave countenance.
+
+Jimmy looked up at Aggie with affected innocence, then rolled his round
+eyes away from her. He was confronted by Zoie, who had approached from
+the opposite side of the room.
+
+"It's Fate," declared Zoie, in awe-struck tones.
+
+Jimmy was beginning to wriggle, but he kept up a last desperate presence
+of not understanding them.
+
+"You needn't tell me I'm going to take the wash to the old lady," he
+said, "for I'm not going to do it."
+
+"It isn't the WASH," said Aggie, and her tone warned him that she
+expected no nonsense from him.
+
+"You know what we are thinking about just as well as we do," said Zoie.
+"I'll write that washerwoman a note and tell her we must have one of
+those babies right now." And with that she turned toward her desk and
+began rummaging amongst her papers for a pencil and pad. "The luck of
+these poor," she murmured.
+
+"The luck of US," corrected Aggie, whose spirits were now soaring. Then
+she turned to Jimmy with growing enthusiasm. "Just think of it, dear,"
+she said, "Fate has sent us a baby to our very door."
+
+"Well," declared Jimmy, again beginning to show signs of fight, "if
+Fate has sent a baby to the door, you don't need me," and with that he
+snatched his coat from the crib.
+
+"Wait, Jimmy," again commanded Aggie, and she took his coat gently but
+firmly from him.
+
+"Now, see here," argued Jimmy, trying to get free from his strong-minded
+spouse, "you know perfectly well that that washerwoman isn't going to
+let us have that baby."
+
+"Nonsense," called Zoie over her shoulder, while she scribbled a hurried
+note to the washerwoman. "If she won't let us have it 'for keeps,' I'll
+just 'rent it.'"
+
+"Good Lord!" exclaimed Jimmy in genuine horror. "Warm, fresh,
+palpitating babies rented as you would rent a gas stove!"
+
+"That's all a pose," declared Aggie, in a matter-of-fact tone. "You
+think babies 'little red worms,' you've said so."
+
+Jimmy could not deny it.
+
+"She'll be only too glad to rent it," declared Zoie, as she glanced
+hurriedly through the note just written, and slipped it, together with
+a bill, into an envelope. "I'll pay her anything. It's only until I can
+get another one."
+
+"Another!" shouted Jimmy, and his eyes turned heavenward for help. "An
+endless chain with me to put the links together!"
+
+"Don't be so theatrical," said Aggie, irritably, as she took up Jimmy's
+coat and prepared to get him into it.
+
+"Why DO you make such a fuss about NOTHING," sighed Zoie.
+
+"Nothing?" echoed Jimmy, and he looked at her with wondering eyes.
+"I crawl about like a thief in the night snatching babies from their
+mother's breasts, and you call THAT nothing?"
+
+"You don't have to 'CRAWL,'" reminded Zoie, "you can take a taxi."
+
+"Here's your coat, dear," said Aggie graciously, as she endeavoured to
+slip Jimmy's limp arms into the sleeves of the garment.
+
+"You can take Maggie with you," said Zoie, with the air of conferring a
+distinct favour upon him.
+
+"And the wash on my lap," added Jimmy sarcastically.
+
+"No," said Zoie, unruffled by Jimmy's ungracious behaviour. "We'll send
+the wash later."
+
+"That's very kind of you," sneered Jimmy, as he unconsciously allowed
+his arms to slip into the sleeves of the coat Aggie was urging upon him.
+
+"All you need to do," said Aggie complacently, "is to get us the baby."
+
+"Yes," said Jimmy, "and what do you suppose my friends would say if they
+were to see me riding around town with the wash-lady's daughter and a
+baby on my lap? What would YOU say?" he asked Aggie, "if you didn't know
+the facts?"
+
+"Nobody's going to see you," answered Aggie impatiently; "it's only
+around the corner. Go on, Jimmy, be a good boy."
+
+"You mean a good thing," retorted Jimmy without budging from the spot.
+
+"How ridiculous!" exclaimed Zoie; "it's as easy as can be."
+
+"Yes, the FIRST one SOUNDED easy, too," said Jimmy.
+
+"All you have to do," explained Zoie, trying to restrain her rising
+intolerance of his stupidity, "is to give this note to Maggie's mother.
+She'll give you her baby, you bring it back here, we'll give you THIS
+one, and you can take it right back to the Home."
+
+"And meet the other mother," concluded Jimmy with a shake of his head.
+
+There was a distinct threat in Zoie's voice when she again addressed the
+stubborn Jimmy and the glitter of triumph was in her eyes.
+
+"You'd better meet here THERE than HERE," she warned him; "you know what
+the Superintendent said."
+
+"That's true," agreed Aggie with an anxious face. "Come now," she
+pleaded, "it will only take a minute; you can do the whole thing before
+you have had time to think."
+
+"Before I have had time to think," repeated Jimmy excitedly. "That's how
+you get me to do everything. Well, this time I've HAD time to think and
+I don't think I will!" and with that he threw himself upon the couch,
+unmindful of the damage to the freshly laundered clothes.
+
+"Get up," cried Zoie.
+
+"You haven't time to sit down," said Aggie.
+
+"I'll TAKE time," declared Jimmy. His eyes blinked ominously and he
+remained glued to the couch.
+
+There was a short silence; the two women gazed at Jimmy in despair.
+Remembering a fresh grievance, Jimmy turned upon them.
+
+"By the way," he said, "do you two know that I haven't had anything to
+eat yet?"
+
+"And do you know," said Zoie, "that Alfred may be back at any minute? He
+can't stay away forever."
+
+"Not unless he has cut his throat," rejoined Jimmy, "and that's what I'd
+do if I had a razor."
+
+Zoie regarded Jimmy as though he were beyond redemption. "Can't you ever
+think of anybody but yourself?" she asked, with a martyred air.
+
+Had Jimmy been half his age, Aggie would have felt sure that she saw him
+make a face at her friend for answer. As it was, she resolved to make
+one last effort to awaken her unobliging spouse to a belated sense of
+duty.
+
+"You see, dear," she said, "you might better get the washerwoman's baby
+than to go from house to house for one," and she glanced again toward
+the paper.
+
+"Yes," urged Zoie, "and that's just what you'll HAVE to do, if you don't
+get this one."
+
+Jimmy's head hung dejectedly. It was apparent that his courage was
+slipping from him. Aggie was quick to realise her opportunity, and
+before Jimmy could protect himself from her treacherous wiles, she had
+slipped one arm coyly about his neck.
+
+"Now, Jimmy," she pleaded as she pressed her soft cheek to his throbbing
+temple, and toyed with the bay curl on his perspiring forehead, "wont
+you do this little teeny-weepy thing just for me?"
+
+Jimmy's lips puckered in a pout; he began to blink nervously. Aggie
+slipped her other arm about his neck.
+
+"You know," she continued with a baby whine, "I got Zoie into this, and
+I've just got to get her out of it. You're not going to desert me,
+are you, Jimmy? You WILL help me, won't you, dear?" Her breath was on
+Jimmy's cheek; he could feel her lips stealing closer to his. He had not
+been treated to much affection of late. His head drooped lower--he began
+to twiddle the fob on his watch chain. "Won't you?" persisted Aggie.
+
+Jimmy studied the toes of his boots.
+
+"Won't you?" she repeated, and her soft eyelashes just brushed the tip
+of his retrousee nose.
+
+Jimmy's head was now wagging from side to side.
+
+"Won't you?" she entreated a fourth time, and she kissed him full on the
+lips.
+
+With a resigned sigh, Jimmy rose mechanically from the heap of crushed
+laundry and held out his fat chubby hand.
+
+"Give me the letter," he groaned.
+
+"Here you are," said Zoie, taking Jimmy's acquiescence as a matter of
+course; and she thrust the letter into the pocket of Jimmy's ulster.
+"Now, when you get back with the baby," she continued, "don't come in
+all of a sudden; just wait outside and whistle. You CAN WHISTLE, can't
+you?" she asked with a doubtful air.
+
+For answer, Jimmy placed two fingers between his lips and produced a
+shrill whistle that made both Zoie and Aggie glance nervously toward
+Alfred's bedroom door.
+
+"Yes, you can WHISTLE," admitted Zoie, then she continued her
+directions. "If Alfred is not in the room, I'll raise the shade and you
+can come right up."
+
+"And if he is in the room?" asked Jimmy with a fine shade of sarcasm.
+
+"If he IS in the room," explained Zoie, "you must wait outside until I
+can get rid of him."
+
+Jimmy turned his eyes toward Aggie to ask if it were possible that she
+still approved of Zoie's inhuman plan. For answer Aggie stroked his coat
+collar fondly.
+
+"We'll give you the signal the moment the coast is clear," she said,
+then she hurriedly buttoned Jimmy's large ulster and wound a muffler
+about his neck. "There now, dear, do go, you're all buttoned up," and
+with that she urged him toward the door.
+
+"Just a minute," protested Jimmy, as he paused on the threshold. "Let me
+get this right, if the shade is up, I stay down."
+
+"Not at all," corrected Aggie and Zoie in a breath. "If the shade is up,
+you come up."
+
+Jimmy cast another martyred look in Zoie's direction.
+
+"You won't hurry will you?" he said, "you know it is only twenty-three
+below zero and I haven't had anything to eat yet--and----"
+
+"Yes, we know," interrupted the two women in chorus, and then Aggie
+added wearily, "go on, Jimmy; don't be funny."
+
+"Funny?" snorted Jimmy. "With a baby on my lap and the wash lady's
+daughter, I won't be funny, oh no!"
+
+It is doubtful whether Jimmy would not have worked himself into another
+state of open rebellion had not Aggie put an end to his protests by
+thrusting him firmly out of the room and closing the door behind him.
+After this act of heroic decision on her part, the two women listened
+intently, fearing that he might return; but presently they heard the
+bang of the outer door, and at last they drew a long breath of relief.
+For the first time since Alfred's arrival, Aggie was preparing to sink
+into a chair, when she was startled by a sharp exclamation from Zoie.
+
+"Good heavens," cried Zoie, "I forgot to ask Maggie."
+
+"Ask her what?" questioned Aggie.
+
+"Boys or girls," said Zoie, with a solemn look toward the door through
+which Jimmy had just disappeared.
+
+"Well," decided Aggie, after a moment's reflection, "it's too late now.
+Anyway," she concluded philosophically, "we couldn't CHANGE it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+With more or less damage to himself consequent on his excitement, Alfred
+completed his shaving and hastened to return to his wife and the babe.
+Finding the supposedly ill Zoie careering about the centre of the room
+expostulating with Aggie, the young man stopped dumbfounded on the
+threshold.
+
+"Zoie," he cried in astonishment. "What are you doing out of bed?"
+
+For an instant the startled Zoie gazed at him stupefied.
+
+"Why, I--I----" Her eyes sought Aggie's for a suggestion; there was no
+answer there. It was not until her gaze fell upon the cradle that she
+was seized by the desired inspiration.
+
+"I just got up to see baby," she faltered, then putting one hand giddily
+to her head, she pretended to sway.
+
+In an instant Alfred's arms were about her. He bore her quickly to the
+bed. "You stay here, my darling," he said tenderly. "I'll bring baby
+to you," and after a solicitous caress he turned toward baby's crib and
+bent fondly over the little one. "Ah, there's father's man," he said.
+"Was he lonesome baby? Oh, goodis g'acious," then followed an incoherent
+muttering of baby talk, as he bore the youngster toward Zoie's bed.
+"Come, my precious," he called to Zoie, as he sank down on the edge of
+the bed. "See mother's boy."
+
+"Mother!" shrieked Zoie in horror. It had suddenly dawned upon her that
+this was the name by which Alfred would no doubt call her for the rest
+of her life. She almost detested him.
+
+But Alfred did not see the look of disgust on Zoie's face. He was wholly
+absorbed by baby.
+
+"What a funny face," he cooed as he pinched the youngster's cheek.
+"Great Scott, what a grip," he cried as the infant's fingers closed
+around his own. "Will you look at the size of those hands," he
+exclaimed.
+
+Zoie and Aggie exchanged worried glances; the baby had no doubt
+inherited his large hands from his mother.
+
+"Say, Aggie," called Alfred, "what are all of these little specks
+on baby's forehead?" He pointed toward the infant's brow. "One, two,
+three," he counted.
+
+Zoie was becoming more and more uncomfortable at the close proximity of
+the little stranger.
+
+"Oh," said Aggie, with affected carelessness as she leaned over Alfred's
+shoulder and glanced at baby's forehead. "That is just a little rash."
+
+"A rash!" exclaimed Alfred excitedly, "that's dangerous, isn't it? We'd
+better call up the doctor." And he rose and started hurriedly toward the
+telephone, baby in arms.
+
+"Don't be silly," called Zoie, filled with vague alarm at the thought of
+the family physician's appearance and the explanations that this might
+entail.
+
+Stepping between Alfred and the 'phone, Aggie protested frantically.
+"You see, Alfred," she said, "it is better to have the rash OUT, it
+won't do any harm unless it turns IN."
+
+"He's perfectly well," declared Zoie, "if you'll only put him in his
+crib and leave him alone."
+
+Alfred looked down at his charge. "Is that right, son?" he asked, and he
+tickled the little fellow playfully in the ribs. "I'll tell you what,"
+he called over his shoulder to Zoie, "he's a fine looking boy." And then
+with a mysterious air, he nodded to Aggie to approach. "Whom does he
+look like?" he asked.
+
+Again Zoie sat up in anxiety. Aggie glanced at her, uncertain what
+answer to make.
+
+"I--I hadn't thought," she stammered weakly.
+
+"Go on, go on," exclaimed the proud young father, "you can't tell me
+that you can look at that boy and not see the resemblance."
+
+"To whom?" asked Aggie, half fearfully.
+
+"Why," said Alfred, "he's the image of Zoie."
+
+Zoie gazed at the puckered red face in Alfred's arms. "What!" she
+shrieked in disgust, then fall back on her pillows and drew the lace
+coverlet over her face.
+
+Mistaking Zoie's feeling for one of embarrassment at being over-praised,
+Alfred bore the infant to her bedside. "See, dear," he persisted, "see
+for yourself, look at his forehead."
+
+"I'd rather look at you," pouted Zoie, peeping from beneath the
+coverlet, "if you would only put that thing down for a minute."
+
+"Thing?" exclaimed Alfred, as though doubting his own ears. But before
+he could remonstrate further, Zoie's arms were about his neck and she
+was pleading jealously for his attention.
+
+"Please, Alfred," she begged, "I have scarcely had a look at you, yet."
+
+Alfred shook his head and turned to baby with an indulgent smile. It was
+pleasant to have two such delightful creatures bidding for his entire
+attention.
+
+"Dear me," he said to baby. "Dear me, tink of mudder wanting to look at
+a big u'gy t'ing like fadder, when she could look at a 'itty witty t'ing
+like dis," and he rose and crossed to the crib where he deposited the
+small creature with yet more gurgling and endearing.
+
+Zoie's dreams of rapture at Alfred's home coming had not included such
+divided attention as he was now showing her and she was growing more and
+more desperate at the turn affairs had taken. She resolved to put a stop
+to his nonsense and to make him realise that she and no one else was the
+lode star of his existence. She beckoned to Aggie to get out of the
+room and to leave her a clear field and as soon as her friend had gone
+quietly into the next room, she called impatiently to Alfred who was
+still cooing rapturously over the young stranger. Finding Alfred deaf
+to her first entreaty, Zoie shut her lips hard, rearranged her pretty
+head-dress, drew one fascinating little curl down over her shoulder,
+reknotted the pink ribbon of her negligee, and then issued a final and
+imperious order for her husband to attend her.
+
+"Yes, yes, dear," answered Alfred, with a shade of impatience. "I'm
+coming, I'm coming." And bidding a reluctant farewell to the small
+person in the crib, he crossed to her side.
+
+Zoie caught Alfred's hand and drew him down to her; he smiled
+complacently.
+
+"Well," he said in the patronising tone that Zoie always resented. "How
+is hubby's little girl?"
+
+"It's about time," pouted Zoie, "that you made a little fuss over me for
+a change."
+
+"My own!" murmured Alfred. He stooped to kiss the eager lips, but just
+as his young wife prepared to lend herself to his long delayed embrace,
+his mind was distracted by an uneasy thought. "Do you think that Baby
+is----"
+
+He was not permitted to finish the sentence.
+
+Zoie drew him back to her with a sharp exclamation.
+
+"Think of ME for a while," she commanded.
+
+"My darling," expostulated Alfred with a shade of surprise at her
+vehemence. "How could I think of anyone else?" Again he stooped to
+embrace her and again his mind was directed otherwise. "I wonder if Baby
+is warm enough," he said and attempted to rise.
+
+"Wonder about ME for a while," snapped Zoie, clinging to him
+determinedly.
+
+Again Alfred looked at her in amazement. Was it possible there was
+anything besides Baby worth wondering about? Whether there was or not,
+Zoie was no longer to be resisted and with a last regretful look at the
+crib, he resigned himself to giving his entire attention to his spoiled
+young wife.
+
+Gratified by her hard-won conquest, Zoie now settled herself in Alfred's
+arms.
+
+"You haven't told me what you did all the time that you were away," she
+reminded him.
+
+"Oh, there was plenty to do," answered Alfred.
+
+"Did you think of me every minute?" she asked jealously.
+
+"That would be telling," laughed Alfred, as he pinched her small pink
+ear.
+
+"I wish to be 'told,'" declared Zoie; "I don't suppose you realise it,
+but if I were to live a THOUSAND YEARS, I'd never be quite sure what you
+did during those FEW MONTHS."
+
+"It was nothing that you wouldn't have been proud of," answered Alfred,
+with an unconscious expansion of his chest.
+
+"Do you love me as much as ever?" asked Zoie.
+
+"Behave yourself," answered Alfred, trying not to appear flattered
+by the discovery that his absence had undoubtedly caused her great
+uneasiness.
+
+"Well, SAY it!" demanded Zoie.
+
+"You know I do," answered Alfred, with the diffidence of a school boy.
+
+"Then kiss me," concluded Zoie, with an air of finality that left Alfred
+no alternative.
+
+As a matter of fact, Alfred was no longer seeking an alternative. He was
+again under the spell of his wife's adorable charms and he kissed her
+not once, but many times.
+
+"Foolish child," he murmured, then he laid her tenderly against the
+large white pillows, remonstrating with her for being so spoiled, and
+cautioning her to be a good little girl while he went again to see about
+Baby.
+
+Zoie clung to his hand and feigned approaching tears.
+
+"You aren't thinking of me at all?" she pouted. "And kisses are no
+good unless you put your whole mind on them. Give me a real kiss!" she
+pleaded.
+
+Again Alfred stooped to humour the small importunate person who was so
+jealous of his every thought, but just as his lips touched her forehead
+his ear was arrested by a sound as yet new both to him and to Zoie. He
+lifted his head and listened.
+
+"What was that?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know," answered Zoie, wondering if the cat could have got into
+the room.
+
+A redoubled effort on the part of the young stranger directed their
+attention in the right direction.
+
+"My God!" exclaimed Alfred tragically, "it's Baby. He's crying." And
+with that, he rushed to the crib and clasped the small mite close to his
+breast, leaving Zoie to pummel the pillows in an agony of vexation.
+
+After vain cajoling of the angry youngster, Alfred bore him excitedly to
+Zoie's bedside.
+
+"You'd better take him, dear," he said.
+
+To the young husband's astonishment, Zoie waved him from her in terror,
+and called loudly for Aggie. But no sooner had Aggie appeared on the
+scene, than a sharp whistle was heard from the pavement below.
+
+"Pull down the shade!" cried Zoie frantically.
+
+Aggie hastened toward the window.
+
+Attributing Zoie's uneasiness to a caprice of modesty, Alfred turned
+from the cradle to reassure her.
+
+"No one can see in way up here," he said.
+
+To Zoie's distress, the lowering of the shade was answered by a yet
+shriller whistle from the street below.
+
+"Was it 'up' or 'down'?" cried Zoie to Aggie in an agony of doubt, as
+she tried to recall her instructions to Jimmy.
+
+"I don't know," answered Aggie. "I've forgotten."
+
+Another impatient whistle did not improve their memory. Alarmed by
+Zoie's increasing excitement, and thinking she was troubled merely by
+a sick woman's fancy that someone might see through the window, Alfred
+placed the babe quickly in its cradle and crossed to the young wife's
+bed.
+
+"It was up, dear," he said. "You had Aggie put it down."
+
+"Then I want it up," declared the seemingly perverse Zoie.
+
+"But it was up," argued Alfred.
+
+A succession of emotional whistles set Zoie to pounding the pillows.
+
+"Put it down!" she commanded.
+
+"But Zoie----" protested Alfred.
+
+"Did I say 'up' or did I say 'down'?" moaned the half-demented Zoie,
+while long whistles and short whistles, appealing whistles and impatient
+whistles followed each other in quick succession.
+
+"You said down, dear," persisted Alfred, now almost as distracted as his
+wife.
+
+Zoie waved him from the room. "I wish you'd get out of here," she cried;
+"you make me so nervous that I can't think at all."
+
+"Of course, dear," murmured Alfred, "if you wish it." And with a hurt
+and perplexed expression on his face he backed quickly from the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+When Zoie's letter asking for the O'Flarety twin had reached that young
+lady's astonished mother, Mrs. O'Flarety felt herself suddenly lifted to
+a position of importance.
+
+"Think of the purty Mrs. Hardy a wantin' my little Bridget," she
+exclaimed, and she began to dwell upon the romantic possibilities of
+her offspring's future under the care of such a "foine stylish lady and
+concluded by declaring it 'a lucky day entoirely.'"
+
+Jimmy had his misgivings about it being Bridget's "LUCKY day," but it
+was not for him to delay matters by dwelling upon the eccentricities
+of Zoie's character, and when Mrs. O'Flarety had deposited Bridget in
+Jimmy's short arms and slipped a well filled nursing bottle into his
+overcoat pocket, he took his leave hastily, lest the excited woman add
+Bridget's twin to her willing offering.
+
+Once out of sight of the elated mother, Jimmy thrust the defenceless
+Bridget within the folds of his already snug ulster, buttoned the
+garment in such places as it would meet, and made for the taxi which,
+owing to the upset condition of the street, he had been obliged to
+abandon at the corner.
+
+Whether the driver had obtained a more promising "fare" or been run
+in by the police, Jimmy never knew. At any rate it was in vain that he
+looked for his vehicle. So intense was the cold that it was impossible
+to wait for a chance taxi; furthermore, the meanness of the district
+made it extremely unlikely that one would appear, and glancing guiltily
+behind him to make sure that no one was taking cognisance of his strange
+exploit, Jimmy began picking his way along dark lanes and avoiding the
+lighted thoroughfare on which the "Sherwood" was situated, until he was
+within a block of his destination.
+
+Panting with haste and excitement, he eventually gained courage to
+dash through a side street that brought him within a few doors of the
+"Sherwood." Again glancing behind him, he turned the well lighted corner
+and arrived beneath Zoie's window to find one shade up and one down. In
+his perplexity he emitted a faint whistle. Immediately he saw the other
+shade lowered. Uncertain as to what arrangement he had actually made
+with Zoie, he ventured a second whistle. The result was a hysterical
+running up and down of the shade which left him utterly bewildered as to
+what disposition he was supposed to make of the wobbly bit of humanity
+pressed against his shirt front.
+
+Reaching over his artificially curved figure to grasp a bit of white
+that trailed below his coat, he looked up to see a passing policeman
+eyeing him suspiciously.
+
+"Taking the air?" asked the policeman.
+
+"Ye-yes," mumbled Jimmy with affected nonchalence and he knocked the
+heels of his boots together in order to keep his teeth from chattering.
+"It's a fi-fine ni-night for air," he stuttered.
+
+"Is it?" said the policeman, and to Jimmy's horror, he saw the fellow's
+eyes fix themselves on the bit of white.
+
+"Go-good-night," stammered Jimmy hurriedly, and trying to assume an
+easy stride in spite of the uncomfortable addition to his already rotund
+figure, he slipped into the hotel, where avoiding the lighted elevator,
+he laboured quickly, up the stairs.
+
+At the very moment when Zoie was driving Alfred in consternation from
+the room, Jimmy entered it uninvited.
+
+"Get out," was the inhospitable greeting received simultaneously from
+Zoie and Aggie, and without waiting for further instructions he "got."
+
+Fortunately for all concerned, Alfred, who was at the same moment
+departing by way of the bedroom door, did not look behind him; but it
+was some minutes before Aggie who had followed Jimmy into the hall could
+persuade him to return.
+
+After repeated and insistent signals both from Aggie and Zoie, Jimmy's
+round red face appeared cautiously around the frame of the door. It bore
+unmistakable indications of apoplexy. But the eyes of the women were not
+upon Jimmy's face, they too had caught sight of the bit of white that
+hung below his coat, and dragging him quickly into the room and closing
+the door, Aggie proceeded without inquiry or thanks to unbutton his coat
+and to take from beneath it the small object for which she and Zoie had
+been eagerly waiting.
+
+"Thank Heaven!" sighed Zoie, as she saw Aggie bearing the latest
+acquisition to Alfred's rapidly increasing family safely toward the
+crib.
+
+Suddenly remembering something in his right hand coat pocket, Jimmy
+called to Aggie, who turned to him and waited expectantly. After
+characteristic fumbling, he produced a well filled nursing bottle.
+
+"What's that?" asked Zoie.
+
+"For HER," grunted Jimmy, and he nodded toward the bundle in Aggie's
+arms.
+
+"HER!" cried Zoie and Aggie in chorus. Zoie shut her lips hard and gazed
+at him with contempt.
+
+"I might have known you'd get the wrong kind," she said.
+
+What Jimmy thought about the ingratitude of woman was not to be
+expressed in language. He controlled himself as well as he could and
+merely LOOKED the things that he would like to have said.
+
+"Well, it can't be helped now," decided the philosophic Aggie; "here,
+Jimmy," she said, "you hold 'HER' a minute and I'll get you the other
+one."
+
+Placing the small creature in Jimmy's protesting arms, Aggie turned
+toward the cradle to make the proposed exchange when she was startled by
+the unexpected return of Alfred.
+
+Thanks to the ample folds of Jimmy's ulster, he was able to effectually
+conceal his charge and he started quickly toward the hall, but in making
+the necessary detour around the couch he failed to reach the door before
+Alfred, who had chosen a more direct way.
+
+"Hold on, Jimmy," exclaimed Alfred good-naturedly, and he laid a
+detaining hand on his friend's shoulder. "Where are you going?"
+
+"I'll be back," stammered Jimmy weakly, edging his way toward the door,
+and contriving to keep his back toward Alfred.
+
+"Wait a minute," said Alfred jovially, as he let his hand slip onto
+Jimmy's arm, "you haven't told me the news yet."
+
+"I'll tell you later," mumbled Jimmy, still trying to escape. But
+Alfred's eye had fallen upon a bit of white flannel dangling below
+the bottom of Jimmy's ulster, it travelled upward to Jimmy's unusually
+rotund figure.
+
+"What have you got there?" he demanded to know, as he pointed toward the
+centre button of Jimmy's overcoat.
+
+"Here?" echoed Jimmy vapidly, glancing at the button in question, "why,
+that's just a little----" There was a faint wail from the depths of
+the ulster. Jimmy began to caper about with elephantine tread. "Oochie,
+coochie, oochie," he called excitedly.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" asked Alfred. The wail became a shriek.
+"Good Heavens!" cried the anxious father, "it's my boy." And with that
+he pounced upon Jimmy, threw wide his ulster and snatched from his arms
+Jimmy's latest contribution to Zoie's scheme of things.
+
+As Aggie had previously remarked, all young babies look very much alike,
+and to the inexperienced eye of this new and overwrought father, there
+was no difference between the infant that he now pressed to his breast,
+and the one that, unsuspected by him, lay peacefully dozing in the crib,
+not ten feet from him. He gazed at the face of the newcomer with the
+same ecstasy that he had felt in the possession of her predecessor. But
+Zoie and Aggie were looking at each other with something quite different
+from ecstasy.
+
+"My boy," exclaimed Alfred, with deep emotion, as he clasped the tiny
+creature to his breast. Then he turned to Jimmy. "What were you doing
+with my baby?" he demanded hotly.
+
+"I--I was just taking him out for a little walk!" stammered Jimmy.
+
+"You just try," threatened Alfred, and he towered over the intimidated
+Jimmy. "Are you crazy?"
+
+Jimmy was of the opinion that he must be crazy or he would never have
+found himself in such a predicament as this, but the anxious faces of
+Zoie and Aggie, denied him the luxury of declaring himself so. He sank
+mutely on the end of the couch and proceeded to sulk in silence.
+
+As for Aggie and Zoie, they continued to gaze open-mouthed at Alfred,
+who was waltzing about the room transported into a new heaven of delight
+at having snatched his heir from the danger of another night ramble with
+Jimmy.
+
+"Did a horrid old Jimmy spoil his 'itty nap'?" he gurgled to Baby. Then
+with a sudden exclamation of alarm, he turned toward the anxious women.
+"Aggie!" he cried, as he stared intently into Baby's face. "Look--his
+rash! It's turned IN!"
+
+Aggie pretended to glance over Alfred's shoulder.
+
+"Why so it has," she agreed nervously.
+
+"What shall we do?" cried the distraught Alfred.
+
+"It's all right now," counselled Aggie, "so long as it didn't turn in
+too suddenly."
+
+"We'd better keep him warm, hadn't we?" suggested Alfred, remembering
+Aggie's previous instructions on a similar occasion. "I'll put him in
+his crib," he decided, and thereupon he made a quick move toward the
+bassinette.
+
+Staggering back from the cradle with the unsteadiness of a drunken man
+Alfred called upon the Diety. "What is THAT?" he demanded as he pointed
+toward the unexpected object before him.
+
+Neither Zoie, Aggie, nor Jimmy could command words to assist Alfred's
+rapidly waning powers of comprehension, and it was not until he had
+swept each face for the third time with a look of inquiry that Zoie
+found breath to stammer nervously, "Why--why--why, that's the OTHER
+one."
+
+"The other one?" echoed Alfred in a dazed manner; then he turned to
+Aggie for further explanation.
+
+"Yes," affirmed Aggie, with an emphatic nod, "the other one."
+
+An undescribable joy was dawning on Alfred's face.
+
+"You don't mean----" He stared from the infant in his arms to the one in
+the cradle, then back again at Aggie and Zoie. The women solemnly nodded
+their heads. Even Jimmy unblushingly acquiesced. Alfred turned toward
+Zoie for the final confirmation of his hopes.
+
+"Yes, dear," assented Zoie sweetly, "that's Alfred."
+
+What Jimmy and the women saw next appeared to be the dance of a whirling
+dervish; as a matter of fact, it was merely a man, mad with delight,
+clasping two infants in long clothes and circling the room with them.
+
+When Alfred could again enunciate distinctly, he rushed to Zoie's side
+with the babes in his arms.
+
+"My darling," he exclaimed, "why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"I was ashamed," whispered Zoie, hiding her head to shut out the sight
+of the red faces pressed close to hers.
+
+"My angel!" cried Alfred, struggling to control his complicated
+emotions; then gazing at the precious pair in his arms, he cast his eyes
+devoutly toward heaven, "Was ever a man so blessed?"
+
+Zoie peeped from the covers with affected shyness.
+
+"You love me just as much?" she queried.
+
+"I love you TWICE as much," declared Alfred, and with that he sank
+exhausted on the foot of the bed, vainly trying to teeter one son on
+each knee.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+When Jimmy gained courage to turn his eyes in the direction of the
+family group he had helped to assemble, he was not reassured by the
+reproachful glances that he met from Aggie and Zoie. It was apparent
+that in their minds, he was again to blame for something. Realising that
+they dared not openly reproach him before Alfred, he decided to make his
+escape while his friend was still in the room. He reached for his hat
+and tiptoed gingerly toward the door, but just as he was congratulating
+himself upon his decision, Alfred called to him with a mysterious air.
+
+"Jimmy," he said, "just a minute," and he nodded for Jimmy to approach.
+
+It must have been Jimmy's guilty conscience that made him powerless
+to disobey Alfred's every command. Anyway, he slunk back to the fond
+parent's side, where he ultimately allowed himself to be inveigled into
+swinging his new watch before the unattentive eyes of the red-faced
+babes on Alfred's knees.
+
+"Lower, Jimmy, lower," called Alfred as Jimmy absent-mindedly allowed
+the watch to swing out of the prescribed orbit. "Look at the darlings,
+Jimmy, look at them," he exclaimed as he gazed at the small creatures
+admiringly.
+
+"Yes, look at them, Jimmy," repeated Zoie, and she glared at Jimmy
+behind Alfred's back.
+
+"Don't you wish you had one of them, Jimmy?'" asked Alfred.
+
+"Well, _I_ wish he had," commented Zoie, and she wondered how she was
+ever again to detach either of them from Alfred's breast.
+
+Before she could form any plan, the telephone rang loud and
+persistently. Jimmy glanced anxiously toward the women for instructions.
+
+"I'll answer it," said Aggie with suspicious alacrity, and she crossed
+quickly toward the 'phone. The scattered bits of conversation that Zoie
+was able to gather from Aggie's end of the wire did not tend to soothe
+her over-excited nerves. As for Alfred, he was fortunately so engrossed
+with the babies that he took little notice of what Aggie was saying.
+
+"What woman?" asked Aggie into the 'phone. "Where's she from?" The
+answer was evidently not reassuring. "Certainly not," exclaimed Aggie,
+"don't let her come up; send her away. Mrs. Hardy can't see anyone at
+all." Then followed a bit of pantomime between Zoie and Aggie, from
+which it appeared that their troubles were multiplying, then Aggie again
+gave her attention to the 'phone. "I don't know anything about her," she
+fibbed, "that woman must have the wrong address." And with that she hung
+up the receiver and came towards Alfred, anxious to get possession of
+his two small charges and to get them from the room, lest the mother who
+was apparently downstairs should thrust herself into their midst.
+
+"What's the trouble, Aggie?" asked Alfred, and he nodded toward the
+telephone.
+
+"Oh, just some woman with the wrong address," answered Aggie with
+affected carelessness. "You'd better let me take the babies now,
+Alfred."
+
+"Take them where?" asked Alfred with surprise.
+
+"To bed," answered Aggie sweetly, "they are going to sleep in the next
+room with Jimmy and me." She laid a detaining hand on Jimmy's arm.
+
+"What's the hurry?" asked Alfred a bit disgruntled.
+
+"It's very late," argued Aggie.
+
+"Of course it is," insisted Zoie. "Please, Alfred," she pleaded, "do let
+Aggie take them."
+
+Alfred rose reluctantly. "Mother knows best," he sighed, but ignoring
+Aggie's outstretched arms, he refused to relinquish the joy of himself
+carrying the small mites to their room, and he disappeared with the two
+of them, singing his now favourite lullaby.
+
+When Alfred had left the room, Jimmy, who was now seated comfortably in
+the rocker, was rudely startled by a sharp voice at either side of him.
+
+"Well!" shrieked Zoie, with all the disapproval that could be got into
+the one small word.
+
+"You're very clever, aren't you?" sneered Aggie at Jimmy's other elbow.
+
+Jimmy stared from one to the other.
+
+"A nice fix you've got me into NOW," reproved Zoie.
+
+"Why didn't you get out when you had the chance?" demanded Aggie.
+
+"You would take your own sweet time, wouldn't you," said Zoie.
+
+"What did I tell you?" asked Aggie.
+
+"What does he care?" exclaimed Zoie, and she walked up and down the room
+excitedly, oblivious of the disarrangement of her flying negligee. "He's
+perfectly comfortable."
+
+"Oh yes," assented Jimmy, as he sank back into the rocker and
+began propelling himself to and fro. "I never felt better," but a
+disinterested observer would have seen in him the picture of discomfort.
+
+"You're going to feel a great deal WORSE," he was warned by Aggie. "Do
+you know who that was on the telephone?" she asked.
+
+Jimmy looked at her mutely.
+
+"The mother!" said Aggie emphatically
+
+"What!" exclaimed Jimmy.
+
+"She's down stairs," explained Aggie.
+
+Jimmy had stopped rocking--his face now wore an uneasy expression.
+
+"It's time you showed a little human intelligence," taunted Zoie, then
+she turned her back upon him and continued to Aggie, "what did she say?"
+
+"She says," answered Aggie, with a threatening glance toward Jimmy,
+"that she won't leave this place until Jimmy gives her baby back."
+
+"Let her have her old baby," said Jimmy. "I don't want it."
+
+"You don't want it?" snapped Zoie indignantly, "what have YOU got to do
+with it?"
+
+"Oh nothing, nothing," acquiesced Jimmy meekly, "I'm a mere detail."
+
+"A lot you care what becomes of me," exclaimed Zoie reproachfully; then
+she turned to Aggie with a decided nod. "Well, I want it," she asserted.
+
+"But Zoie," protested Aggie in astonishment, "you can't mean to keep
+BOTH of them?"
+
+"I certainly DO," said Zoie.
+
+"What?" cried Aggie and Jimmy in concert.
+
+"Jimmy has presented Alfred with twins," continued Zoie testily, "and
+now, he has to HAVE twins."
+
+Jimmy's eyes were growing rounder and rounder.
+
+"Do you know," continued Zoie, with a growing sense of indignation,
+"what would happen to me if I told Alfred NOW that he WASN'T the father
+of twins? He'd fly straight out of that door and I'd never see him
+again."
+
+Aggie admitted that Zoie was no doubt speaking the truth.
+
+"Jimmy has awakened Alfred's paternal instinct for twins," declared
+Zoie, with another emphatic nod of her head, "and now Jimmy must take
+the consequences."
+
+Jimmy tried to frame a few faint objections, but Zoie waved him aside,
+with a positive air. "It's no use arguing. If it were only ONE, it
+wouldn't be so bad, but to tell Alfred that he's lost twins, he couldn't
+live through it."
+
+"But Zoie," argued Aggie, "we can't have that mother hanging around down
+stairs until that baby is an old man. She'll have us arrested, the next
+thing."
+
+"Why arrest US?" asked Zoie, with wide baby eyes. "WE didn't take it.
+Old slow-poke took it." And she nodded toward the now utterly vanquished
+Jimmy.
+
+"That's right," murmured Jimmy, with a weak attempt at sarcasm, "don't
+leave me out of anything good."
+
+"It doesn't matter WHICH one she arrests," decided the practical Aggie.
+
+"Well, it matters to me," objected Zoie.
+
+"And to me too, if it's all the same to you," protested Jimmy.
+
+"Whoever it is," continued Aggie, "the truth is bound to come out.
+Alfred will have to know sooner or later, so we might as well make a
+clean breast of it, first as last."
+
+"That's the first sensible thing you've said in three months," declared
+Jimmy with reviving hope.
+
+"Oh, is that so?" sneered Zoie, and she levelled her most malicious look
+at Jimmy. "What do you think Alfred would do to YOU, Mr. Jimmy, if he
+knew the truth? YOU'RE the one who sent him the telegram; you are the
+one who told him that he was a FATHER."
+
+"That's true," admitted Aggie, with a wrinkled forehead.
+
+Zoie was quick to see her advantage. She followed it up. "And Alfred
+hasn't any sense of humour, you know."
+
+"How could he have?" groaned Jimmy; "he's married." And with that he
+sank into his habitual state of dumps.
+
+"Your sarcasm will do a great deal of good," flashed Zoie. Then she
+dismissed him with a nod, and crossed to her dressing table.
+
+"But Zoie," persisted Aggie, as she followed her young friend in
+trepidation, "don't you realise that if you persist in keeping this
+baby, that mother will dog Jimmy's footsteps for the rest of his life?"
+
+"That will be nice," murmured Jimmy.
+
+Zoie busied herself with her toilet, and turned a deaf ear to Aggie.
+There was a touch of genuine emotion in Aggie's voice when she
+continued.
+
+"Just think of it, Zoie, Jimmy will never be able to come and go like a
+free man again."
+
+"What do I care how he comes and goes?" exclaimed Zoie impatiently. "If
+Jimmy had gone when we told him to go, that woman would have had her old
+baby by now; but he didn't, oh no! All he ever does is to sit around and
+talk about his dinner."
+
+"Yes," cried Jimmy hotly, "and that's about as far as I ever GET with
+it."
+
+"You'll never get anywhere with anything," was Zoie's exasperating
+answer. "You're too slow."
+
+"Well, there's nothing slow about you," retorted Jimmy, stung to a
+frenzy by her insolence.
+
+"Oh please, please," interposed Aggie, desperately determined to keep
+these two irascible persons to the main issue. "What are we going to
+tell that mother?"
+
+"You can tell her whatever you like," answered Zoie, with an impudent
+toss of her head, "but I'll NOT give up that baby until I get ANOTHER
+one.'
+
+"Another?" almost shrieked Jimmy. It was apparent that he must needs
+increase the number of his brain cells if he were to follow this
+extraordinary young woman's line of thought much further. "You don't
+expect to go on multiplying them forever, do you?" he asked.
+
+"YOU are the one who has been multiplying them," was Zoie's
+disconcerting reply.
+
+It was evident to Jimmy that he could not think fast enough nor clearly
+enough to save himself from a mental disaster if he continued to argue
+with the shameless young woman, so he contented himself by rocking to
+and fro and murmuring dismally that he had "known from the first that it
+was to be an endless chain."
+
+While Zoie and Jimmy had been wrangling, Aggie had been weighing the
+pros and cons of the case. She now turned to Jimmy with a tone of firm
+but motherly decision. "Zoie is quite right," she said.
+
+Jimmy rolled his large eyes up at his spouse with a "you too, Brutus,"
+expression.
+
+Aggie continued mercilessly, "It's the only way, Jimmy."
+
+No sooner had Aggie arrived at her decision than Zoie upset her
+tranquillity by a triumphant expression of "I have it."
+
+Jimmy and Aggie gazed at Zoie's radiant face in consternation. They were
+accustomed to see only reproach there. Her sudden enthusiasm increased
+Jimmy's uneasiness.
+
+"YOU have it," he grunted without attempting to conceal his disgust.
+"SHE'S the one who generally has it." And he nodded toward Aggie.
+
+Inflamed by her young friend's enthusiasm, Aggie rushed to her eagerly.
+
+"What is it, Zoie?" she asked.
+
+"The washerwoman!" exclaimed Zoie, as though the revelation had come
+straight from heaven. "SHE HAD TWINS," and with that, two pairs of eyes
+turned expectantly toward the only man in the room.
+
+Tracing the pattern of the rug with his toe, Jimmy remained stubbornly
+oblivious of their attentions. He rearranged the pillows on the couch,
+and finally, for want of a better occupation, he wound his watch. All to
+no avail. He could feel Zoie's cat-like gaze upon him.
+
+"Jimmy can get the other one," she said.
+
+"The hell I can," exclaimed Jimmy, starting to his feet and no longer
+considering time or place.
+
+The two women gazed at him reproachfully.
+
+"Jimmy!" cried Aggie, in a shocked, hurt voice. "That's the first time
+I've ever heard you swear."
+
+"Well, it won't be the LAST time," declared Jimmy hotly, "if THIS keeps
+up." His eyes were blazing. He paced to and fro like an infuriated lion.
+
+"Dearest," said Aggie, "you look almost imposing."
+
+"Nonsense," interrupted Zoie, who found Jimmy unusually ridiculous. "If
+I'd known that Jimmy was going to put such an idea into Alfred's head,
+I'd have got the two in the first place."
+
+"Will she let us HAVE the other?" asked Aggie with some misgiving.
+
+"Of course she will," answered Zoie, leaving Jimmy entirely out of
+the conversation. "She's as poor as a church mouse. I'll pay her well.
+She'll never miss it. What could she do with one twin, anyway?"
+
+A snort of rage from Jimmy did not disturb Zoie's enthusiasm. She
+proceeded to elaborate her plan.
+
+"I'll adopt them," she declared, "I'll leave them all Alfred's money.
+Think of Alfred having real live twins for keeps."
+
+"It would be nice, wouldn't it?" commented Jimmy sarcastically.
+
+Zoie turned to Jimmy, as though they were on the best of terms.
+
+"How much money have you?" she asked.
+
+Before Jimmy could declare himself penniless, Aggie answered for him
+with the greatest enthusiasm, "He has a whole lot; he drew some today."
+
+"Good!" exclaimed Zoie to the abashed Jimmy, and then she continued in a
+matter-of-fact tone, "Now, Jimmy," she said, "you go give the washwoman
+what money you have on account, then tell her to come around here in the
+morning when Alfred has gone out and I'll settle all the details with
+her. Go on now, Jimmy," she continued, "you don't need another letter."
+
+"No," chimed in Aggie sweetly; "you know her now, dear."
+
+"Oh, yes," corroborated Jimmy, with a sarcastic smile and without
+budging from the spot on which he stood, "we are great pals now."
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Zoie, astonished that Jimmy was not starting
+on his mission with alacrity. "What are you waiting for?"
+
+Jimmy merely continued to smile enigmatically.
+
+"You know what happened the last time you hesitated," warned Aggie.
+
+"I know what happened when I DIDN'T hesitate," ruminated Jimmy, still
+holding his ground.
+
+Zoie's eyes were wide with surprise. "You don't mean to say," she
+exclaimed incredulously, "that you aren't GOING--after we have thought
+all this out just to SAVE you?"
+
+"Say," answered Jimmy, with a confidential air, "do me a favour, will
+you? Stop thinking out things to 'save me.'"
+
+"But, Jimmy----" protested both women simultaneously; but before they
+could get further Alfred's distressed voice reached them from the next
+room.
+
+"Aggie!" he called frantically.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+What seemed to be a streak of pink through the room was in reality Zoie
+bolting for the bed.
+
+While Zoie hastened to snuggle comfortably under the covers, Aggie tried
+without avail to get Jimmy started on his errand.
+
+Getting no response from Aggie, Alfred, bearing one infant in his arms,
+came in search of her. Apparently he was having difficulty with the
+unfastening of baby's collar.
+
+"Aggie," he called sharply, "how on earth do you get this fool pin out?"
+
+"Take him back, Alfred," answered Aggie impatiently; "I'll be there in a
+minute."
+
+But Alfred had apparently made up his mind that he was not a success as
+a nurse.
+
+"You'd better take him now, Aggie," he decided, as he offered the small
+person to the reluctant Aggie. "I'll stay here and talk to Jimmy."
+
+"Oh, but Jimmy was just going out," answered Aggie; then she turned to
+her obdurate spouse with mock sweetness, "Weren't you, dear?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," affirmed Zoie, with a threatening glance toward Jimmy. "He was
+going, just now."
+
+Still Jimmy remained rooted to the spot.
+
+"Out?" questioned Alfred. "What for?"
+
+"Just for a little air," explained Aggie blandly.
+
+"Yes," growled Jimmy, "another little heir."
+
+"Air?" repeated Alfred in surprise. "He had air a while ago with my
+son. He is going to stay here and tell me the news. Sit down, Jimmy,"
+he commanded, and to the intense annoyance of Aggie and Zoie, Jimmy sank
+resignedly on the couch.
+
+Alfred was about to seat himself beside his friend, when the 'phone rang
+violently. Being nearest to the instrument, Alfred reached it first and
+Zoie and Aggie awaited the consequences in dread. What they heard did
+not reassure them nor Jimmy.
+
+"Still down there?" exclaimed Alfred into the 'phone.
+
+Jimmy began to wriggle with a vague uneasiness.
+
+"Well," continued Alfred at the 'phone, "that woman has the wrong
+number." Then with a peremptory "Wait a minute," he turned to Zoie, "The
+hall boy says that woman who called a while ago is still down stairs and
+she won't go away until she has seen you, Zoie. She has some kind of an
+idiotic idea that you know where her baby is."
+
+"How absurd," sneered Zoie.
+
+"How silly," added Aggie.
+
+"How foolish," grunted Jimmy.
+
+"Well," decided Alfred, "I'd better go down stairs and see what's
+the matter with her," and he turned toward the door to carry out his
+intention.
+
+"Alfred!" called Zoie sharply. She was half out of bed in her anxiety.
+"You'll do no such thing. 'Phone down to the boy to send her away. She's
+crazy."
+
+"Oh," said Alfred, "then she's been here before? Who is she?"
+
+"Who is she?" answered Zoie, trying to gain time for a new inspiration.
+"Why, she's--she's----" her face lit up with satisfaction--the idea had
+arrived. "She's the nurse," she concluded emphatically.
+
+"The nurse?" repeated Alfred, a bit confused.
+
+"Yes," answered Zoie, pretending to be annoyed with his dull memory.
+"She's the one I told you about, the one I had to discharge."
+
+"Oh," said Alfred, with the relief of sudden comprehension; "the crazy
+one?"
+
+Aggie and Zoie nodded their heads and smiled at him tolerantly, then
+Zoie continued to elaborate. "You see," she said, "the poor creature was
+so insane about little Jimmy that I couldn't go near the child."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Alfred in a mighty rage. "I'll soon tell the boy what
+to do with her," he declared, and he rushed to the 'phone. Barely had
+Alfred taken the receiver from the hook when the outer door was heard
+to bang. Before he could speak a distracted young woman, whose excitable
+manner bespoke her foreign origin, swept through the door without seeing
+him and hurled herself at the unsuspecting Zoie. The woman's black hair
+was dishevelled, and her large shawl had fallen from her shoulders. To
+Jimmy, who was crouching behind an armchair, she seemed a giantess.
+
+"My baby!" cried the frenzied mother, with what was unmistakably an
+Italian accent. "Where is he?" There was no answer; her eyes sought
+the cradle. "Ah!" she shrieked, then upon finding the cradle empty, she
+redoubled her lamentations and again she bore down upon the terrified
+Zoie.
+
+"You," she cried, "you know where my baby is!"
+
+For answer, Zoie sank back amongst her pillows and drew the bed covers
+completely over her head. Alfred approached the bed to protect his young
+wife; the Italian woman wheeled about and perceived a small child in his
+arms. She threw herself upon him.
+
+"I knew it," she cried; "I knew it!"
+
+Managing to disengage himself from what he considered a mad woman, and
+elevating one elbow between her and the child, Alfred prevented the
+mother from snatching the small creature from his arms.
+
+"Calm yourself, madam," he commanded with a superior air. "We are very
+sorry for you, of course, but we can't have you coming here and going on
+like this. He's OUR baby and----"
+
+"He's NOT your baby!" cried the infuriated mother; "he's MY baby.
+Give him to me. Give him to me," and with that she sprang upon the
+uncomfortable Alfred like a tigress. Throwing her whole weight on his
+uplifted elbow, she managed to pull down his arm until she could look
+into the face of the washerwoman's promising young offspring. The air
+was rent by a scream that made each individual hair of Jimmy's head
+stand up in its own defence. He could feel a sickly sensation at the top
+of his short thick neck.
+
+"He's NOT my baby," wailed the now demented mother, little dreaming that
+the infant for which she was searching was now reposing comfortably on a
+soft pillow in the adjoining room.
+
+As for Alfred, all of this was merely confirmation of Zoie's statement
+that this poor soul was crazy, and he was tempted to dismiss her with
+worthy forbearance.
+
+"I am glad, madam," he said, "that you are coming to your senses."
+
+Now, all would have gone well and the bewildered mother would no doubt
+have left the room convinced of her mistake, had not Jimmy's nerves got
+the better of his judgment. Having slipped cautiously from his position
+behind the armchair he was tiptoeing toward the door, and was flattering
+himself on his escape, when suddenly, as his forward foot cautiously
+touched the threshold, he heard the cry of the captor in his wake, and
+before he could possibly command the action of his other foot, he felt
+himself being forcibly drawn backward by what appeared to be his too
+tenacious coat-tails.
+
+"If only they would tear," thought Jimmy, but thanks to the excellence
+of the tailor that Aggie had selected for him, they did NOT "tear."
+
+Not until she had anchored Jimmy safely to the centre of the rug did the
+irate mother pour out the full venom of her resentment toward him. From
+the mixture of English and Italian that followed, it was apparent that
+she was accusing Jimmy of having stolen her baby.
+
+"Take me to him," she demanded tragically; "my baby--take me to him!"
+
+Jimmy appealed to Aggie and Zoie. Their faces were as blank as his own.
+He glanced at Alfred.
+
+"Humour her," whispered Alfred, much elated by the evidence of his
+own self-control as compared to Jimmy's utter demoralisation under the
+apparently same circumstances.
+
+Still Jimmy did not budge.
+
+Alfred was becoming vexed; he pointed first to his own forehead, then
+to that of Jimmy's hysterical captor. He even illustrated his meaning
+by making a rotary motion with his forefinger, intended to remind Jimmy
+that the woman was a lunatic.
+
+Still Jimmy only stared at him and all the while the woman was becoming
+more and more emphatic in her declaration that Jimmy knew where her baby
+was.
+
+"Sure, Jimmy," said Alfred, out of all patience with Jimmy's stupidity
+and tiring of the strain of the woman's presence. "You know where her
+baby is."
+
+"Ah!" cried the mother, and she towered over Jimmy with a wild light in
+her eyes. "Take me to him," she demanded; "take me to him."
+
+Jimmy rolled his large eyes first toward Aggie, then toward Zoie and at
+last toward Alfred. There was no mercy to be found anywhere.
+
+"Take her to him, Jimmy," commanded a concert of voices; and pursued by
+a bundle of waving colours and a medley of discordant sounds, Jimmy shot
+from the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The departure of Jimmy and the crazed mother was the occasion for a
+general relaxing among the remaining occupants of the room. Exhausted
+by what had passed Zoie had ceased to interest herself in the future. It
+was enough for the present that she could sink back upon her pillows and
+draw a long breath without an evil face bending over her, and without
+the air being rent by screams.
+
+As for Aggie, she fell back upon the window seat and closed her eyes.
+The horrors into which Jimmy might be rushing had not yet presented
+themselves to her imagination.
+
+Of the three, Alfred was the only one who had apparently received
+exhilaration from the encounter. He was strutting about the room with
+the babe in his arms, undoubtedly enjoying the sensations of a hero.
+When he could sufficiently control his feeling of elation, he looked
+down at the small person with an air of condescension and again lent
+himself to the garbled sort of language with which defenceless infants
+are inevitably persecuted.
+
+"Tink of dat horrid old woman wanting to steal our own little oppsie,
+woppsie, toppsie babykins," he said. Then he turned to Zoie with an
+air of great decision. "That woman ought to be locked up," he declared,
+"she's dangerous," and with that he crossed to Aggie and hurriedly
+placed the infant in her unsuspecting arms. "Here, Aggie," he said, "you
+take Alfred and get him into bed."
+
+Glad of an excuse to escape to the next room and recover her self
+control, Aggie quickly disappeared with the child.
+
+For some moments Alfred continued to pace up and down the room; then he
+came to a full stop before Zoie.
+
+"I'll have to have something done to that woman," he declared
+emphatically.
+
+"Jimmy will do enough to her," sighed Zoie, weakly.
+
+"She's no business to be at large," continued Alfred; then, with a
+business-like air, he started toward the telephone.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Zoie.
+
+Alfred did not answer. He was now calling into the 'phone, "Give me
+information."
+
+"What on earth are you doing?" demanded Zoie, more and more disturbed by
+his mysterious manner.
+
+"One can't be too careful," retorted Alfred in his most paternal
+fashion; "there's an awful lot of kidnapping going on these days."
+
+"Well, you don't suspect information, do you?" asked Zoie.
+
+Again Alfred ignored her; he was intent upon things of more importance.
+
+"Hello," he called into the 'phone, "is this information?" Apparently it
+was for he continued, with a satisfied air, "Well, give me the Fullerton
+Street Police Station."
+
+"The Police?" cried Zoie, sitting up in bed and looking about the room
+with a new sense of alarm.
+
+Alfred did not answer.
+
+"Aggie!" shrieked the over-wrought young wife.
+
+Alfred attempted to reassure her. "Now, now, dear, don't get nervous,"
+he said, "I am only taking the necessary precautions." And again he
+turned to the 'phone.
+
+Alarmed by Zoie's summons, Aggie entered the room hastily. She was not
+reassured upon hearing Alfred's further conversation at the 'phone.
+
+"Is this the Fullerton Street Police Station?" asked Alfred.
+
+"The Police!" echoed Aggie, and her eyes sought Zoie's inquiringly.
+
+"Sh! Sh!" called Alfred over his shoulder to the excited Aggie, then
+he continued into the 'phone. "Is Donneghey there?" There was a pause.
+Alfred laughed jovially. "It is? Well, hello, Donneghey, this is your
+old friend Hardy, Alfred Hardy at the Sherwood. I've just got back,"
+then he broke the happy news to the no doubt appreciative Donneghey.
+"What do you think?" he said, "I'm a happy father."
+
+Zoie puckered her small face in disgust.
+
+Alfred continued to elucidate joyfully at the 'phone.
+
+"Doubles," he said, "yes--sure--on the level."
+
+"I don't know why you have to tell the whole neighbourhood," snapped
+Zoie. Her colour was visibly rising.
+
+But Alfred was now in the full glow of his genial account to his friend.
+"Set 'em up?" he repeated in answer to an evident suggestion from the
+other end of the line, "I should say I would. The drinks are on me. Tell
+the boys I'll be right over. And say, Donneghey," he added, in a more
+confidential tone, "I want to bring one of the men home with me. I
+want him to keep an eye on the house to-night"; then after a pause, he
+concluded confidentially, "I'll tell you all about it when I get there.
+It looks like a kidnapping scheme to me," and with that he hung up the
+receiver, unmistakably pleased with himself, and turned his beaming face
+toward Zoie.
+
+"It's all right, dear," he said, rubbing his hands together with evident
+satisfaction, "Donneghey is going to let us have a Special Officer to
+watch the house to-night."
+
+"I won't HAVE a special officer," declared Zoie vehemently; then
+becoming aware of Alfred's great surprise, she explained half-tearfully,
+"I'm not going to have the police hanging around our very door. I would
+feel as though I were in prison."
+
+"You ARE in prison, my dear," returned the now irrepressible Alfred. "A
+prison of love--you and our precious boys." He stooped and implanted a
+gracious kiss on her forehead, then turned toward the table for his hat.
+"Now," he said, "I'll just run around the corner, set up the drinks for
+the boys, and bring the officer home with me," and drawing himself up
+proudly, he cried gaily in parting, "I'll bet there's not another man in
+Chicago who has what I have to-night."
+
+"I hope not," groaned Zoie. as the door closed behind him. Then,
+thrusting her two small feet from beneath the coverlet and perching on
+the side of the bed, she declared to Aggie that "Alfred was getting more
+idiotic every minute."
+
+"He's worse than idiotic," corrected Aggie. "He's getting dangerous. If
+he gets the police around here before we give that baby back, they'll
+get the mother. She'll tell all she knows and that will be the end of
+Jimmy!"
+
+"End of Jimmy?" exclaimed Zoie, "it'll be the end of ALL of us."
+
+"I can see our pictures in the papers, right now," groaned Aggie. "Jimmy
+will be the villain."
+
+"Jimmy IS a villain," declared Zoie. "Where is he? Why doesn't he come
+back? How am I ever going to get that other twin?"
+
+"There is only one thing to do," decided Aggie, "I must go for it
+myself." And she snatched up her cape from the couch and started toward
+the door.
+
+"You?" cried Zoie, in alarm, "and leave me alone?"
+
+"It's our only chance," argued Aggie. "I'll have to do it now, before
+Alfred gets back."
+
+"But Aggie," protested Zoie, clinging to her departing friend, "suppose
+that crazy mother should come back?"
+
+"Nonsense," replied Aggie, and before Zoie could actually realise what
+was happening the bang of the outside door told her that she was alone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Wondering what new terrors awaited her, Zoie glanced uncertainly from
+door to door. So strong had become her habit of taking refuge in the
+bed, that unconsciously she backed toward it now. Barely had she reached
+the centre of the room when a terrific crash of breaking glass from the
+adjoining room sent her shrieking in terror over the footboard, and head
+first under the covers. Here she would doubtless have remained until
+suffocated, had not Jimmy in his backward flight from one of the
+inner rooms overturned a large rocker. This additional shock to Zoie's
+overstrung nerves forced a wild scream from her lips, and an answering
+exclamation from the nerve-racked Jimmy made her sit bolt upright. She
+gazed at him in astonishment. His tie was awry, one end of his collar
+had taken leave of its anchorage beneath his stout chin, and was now
+just tickling the edge of his red, perspiring brow. His hair was on end
+and his feelings were undeniably ruffled. As usual Zoie's greeting did
+not tend to conciliate him.
+
+"How did YOU get here?" she asked with an air of reproach.
+
+"The fire-escape," panted Jimmy and he nodded mysteriously toward the
+inner rooms of the apartment.
+
+"Fire-escape?" echoed Zoie. There was only one and that led through the
+bathroom window.
+
+Jimmy explained no further. He was now peeping cautiously out of the
+window toward the pavement below.
+
+"Where's the mother?" demanded Zoie.
+
+Jimmy jerked his thumb in the direction of the street. Zoie gazed at him
+with grave apprehension.
+
+"Jimmy!" she exclaimed. "You haven't killed her?"
+
+Jimmy shook his head and continued to peer cautiously out of the window.
+
+"What did you do with her?" called the now exasperated Zoie.
+
+"What did _I_ do with her?" repeated Jimmy, a flash of his old
+resentment returning. "What did SHE do with ME?"
+
+For the first time, Zoie became fully conscious of Jimmy's ludicrous
+appearance. Her overstrained nerves gave way and she began to laugh
+hysterically.
+
+"Say," shouted Jimmy, towering over the bed and devoutly wishing that
+she were his wife so that he might strike her with impunity. "Don't you
+sic any more lunatics onto me."
+
+It is doubtful whether Zoie's continued laughter might not have provoked
+Jimmy to desperate measures, had not the 'phone at that moment directed
+their thoughts toward worse possibilities. After the instrument had
+continued to ring persistently for what seemed to Zoie an age, she
+motioned to Jimmy to answer it. He responded by retreating to the other
+side of the room.
+
+"It may be Aggie," suggested Zoie.
+
+For the first time, Jimmy became aware that Aggie was nowhere in the
+apartment.
+
+"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, as he realised that he was again tete-a-tete
+with the terror of his dreams. "Where IS Aggie?"
+
+"Gone to do what YOU should have done," was Zoie's characteristic
+answer.
+
+"Well," answered Jimmy hotly, "it's about time that somebody besides me
+did something around this place."
+
+"YOU," mocked Zoie, "all YOU'VE ever done was to hoodoo me from the very
+beginning."
+
+"If you'd taken my advice," answered Jimmy, "and told your husband the
+truth about the luncheon, there'd never have been any 'beginning.'"
+
+"If, if, if," cried Zoie, in an agony of impatience, "if you'd tipped
+that horrid old waiter enough, he'd never have told anyway."
+
+"I'm not buying waiters to cover up your crimes," announced Jimmy with
+his most self-righteous air.
+
+"You'll be buying more than that to cover up your OWN crimes before
+you've finished," retorted Zoie.
+
+"Before I've finished with YOU, yes," agreed Jimmy. He wheeled upon her
+with increasing resentment. "Do you know where I expect to end up?" he
+asked.
+
+"I know where you OUGHT to end up," snapped Zoie.
+
+"I'll finish in the electric chair," said Jimmy. "I can feel blue
+lightning chasing up and down my spine right now."
+
+"Well, I wish you HAD finished in the electric chair," declared Zoie,
+"before you ever dragged me into that awful old restaurant."
+
+"Oh, you do, do you?" answered Jimmy shaking his fist at her across the
+foot of the bed. For the want of adequate words to express his further
+feelings, Jimmy was beginning to jibber, when the outer door was
+heard to close, and he turned to behold Aggie entering hurriedly with
+something partly concealed by her long cape.
+
+"It's all right," explained Aggie triumphantly to Zoie. "I've got it."
+She threw her cape aside and disclosed the fruits of her conquest.
+
+"So," snorted Jimmy in disgust, slightly miffed by the apparent ease
+with which Aggie had accomplished a task about which he had made so much
+ado, "you've gone into the business too, have you?"
+
+Aggie deigned no reply to him. She continued in a businesslike tone to
+Zoie.
+
+"Where's Alfred?" she asked.
+
+"Still out," answered Zoie.
+
+"Thank Heaven," sighed Aggie, then she turned to Jimmy and addressed him
+in rapid, decided tones. "Now, dear," she said, "I'll just put the new
+baby to bed, then I'll give you the other one and you can take it right
+down to the mother."
+
+Jimmy made a vain start in the direction of the fire-escape. Four
+detaining hands were laid upon him.
+
+"Don't try anything like that," warned Aggie; "you can't get out of this
+house without that baby. The mother is down stairs now. She's guarding
+the door. I saw her." And Aggie sailed triumphantly out of the room to
+make the proposed exchange of babies.
+
+Before Jimmy was able to suggest to himself an escape from Aggie's last
+plan of action, the telephone again began to cry for attention.
+
+Neither Jimmy nor Zoie could summon courage to approach the impatient
+instrument, and as usual Zoie cried frantically for Aggie.
+
+Aggie was not long in returning to the room and this time she bore in
+her arms the infant so strenuously demanded by its mad mother.
+
+"Here you are, Jimmy," she said; "here's the other one. Now take him
+down stairs quickly before Alfred gets back." She attempted to place the
+unresisting babe in Jimmy's chubby arms, but Jimmy's freedom was not to
+be so easily disposed of.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed, backing away from the small creature in fear and
+abhorrence, "take that bundle of rags down to the hotel office and have
+that woman hystericing all over me. No, thanks."
+
+"Oh well," answered Aggie, distracted by the persistent ringing of the
+'phone, "then hold him a minute until I answer the 'phone."
+
+This at least was a compromise, and reluctantly Jimmy allowed the now
+wailing infant to be placed in his arms.
+
+"Jig it, Jimmy, jig it," cried Zoie. Jimmy looked down helplessly at
+the baby's angry red face, but before he had made much headway with the
+"jigging," Aggie returned to them, much excited by the message which she
+had just received over the telephone.
+
+"That mother is making a scene down stairs in the office," she said.
+
+"You hear," chided Zoie, in a fury at Jimmy, "what did Aggie tell you?"
+
+"If she wants this thing," maintained Jimmy, looking down at the bundle
+in his arms, "she can come after it."
+
+"We can't have her up here," objected Aggie.
+
+"Alfred may be back at any minute. He'd catch her. You know what
+happened the last time we tried to change them."
+
+"You can send it down the chimney, for all I care," concluded Jimmy.
+
+"I have it!" exclaimed Aggie, her face suddenly illumined.
+
+"Oh Lord," groaned Jimmy, who had come to regard any elation on Zoie's
+or Aggie's part as a sure forewarner of ultimate discomfort for him.
+
+Again Aggie had recourse to the 'phone.
+
+"Hello," she called to the office boy, "tell that woman to go around to
+the back door, and we'll send something down to her." There was a slight
+pause, then Aggie added sweetly, "Yes, tell her to wait at the foot of
+the fire-escape."
+
+Zoie had already caught the drift of Aggie's intention and she now fixed
+her glittering eyes upon Jimmy, who was already shifting about uneasily
+and glancing at Aggie, who approached him with a business-like air.
+
+"Now, dear," said Aggie, "come with me. I'll hand Baby out through the
+bathroom window and you can run right down the fire-escape with him."
+
+"If I do run down the fire-escape," exclaimed Jimmy, wagging his large
+head from side to side, "I'll keep right on RUNNING. That's the last
+you'll ever see of me."
+
+"But, Jimmy," protested Aggie, slightly hurt by his threat, "once that
+woman gets her baby you'll have no more trouble."
+
+"With you two still alive?" asked Jimmy, looking from one to the other.
+
+"She'll be up here if you don't hurry," urged Aggie impatiently, and
+with that she pulled Jimmy toward the bedroom door.
+
+"Let her come," said Jimmy, planting his feet so as to resist Aggie's
+repeated tugs, "I'm going to South America."
+
+"Why will you act like this," cried Aggie, in utter desperation, "when
+we have so little time?"
+
+"Say," said Jimmy irrelevantly, "do you know that I haven't had any----"
+
+"Yes," interrupted Aggie and Zoie in chorus, "we know."
+
+"How long," continued Zoie impatiently, "is it going to take you to slip
+down that fire-escape?"
+
+"That depends on how fast I 'slip,'" answered Jimmy doggedly.
+
+"You'll 'slip' all right," sneered Zoie.
+
+Further exchange of pleasantries between these two antagonists was cut
+short by the banging of the outside door.
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Aggie, glancing nervously over her shoulder,
+"there's Alfred now. Hurry, Jimmy, hurry," she cried, and with that she
+fairly forced Jimmy out through the bedroom door, and followed in his
+wake to see him safely down the fire-escape.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Zoie had barely time to arrange herself after the manner of an
+interesting invalid, when Alfred entered the room in the gayest of
+spirits.
+
+"Hello, dearie," he cried as he crossed quickly to her side.
+
+"Already?" asked Zoie faintly and she glanced uneasily toward the door,
+through which Jimmy and Aggie had just disappeared.
+
+"I told you I shouldn't be long," said Alfred jovially, and he implanted
+a condescending kiss on her forehead. "How is the little mother, eh?" he
+asked, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction.
+
+"You're all cold," pouted Zoie, edging away, "and you've been drinking."
+
+"I had to have one or two with the boys," said Alfred, throwing out his
+chest and strutting about the room, "but never again. From now on I cut
+out all drinks and cigars. This is where I begin to live my life for our
+sons."
+
+"How about your life for me?" asked Zoie, as she began to see long years
+of boredom stretching before her.
+
+"You and our boys are one and the same, dear," answered Alfred, coming
+back to her side.
+
+"You mean you couldn't go on loving ME if it weren't for the BOYS?"
+asked Zoie, with anxiety. She was beginning to realise how completely
+her hold upon him depended upon her hideous deception.
+
+"Of course I could, Zoie," answered Alfred, flattered by what he
+considered her desire for his complete devotion, "but----"
+
+"But not so MUCH," pouted Zoie.
+
+"Well, of course, dear," admitted Alfred evasively, as he sank down upon
+the edge of the bed by her side--
+
+"You needn't say another word," interrupted Zoie, and then with a shade
+of genuine repentance, she declared shame-facedly that she hadn't been
+"much of a wife" to Alfred.
+
+"Nonsense!" contradicted the proud young father, "you've given me the
+ONE thing that I wanted most in the world."
+
+"But you see, dear," said Zoie, as she wound her little white arms about
+his neck, and looked up into his face adoringly, "YOU'VE been the 'ONE'
+thing that I wanted 'MOST' and I never realised until to-night how--how
+crazy you are about things."
+
+"What things?" asked Alfred, a bit puzzled.
+
+"Well," said Zoie, letting her eyes fall before his and picking at a bit
+of imaginary lint on the coverlet, "babies and things."
+
+"Oh," said Alfred, and he was about to proceed when she again
+interrupted him.
+
+"But now that I DO realise it," continued Zoie, earnestly, her fingers
+on his lips, lest he again interrupt, "if you'll only have a little
+patience with me, I'll--I'll----" again her eyes fell bashfully to the
+coverlet, as she considered the possibility of being ultimately obliged
+to replace the bogus twins with real ones.
+
+"All the patience in the world," answered Alfred, little dreaming of the
+problem that confronted the contrite Zoie.
+
+"That's all I ask," declared Zoie, her assurance completely restored,
+"and in case anything SHOULD happen to THESE----" she glanced anxiously
+toward the door through which Aggie had borne the twins.
+
+"But nothing is going to happen to these, dear," interrupted Alfred,
+rising and again assuming an air of fatherly protection. "I'll attend
+to that. There, there," he added, patting her small shoulder and nodding
+his head wisely. "That crazy woman has got on your nerves, but you
+needn't worry, I've got everything fixed. Donneghey sent a special
+officer over with me. He's outside watching the house, now."
+
+"Now!" shrieked Zoie, fixing her eyes on the bedroom door, through which
+Jimmy had lately disappeared and wondering whether he had yet "slipped"
+down the fire-escape.
+
+"Yes," continued Alfred, walking up and down the floor with a masterly
+stride. "If that woman is caught hanging around here again, she'll get a
+little surprise. My boys are safe now, God bless them!" Then reminded of
+the fact that he had not seen them since his return, he started quickly
+toward the bedroom door. "I'll just have a look at the little rascals,"
+he decided.
+
+"No, dear," cried Zoie. She caught Alfred's arm as he passed the side of
+her bed, and clung to him in desperation. "Wait a minute."
+
+Alfred looked down at her in surprise.
+
+She turned her face toward the door, and called lustily, "Aggie! Aggie!"
+
+"What is it, dear?" questioned Alfred, thinking Zoie suddenly ill, "can
+I get you something?"
+
+Before Zoie was obliged to reply, Aggie answered her summons.
+
+"Did you call?" she asked, glancing inquiringly into Zoie's distressed
+face.
+
+"Alfred's here," said Zoie, with a sickly smile as she stroked his hand
+and glanced meaningly at Aggie. "He's GOT the OFFICER!"
+
+"The OFFICER?" cried Aggie, and involuntarily she took a step backward,
+as though to guard the bedroom door.
+
+"Yes," said Alfred, mistaking Aggie's surprise for a compliment to his
+resource; "and now, Aggie, if you'll just stay with Zoie for a minute
+I'll have a look at my boys."
+
+"No, no!" exclaimed Aggie, nervously, and she placed herself again in
+front of the bedroom door.
+
+Alfred was plainly annoyed by her proprietory air.
+
+"They're asleep," explained Aggie.
+
+"I'll not WAKE them," persisted Alfred, "I just wish to have a LOOK at
+them," and with that he again made a move toward the door.
+
+"But Alfred," protested Zoie, still clinging to his hand, "you're not
+going to leave me again--so soon."
+
+Alfred was becoming more and more restive under the seeming absurdity of
+their persistent opposition, but before he could think of a polite way
+of over-ruling them, Aggie continued persuasively.
+
+"You stay with Zoie," she said. "I'll bring the boys in here and you can
+both have a look at them."
+
+"But Aggie," argued Alfred, puzzled by her illogical behaviour, "would
+it be wise to wake them?"
+
+"Just this once," said Aggie. "Now you stay here and I'll get them."
+Before Alfred could protest further she was out of the room and the door
+had closed behind her, so he resigned himself to her decision, banished
+his temporary annoyance at her obstinacy, and glanced about the room
+with a new air of proprietorship.
+
+"This is certainly a great night, Zoie," he said.
+
+"It certainly is," acquiesced Zoie, with an over emphasis that made
+Alfred turn to her with new concern.
+
+"I'm afraid that mad woman made you very nervous, dear," he said.
+
+"She certainly did," said Zoie.
+
+Zoie's nerves were destined to bear still further strain, for at that
+moment, there came a sharp ring at the door.
+
+Beside herself with anxiety Zoie threw her arms about Alfred, who had
+advanced to soothe her, drew him down by her side and buried her head on
+his breast.
+
+"You ARE jumpy," said Alfred, and at that instant a wrangle of loud
+voices, and a general commotion was heard in the outer hall. "What's
+that?" asked Alfred, endeavouring to disentangle himself from Zoie's
+frantic embrace.
+
+Zoie clung to him so tightly that he was unable to rise, but his alert
+ear caught the sound of a familiar voice rising above the din of dispute
+in the hallway.
+
+"That sounds like the officer," he exclaimed.
+
+"The officer?" cried Zoie, and she wound her arms more tightly about
+him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+Propelled by a large red fist, attached to the back of his badly wilted
+collar, the writhing form of Jimmy was now thrust through the outer
+door.
+
+"Let go of me," shouted the hapless Jimmy.
+
+The answer was a spasmodic shaking administered by the fist; then a
+large burly officer, carrying a small babe in his arms, shoved the
+reluctant Jimmy into the centre of the room and stood guard over him.
+
+"I got him for you, sir," announced the officer proudly, to the
+astonished Alfred, who had just managed to untwine Zoie's arms and to
+struggle to his feet.
+
+Alfred's eyes fell first upon the dejected Jimmy, then they travelled to
+the bundle of long clothes in the officer's arms.
+
+"My boy!" he cried. "My boy!" He snatched the infant from the officer
+and pressed him jealously to his breast. "I don't understand," he said,
+gazing at the officer in stupefaction. "Where was he?"
+
+"You mean this one?" asked the officer, nodding toward the unfortunate
+Jimmy. "I caught him slipping down your fire-escape."
+
+"I KNEW it," exclaimed Zoie in a rage, and she cast a vindictive look at
+Jimmy for his awkwardness.
+
+"Knew WHAT, dear?" asked Alfred, now thoroughly puzzled.
+
+Zoie did not answer. Her powers of resource were fast waning. Alfred
+turned again to the officer, then to Jimmy, who was still flashing
+defiance into the officer's threatening eyes.
+
+"My God!" he exclaimed, "this is awful. What's the matter with you,
+Jimmy? This is the third time that you have tried to take my baby out
+into the night."
+
+"Then you've had trouble with him before?" remarked the officer. He
+studied Jimmy with new interest, proud in the belief that he had brought
+a confirmed "baby-snatcher" to justice.
+
+"I've had a little trouble myself," declared Jimmy hotly, now resolved
+to make a clean breast of it.
+
+"I'm not asking about your troubles," interrupted the officer savagely,
+and Jimmy felt the huge creature's obnoxious fingers tightening again on
+his collar. "Go ahead, sir," said the officer to Alfred.
+
+"Well," began Alfred, nodding toward the now livid Jimmy, "he was out
+with my boy when I arrived. I stopped him from going out with him
+a second time, and now you, officer, catch him slipping down the
+fire-escape. I don't know what to say," he finished weakly.
+
+"_I_ do," exclaimed Jimmy, feeling more and more like a high explosive,
+"and I'll say it."
+
+"Cut it," shouted the officer. And before Jimmy could get further,
+Alfred resumed with fresh vehemence.
+
+"He's supposed to be a friend of mine," he explained to the officer, as
+he nodded toward the wriggling Jimmy. "He was all right when I left him
+a few months ago."
+
+"You'll think I'm all right again," shouted Jimmy, trying to get free
+from the officer, "before I've finished telling all I----"
+
+"That won't help any," interrupted the officer firmly, and with another
+twist of Jimmy's badly wilted collar he turned to Alfred with his most
+civil manner, "What shall I do with him, sir?"
+
+"I don't know," said Alfred, convinced that his friend was a fit subject
+for a straight jacket. "This is horrible."
+
+"It's absurd," cried Zoie, on the verge of hysterics, and in utter
+despair of ever disentangling the present complication without
+ultimately losing Alfred, "you're all absurd," she cried wildly.
+
+"Absurd?" exclaimed Alfred, turning upon her in amazement, "what do you
+mean?"
+
+"It's a joke," said Zoie, without the slightest idea of where the joke
+lay. "If you had any sense you could see it."
+
+"I DON'T see it," said Alfred, with hurt dignity.
+
+"Neither do I," said Jimmy, with boiling resentment.
+
+"Can you call it a joke," asked Alfred, incredulously, "to have our
+boy----" He stopped suddenly, remembering that there was a companion
+piece to this youngster. "The other one!" he exclaimed, "our other
+boy----" He rushed to the crib, found it empty, and turned a terrified
+face to Zoie. "Where is he?" he demanded.
+
+"Now, Alfred," pleaded Zoie, "don't get excited; he's all right."
+
+"How do you know?" asked the distracted father.
+
+Zoie did not know, but at that moment her eyes fell upon Jimmy, and as
+usual he was the source of an inspiration for her.
+
+"Jimmy never cared for the other one," she said, "did you, Jimmy?"
+
+Alfred turned to the officer, with a tone of command. "Wait," he said,
+then he started toward the bedroom door to make sure that his other
+boy was quite safe. The picture that confronted him brought the hair
+straight up on his head. True to her promise, and ignorant of Jimmy's
+return with the first baby, Aggie had chosen this ill-fated moment to
+appear on the threshold with one babe on each arm.
+
+"Here they are," she said graciously, then stopped in amazement at sight
+of the horrified Alfred, clasping a third infant to his breast.
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed Alfred, stroking his forehead with his unoccupied
+hand, and gazing at what he firmly believed must be an apparition,
+"THOSE aren't MINE," he pointed to the two red mites in Aggie's arms.
+
+"Wh--why not, Alfred?" stammered Aggie for the want of something better
+to say.
+
+"What?" shrieked Alfred. Then he turned in appeal to his young wife,
+whose face had now become utterly expressionless. "Zoie?" he entreated.
+
+There was an instant's pause, then the blood returned to Zoie's face and
+she proved herself the artist that Alfred had once declared her.
+
+"OURS, dear," she murmured softly, with a bashful droop of her lids.
+
+"But THIS one?" persisted Alfred, pointing to the baby in his arms, and
+feeling sure that his mind was about to give way.
+
+"Why--why--why," stuttered Zoie, "THAT'S the JOKE."
+
+"The joke?" echoed Alfred, looking as though he found it anything but
+such.
+
+"Yes," added Aggie, sharing Zoie's desperation to get out of their
+temporary difficulty, no matter at what cost in the future. "Didn't
+Jimmy tell you?"
+
+"Tell me WHAT?" stammered Alfred, "what IS there to tell?"
+
+"Why, you see," said Aggie, growing more enthusiastic with each
+elaboration of Zoie's lie, "we didn't dare to break it to you too
+suddenly."
+
+"Break it to me?" gasped Alfred; a new light was beginning to dawn on
+his face.
+
+"So," concluded Zoie, now thoroughly at home in the new situation, "we
+asked Jimmy to take THAT one OUT."
+
+Jimmy cast an inscrutable glance in Zoie's direction. Was it possible
+that she was at last assisting him out of a difficulty?
+
+"You 'ASKED Jimmy'?" repeated Alfred.
+
+"Yes," confirmed Aggie, with easy confidence, "we wanted you to get used
+to the idea gradually."
+
+"The idea," echoed Alfred. He was afraid to allow his mind to accept
+too suddenly the whole significance of their disclosure, lest his joy
+over-power him. "You--you--do--don't mean----" he stuttered.
+
+"Yes, dear," sighed Zoie, with the face of an angel, and then with a
+languid sigh, she sank back contentedly on her pillows.
+
+"My boys! My boys!" cried Alfred, now delirious with delight. "Give
+them to me," he called to Aggie, and he snatched the surprised infants
+savagely from her arms. "Give me ALL of them, ALL of them." He clasped
+the three babes to his breast, then dashed to the bedside of the
+unsuspecting Zoie and covered her small face with rapturous kisses.
+
+Feeling the red faces of the little strangers in such close proximity to
+hers, Zoie drew away from them with abhorrence, but unconscious of her
+unmotherly action, Alfred continued his mad career about the room, his
+heart overflowing with gratitude toward Zoie in particular and mankind
+in general. Finding Aggie in the path of his wild jubilee, he treated
+that bewildered young matron to an unwelcome kiss. A proceeding which
+Jimmy did not at all approve.
+
+Hardly had Aggie recovered from her surprise when the disgruntled
+Jimmy was startled out of his dark mood by the supreme insult of a
+loud resounding kiss implanted on his own cheek by his excitable young
+friend. Jimmy raised his arm to resist a second assault, and Alfred
+veered off in the direction of the officer, who stepped aside just in
+time to avoid similar demonstration from the indiscriminating young
+father.
+
+Finding a wide circle prescribed about himself and the babies, Alfred
+suddenly stopped and gazed about from one astonished face to the other.
+
+"Well," said the officer, regarding Alfred with an injured air,
+and feeling much downcast at being so ignominiously deprived of his
+short-lived heroism in capturing a supposed criminal, "if this is all a
+joke, I'll let the woman go."
+
+"The woman," repeated Alfred; "what woman?"
+
+"I nabbed a woman at the foot of the fire-escape," explained the
+officer. Zoie and Aggie glanced at each other inquiringly. "I thought
+she might be an accomplice."
+
+"What does she look like, officer?" asked Alfred. His manner was
+becoming more paternal, not to say condescending, with the arrival of
+each new infant.
+
+"Don't be silly, Alfred," snapped Zoie, really ashamed that Alfred was
+making such an idiot of himself. "It's only the nurse."
+
+"Oh, that's it," said Alfred, with a wise nod of comprehension; "the
+nurse, then she's in the joke too?" He glanced from one to the other.
+They all nodded. "You're all in it," he exclaimed, flattered to think
+that they had considered it necessary to combine the efforts of so many
+of them to deceive him.
+
+"Yes," assented Jimmy sadly, "we are all 'in it.'"
+
+"Well, she's a great actress," decided Alfred, with the air of a
+connoisseur.
+
+"She sure is," admitted Donneghey, more and more disgruntled as he felt
+his reputation for detecting fraud slipping from him. "She put up a
+phoney story about the kid being hers," he added. "But I could tell she
+wasn't on the level. Good-night, sir," he called to Alfred, and ignoring
+Jimmy, he passed quickly from the room.
+
+"Oh, officer," Alfred called after him. "Hang around downstairs. I'll
+be down later and fix things up with you." Again Alfred gave his whole
+attention to his new-found family. He leaned over the cradle and gazed
+ecstatically into the three small faces below his. "This is too much,"
+he murmured.
+
+"Much too much," agreed Jimmy, who was now sitting hunched up on the
+couch in his customary attitude of gloom.
+
+"You were right not to break it to me too suddenly," said Alfred, and
+with his arms encircling three infants he settled himself on the couch
+by Jimmy's side. "You're a cute one," he continued to Jimmy, who was
+edging away from the three mites with aversion. In the absence of any
+answer from Jimmy, Alfred appealed to Zoie, "Isn't he a cute one, dear?"
+he asked.
+
+"Oh, yes, VERY," answered Zoie, sarcastically.
+
+Shutting his lips tight and glancing at Zoie with a determined effort at
+self restraint, Jimmy rose from the couch and started toward the door.
+
+"If you women are done with me," he said, "I'll clear out."
+
+"Clear out?" exclaimed Alfred, rising quickly and placing himself
+between his old friend and the door. "What a chance," and he laughed
+boisterously. "You're not going to get out of my sight this night," he
+declared. "I'm just beginning to appreciate all you've done for me."
+
+"So am I," assented Jimmy, and unconsciously his hand sought the spot
+where his dinner should have been, but Alfred was not to be resisted.
+
+"A man needs someone around," he declared, "when he's going through a
+thing like this. I need all of you, all of you," and with his eyes he
+embraced the weary circle of faces about him. "I feel as though I could
+go out of my head," he explained and with that he began tucking the
+three small mites in the pink and white crib designed for but one.
+
+Zoie regarded him with a bored expression'
+
+"You act as though you WERE out of your head," she commented, but Alfred
+did not heed her. He was now engaged in the unhoped for bliss of singing
+three babies to sleep with one lullaby.
+
+The other occupants of the room were just beginning to relax and to show
+some resemblance to their natural selves, when their features were again
+simultaneously frozen by a ring at the outside door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+Annoyed at being interrupted in the midst of his lullaby, to three,
+Alfred looked up to see Maggie, hatless and out of breath, bursting into
+the room, and destroying what was to him an ideally tranquil home scene.
+But Maggie paid no heed to Alfred's look of inquiry. She made directly
+for the side of Zoie's bed.
+
+"If you plaze, mum," she panted, looking down at Zoie, and wringing her
+hands.
+
+"What is it?" asked Aggie, who had now reached the side of the bed.
+
+"'Scuse me for comin' right in"--Maggie was breathing hard--"but me
+mother sint me to tell you that me father is jus afther comin' home from
+work, and he's fightin' mad about the babies, mum."
+
+"Sh! Sh!" cautioned Aggie and Zoie, as they glanced nervously toward
+Alfred who was rising from his place beside the cradle with increasing
+interest in Maggie's conversation.
+
+"Babies?" he repeated, "your father is mad about babies?"
+
+"It's all right, dear," interrupted Zoie nervously; "you see," she
+went on to explain, pointing toward the trembling Maggie, "this is our
+washerwoman's little girl. Our washerwoman has had twins, too, and it
+made the wash late, and her husband is angry about it."
+
+"Oh," said Alfred, with a comprehensive nod, but Maggie was not to be so
+easily disposed of.
+
+"If you please, mum," she objected, "it ain't about the wash. It's about
+our baby girls."
+
+"Girls?" exclaimed Zoie involuntarily.
+
+"Girls?" repeated Alfred, drawing himself up in the fond conviction that
+all his heirs were boys, "No wonder your pa's angry. I'd be angry too.
+Come now," he said to Maggie, patting the child on the shoulder and
+regarding her indulgently, "you go straight home and tell your father
+that what HE needs is BOYS."
+
+"Well, of course, sir," answered the bewildered Maggie, thinking that
+Alfred meant to reflect upon the gender of the offspring donated by her
+parents, "if you ain't afther likin' girls, me mother sint the money
+back," and with that she began to feel for the pocket in her red flannel
+petticoat.
+
+"The money?" repeated Alfred, in a puzzled way, "what money?"
+
+It was again Zoie's time to think quickly.
+
+"The money for the wash, dear," she explained.
+
+"Nonsense!" retorted Alfred, positively beaming generosity, "who talks
+of money at such a time as this?" And taking a ten dollar bill from his
+pocket, he thrust it in Maggie's outstretched hand, while she was trying
+to return to him the original purchase money. "Here," he said to the
+astonished girl, "you take this to your father. Tell him I sent it to
+him for his babies. Tell him to start a bank account with it."
+
+This was clearly not a case with which one small addled mind could deal,
+or at least, so Maggie decided. She had a hazy idea that Alfred was
+adding something to the original purchase price of her young sisters,
+but she was quite at a loss to know how to refuse the offer of such
+a "grand 'hoigh" gentleman, even though her failure to do so would no
+doubt result in a beating when she reached home. She stared at Alfred
+undecided what to do, the money still lay in her outstretched hand.
+
+"I'm afraid Pa'll niver loike it, sir," she said.
+
+"Like it?" exclaimed Alfred in high feather, and he himself closed her
+red little fingers over the bill, "he's GOT to like it. He'll GROW to
+like it. Now you run along," he concluded to Maggie, as he urged her
+toward the door, "and tell him what I say."
+
+"Yes, sir," murmured Maggie, far from sharing Alfred's enthusiasm.
+
+Feeling no desire to renew his acquaintance with Maggie, particularly
+under Alfred's watchful eye, Jimmy had sought his old refuge, the high
+backed chair. As affairs progressed and there seemed no doubt of Zoie's
+being able to handle the situation to the satisfaction of all concerned,
+Jimmy allowed exhaustion and the warmth of the firelight to have their
+way with him. His mind wandered toward other things and finally into
+space. His head dropped lower and lower on his chest; his breathing
+became laboured--so laboured in fact that it attracted the attention of
+Maggie, who was about to pass him on her way to the door.
+
+"Sure an it's Mr. Jinks!" exclaimed Maggie. Then coming close to the
+side of the unsuspecting sleeper, she hissed a startling message in his
+ear. "Me mother said to tell you that me fadder's hoppin' mad at you,
+sir."
+
+Jimmy sat up and rubbed his eyes. He studied the young person at his
+elbow, then he glanced at Alfred, utterly befuddled as to what had
+happened while he had been on a journey to happier scenes. Apparently
+Maggie was waiting for an answer to something, but to what? Jimmy
+thought he detected an ominous look in Alfred's eyes. Letting his hand
+fall over the arm of the chair so that Alfred could not see it, Jimmy
+began to make frantic signals to Maggie to depart; she stared at him the
+harder.
+
+"Go away," whispered Jimmy, but Maggie did not move. "Shoo, shoo!" he
+said, and waved her off with his hand.
+
+Puzzled by Jimmy's sudden aversion to this apparently harmless child,
+Alfred turned to Maggie with a puckered brow.
+
+"Your father's mad at Jimmy?" he repeated. "What about?"
+
+For once Jimmy found it in his heart to be grateful to Zoie for the
+prompt answer that came from her direction.
+
+"The wash, dear," said Zoie to Alfred; "Jimmy had to go after the wash,"
+and then with a look which Maggie could not mistake for an invitation to
+stop longer, Zoie called to her haughtily, "You needn't wait, Maggie; we
+understand."
+
+"Sure, an' it's more 'an I do," answered Maggie, and shaking her head
+sadly, she slipped from the room.
+
+But Alfred could not immediately dismiss from his mind the picture of
+Maggie's inhuman parent.
+
+"Just fancy," he said, turning his head to one side meditatively, "fancy
+any man not liking to be the father of twins," and with that he again
+bent over the cradle and surveyed its contents. "Think, Jimmy," he said,
+when he had managed to get the three youngsters in his arms, "just think
+of the way THAT father feels, and then think of the way _I_ feel."
+
+"And then think of the way _I_ feel," grumbled Jimmy.
+
+"You!" exclaimed Alfred; "what have you to feel about?"
+
+Before Jimmy could answer, the air was rent by a piercing scream and a
+crash of glass from the direction of the inner rooms.
+
+"What's that?" whispered Aggie, with an anxious glance toward Zoie.
+
+"Sounded like breaking glass," said Alfred.
+
+"Burglars!" exclaimed Zoie, for want of anything better to suggest.
+
+"Burglars?" repeated Alfred with a superior air; "nonsense! Nonsense!
+Here," he said, turning to Jimmy, "you hold the boys and I'll go
+see----" and before Jimmy was aware of the honour about to be thrust
+upon him, he felt three red, spineless morsels, wriggling about in his
+arms. He made what lap he could for the armful, and sat up in a stiff,
+strained attitude on the edge of the couch. In the meantime, Alfred had
+strode into the adjoining room with the air of a conqueror. Aggie looked
+at Zoie, with dreadful foreboding.
+
+"You don't suppose it could be?" she paused.
+
+"My baby!" shrieked the voice of the Italian mother from the adjoining
+room. "Where IS he?"
+
+Regardless of the discomfort of his three disgruntled charges, Jimmy
+began to circle the room. So agitated was his mind that he could
+scarcely hear Aggie, who was reporting proceedings from her place at the
+bedroom door.
+
+"She's come up the fire-escape," cried Aggie; "she's beating Alfred to
+death."
+
+"What?" shrieked Zoie, making a flying leap from her coverlets.
+
+"She's locking him in the bathroom," declared Aggie, and with that she
+disappeared from the room, bent on rescue.
+
+"My Alfred!" cried Zoie, tragically, and she started in pursuit of
+Aggie.
+
+"Wait a minute," called Jimmy, who had not yet been able to find
+a satisfactory place in which to deposit his armful of clothes and
+humanity. "What shall I do with these things?"
+
+"Eat 'em," was Zoie's helpful retort, as the trailing end of her
+negligee disappeared from the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+Now, had Jimmy been less perturbed during the latter part of this
+commotion, he might have heard the bell of the outside door, which
+had been ringing violently for some minutes. As it was, he was wholly
+unprepared for the flying advent of Maggie.
+
+"Oh, plaze, sir," she cried, pointing with trembling fingers toward
+the babes in Jimmy's arms, "me fadder's coming right behind me. He's
+a-lookin' for you sir."
+
+"For me," murmured Jimmy, wondering vaguely why everybody on earth
+seemed to be looking for HIM.
+
+"Put 'em down, sir," cried Maggie, still pointing to the three babies,
+"put 'em down. He's liable to wallop you."
+
+"Put 'em where?" asked Jimmy, now utterly confused as to which way to
+turn.
+
+"There," said Maggie, and she pointed to the cradle beneath his very
+eyes.
+
+"Of course," said Jimmy vapidly, and he sank on his knees and strove to
+let the wobbly creatures down easily.
+
+Bang went the outside door.
+
+"That's Pa now," cried Maggie. "Oh hide, sir, hide." And with that
+disconcerting warning, she too deserted him.
+
+"Hide where?" gasped Jimmy.
+
+There was a moment's awful silence. Jimmy rose very cautiously from the
+cradle, his eyes sought the armchair. It had always betrayed him. He
+glanced toward the window. It was twelve stories to the pavement. He
+looked towards the opposite door; beyond that was the mad Italian woman.
+His one chance lay in slipping unnoticed through the hallway; he made
+a determined dash in that direction, but no sooner had he put his head
+through the door, than he drew it back quickly. The conversation between
+O'Flarety and the maid in the hallway was not reassuring. Jimmy decided
+to take a chance with the Italian mother, and as fast as he could, he
+streaked it toward the opposite door. The shrieks and denunciations that
+he met from this direction were more disconcerting than those of
+the Irish father. For an instant he stood in the centre of the room,
+wavering as to which side to surrender himself.
+
+The thunderous tones of the enraged father drew nearer; he threw himself
+on the floor and attempted to roll under the bed; the space between the
+railing and the floor was far too narrow. Why had he disregarded Aggie's
+advice as to diet? The knob of the door handle was turning--he vaulted
+into the bed and drew the covers over his head just as O'Flarety,
+trembling with excitement, and pursued by Maggie, burst into the room.
+
+"Lave go of me," cried O'Flarety to Maggie, who clung to his arm in a
+vain effort to soothe him, and flinging her off, he made straight for
+the bed.
+
+"Ah," he cried, gazing with dilated nostrils at the trembling object
+beneath the covers, "there you are, mum," and he shook his fist above
+what he believed to be the cowardly Mrs. Hardy. "'Tis well ye may cover
+up your head," said he, "for shame on yez! Me wife may take in washing,
+but when I comes home at night I wants me kids, and I'll be after havin'
+'em too. Where ar' they?" he demanded. Then getting no response from the
+agitated covers, he glanced wildly about the room. "Glory be to God!"
+he exclaimed as his eyes fell on the crib; but he stopped short in
+astonishment, when upon peering into it, he found not one, or two, but
+three "barren."
+
+"They're child stalers, that's what they are," he declared to Maggie,
+as he snatched Bridget and Norah to his no doubt comforting breast. "Me
+little Biddy," he crooned over his much coveted possession. "Me little
+Norah," he added fondly, looking down at his second. The thought of his
+narrow escape from losing these irreplaceable treasures rekindled
+his wrath. Again he strode toward the bed and looked down at the now
+semi-quiet comforter.
+
+"The black heart of ye, mum," he roared, then ordering Maggie to give
+back "every penny of that shameless creetur's money" he turned toward
+the door.
+
+So intense had been O'Flarety's excitement and so engrossed was he in
+his denunciation that he had failed to see the wild-eyed Italian woman
+rushing toward him from the opposite door.
+
+"You, you!" cried the frenzied woman and, to O'Flarety's astonishment,
+she laid two strong hands upon his arm and drew him round until he faced
+her. "Where are you going with my baby?" she asked, then peering into
+the face of the infant nearest to her, she uttered a disappointed
+moan. "'Tis not my baby!" she cried. She scanned the face of the second
+infant--again she moaned.
+
+Having begun to identify this hysterical creature as the possible mother
+of the third infant, O'Flarety jerked his head in the direction of the
+cradle.
+
+"I guess you'll find what you're lookin' for in there," he said. Then
+bidding Maggie to "git along out o' this" and shrugging his shoulders
+to convey his contempt for the fugitive beneath the coverlet, he swept
+quickly from the room.
+
+Clasping her long-sought darling to her heart and weeping with delight,
+the Italian mother was about to follow O'Flarety through the door when
+Zoie staggered into the room, weak and exhausted.
+
+"You, you!" called the indignant Zoie to the departing mother. "How dare
+you lock my husband in the bathroom?" She pointed to the key, which the
+woman still unconsciously clasped in her hand. "Give me that key," she
+demanded, "give it to me this instant."
+
+"Take your horrid old key," said the mother, and she threw it on the
+floor. "If you ever try to get my baby again, I'll lock your husband in
+JAIL," and murmuring excited maledictions in her native tongue, she took
+her welcome departure.
+
+Zoie stooped for the key, one hand to her giddy head, but Aggie, who had
+just returned to the room, reached the key first and volunteered to go
+to the aid of the captive Alfred, who was pounding desperately on the
+bathroom door and demanding his instant release.
+
+"I'll let him out," said Aggie. "You get into bed," and she slipped
+quickly from the room.
+
+Utterly exhausted and half blind with fatigue Zoie lifted the coverlet
+and slipped beneath it. Her first sensation was of touching something
+rough and scratchy, then came the awful conviction that the thing
+against which she lay was alive.
+
+Without stopping to investigate the identity of her uninvited
+bed-fellow, or even daring to look behind her, Zoie fled from the room
+emitting a series of screams that made all her previous efforts in that
+direction seem mere baby cries. So completely had Jimmy been enveloped
+in the coverlets and for so long a time that he had acquired a vague
+feeling of aloftness toward the rest of his fellows, and had lost all
+knowledge of their goings and comings. But when his unexpected companion
+was thrust upon him he was galvanised into sudden action by her scream,
+and swathed in a large pink comforter, he rolled ignominiously from the
+upper side of the bed, where he lay on the floor panting and enmeshed,
+awaiting further developments. Of one thing he was certain, a great deal
+had transpired since he had sought the friendly solace of the covers and
+he had no mind to lose so good a friend as the pink comforter. By the
+time he had summoned sufficient courage to peep from under its edge, a
+babel of voices was again drawing near, and he hastily drew back in his
+shell and waited.
+
+Not daring to glance at the scene of her fright, Zoie pushed Aggie
+before her into the room and demanded that she look in the bed.
+
+Seeing the bed quite empty and noticing nothing unusual in the fact that
+the pink comforter, along with other covers, had slipped down behind it,
+Aggie hastened to reassure her terrified friend.
+
+"You imagined it, Zoie," she declared, "look for yourself."
+
+Zoie's small face peeped cautiously around the edge of the doorway.
+
+"Well, perhaps I did," she admitted; then she slipped gingerly into the
+room, "my nerves are jumping like fizzy water."
+
+They were soon to "jump" more, for at this instant, Alfred, burning with
+anger at the indignity of having been locked in the bathroom, entered
+the room, demanding to know the whereabouts of the lunatic mother, who
+had dared to make him a captive in his own house.
+
+"Where is she?" he called to Zoie and Aggie, and his eye roved wildly
+about the room. Then his mind reverted with anxiety to his newly
+acquired offspring. "My boys!" he cried, and he rushed toward the crib.
+"They're gone!" he declared tragically.
+
+"Gone?" echoed Aggie.
+
+"Not ALL of them," said Zoie.
+
+"All," insisted Alfred, and his hands went distractedly toward his head.
+"She's taken them all."
+
+Zoie and Aggie looked at each other in a dazed way. They had a hazy
+recollection of having seen one babe disappear with the Italian woman,
+but what had become of the other two?
+
+"Where did they go?" asked Aggie.
+
+"I don't know," said Zoie, with the first truth she had spoken that
+night, "I left them with Jimmy."
+
+"Jimmy!" shrieked Alfred, and a diabolical light lit his features.
+"Jimmy!" he snorted, with sudden comprehension, "then he's at it again.
+He's crazy as she is. This is inhuman. This joke has got to stop!" And
+with that decision he started toward the outer door.
+
+"But Allie!" protested Zoie, really alarmed by the look that she saw on
+his face.
+
+Alfred turned to his trembling wife with suppressed excitement, and
+patted her shoulder condescendingly.
+
+"Control yourself, my dear," he said. "Control yourself; I'll get
+your babies for you--trust me, I'll get them. And then," he added with
+parting emphasis from the doorway, "I'll SETTLE WITH JIMMY!"
+
+By uncovering one eye, Jimmy could now perceive that Zoie and Aggie
+were engaged in a heated argument at the opposite side of the room. By
+uncovering one ear he learned that they were arranging a line of action
+for him immediately upon his reappearance. He determined not to wait for
+the details.
+
+Fixing himself cautiously on all fours, and making sure that he was
+well covered by the pink comforter, he began to crawl slowly toward the
+bedroom door.
+
+Turning away from Aggie with an impatient exclamation, Zoie suddenly
+beheld what seemed to her a large pink monster with protruding claws
+wriggling its way hurriedly toward the inner room.
+
+"Look!" she screamed, and pointing in horror toward the dreadful
+creature now dragging itself across the threshold, she sank fainting
+into Aggie's outstretched arms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+Having dragged the limp form of her friend to the near-by couch, Aggie
+was bending over her to apply the necessary restoratives, when Alfred
+returned in triumph. He was followed by the officer in whose arms were
+three infants, and behind whom was the irate O'Flarety, the hysterical
+Italian woman, and last of all, Maggie.
+
+"Bring them all in here, officer," called Alfred over his shoulder.
+"I'll soon prove to you whose babies those are." Then turning to Aggie,
+who stood between him and the fainting Zoie he cried triumphantly,
+"I've got them Aggie, I've got them." He glanced toward the empty bed.
+"Where's Zoie?" he asked.
+
+"She's fainted," said Aggie, and stepping from in front of the young
+wife, she pointed toward the couch.
+
+"Oh, my darling!" cried Alfred, with deep concern as he rushed to Zoie
+and began frantically patting her hands. "My poor frightened darling!"
+Then he turned to the officer, his sense of injury welling high within
+him, "You see what these people have done to my wife? She's fainted."
+Ignoring the uncomplimentary remarks of O'Flarety, he again bent over
+Zoie.
+
+"Rouse yourself, my dear," he begged of her. "Look at me," he pleaded.
+"Your babies are safe."
+
+"HER babies!" snorted O'Flarety, unable longer to control his pent up
+indignation.
+
+"I'll let you know when I want to hear from you," snarled the officer to
+O'Flarety.
+
+"But they're NOT her babies," protested the Italian woman desperately.
+
+"Cut it," shouted the officer, and with low mutterings, the outraged
+parents were obliged to bide their time.
+
+Lifting Zoie to a sitting posture Alfred fanned her gently until she
+regained her senses. "Your babies are all right," he assured her. "I've
+brought them all back to you."
+
+"All?" gasped Zoie weakly, and she wondered what curious fate had been
+intervening to assist Alfred in such a prodigious undertaking.
+
+"Yes, dear," said Alfred, "every one," and he pointed toward the three
+infants in the officer's arms. "See, dear, see."
+
+Zoie turned her eyes upon what SEEMED to her numberless red faces. "Oh!"
+she moaned and again she swooned.
+
+"I told you she'd be afraid to face us," shouted the now triumphant
+O'Flarety.
+
+"You brute!" retorted the still credulous Alfred, "how dare you
+persecute this poor demented mother?"
+
+Alfred's persistent solicitude for Zoie was too much for the resentful
+Italian woman.
+
+"She didn't persecute me, oh no!" she exclaimed sarcastically.
+
+"Keep still, you!" commanded the officer.
+
+Again Zoie was reviving and again Alfred lifted her in his arms and
+begged her to assure the officer that the babies in question were hers.
+
+"Let's hear her SAY it," demanded O'Flarety.
+
+"You SHALL hear her," answered Alfred, with confidence. Then he beckoned
+to the officer to approach, explaining that Zoie was very weak.
+
+"Sure," said the officer; then planting himself directly in front of
+Zoie's half closed eyes, he thrust the babies upon her attention.
+
+"Look, Zoie!" pleaded Alfred. "Look!"
+
+Zoie opened her eyes to see three small red faces immediately opposite
+her own.
+
+"Take them away!" she cried, with a frantic wave of her arm, "take them
+away!"
+
+"What?" exclaimed Alfred in astonishment.
+
+"What did I tell you?" shouted O'Flarety. This hateful reminder brought
+Alfred again to the protection of his young and defenceless wife.
+
+"The excitement has unnerved her," he said to the officer.
+
+"Ain't you about done with my kids?" asked O'Flarety, marvelling how any
+man with so little penetration as the officer, managed to hold down a
+"good payin' job."
+
+"What do you want for your proof anyway?" asked the mother. But Alfred's
+faith in the validity of his new parenthood was not to be so easily
+shaken.
+
+"My wife is in no condition to be questioned," he declared. "She's out
+of her head, and if you don't----"
+
+He stepped suddenly, for without warning, the door was thrown open and a
+second officer strode into their midst dragging by the arm the reluctant
+Jimmy.
+
+"I guess I've got somethin' here that you folks need in your business,"
+he called, nodding toward the now utterly demoralised Jimmy.
+
+"Jimmy!" exclaimed Aggie, having at last got her breath.
+
+"The Joker!" cried Alfred, bearing down upon the panting Jimmy with a
+ferocious expression.
+
+"I caught him slipping down the fire-escape," explained the officer.
+
+"Again?" exclaimed Aggie and Alfred in tones of deep reproach.
+
+"Jimmy," said Alfred, coming close to his friend, and fixing his eyes
+upon him in a determined effort to control the poor creature's fast
+failing faculties, "you know the truth of this thing. You are the one
+who sent me that telegram, you are the one who told me that I was a
+father."
+
+"Well, aren't you a father?" asked Aggie, trying to protect her dejected
+spouse.
+
+"Of course I am," replied Alfred, with every confidence, "but I have to
+prove it to the officer. Jimmy knows," he concluded. Then turning to
+the uncomfortable man at his side, he demanded imperatively, "Tell the
+officer the truth, you idiot. No more of your jokes. Am I a father or am
+I not?"
+
+"If you're depending on ME for your future offspring," answered Jimmy,
+wagging his head with the air of a man reckless of consequences, "you
+are NOT a father."
+
+"Depending on YOU?" gasped Alfred, and he stared at his friend in
+bewilderment. "What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Ask them," answered Jimmy, and he nodded toward Zoie and Aggie.
+
+Alfred appealed to Aggie.
+
+"Ask Zoie," said Aggie.
+
+Alfred bent over the form of the again prostrate Zoie. "My darling,"
+he entreated, "rouse yourself." Slowly she opened her eyes. "Now," said
+Alfred, with enforced self-control, "you must look the officer squarely
+in the eye and tell him whose babies those are," and he nodded toward
+the officer, who was now beginning to entertain grave doubts on the
+subject.
+
+"How should _I_ know?" cried Zoie, too exhausted for further lying.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Alfred, his hand on his forehead.
+
+"I only borrowed them," said Zoie, "to get you home," and with that she
+sank back on the couch and closed her eyes.
+
+"What did I tell you?" cried the triumphant O'Flarety.
+
+"I guess they're your'n all right," admitted the officer doggedly, and
+he grudgingly released the three infants to their rightful parents.
+
+"I guess they'd better be," shouted O'Flarety; then he and the Italian
+woman made for the door with their babes pressed close to their hearts.
+
+"Wait a minute," cried Alfred. "I want an understanding."
+
+O'Flarety turned in the doorway and raised a warning fist.
+
+"If you don't leave my kids alone, you'll GIT 'an understanding.'"
+
+"Me too," added the mother.
+
+"On your way," commanded the officer to the pair of them, and together
+with Maggie and the officer, they disappeared forever from the Hardy
+household.
+
+Alfred gazed about the room. "My God!" he exclaimed; then he turned to
+Jimmy who was still in the custody of the second officer: "If I'm not a
+father, what am I?"
+
+"I'd hate to tell you," was Jimmy's unsympathetic reply, and in utter
+dejection Alfred sank on the foot of the bed and buried his head in his
+hands.
+
+"What shall I do with this one, sir?" asked the officer, undecided as to
+Jimmy's exact standing in the household.
+
+"Shoot him, for all I care," groaned Alfred, and he rocked to and fro.
+
+"How ungrateful!" exclaimed Aggie, then she signalled to the officer to
+go.
+
+"No more of your funny business," said the officer with a parting nod at
+Jimmy and a vindictive light in his eyes when he remembered the bruises
+that Jimmy had left on his shins.
+
+"Oh, Jimmy!" said Aggie sympathetically, and she pressed her hot face
+against his round apoplectic cheek. "You poor dear! And after all you
+have done for us!"
+
+"Yes," sneered Zoie, having regained sufficient strength to stagger to
+her feet, "he's done a lot, hasn't he?" And then forgetting that her
+original adventure with Jimmy which had brought about such disastrous
+results was still unknown to Aggie and Alfred, she concluded bitterly,
+"All this would never have happened, if it hadn't been for Jimmy and his
+horrid old luncheon."
+
+Jimmy was startled. This was too much, and just as he had seemed to be
+well out of complications for the remainder of his no doubt short life.
+He turned to bolt for the door but Aggie's eyes were upon him.
+
+"Luncheon?" exclaimed Aggie and she regarded him with a puzzled frown.
+
+Zoie's hand was already over her lips, but too late.
+
+Recovering from his somewhat bewildering sense of loss, Alfred, too, was
+now beginning to sit up and take notice.
+
+"What luncheon?" he demanded.
+
+Zoie gazed from Alfred to Aggie, then at Jimmy, then resolving to make
+a clean breast of the matter, she sidled toward Alfred with her most
+ingratiating manner.
+
+"Now, Alfred," she purred, as she endeavoured to act one arm about
+his unsuspecting neck, "if you'll only listen, I'll tell you the REAL
+TRUTH."
+
+A wild despairing cry from Alfred, a dash toward the door by Jimmy, and
+a determined effort on Aggie's part to detain her spouse, temporarily
+interrupted Zoie's narrative.
+
+But in spite of these discouragements, Zoie did eventually tell Alfred
+the real truth, and before the sun had risen on the beginning of another
+day, she had added to her confession, promises whose happy fulfillment
+was evidenced for many years after by the chatter of glad young voices,
+up and down the stairway of Alfred's new suburban home, and the flutter
+of golden curls in and out amongst the sunlight and shadows of his
+ample, well kept grounds.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Baby Mine, by Margaret Mayo
+
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+Baby Mine
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+March, 1997  [Etext #860]
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+
+
+
+BABY MINE
+
+BY MARGARET MAYO 
+
+
+
+
+To my Helper and Husband
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Even in college Alfred Hardy was a young man of fixed ideas and
+high ideals and proud of it.
+
+His friend, Jimmy Jinks, had few ideas and no ideals, and was
+glad of it, and before half of their first college term had
+passed, Jimmy had ridded himself of all such worries as making up
+his own mind or directing his own morals.  Alfred did all these
+things so much better, argued Jimmy, furthermore, Alfred LIKED to
+do them--Jimmy owed it to his friend to give him that pleasure.
+
+The fact that Jimmy was several years Alfred's senior and twice
+his size, in no way altered his opinion of Alfred's judgment, and
+through their entire college course they agreed as one man in all
+their discussions--or rather--in all Alfred's discussions.
+
+But it was not until the close of their senior year that Alfred
+favoured Jimmy with his views on matrimony.
+
+Sitting alone in a secluded corner of the campus waiting for
+Alfred to solve a problem in higher mathematics, Jimmy now
+recalled fragments of Alfred's last conversation.
+
+"No twelve dollar shoes and forty dollar hats for MY wife," his
+young friend had raged and he condemned to Jimmy the wicked
+extravagance of his own younger sisters.  "The woman who gets me
+must be a home-maker.  I'll take her to the theatre occasionally,
+and now and then we'll have a few friends in for the evening; but
+the fireside must be her magnet, and I'll be right by her side
+each night with my books and my day's worries.  She shall be
+taken into my confidence completely; and I'll take good care to
+let her know, before I marry her, just what I expect in return."
+
+"Alfred certainly has the right idea about marriage," mused
+Jimmy, as the toe of his boot shoved the gravel up and down the
+path.  "There's just one impractical feature about it."  He was
+conscious of a slight feeling of heresy when he admitted even ONE
+flaw in his friend's scheme of things.  "Where is Alfred to find
+such a wife?"
+
+Jimmy ran through the list of unattached girls to whom Alfred had
+thus far presented him.  It was no doubt due to his lack of
+imagination, but try as he would, he could not see any one of
+these girls sitting by the fireside listening to Alfred's
+"worries" for four or five nights each week.  He recalled all the
+married women whom he had been obliged, through no fault of his
+own, to observe.
+
+True, all of them did not boast twelve dollar shoes or forty
+dollar hats--for the very simple reason that the incomes or the
+tempers of their husbands did not permit of it.  In any case,
+Jimmy did not remember having seen them spend many evenings by
+the fireside.  Where then was Alfred to find the exceptional
+creature who was to help "systematise his life"? Jimmy was not
+above hoping that Alfred's search might be a long one.  He was
+content for his friend to go jogging along by his side,
+theorising about marriage and taking no chances with facts. 
+Having come to this conclusion, he began to feel uneasy at
+Alfred's non- appearance.  Alfred had promised to meet him on
+this spot at four-thirty, and Alfred had decided ideas about
+punctuality.  It was now five- thirty.  Ought Jimmy to look for
+him, or would he be wiser to remain comfortably seated and to try
+to digest another of his friend's theories?
+
+While Jimmy was trying to decide this vexed question, his ear
+caught the sound of a girlish titter.  Turning in embarrassment
+toward a secluded path just behind him, whom did he see coming
+toward him but Alfred, with what appeared to be a bunch of
+daffodils; but as Alfred drew nearer, Jimmy began to perceive at
+his elbow a large flower-trimmed hat, and--"horrors!"-- beneath
+it, with a great deal of filmy white and yellow floating from it,
+was a small pink and white face.
+
+Barely had Jimmy reversed himself and rearranged his round,
+astonished features, when Alfred, beaming and buoyant, brought
+the bundle of fluff to a full stop before him.
+
+"Sorry to be late, old chap," said Alfred.  "I have brought my
+excuse with me.  I want you to know Miss Merton."  Then turning
+to the small creature, whose head peeped just above his elbow,
+Alfred explained to her graciously that Jimmy Jinks was his very
+best friend, present company excepted, of course, and added that
+she and Jimmy would no doubt "see a great deal of each other in
+the future."
+
+In his embarrassment, Jimmy's eyes went straight to the young
+lady's shoes.  It was possible that there might be more expensive
+shoes in this world, but Jimmy had certainly never seen daintier.
+
+"I hope we didn't disturb you," a small voice was chirping; and
+innocent and conventional as the remark surely was, Jimmy was
+certain of an undercurrent of mischief in it.  He glanced up to
+protest, but two baby-blue eyes fixed upon him in apparent
+wonderment, made him certain that anything he could say would
+seem rude or ridiculous; so, as usual when in a plight, he looked
+to Alfred for the answer.
+
+Slapping Jimmy upon the shoulder in a condescending spirit,
+Alfred suggested that they all sit down and have a chat.
+
+"Oh, how nice," chirped the small person.
+
+Jimmy felt an irresistible desire to run, but the picture of
+himself, in his very stout person, streaking across the campus to
+the giggled delight of Miss Fluff, soon brought him submissively
+to the seat, where he sat twiddling his straw hat between his
+fingers, and glancing uncertainly at Alfred, who was thoughtful
+enough to sit next him.
+
+"Goodness, one could almost dance out here, couldn't one?" said
+the small person, named Zoie, as her eyes roved over the bit of
+level green before them.
+
+"Would you like to try?" asked Alfred, apparently agreeable to
+her every caprice.
+
+"I'd love it!" cried Zoie.  "Come along."  She sprang up and held
+out her hands to him.
+
+"I'm going to be unselfish," answered Alfred, "and let Jimmy have
+that fun."
+
+By this time, Jimmy had been seized with an intuitive feeling
+that his friend was in immediate danger.
+
+"Was this the young woman who was to sit opposite the fireside
+five nights a week and systematise Alfred's life?"
+
+Jimmy stared at the intruder blankly.  For answer, two small
+hands were thrust out toward him and an impatient little voice
+was commanding him to "Come, dance."  He heard Alfred's laughter. 
+He had no intention of accommodating the small person in this or
+any other matter, yet, before he realised quite how it had
+happened, he was two-stepping up and down the grass to her piping
+little voice; nor did she release him until the perspiration came
+rolling from his forehead; and, horror of horrors, his one-time
+friend, Alfred, seemed to find this amusing, and laughed louder
+and louder when Jimmy sank by his side exhausted.
+
+When Jimmy was again able to think consecutively, he concluded
+that considerable conversation must have taken place between
+Alfred and the small one, while he was recovering his breath and
+re-adjusting his wilted neckwear.  He was now thrown into a fresh
+panic by an exclamation from the excitable Zoie.
+
+"You must both meet my friend, Aggie Darling," she was saying. 
+"I am bringing her with me to the hop to-night.  She is not at
+all like me.  You will like her dreadfully."  She smiled at Jimmy
+as though she were conferring a great favour upon him.
+
+"Like her dreadfully," commented Jimmy to himself.  "It was just
+the kind of expression one might expect from a mind in such
+disorder as hers.  'Systematise Alfred's life,' indeed!"
+
+There was more nonsensical chatter, or so it seemed to Jimmy,
+then Zoie and Alfred rose to go, and Jimmy was told by both of
+them that he was to put in an appearance at the Fraternity "hop"
+that night.
+
+"I'll see you at dinner," called Alfred gaily over his shoulder
+and Jimmy was left to grapple with his first disappointment at
+his friend's lack of discrimination.
+
+"It's her fault," concluded Jimmy, as he lifted himself heavily
+off the bench and started down the campus, resolved to console
+himself with food.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Now Jimmy had no intention of going to the "hop."  He had tried
+to tell Alfred so a dozen times during dinner, but each time he
+had been interrupted by one of Alfred's enthusiastic rhapsodies
+about Zoie.
+
+"Most marvellous girl I have ever met!" exclaimed Alfred over his
+soup.  "So sensible; so modest.  And did you see how simply she
+dresses?" he asked.  Jimmy recalled his first vision of billowy
+fluff; but before he could answer, Alfred had continued
+excitedly:
+
+"I'll tell you what first attracted me toward her."  He looked at
+Jimmy as though he expected some especial mark of gratitude for
+the favour about to be bestowed; then he explained with a serious
+weighing of his words, "It was her love of children.  I had
+barely been introduced to her when she turned her back upon me
+and gave her whole attention to Professor Peck's little boy
+Willie.  I said to myself, 'any girl of that age who prefers
+children to young chaps of my age, is the girl for me.' "
+
+"I see," assented Jimmy lamely.  It was his first remark during
+dinner.
+
+"After that, I no longer hesitated.  You know, Jimmy, I have
+decision."
+
+"Yes, I have noticed," admitted Jimmy, without conviction.
+
+"In fifteen minutes," said Alfred, "I had learned all about the
+young lady's antecedents."
+
+Having finished his soup, and resisted a childish impulse to tip
+the plate and scrape the bottom of it, Jimmy was now looking
+anxiously toward the door through which the roast ought to come.
+
+"I'll tell you all about her," volunteered Alfred.  But Jimmy's
+eyes were upon Alfred's plate; his friend had not yet devoured
+more than two spoonfuls of soup; at that rate, argued Jimmy, the
+roast would reach them about the time that he was usually trying
+to make his dessert last as long as possible.
+
+"She is here with her aunt," continued Alfred.  "They are on a
+short visit to Professor Peck."
+
+Jimmy approved of the "short."
+
+"That's good," he murmured, hopeful that a separation from the
+minx might restore his friend's reason.
+
+"And Jimmy," exclaimed Alfred with glistening eyes, "what do you
+think?"
+
+Jimmy thought a great deal but he forebore to say it, and Alfred
+continued very enthusiastically.
+
+"She lives right in the same town with us."
+
+"What!" ejaculated Jimmy, and he felt his appetite going.
+
+"Within a stone's throw of my house--and yours," added Alfred
+triumphantly.  "Think of our never having met her before!"
+
+"I am thinking," said Jimmy.
+
+"Of course she has been away from home a great deal," went on
+Alfred.  "She's been in school in the East; but there were the
+summers."
+
+"So there were," assented Jimmy, thinking of his hitherto narrow
+escapes.
+
+"Her father is old John Merton," continued Alfred.  "Merton the
+stationer--you know him, Jimmy.  Unfortunately, he has a great
+deal of money; but that hasn't spoilt her.  Oh no! She is just as
+simple and considerate in her behaviour as if she were some poor
+little struggling school teacher.  She is the one for me, Jimmy. 
+There is no doubt about it, and I'll tell you a secret."
+
+Jimmy looked at him blankly.
+
+"I am going to propose to her this very night."
+
+"Good Lord!" groaned Jimmy, as if his friend had been suddenly
+struck down in the flower of his youth.
+
+"That's why you simply must come with me to the hop," continued
+Alfred.  "I want you to take care of her friend Aggie, and leave
+me alone with Zoie as much as possible."
+
+"Zoie!" sniffed Jimmy.  The name to him was as flippant as its
+owner.
+
+"True, strong name," commented Alfred.  "So simple, so direct, so
+like her.  I'll have to leave you now," he said, rising.  "I must
+send her some flowers for the dance."  He turned at the door. 
+Suppose I add a few from you for Aggie."
+
+"What!" exploded Jimmy.
+
+"Just by way of introduction," called Alfred gaily.  "It's a good
+idea."
+
+Before Jimmy could protest further, he found himself alone for
+the second time that day.  He ate his roast in gloomy silence. 
+It seemed dry and tasteless.  Even his favourite desert of plum
+pudding failed to rouse him from his dark meditations, and he
+rose from the table dejected and forlorn.
+
+A few hours later, when Alfred led Jimmy into the ballroom, the
+latter was depressed, not only by his friend's impending danger,
+but he felt an uneasy foreboding as to his own future.  With his
+college course practically finished and Alfred attaching himself
+to unforeseen entities, Jimmy had come to the ball with a curious
+feeling of having been left suspended in mid-air.
+
+Before he could voice his misgivings to Alfred, the young men
+were surrounded by a circle of chattering females.  And then it
+was that Jimmy found himself looking into a pair of level brown
+eyes, and felt himself growing hot and cold by turns.  When the
+little knot of youths and maidens disentangled itself into pairs
+of dancers, it became clear to Jimmy that he had been introduced
+to Aggie, and that he was expected to dance with her.
+
+As a matter of fact, Jimmy had danced with many girls; true, it
+was usually when there was no other man left to "do duty"; but
+still he had done it.  Why then should he feel such distressing
+hesitation about placing his arm around the waist of this
+brown-eyed Diana? Try as he would he could not find words to
+break the silence that had fallen between them.  She was so
+imposing; so self-controlled.  It really seemed to Jimmy that she
+should be the one to ask him to dance.  As a matter of fact, that
+was just what happened; and after the dance she suggested that
+they sit in the garden; and in the garden, with the moonlight
+barely peeping through the friendly overhanging boughs of the
+trees, Jimmy found Aggie capable of a courage that filled him
+with amazement; and later that night, when he and Alfred
+exchanged confidences, it became apparent to the latter that
+Aggie had volunteered to undertake the responsibility of
+outlining Jimmy's entire future.
+
+He was to follow his father's wishes and take up a business
+career in Chicago at once; and as soon as all the relatives
+concerned on both sides had been duly consulted, he and Aggie
+were to embark upon matrimony.
+
+"Good!" cried Alfred, when Jimmy had managed to stammer his
+shame-faced confession.  "We'll make it a double wedding.  I can
+be ready to-morrow, so far as I'm concerned."  And then followed
+another rhapsody upon the fitness of Zoie as the keeper of his
+future home and hearth, and the mother of his future sons and
+daughters.  In fact, it was far into the night when the two
+friends separated--separated in more than one sense, as they
+afterward learned.
+
+While Alfred and Jimmy were saying "good- night" to each other,
+Zoie and Aggie in one of the pretty chintz bedrooms of Professor
+Peck's modest home, were still exchanging mutual confidences.
+
+"The thing I like about Alfred," said Zoie, as she gazed at the
+tip of her dainty satin slipper, and turned her head meditatively
+to one side, "is his positive nature.  I've never before met any
+one like him.  Do you know," she added with a sly twinkle in her
+eye, "it was all I could do to keep from laughing at him.  He's
+so awfully serious."  She giggled to herself at the recollection
+of him; then she leaned forward to Aggie, her small hands clasped
+across her knees and her face dimpling with mischief.  "He hasn't
+the remotest idea what I'm like."
+
+Aggie studied her young friend with unmistakable reproach.  "I
+MADE Jimmy know what I'M like," she said.  "I told him ALL my
+ideas about everything."
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Zoie in shocked surprise.
+
+"He's sure to find out sooner or later," said Aggie sagely.  "I
+think that's the only sensible way to begin."
+
+"If I'd told Alfred all MY ideas about things," smiled Zoie,
+"there'd have BEEN no beginning."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Aggie, with a troubled look.
+
+"Well, take our meeting," explained Zoie.  "Just as we were
+introduced, that horrid little Willie Peck caught his heel in a
+flounce of my skirt.  I turned round to slap him, but I saw
+Alfred looking, so I patted his ugly little red curls instead. 
+And what do you think? Alfred told me to-night that it was my
+devotion to Willie that first made him adore me."
+
+"And you didn't explain to him?" asked Aggie in amazement.
+
+"And lose him before I'd got him!" exclaimed Zoie.
+
+"It might be better than losing him AFTER you've got him,"
+concluded the elder girl.
+
+"Oh, Aggie," pouted Zoie, "I think you are horrid.  You're just
+trying to spoil all the fun of my engagement."
+
+"I am not," cried Aggie, and the next moment she was sitting on
+the arm of Zoie's chair.
+
+"Goose!" she said, "how dare you be cross with me?"
+
+"I am NOT cross," declared Zoie, and after the customary
+apologies from Aggie, confidence was fully restored on both sides
+and Zoie continued gaily:  "Don't you worry about Alfred and me,"
+she said as she kicked off her tiny slippers and hopped into bed. 
+"Just you wait until I get him.  I'll manage him all right."
+
+"I dare say," answered Aggie; not without misgivings, as she
+turned off the light.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The double wedding of four of Chicago's "Younger Set" had been
+adequately noticed in the papers, the conventional "honeymoon"
+journey had been made, and Alfred Hardy and Jimmy Jinks had now
+settled down to the routine of their respective business
+interests.
+
+Having plunged into his office work with the same vigour with
+which he had attacked higher mathematics, Alfred had quickly
+gained the confidence of the elders of his firm, and they had
+already begun to give way to him in many important decisions.  In
+fact, he was now practically at the head of his particular
+department with one office doing well in Chicago and a second
+office promising well in Detroit.
+
+As for Jimmy, he had naturally started his business career with
+fewer pyrotechnics; but he was none the less contented.  He
+seldom saw his old friend Alfred now, but Aggie kept more or less
+in touch with Zoie; and over the luncheon table the affairs of
+the two husbands were often discussed by their wives.  It was
+after one of these luncheons that Aggie upset Jimmy's evening
+repose by the fireside by telling him that she was a wee bit
+worried about Zoie and Alfred.
+
+"Alfred is so unreasonable," said Aggie, "so peevish."
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Jimmy shortly.  "If he's peevish he has
+some good reason.  You can be sure of that."
+
+"You needn't get cross with me, Jimmy," said Aggie in a hurt
+voice.
+
+"Why should I be cross with you?" snapped Jimmy.  "It isn't YOUR
+fault if Alfred's made a fool of himself by marrying the last
+person on earth whom he should have married."
+
+"I think he was very lucky to get her," argued Aggie in defence
+of her friend.
+
+"Oh, you do, do you?" answered Jimmy in a very aggrieved tone.
+
+"She is one of the prettiest girls in Chicago," said Aggie.
+
+"You're pretty too," answered Jimmy, "but it doesn't make an
+idiot of you."
+
+"It's TIME you said something nice to me," purred Aggie; and her
+arm stole fondly around Jimmy's large neck.
+
+"I don't know why it is," said Jimmy, shaking his head
+dejectedly, "but every time Zoie Hardy's name is mentioned in
+this house it seems to stir up some sort of a row between you and
+me."
+
+"That's because you're so prejudiced," answered Aggie with a
+touch of irritation.
+
+"There you go again," said Jimmy.
+
+"I didn't mean it!" interposed Aggie contritely.  "Oh, come now,
+Jimmy," she pleaded, "let's trundle off to bed and forget all
+about it."  And they did.
+
+But the next day, as Jimmy was heading for the La Salle
+restaurant to get his luncheon, who should call to him airily
+from a passing taxi but Zoie.  It was apparent that she wished
+him to wait until she could alight; and in spite of his
+disinclination to do so, he not only waited but followed the taxi
+to its stopping place and helped the young woman to the pavement.
+
+"Oh, you darling!" exclaimed Zoie, all of a flutter, and looking
+exactly like an animated doll.  "You've just saved my life."  She
+called to the taxi driver to "wait."
+
+"Are you in trouble?" asked the guileless Jimmy.
+
+"Yes, dreadful," answered Zoie, and she thrust a half-dozen small
+parcels into Jimmy's arms.  "I have to be at my dressmaker's in
+half an hour; and I haven't had a bite of lunch.  I'm miles and
+miles from home; and I can't go into a restaurant and eat just by
+myself without being stared at.  Wasn't it lucky that I saw you
+when I did?"
+
+There was really very little left for Jimmy to say, so he said
+it; and a few minutes later they were seated tete-a-tete in one
+of Chicago's most fashionable restaurants, and Zoie the
+unconscious flirt was looking up at Jimmy with apparently adoring
+eyes, and suggesting all the eatables which he particularly
+abominated.
+
+No sooner had the unfortunate man acquiesced in one thing and
+communicated Zoie's wish to the waiter, than the flighty young
+person found something else on the menu that she considered more
+tempting to her palate.  Time and again the waiter had to be
+recalled and the order had to be given over until Jimmy felt
+himself laying up a store of nervous indigestion that would
+doubtless last him for days.
+
+When the coveted food at last arrived, Zoie had become completely
+engrossed in the headgear of one of her neighbours, and it was
+only after Jimmy had been induced to make himself ridiculous by
+craning his neck to see things of no possible interest to him
+that Zoie at last gave her attention to her plate.
+
+In obeyance of Jimmy's order the waiter managed to rush the lunch
+through within three- quarters of an hour; but when Jimmy and
+Zoie at length rose to go he was so insanely irritated, that he
+declared they had been in the place for hours; demanded that the
+waiter hurry his bill; and then finally departed in high dudgeon
+without leaving the customary "tip" behind him.
+
+But all this was without its effect upon Zoie, who, a few moments
+later rode away in her taxi, waving gaily to Jimmy who was now
+late for business and thoroughly at odds with himself and the
+world.
+
+As a result of the time lost at luncheon Jimmy missed an
+appointment that had to wait over until after office hours, and
+as a result of this postponement, he missed Aggie, who went to a
+friend's house for dinner, leaving word for him to follow.  For
+the first time in his life, Jimmy disobeyed Aggie's orders, and,
+later on, when he "trundled off to bed" alone, he again recalled
+that it was Zoie Hardy who was always causing hard feeling
+between him and his spouse.
+
+Some hours later, when Aggie reached home with misgivings because
+Jimmy had not joined her, she was surprised to find him sleeping
+as peacefully as a cherub.  "Poor dear," she murmured, "I hope he
+wasn't lonesome."  And she stole away to her room.
+
+The next morning when Aggie did not appear at the breakfast
+table, Jimmy rushed to her room in genuine alarm.  It was now
+Aggie's turn to sleep peacefully; and he stole dejectedly back to
+the dining-room and for the first time since their marriage, he
+munched his cold toast and sipped his coffee alone.
+
+So thoroughly was his life now disorganised, and so low were his
+spirits that he determined to walk to his office, relying upon
+the crisp morning air to brace him for the day's encounters.  By
+degrees, he regained his good cheer and as usual when in rising
+spirits, his mind turned toward Aggie.  The second anniversary of
+their wedding was fast approaching--he began to take notice of
+various window displays.  By the time he had reached his office,
+the weightiest decision on his mind lay in choosing between a
+pearl pendant and a diamond bracelet for his now adorable spouse.
+
+But a more difficult problem awaited him.  Before he was fairly
+in his chair, the telephone bell rang violently.  Never guessing
+who was at the other end of the wire, he picked up his receiver
+and answered.
+
+"What?" he exclaimed in surprise.  "Mrs.  Hardy?" Several times
+he opened his lips to ask a question, but it was apparent that
+the person at the other end of the line had a great deal to say
+and very little time to say it, and it was only after repeated
+attempts that he managed to get in a word or so edgewise.
+
+"What's happened?" he asked.
+
+"Say nothing to anybody," was Zoie's noncommittal answer, "not
+even to Aggie.  Jump in a taxi and come as quickly as you can."
+
+"But what IS it?" persisted Jimmy.  The dull sound of the wire
+told him that the person at the other end had "hung up."
+
+Jimmy gazed about the room in perplexity.  What was he to do? Why
+on earth should he leave his letters unanswered and his mail
+topsy turvy to rush forth in the shank of the morning at the
+bidding of a young woman whom he abhorred.  Ridiculous! He would
+do no such thing.  He lit a cigar and began to open a few letters
+marked "private."  For the life of him he could not understand
+one word that he read.  A worried look crossed his face.
+
+"Suppose Zoie were really in need of help, Aggie would certainly
+never forgive him if he failed her."  He rose and walked up and
+down.
+
+"Why was he not to tell Aggie?"
+
+"Where was Alfred?" He stopped abruptly.  His over excited
+imagination had suggested a horrible but no doubt accurate
+answer.  "Wedded to an abomination like Zoie, Alfred had sought
+the only escape possible to a man of his honourable ideals--he
+had committed suicide."
+
+Seizing his coat and hat Jimmy dashed through the outer office
+without instructing his astonished staff as to when he might
+possibly return.
+
+"Family troubles," said the secretary to himself as he
+appropriated one of Jimmy's best cigars.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+LESS than half an hour later, Jimmy's taxi stopped in front of
+the fashionable Sherwood Apartments where Zoie had elected to
+live.  Ascending toward the fifth floor he scanned the face of
+the elevator boy expecting to find it particularly solemn because
+of the tragedy that had doubtless taken place upstairs.  He was
+on the point of sending out a "feeler" about the matter, when he
+remembered Zoie's solemn injunction to "say nothing to anybody." 
+Perhaps it was even worse than suicide.  He dared let his
+imagination go no further.  By the time he had put out his hand
+to touch the electric button at Zoie's front door, his finger was
+trembling so that he wondered whether he could hit the mark.  The
+result was a very faint note from the bell, but not so faint that
+it escaped the ear of the anxious young wife, who had been pacing
+up and down the floor of her charming living room for what seemed
+to her ages.
+
+"Hurry, hurry, hurry!" Zoie cried through her tears to her neat
+little maid servant, then reaching for her chatelaine, she daubed
+her small nose and flushed cheeks with powder, after which she
+nodded to Mary to open the door.
+
+To Jimmy, the maid's pert "good-morning" seemed to be in very bad
+taste and to properly reprove her he assumed a grave, dignified
+air out of which he was promptly startled by Zoie's even more
+unseemly greeting.
+
+"Hello, Jimmy!" she snapped.  Her tone was certainly not that of
+a heart-broken widow.  "It's TIME you got here," she added with
+an injured air.
+
+Jimmy gazed at Zoie in astonishment.  She was never what he would
+have called a sympathetic woman, but really----!
+
+"I came the moment you 'phoned me," he stammered; "what is it?
+What's the matter?"
+
+"It's awful," sniffled Zoie.  And she tore up and down the room
+regardless of the fact that Jimmy was still unseated.
+
+"Awful what?" questioned Jimmy.
+
+"Worst I've ever had," sobbed Zoie.
+
+"Is anything wrong with Alfred?" ventured Jimmy.  And he braced
+himself for her answer.
+
+"He's gone," sobbed Zoie.
+
+"Gone!" echoed Jimmy, feeling sure that his worst fears were
+about to be realised.  "Gone where?"
+
+"I don't know," sniffled Zoie, "I just 'phoned his office.  He
+isn't there."
+
+"Oh, is that all?" answered Jimmy, with a sigh of relief.  "Just
+another little family tiff," he was unable to conceal a feeling
+of thankfulness.  "What's up?"
+
+Zoie measured Jimmy with a dangerous gleam in her eyes.  She
+resented the patronising tone that he was adopting.  How dare he
+be cheerful when she was so unhappy--and because of him, too? She
+determined that his self-complacency should be short-lived.
+
+"Alfred has found out that I lied about the luncheon," she said,
+weighing her words and their effect upon Jimmy.
+
+"What luncheon?" stuttered Jimmy, feeling sure that Zoie had
+suddenly marked him for her victim, but puzzled as to what form
+her persecution was about to take.
+
+"What luncheon?" repeated Zoie, trying apparently to conceal her
+disgust at his dulness.  "OUR luncheon yesterday."
+
+"Why did you LIE," asked Jimmy, his eyes growing rounder and
+rounder with wonder.
+
+"I didn't know he KNEW," answered Zoie innocently.
+
+"Knew what?" questioned Jimmy, more and more befogged.
+
+"That I'd eaten with a man," concluded Zoie impatiently.  Then
+she turned her back upon Jimmy and again dashed up and down the
+room occupied with her own thoughts.
+
+It was certainly difficult to get much understanding out of
+Zoie's disjointed observations, but Jimmy was doing his best.  He
+followed her restless movements about the room with his eyes, and
+then ventured a timid comment.
+
+"He couldn't object to your eating with me."
+
+"Oh, couldn't he?" cried Zoie, and she turned upon him with a
+look of contempt.  "If there's anything that he DOESN'T object
+to," she continued, "I haven't found it out yet."  And with that
+she threw herself in a large arm chair near the table, and left
+Jimmy to draw his own conclusions.
+
+Jimmy looked about the room as though expecting aid from some
+unseen source; then his eyes sought the floor.  Eventually they
+crept to the tip of Zoie's tiny slipper as it beat a nervous
+tattoo on the rug.  To save his immortal soul, Jimmy could never
+help being hypnotised by Zoie's small feet.  He wondered now if
+they had been the reason of Alfred's first downfall.  He recalled
+with a sigh of relief that Aggie's feet were large and
+reassuring.  He also recalled an appropriate quotation:  "The
+path of virtue is not for women with small feet," it ran.  "Yes,
+Aggie's feet are undoubtedly large," he concluded.  But all this
+was not solving Zoie's immediate problem; and an impatient cough
+from her made him realise that something was expected of him.
+
+"Why did you lunch with me," he asked, with a touch of
+irritation, "if you thought he wouldn't like it?"
+
+"I was hungry," snapped Zoie.
+
+"Oh," grunted Jimmy, and in spite of his dislike of the small
+creature his vanity resented the bald assertion that she had not
+lunched with him for his company's sake.
+
+"I wouldn't have made an engagement with you of course," she
+continued, with a frankness that vanquished any remaining conceit
+that Jimmy might have brought with him.  "I explained to you how
+it was at the time.  It was merely a case of convenience.  You
+know that."
+
+Jimmy was beginning to see it more and more in the light of an
+inconvenience.
+
+"If you hadn't been in front of that horrid old restaurant just
+when I was passing," she continued, "all this would never have
+happened.  But you were there, and you asked me to come in and
+have a bite with you; and I did, and there you are."
+
+"Yes, there I am," assented Jimmy dismally.  There was no doubt
+about where he was now, but where was he going to end? That was
+the question.  "See here," he exclaimed with fast growing
+uneasiness, "I don't like being mixed up in this sort of thing."
+
+"Of course you'd think of yourself first," sneered Zoie.  "That's
+just like a man."
+
+"Well, I don't want to get your husband down on me," argued Jimmy
+evasively.
+
+"Oh, I didn't give YOU away," sneered Zoie.  "YOU needn't worry,"
+and she fixed her eyes upon him with a scornful expression that
+left no doubt as to her opinion that he was a craven coward.
+
+"But you said he'd 'found out,' " stammered Jimmy.
+
+"He's found out that I ate with a MAN," answered Zoie, more and
+more aggrieved at having to employ so much detail in the midst of
+her distress.  "He doesn't know it was you."
+
+"But Zoie----" protested Jimmy.
+
+She lifted a small hand, begging him to spare her further
+questions.  It was apparent that she must explain each aspect of
+their present difficulty, with as much patience as though Jimmy
+were in reality only a child.  She sank into her chair and then
+proceeded, with a martyred air.
+
+"You see it was like this," she said.  "Alfred came into the
+restaurant just after we had gone out and Henri, the waiter who
+has taken care of him for years, told him that I had just been in
+to luncheon with a gentleman."
+
+Jimmy shifted about on the edge of his chair, ill at ease.
+
+"Now if Alfred had only told me that in the first place," she
+continued, "I'd have known what to say, but he didn't.  Oh no, he
+was as sweet as could be all through breakfast and last night
+too, and then just as he was leaving this morning, I said
+something about luncheon and he said, quite casually, 'Where did
+you have luncheon YESTERDAY, my dear?' So I answered quite
+carelessly, 'I had none, my love.' Well, I wish you could have
+seen him.  He called me dreadful things.  He says I'm the one
+thing he can't endure."
+
+"What's that?" questioned Jimmy, wondering how Alfred could
+confine himself to any "ONE thing."
+
+"He says I'm a liar!" shrieked Zoie tearfully.
+
+"Well, aren't you?" asked Jimmy.
+
+"Of course I am," declared Zoie; "but why shouldn't I be?" She
+looked at Jimmy with such an air of self-approval that for the
+life of him he could find no reason to offer.  "You know how
+jealous Alfred is," she continued.  "He makes such a fuss about
+the slightest thing that I've got out of the habit of EVER
+telling the TRUTH."  She walked away from Jimmy as though
+dismissing the entire matter; he shifted his position uneasily;
+she turned to him again with mock sweetness.  "I suppose YOU told
+AGGIE all about it?" she said.
+
+Jimmy's round eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped lower. 
+"I--I--don't believe I did," he stammered weakly.  "I didn't
+think of it again."
+
+"Thank heaven for that!" concluded Zoie with tightly pressed
+lips.  Then she knotted her small white brow in deep thought.
+
+Jimmy regarded her with growing uneasiness.  "What are you up to
+now?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know yet," mused Zoie, "BUT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TELL
+AGGIE--that's ONE SURE thing."  And she pinned him down with her
+eyes.
+
+"I certainly will tell her," asserted Jimmy, with a wag of his
+very round head.  "Aggie is just the one to get you out of this."
+
+"She's just the one to make things worse," said Zoie decidedly. 
+Then seeing Jimmy's hurt look, she continued apologetically: 
+"Aggie MEANS all right, but she has an absolute mania for mixing
+up in other people's troubles.  And you know how THAT always
+ends."
+
+"I never deceived my wife in all my life," declared Jimmy, with
+an air of self approval that he was far from feeling.
+
+"Now, Jimmy," protested Zoie impatiently, "you aren't going to
+have moral hydrophobia just when I need your help!"
+
+"I'm not going to lie to Aggie, if that's what you mean," said
+Jimmy, endeavouring not to wriggle under Zoie's disapproving
+gaze.
+
+"Then don't," answered Zoie sweetly.
+
+Jimmy never feared Zoie more than when she APPEARED to agree with
+him.  He looked at her now with uneasy distrust.
+
+"Tell her the truth," urged Zoie.
+
+"I will," declared Jimmy with an emphatic nod.
+
+"And I'LL DENY IT," concluded Zoie with an impudent toss of her
+head.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Jimmy, and he felt himself getting onto his
+feet.
+
+"I've already denied it to Alfred," continued Zoie.  "I told him
+I'd never been in that restaurant without him in all my life,
+that the waiter had mistaken someone else for me."  And again she
+turned her back upon Jimmy.
+
+"But don't you see," protested Jimmy, "this would all be so very
+much simpler if you'd just own up to the truth now, before it's
+too late?"
+
+"It IS too late," declared Zoie.  "Alfred wouldn't believe me
+now, whatever I told him.  He says a woman who lies once lies all
+the time.  He'd think I'd been carrying on with you ALL ALONG."
+
+"Good Lord!" groaned Jimmy as the full realisation of his
+predicament thrust itself upon him.
+
+"We don't DARE tell him now," continued Zoie, elated by the
+demoralised state to which she was fast reducing him.  "For
+Heaven's sake, don't make it any worse," she concluded; "it's bad
+enough as it is."
+
+"It certainly is," agreed Jimmy, and he sank dejectedly into his
+chair.
+
+"If you DO tell him," threatened Zoie from the opposite side of
+the table, "I'll say you ENTICED me into the place."
+
+"What!" shrieked Jimmy and again he found himself on his feet.
+
+"I will," insisted Zoie, "I give you fair warning."
+
+He stared at her in absolute horror.  "I don't believe you've any
+conscience at all," he said.
+
+"I haven't," she sniffled.  "I'm too miserable."  And throwing
+herself into the nearest armchair she wept copiously at the
+thought of her many injuries.
+
+Uncertain whether to fly or to remain, Jimmy gazed at her
+gloomily.  "Well, I'M not laughing myself to death," he said.
+
+For answer Zoie turned upon him vehemently.  "I just wish I'd
+never laid eyes on you, Jimmy," she cried.
+
+Jimmy was wishing the very same thing.
+
+"If I cared about you," she sobbed, "it wouldn't be so bad; but
+to think of losing my Alfred for----" words failed her and she
+trailed off weakly,--"for nothing!"
+
+"Thanks," grunted Jimmy curtly.  In spite of himself he was
+always miffed by the uncomplimentary way in which she disposed of
+him.
+
+His sarcasm was lost upon Zoie.  Having finished all she had to
+say to him, she was now apparently bent upon indulging herself in
+a first class fit of hysterics.
+
+There are critical moments in all of our lives when our future
+happiness or woe hangs upon our own decision.  Jimmy felt
+intuitively that he was face to face with such a moment, but
+which way to turn? that was the question.  Being Jimmy, and
+soft-hearted in spite of his efforts to conceal it, he naturally
+turned the wrong way, in other words, towards Zoie.
+
+"Oh, come now," he said awkwardly, as he crossed to the arm of
+her chair.  "This will soon blow over."
+
+Zoie only sobbed the louder.
+
+"This isn't the first time you and Alfred have called it all
+off," he reminded her.
+
+Again she sobbed.
+
+Jimmy could never remember quite how it happened.  But apparently
+he must have patted Zoie on the shoulder.  At any rate, something
+or other loosened the flood-gates of her emotion, and before
+Jimmy could possibly escape from her vicinity she had wheeled
+round in her chair, thrown her arms about him, and buried her
+tear-stained face against his waist-coat.
+
+"Good Lord!" exclaimed Jimmy, for the third time that morning, as
+he glanced nervously toward the door; but Zoie was exclaiming in
+her own way and sobbing louder and louder; furthermore she was
+compelling Jimmy to listen to an exaggerated account of her many
+disappointments in her unreasonable husband.  Seeing no
+possibility of escape, without resorting to physical violence,
+Jimmy stood his ground, wondering what to expect next.  He did
+not have long to wonder.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WITHIN an hour from the time Alfred had entered his office that
+morning he was leaving it, in a taxi, with his faithful secretary
+at his side, and his important papers in a bag at his feet. 
+"Take me to the Sherwood," he commanded the driver, "and be
+quick."
+
+As they neared Alfred's house, Johnson could feel waves of
+increasing anger circling around his perturbed young employer and
+later when they alighted from the taxi it was with the greatest
+difficulty that he could keep pace with him.
+
+Unfortunately for Jimmy, the outer door of the Hardy apartment
+had been left ajar, and thus it was that he was suddenly startled
+from Zoie's unwelcome embraces by a sharp exclamation.
+
+"So!" cried Alfred, and he brought his fist down with emphasis on
+the centre table at Jimmy's back.
+
+Wheeling about, Jimmy beheld his friend face to face with him. 
+Alfred's lips were pressed tightly together, his eyes flashing
+fire.  It was apparent that he desired an immediate explanation. 
+Jimmy turned to the place where Zoie had been, to ask for help;
+like the traitress that she was, he now saw her flying through
+her bedroom door.  Again he glanced at Alfred, who was standing
+like a sentry, waiting for the pass-word that should restore his
+confidence in his friend.
+
+"I'm afraid I've disturbed you," sneered Alfred.
+
+"Oh, no, not at all," answered Jimmy, affecting a careless
+indifference that he did not feel and unconsciously shaking hands
+with the waiting secretary.
+
+Reminded of the secretary's presence in such a distinctly family
+scene, Alfred turned to him with annoyance.
+
+"Go into my study," he said.  "I'll be with you presently. 
+Here's your list," he added and he thrust a long memorandum into
+the secretary's hand.  Johnson retired as unobtrusively as
+possible and the two old friends were left alone.  There was
+another embarrassed silence which Jimmy, at least, seemed
+powerless to break.
+
+"Well?" questioned Alfred in a threatening tone.
+
+"Tolerably well," answered Jimmy in his most pleasant but
+slightly nervous manner.  Then followed another pause in which
+Alfred continued to eye his old friend with grave suspicion.
+
+"The fact is," stammered Jimmy, "I just came over to bring
+Aggie----" he corrected himself-- "that is, to bring Zoie a
+little message from Aggie."  
+
+"It seemed to be a SAD one," answered Alfred, with a sarcastic
+smile, as he recalled the picture of Zoie weeping upon his
+friend's sleeve.
+
+"Oh no--no!" answered Jimmy, with an elaborate attempt at
+carelessness.
+
+"Do you generally play the messenger during business hours?"
+thundered Alfred, becoming more and more enraged at Jimmy's petty
+evasions.
+
+"Just SOMETIMES," answered Jimmy, persisting in his amiable
+manner.
+
+"Jimmy," said Alfred, and there was a solemn warning in his
+voice, "don't YOU lie to me!"
+
+Jimmy started as though shot.  The consciousness of his guilt was
+strong upon him.  "I beg your pardon," he gasped, for the want of
+anything more intelligent to say.
+
+"You don't do it well," continued Alfred, "and you and I are old
+friends."
+
+Jimmy's round eyes fixed themselves on the carpet.
+
+"My wife has been telling you her troubles," surmised Alfred.
+
+Jimmy tried to protest, but the lie would not come.
+
+"Very well," continued Alfred, "I'll tell you something too. 
+I've done with her."  He thrust his hands in his pockets and
+began to walk up and down.
+
+"What a turbulent household," thought Jimmy and then he set out
+in pursuit of his friend.  "I'm sorry you've had a
+misunderstanding," he began.
+
+"Misunderstanding!" shouted Alfred, turning upon him so sharply
+that he nearly tripped him up, "we've never had anything else. 
+There was never anything else for us TO have.  She's lied up hill
+and down dale from the first time she clinched her baby fingers
+around my hand--" he imitated Zoie's dainty manner-- "and said
+'pleased to meet you!' But I've caught her with the goods this
+time," he shouted, "and I've just about got HIM."
+
+"Him!" echoed Jimmy weakly.
+
+"The wife-stealer," exclaimed Alfred, and he clinched his fists
+in anticipation of the justice he would one day mete out to the
+despicable creature.
+
+Now Jimmy had been called many things in his time, he realised
+that he would doubtless be called many more things in the future,
+but never by the wildest stretch of imagination, had he ever
+conceived of himself in the role of "wife- stealer."
+
+Mistaking Jimmy's look of amazement for one of incredulity,
+Alfred endeavoured to convince him.
+
+"Oh, YOU'LL meet a wife-stealer sooner or later," he assured him. 
+"You needn't look so horrified."
+
+Jimmy only stared at him and he continued excitedly:  "She's had
+the effrontery--the bad taste--the idiocy to lunch in a public
+restaurant with the blackguard."
+
+The mere sound of the word made Jimmy shudder, but engrossed in
+his own troubles Alfred continued without heeding him.
+
+"Henri, the head-waiter, told me," explained Alfred, and Jimmy
+remembered guiltily that he had been very bumptious with the
+fellow.  "You know the place," continued Alfred, "the LaSalle --a
+restaurant where I am known--where she is known--where my best
+friends dine--where Henri has looked after me for years.  That
+shows how desperate she is.  She must be mad about the fool. 
+She's lost all sense of decency."  And again Alfred paced the
+floor.
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't go as far as that," stammered Jimmy.
+
+"Oh, wouldn't you?" cried Alfred, again turning so abruptly that
+Jimmy caught his breath.  Each word of Jimmy's was apparently
+goading him on to greater anger.
+
+"Now don't get hasty," Jimmy almost pleaded.  "The whole thing is
+no doubt perfectly innocent.  Talk to her gently.  Win her
+confidence.  Get her to tell you the truth."
+
+"The truth!" shouted Alfred in derision.  "Zoie! The truth!"
+
+Jimmy feared that his young friend might  actually become
+violent.  Alfred bore down upon him like a maniac.
+
+"The truth!" he repeated wildly.  "She wouldn't know the truth if
+she saw it under a microscope.  She's the most unconscionable
+little liar that ever lured a man to the altar."
+
+Jimmy rolled his round eyes with feigned incredulity.
+
+"I found it out before we'd been married a month," continued
+Alfred.  "She used to sit evenings facing the clock.  I sat with
+my back to it.  I used to ask her the time.  Invariably she would
+lie half an hour, backward or forward, just for practice.  THAT
+was the BEGINNING.  Here, listen to some of these," he added, as
+he drew half a dozen telegrams from his inner pocket, and
+motioned Jimmy to sit at the opposite side of the table.
+
+Jimmy would have preferred to stand, but it was not a propitious
+time to consult his own preferences.  He allowed himself to be
+bullied into the chair that Alfred suggested.
+
+Throwing himself into the opposite chair, Alfred selected various
+exhibits from his collection of messages.  "I just brought these
+up from the office," he said.  "These are some of the telegrams
+that she sent me each day last week while I was away.  This is
+Monday's."  And he proceeded to read with a sneering imitation of
+Zoie's cloy sweetness.
+
+" 'Darling, so lonesome without you.  Cried all day.  When are
+you coming home to your wee sad wifie? Love and kisses.  Zoie.' "
+Tearing the defenceless telegram into bits, Alfred threw it from
+him and waited for his friend's verdict.
+
+"She sent that over the wire?" gasped Jimmy.
+
+"Oh, that's nothing," answered Alfred.  "That's a mild one."  And
+he selected another from the same pocket.  "Here, listen to this. 
+This is what she REALLY did.  This is from my secretary the same
+night."
+
+"You spied upon her!" asked Jimmy, feeling more and more
+convinced that his own deceptions would certainly be run to
+earth.
+
+"I HAVE to spy upon her," answered Alfred, "in self-defence. 
+It's the only way I can keep her from making me utterly
+ridiculous."  And he proceeded to read from the secretary's
+telegram.  " 'Shopped all morning.  Lunched at Martingale's with
+man and woman unknown to me--Martingale's,' " he repeated with a
+sneer-- " 'Motored through Park with Mrs.  Wilmer until five.'
+Mrs.  Wilmer," he exclaimed, "there's a woman I've positively
+forbidden her to speak to."
+
+Jimmy only shook his head and Alfred continued to read.
+
+" 'Had tea with Mr.  and Mrs.  Thompson and young Ardesley at the
+Park View.' Ardesley is a young cub," explained Alfred, "who
+spends his time running around with married women while their
+husbands are away trying to make a living for them."
+
+"Shocking!" was the extent of Jimmy's comment, and Alfred resumed
+reading.
+
+" 'Dinner and theatre same party.  Supper at Wellingford.  Home
+two A.  M.' " He looked at Jimmy, expecting to hear Zoie bitterly
+condemned.  Jimmy only stared at him blankly.  "That's pretty
+good," commented Alfred, "for the woman who 'CRIED' all day,
+isn't it?"
+
+Still Jimmy made no answer, and Alfred brought his fist down upon
+the table impatiently.  "Isn't it?" he repeated.
+
+"She was a bit busy THAT day," admitted Jimmy uneasily.
+
+"The truth!" cried Alfred again, as he rose and paced about
+excitedly.  "Getting the truth out of Zoie is like going to a
+fire in the night.  You think it's near, but you never get there. 
+And when she begins by saying that she's going to tell you the
+'REAL truth' "--he threw up his hands in despair--"well, then
+it's time to leave home."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+There was another pause, then Alfred drew in his breath and bore
+down upon Jimmy with fresh vehemence.  "The only time I get even
+a semblance of truth out of Zoie," he cried, "is when I catch her
+red-handed."  Again he pounded the table and again Jimmy winced. 
+"And even then," he continued, "she colours it so with her
+affected innocence and her plea about just wishing to be a 'good
+fellow,' that she almost makes me doubt my own eyes.  She is an
+artist," he declared with a touch of enforced admiration. 
+"There's no use talking; that woman is an artist."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Jimmy, for the want of anything
+better to say.
+
+"I am going to leave her," declared Alfred emphatically.  "I am
+going away."
+
+A faint hope lit Jimmy's round childlike face.  With Alfred away
+there would be no further investigation of the luncheon incident.
+
+"That might be a good idea," he said.
+
+"It's THE idea," said Alfred; "most of my business is in Detroit
+anyhow.  I'm going to make that my headquarters and stay there."
+
+Jimmy was almost smiling.
+
+"As for Zoie," continued Alfred, "she can stay right here and go
+as far as she likes."
+
+"Not with me," thought Jimmy.
+
+"But," shrieked Alfred, with renewed emphasis, "I'm going to find
+out who the FELLOW is.  I'll have THAT satisfaction!"
+
+Jimmy's spirits fell.
+
+"Henri knows the head-waiter of every restaurant in this town,"
+said Alfred, "that is, every one where she'd be likely to go; and
+he says he'd recognise the man she lunched with if he saw him
+again."
+
+Jimmy's features became suddenly distorted.
+
+"The minute she appears anywhere with anybody," explained Alfred,
+"Henri will be notified by 'phone.  He'll identify the man and
+then he'll wire me."
+
+"What good will that do?" asked Jimmy weakly.
+
+"I'll take the first train home," declared Alfred.
+
+"For what?" questioned Jimmy.
+
+"To shoot him!" exclaimed Alfred.
+
+"What!" gasped Jimmy, almost losing his footing.
+
+Alfred mistook Jimmy's concern for anxiety on his behalf.
+
+"Oh, I'll be acquitted," he declared.  "Don't you worry.  I'll
+get my tale of woe before the jury."
+
+"But I say," protested Jimmy, too uneasy to longer conceal his
+real emotions, "why kill this one particular chap when there are
+so many others?"
+
+"He's the only one she's ever lunched with, ALONE," said Alfred. 
+"She's been giddy, but at least she's always been chaperoned,
+except with him.  He's the one all right; there's no doubt about
+it.  He's the beginning of the end."
+
+"His own end, yes," assented Jimmy half to himself.  "Now, see
+here, old man," he argued, "I'd give that poor devil a chance to
+explain."
+
+"Explain!" shouted Alfred so sharply that Jimmy quickly
+retreated.  "I wouldn't believe him now if he were one of the
+Twelve Apostles."
+
+"That's tough," murmured Jimmy as he saw the last avenue of
+honourable escape closed to him.
+
+"Tough!" roared Alfred, thinking of himself.  "Hah."
+
+"On the Apostles, I mean," explained Jimmy nervously.
+
+Again Alfred paced up and down the room, and again Jimmy tried to
+think of some way to escape from his present difficulty.  It was
+quite apparent that his only hope lay not in his own candor, but
+in Alfred's absence.  "How long do you expect to be away?" he
+asked.
+
+"Only until I hear from Henri," said Alfred.
+
+"Henri?" repeated Jimmy and again a gleam of hope shone on his
+dull features.  He had heard that waiters were often to be
+bribed.  "Nice fellow, Henri," he ventured cautiously.  "Gets a
+large salary, no doubt?"
+
+"Does he!" exclaimed Alfred, with a certain pride of
+proprietorship.  "No tips could touch Henri, no indeed.  He's not
+that sort of a person."
+
+Again the hope faded from Jimmy's round face.
+
+"I look upon Henri as my friend," continued Alfred
+enthusiastically.  "He speaks every language known to man.  He's
+been in every country in the world.  HENRI UNDERSTANDS LIFE."
+
+"LOTS of people UNDERSTAND LIFE," commented Jimmy dismally, "but
+SOME people don't APPRECIATE it.  They value it too lightly, to
+MY way of thinking."
+
+"Ah, but you have something to live for," argued Alfred.
+
+"I have indeed; a great deal," agreed Jimmy, more and more abused
+at the thought of what he was about to lose.
+
+"Ah, that's different," exclaimed Alfred.  "But what have _I_?"
+
+Jimmy was in no frame of mind to consider his young friend's
+assets, he was thinking of his own difficulties.
+
+"I'm a laughing stock," shouted Alfred.  "I know it.  A 'good
+thing' who gives his wife everything she asks for, while she is
+running around with--with my best friend, for all I know."
+
+"Oh, no, no," protested Jimmy nervously.  "I wouldn't say that."
+
+"Even if she weren't running around," continued Alfred excitedly,
+without heeding his friend's interruption, "what have we to look
+forward to? What have we to look backward to?"
+
+Again Jimmy's face was a blank.
+
+Alfred answered his own question by lifting his arms tragically
+toward Heaven.  "One eternal round of wrangles and rows! A
+childless home! Do you think she wants babies?" he cried,
+wheeling about on Jimmy, and daring him to answer in the
+affirmative.  "Oh, no!" he sneered.  "All she wants is a good
+time."
+
+"Well," mumbled Jimmy, "I can't see much in babies myself, fat,
+little, red worms."
+
+Alfred's breath went from him in astonishment
+
+"Weren't YOU ever a fat, little, red worm?" he hissed.  "Wasn't
+_I_ ever a little, fat, red----" he paused in confusion, as his
+ear became puzzled by the proper sequence of his adjectives, "a
+fat, red, little worm," he stammered; "and see what we are now!"
+He thrust out his chest and strutted about in great pride.
+
+"Big red worms," admitted Jimmy gloomily.
+
+But Alfred did not hear him.  "You and I ought to have SONS on
+the way to what we are," he declared, "and better."
+
+"Oh yes, better," agreed Jimmy, thinking of his present plight. 
+"Much better."
+
+"But HAVE we?" demanded Alfred.
+
+Jimmy glanced about the room, as though expecting an answering
+demonstration from the ceiling.
+
+"Have YOU?" persisted Alfred.
+
+Jimmy shook his head solemnly.
+
+"Have _I_?" asked the irate husband.
+
+Out of sheer absent mindedness Jimmy shrugged his shoulders.
+
+As usual Alfred answered his own question.  "Oh, no!" he raged. 
+"YOU have a wife who spends her time and money gadding about
+with----"
+
+Jimmy's face showed a new alarm.
+
+"--my wife," concluded Alfred.
+
+Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+"I have a wife," said Alfred, "who spends her time and my money
+gadding around with God knows whom.  But I'll catch him!" he
+cried with new fury.  "Here," he said, pulling a roll of bills
+from his pocket.  "I'll bet you I'll catch him.  How much do you
+want to bet?"
+
+Undesirous of offering any added inducements toward his own
+capture, Jimmy backed away both literally and figuratively from
+Alfred's proposition.
+
+"What's the use of getting so excited?" he asked.
+
+Mistaking Jimmy's unwillingness to bet for a disinclination to
+take advantage of a friend's reckless mood, Alfred resented the
+implied insult to his astuteness.
+
+"You think I can't catch him?" he exclaimed.  "Let's see the
+colour of your money," he demanded.
+
+But before Jimmy could comply, an unexpected voice broke into the
+argument and brought them both round with a start.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+"Good Heavens," exclaimed Aggie, who had entered the room while
+Alfred was talking his loudest.  "What a racket!"
+
+Her eyes fell upon Jimmy who was teetering about uneasily just
+behind Alfred.  She stared at him in amazement.  Was it possible
+that Jimmy, the methodical, had left his office at this hour of
+the morning, and for what?
+
+Avoiding the question in Aggie's eyes, Jimmy pretended to be
+searching for his pocket handkerchief-- but always with the
+vision of Aggie in her new Fall gown and her large "picture" hat
+at his elbow.  Never before had she appeared so beautiful to him,
+so desirable--suppose he should lose her? Life spread before him
+as a dreary waste.  He tried to look up at her; he could not.  He
+feared she would read his guilt in his eyes.  "What guilt?" he
+asked himself.  There was no longer any denying the fact--a
+secret had sprung up between them.
+
+Annoyed at receiving no greeting, Aggie continued in a rather
+hurt voice:
+
+"Aren't you two going to speak to me?"
+
+Alfred swallowed hard in an effort to regain his composure.
+
+"Good-morning," he said curtly.
+
+Fully convinced of a disagreement between the two old friends,
+Aggie addressed herself in a reproachful tone to Jimmy.
+
+"My dear," she said, "what are you doing here this time of day?"
+
+Jimmy felt Alfred's steely eyes upon him.  "Why!" he stammered. 
+"Why, I just came over to--bring your message."
+
+"My message?" repeated Aggie in perplexity.  "What message?"
+
+Alfred's eyebrows drew themselves sharply together.
+
+Jimmy had told so many lies this morning that another more or
+less could not matter; moreover, this was not a time to hesitate.
+
+"Why, the message you sent to Zoie," he answered boldly.
+
+"But I sent no message to Zoie," said Aggie.
+
+"What!" thundered Alfred, so loud that Aggie's fingers
+involuntarily went to her ears.  She was more and more puzzled by
+the odd behaviour of the two.
+
+"I mean yesterday's message," corrected Jimmy.  And he assumed an
+aggrieved air toward Aggie.
+
+"You villain," exclaimed Aggie.  "I told you to 'phone her
+yesterday morning from the office."
+
+"Yes, I know," agreed Jimmy placidly, "but I forgot it and I just
+came over to explain."  Alfred's fixed stare was relaxing and at
+last Jimmy could breathe.
+
+"Oh," murmured Aggie, with a wise little elevation of her
+eye-brows, "then that's why Zoie didn't keep her luncheon
+appointment with me yesterday."
+
+Jimmy felt that if this were to go on much longer, he would utter
+one wild shriek and give himself up for lost; but at present he
+merely swallowed with an effort, and awaited developments.
+
+It was now Alfred's turn to become excited.
+
+"Oh, IS it!" he cried with hysterical laughter.
+
+Aggie regarded him with astonishment.  Was this her usually
+self-controlled friend?
+
+"Oh, no!" sneered Alfred with unmistakable pity for her
+credulity.  "That's not why my wife didn't eat luncheon with you. 
+She may TELL you that's why.  She undoubtedly will; but it's NOT
+why.  Oh, no!" and running his hands through his hair, Alfred
+tore up and down the room.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" Aggie asked in amazement.
+
+"Your dear husband Jimmy will doubtless explain," answered Alfred
+with a slur on the "dear."  Then he turned toward the door of his
+study.  "Pray excuse me--I'M TOO BUSY," and with that he strode
+out of the room and banged the study door behind him.
+
+"Goodness gracious!" gasped Aggie.  She looked after Alfred, then
+at Jimmy.  She was the picture of consternation.  "What's the
+matter with him?" she asked.
+
+"Just another little family tiff," answered Jimmy, trying to
+assume a nonchalant manner.
+
+"Not about YOU!" gasped Aggie.
+
+"Me!" cried Jimmy, his equilibrium again upset.  "Certainly not!"
+he declared.  "What an idea!"
+
+"Yes, wasn't it?" answered Aggie.  "That just shows how silly one
+can be.  I almost thought Alfred was going to say that Zoie had
+lunched with you."
+
+"Me?" again echoed Jimmy, and he wondered if everybody in the
+world had conspired to make him the target of their attention. 
+He caught Aggie's eye and tried to laugh carelessly.  "That would
+have been funny, wouldn't it?" he said.
+
+"Yes, wouldn't it," repeated Aggie, and he thought he detected a
+slight uneasiness in her voice.
+
+"Speaking of lunch," added Jimmy quickly, "I think, dearie, that
+I'll come home for lunch in the future."
+
+"What?" exclaimed Aggie in great amazement.
+
+"Those downtown places upset my digestion," explained Jimmy
+quickly.
+
+"Isn't this very SUDDEN," she asked, and again Jimmy fancied that
+there was a shade of suspicion in her tone.
+
+His face assumed a martyred expression.  "Of course, dear," he
+said, "if you insist upon my eating downtown, I'll do it; but I
+thought you'd be glad to have me at home."
+
+Aggie turned to him with real concern.  "Why, Jimmy," she said,
+"what's the matter with you?" She took a step toward him and
+anxiously studied his face.  "I never heard you talk like that
+before.  I don't think you're well."
+
+"That's just what I'm telling you," insisted Jimmy vehemently,
+excited beyond all reason by receiving even this small bit of
+sympathy.  "I'm ill," he declared.  No sooner had he made the
+declaration than he began to believe in it.  His doleful
+countenance increased Aggie's alarm.
+
+"My angel-face," she purred, and she took his chubby cheeks in
+her hands and looked down at him fondly.  "You know I ALWAYS want
+you to come home."  She stooped and kissed Jimmy's pouting lips. 
+He held up his face for more.  She smoothed the hair from his
+worried brow and endeavoured to cheer him.  "I'll run right home
+now," she said, "and tell cook to get something nice and tempting
+for you! I can see Zoie later."
+
+"It doesn't matter," murmured Jimmy, as he followed her toward
+the door with a doleful shake of his head.  "I don't suppose I
+shall ever enjoy my luncheon again--as long as I live."
+
+"Nonsense," cried Aggie, "come along."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WHEN Alfred returned to the living room he was followed by his
+secretary, who carried two well-filled satchels.  His temper was
+not improved by the discovery that he had left certain important
+papers at his office.  Dispatching his man to get them and to
+meet him at the station with them, he collected a few remaining
+letters from the drawer of the writing table, then uneasy at
+remaining longer under the same roof with Zoie, he picked up his
+hat, and started toward the hallway.  For the first time his eye
+was attracted by a thick layer of dust and lint on his coat
+sleeve.  Worse still, there was a smudge on his cuff.  If there
+was one thing more than another that Alfred detested it was
+untidiness.  Putting his hat down with a bang, he tried to flick
+the dust from his sleeve with his pocket handkerchief; finding
+this impossible, he removed his coat and began to shake it
+violently.
+
+It was at this particular moment that Zoie's small face appeared
+cautiously from behind the frame of the bedroom door.  She was
+quick to perceive Alfred's plight.  Disappearing from view for an
+instant, she soon reappeared with Alfred's favourite
+clothes-brush.  She tiptoed into the room.
+
+Barely had Alfred drawn his coat on his shoulders, when he was
+startled by a quick little flutter of the brush on his sleeve. 
+He turned in surprise and beheld Zoie, who looked up at him as
+penitent and irresistible as a newly-punished child.
+
+"Oh," snarled Alfred, and he glared at her as though he would
+enjoy strangling her on the spot.
+
+"Alfred," pouted Zoie, and he knew she was going to add her
+customary appeal of "Let's make up."  But Alfred was in no mood
+for nonsense.  He thrust his hands in his pockets and made
+straight for the outer doorway.
+
+Smiling to herself as she saw him leaving without his hat, Zoie
+slipped it quickly beneath a flounce of her skirt.  No sooner had
+Alfred reached the sill of the door than his hand went
+involuntarily to his head; he turned to the table where he had
+left his hat.  His face wore a puzzled look.  He glanced beneath
+the table, in the chair, behind the table, across the piano, and
+then he began circling the room with pent up rage.  He dashed
+into his study and out again, he threw the chairs about with
+increasing irritation, then giving up the search, he started
+hatless toward the hallway.  It was then that a soft babyish
+voice reached his ear.
+
+"Have you lost something, dear?" cooed Zoie.
+
+Alfred hesitated.  It was difficult to lower his dignity by
+answering her, but he needed his headgear.  "I want my hat," he
+admitted shortly.
+
+"Your hat?" repeated Zoie innocently and she glanced around the
+room with mild interest.  "Maybe Mary took it."
+
+"Mary!" cried Alfred, and thinking the mystery solved, he dashed
+toward the inner hallway.
+
+"Let ME get it, dear," pleaded Zoie, and she laid a small
+detaining hand upon his arm as he passed.
+
+"Stop it!" commanded Alfred hotly, and he shook the small hand
+from his sleeve as though it had been something poisonous.
+
+"But Allie," protested Zoie, pretending to be shocked and
+grieved.
+
+"Don't you 'but Allie' me," cried Alfred, turning upon her
+sharply.  "All I want is my hat," and again he started in search
+of Mary.
+
+"But--but--but Allie," stammered Zoie, as she followed him.
+
+"But--but--but," repeated Alfred, turning on her in a fury. 
+"You've butted me out of everything that I wanted all my life,
+but you're not going to do it again."
+
+"You see, you said it yourself," laughed Zoie.
+
+"Said WHAT," roared Alfred.
+
+"But," tittered Zoie.
+
+The remnants of Alfred's self-control were forsaking him.  He
+clinched his fists hard in a final effort toward restraint. 
+"You'd just as well stop all these baby tricks," he threatened
+between his teeth, "they're not going to work.  THIS time my mind
+is made up."
+
+"Then why are you afraid to talk to me?" asked Zoie sweetly.
+
+"Who said I was afraid?" demanded Alfred hotly.
+
+"You ACT like it," declared Zoie, with some truth on her side. 
+"You don't want----" she got no further.
+
+"All I want," interrupted Alfred, "is to get out of this house
+once and for all and to stay out of it."  And again he started in
+pursuit of his hat.
+
+"Why, Allie," she gazed at him with deep reproach.  "You liked
+this place so much when we first came here."
+
+Again Alfred picked at the lint on his coat sleeve.  Edging her
+way toward him cautiously she ventured to touch his sleeve with
+the brush.
+
+"I'll attend to that myself," he said curtly, and he sank into
+the nearest chair to tie a refractory shoe lace.
+
+"Let me brush you, dear," pleaded Zoie.  "I don't wish you to
+start out in the world looking unbrushed," she pouted.  Then with
+a sly emphasis she added teasingly, "The OTHER women might not
+admire you that way."
+
+Alfred broke his shoe string then and there.  While he stooped to
+tie a knot in it, Zoie managed to perch on the arm of his chair.
+
+"You know, Allie," she continued coaxingly, "no one could ever
+love you as I do."
+
+Again Alfred broke his shoe lace.
+
+"Oh, Allie!" she exclaimed with a little ripple of childish
+laughter, "do you remember how absurdly poor we were when we were
+first married, and how you refused to take any help from your
+family? And do you remember that silly old pair of black trousers
+that used to get so thin on the knees and how I used to put
+shoe-blacking underneath so the white wouldn't show through?" By
+this time her arm managed to get around his neck.
+
+"Stop it!" shrieked Alfred as though mortal man could endure no
+more.  "You've used those trousers to settle every crisis in our
+lives."
+
+Zoie gazed at him without daring to breathe; even she was aghast
+at his fury, but only temporarily.  She recovered herself and
+continued sweetly:
+
+"If everything is SETTLED," she argued, "where's the harm in
+talking?"
+
+"We've DONE with talking," declared Alfred.  "From this on, I
+act."  And determined not to be cheated out of this final
+decision, he again started for the hall door.
+
+"Oh, Allie!" cried Zoie in a tone of sharp alarm.
+
+In spite of himself Alfred turned to learn the cause of her
+anxiety.
+
+"You haven't got your overshoes on," she said.
+
+Speechless with rage, Alfred continued on his way, but Zoie moved
+before him swiftly.  "I'll get them for you, dear," she
+volunteered graciously.
+
+"Stop!" thundered Alfred.  They were now face to face.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't roar like that," pouted Zoie, and the pink
+tips of her fingers were thrust tight against her ears.
+
+Alfred drew in his breath and endeavoured for the last time to
+repress his indignation.  "Either you can't, or you won't
+understand that it is extremely unpleasant for me to even talk to
+you-- much less to receive your attentions."
+
+"Very likely," answered Zoie, unperturbed.  "But so long as I am
+your lawful wedded wife----" she emphasised the "lawful"--"I
+shan't let any harm come to you, if _I_ can help it."  She lifted
+her eyes to heaven bidding it to bear witness to her martyrdom
+and looking for all the world like a stained glass saint.
+
+"Oh, no!" shouted Alfred, almost hysterical at his apparent
+failure to make himself understood.  "You wouldn't let any harm
+come to me.  Oh, no.  You've only made me the greatest joke in
+Chicago," he shouted.  "You've only made me such a laughing stock
+that I have to leave it.  That's all--that's all!"
+
+"Leave Chicago!" exclaimed Zoie incredulously.  Then regaining
+her self-composure, she edged her way close to him and looked up
+into his eyes in baby-like wonderment.  "Why, Allie, where are we
+going?" Her small arm crept up toward his shoulder.  Alfred
+pushed it from him rudely.
+
+"WE are not going," he asserted in a firm, measured voice.  "_I_
+am going.  Where's my hat?" And again he started in search of his
+absent headgear.
+
+"Oh, Allie!" she exclaimed, and this time there was genuine alarm
+in her voice, "you wouldn't leave me?"
+
+"Wouldn't I, though?" sneered Alfred.  Before he knew it, Zoie's
+arms were about him--she was pleading desperately.
+
+"Now see here, Allie, you may call me all the names you like,"
+she cried with great self-abasement, "but you shan't--you SHAN'T
+go away from Chicago."
+
+"Oh, indeed?" answered Alfred as he shook himself free of her. 
+"I suppose you'd like me to go on with this cat and dog
+existence.  You'd like me to stay right here and pay the bills
+and take care of you, while you flirt with every Tom, Dick and
+Harry in town."
+
+"It's only your horrid disposition that makes you talk like
+that," whimpered Zoie.  "You know very well that I never cared
+for anybody but you."
+
+"Until you GOT me, yes," assented Alfred, "and NOW you care for
+everybody BUT me."  She was about to object, but he continued
+quickly.  "Where you MEET your gentlemen friends is beyond me. 
+_I_ don't introduce them to you."
+
+"I should say not," agreed Zoie, and there was a touch of
+vindictiveness in her voice.  "The only male creature that you
+ever introduced to me was the family dog."
+
+"I introduce every man who's fit to meet you," declared Alfred
+with an air of great pride.
+
+"That doesn't speak very well for your acquaintances," snipped
+Zoie.  Even HER temper was beginning to assert itself.
+
+"I won't bicker like this," declared Alfred.
+
+"That's what you always say, when you can't think of an answer,"
+retorted Zoie.
+
+"You mean when I'm tired of answering your nonsense!" thundered
+Alfred.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Realising that she was rapidly losing ground by exercising her
+advantage over Alfred in the matter of quick retort, Zoie, with
+her customary cunning, veered round to a more conciliatory tone. 
+"Well," she cooed, "suppose I DID eat lunch with a man?"
+
+"Ah!" shrieked Alfred, as though he had at last run his victim to
+earth.
+
+She retreated with her fingers crossed.  "I only said suppose,"
+she reminded him quickly.  Then she continued in a tone meant to
+draw from him his heart's most secret confidence.  "Didn't you
+ever eat lunch with any woman but me?"
+
+"Never!" answered Alfred firmly.
+
+There was an unmistakable expression of pleasure on Zoie's small
+face, but she forced back the smile that was trying to creep
+round her lips, and sidled toward Alfred, with eyes properly
+downcast.  "Then I'm very sorry I did it," she said solemnly,
+"and I'll never do it again."
+
+"So!" cried Alfred with renewed indignation.  "You admit it?"
+
+"Just to please you, dear," explained Zoie sweetly, as though she
+were doing him the greatest possible favour.
+
+"To please me?" gasped Alfred.  "Do you suppose it pleases me to
+know that you are carrying on the moment my back is turned,
+making a fool of me to my friends?"
+
+"Your friends?" cried Zoie with a sneer.  This time it was her
+turn to be angry.  "So! It's your FRIENDS that are worrying you!"
+In her excitement she tossed Alfred's now damaged hat into the
+chair just behind her.  He was far too overwrought to see it. 
+"_I_ haven't done you any harm," she continued wildly.  "It's
+only what you think your friends think."
+
+"You haven't done me any harm?" repeated Alfred, in her same
+tragic key, "Oh no! Oh no! You've only cheated me out of
+everything I expected to get out of life! That's all!"
+
+Zoie came to a full stop and waited for him to enumerate the
+various treasures that he had lost by marrying her.  He did so.
+
+"Before we were married," he continued, "you pretended to adore
+children.  You started your humbugging the first day I met you. 
+I refer to little Willie Peck."
+
+A hysterical giggle very nearly betrayed her.  Alfred continued:
+
+"I was fool enough to let you know that I admire women who like
+children.  From that day until the hour that I led you to the
+altar, you'd fondle the ugliest little brats that we met in the
+street, but the moment you GOT me----"
+
+"Alfred!" gasped Zoie.  This was really going too far.
+
+"Yes, I repeat it!" shouted Alfred, pounding the table with his
+fist for emphasis.  "The moment you GOT me, you declared that all
+children were horrid little insects, and that someone ought to
+sprinkle bug-powder on them."
+
+"Oh!" protested Zoie, shocked less by Alfred's interpretation of
+her sentiments, than by the vulgarity with which he expressed
+them.
+
+"On another occasion," declared Alfred, now carried away by the
+recital of his long pent up wrongs, "you told me that all babies
+should be put in cages, shipped West, and kept in pens until they
+got to be of an interesting age.  'Interesting age!' " he
+repeated with a sneer, "meaning old enough to take YOU out to
+luncheon, I suppose."
+
+"I never said any such thing," objected Zoie.
+
+"Well, that was the idea," insisted Alfred.  "I haven't your glib
+way of expressing myself."
+
+"You manage to express yourself very well," retorted Zoie.  "When
+you have anything DISAGREEABLE to say.  As for babies," she
+continued tentatively, "I think they are all very well in their
+PLACE, but they were NEVER meant for an APARTMENT."
+
+"I offered you a house in the country," shouted Alfred.
+
+"The country!" echoed Zoie.  "How could I live in the country,
+with people being murdered in their beds every night? Read the
+papers."
+
+"Always an excuse," sighed Alfred resignedly.  "There always HAS
+been and there always would be if I'd stay to listen.  Well, for
+once," he declared, "I'm glad that we have no children.  If we
+had, I might feel some obligation to keep up this farce of a
+marriage.  As it is," he continued, "YOU are free and _I_ am
+free."  And with a courtly wave of his arm, he dismissed Zoie and
+the entire subject, and again he started in pursuit of Mary and
+his hat.
+
+"If it's your freedom you wish," pouted Zoie with an abused air,
+"you might have said so in the first place."
+
+Alfred stopped in sheer amazement at the cleverness with which
+the little minx turned his every statement against him.
+
+"It's not very manly of you," she continued, "to abuse me just
+because you've found someone whom you like better."
+
+"That's not true," protested Alfred hotly, "and you know it's not
+true."  Little did he suspect the trap into which she was leading
+him.
+
+"Then you DON'T love anybody more than you do me?" she cried
+eagerly, and she gazed up at him with adoring eyes.
+
+"I didn't say any such thing," hedged Alfred.
+
+"Then you DO," she accused him.
+
+"I DON'T," he declared in self defence.
+
+With a cry of joy, she sprang into his arms, clasped her fingers
+tightly behind his neck, and rained impulsive kisses upon his
+unsuspecting face.
+
+For an instant, Alfred looked down at Zoie, undecided whether to
+strangle her or to return her embraces.  As usual, his
+self-respect won the day for him and, with a determined effort,
+he lifted her high in the air, so that she lost her tenacious
+hold of him, and sat her down with a thud in the very same chair
+in which she had lately dropped his hat.  Having acted with this
+admirable resolution, he strode majestically toward the inner
+hall, but before he could reach it, Zoie was again on her feet,
+in a last vain effort to conciliate him.  Turning, Alfred caught
+sight of his poor battered hat.  This was the final spur to
+action.  Snatching it up with one hand, and throwing his latchkey
+on the table with the other, he made determinedly for the outer
+door.
+
+Screaming hysterically, Zoie caught him just as he reached the
+threshold and threw the whole weight of her body upon him.
+
+"Alfred," she pleaded, "if you REALLY love me, you CAN'T leave me
+like this!" Her emotion was now genuine.  He looked down at her
+gravely-- then into the future.
+
+"There are other things more important than what YOU call 'love,'
+" he said, very solemnly.
+
+"There is such a thing as a soul, if you only knew it.  And you
+have hurt mine through and through."
+
+"But how, Alfred, how?" asked the small person, and there was a
+frown of genuine perplexity on her tiny puckered brow.  "What
+have I REALLY DONE," She stroked his hand fondly; her baby eyes
+searched his face.
+
+"It isn't so much what people DO to us that counts," answered
+Alfred in a proud hurt voice.  "It's how much they DISAPPOINT us
+in what they do.  I expected better of YOU," he said sadly.
+
+"I'll DO better," coaxed Zoie, "if you'll only give me a chance."
+
+He was half inclined to believe her.
+
+"Now, Allie," she pleaded, perceiving that his resentment was
+dying and resolved to, at last, adopt a straight course, "if
+you'll only listen, I'll tell you the REAL TRUTH."
+
+Unprepared for the electrical effect of her remark, Zoie found
+herself staggering to keep her feet.  She gazed at Alfred in
+amazement.  His arms were lifted to Heaven, his breath was coming
+fast.
+
+" 'The REAL TRUTH!' " he gasped, then bringing his crushed hat
+down on his forehead with a resounding whack, he rushed from her
+sight.
+
+The clang of the closing elevator door brought Zoie to a
+realisation of what had actually happened.  Determined that
+Alfred should not escape her she rushed to the hall door and
+called to him wildly.  There was no answer.  Running back to the
+room, she threw open the window and threw herself half out of it. 
+She was just in time to see Alfred climb into a passing taxi. 
+"Alfred!" she cried.  Then automatically she flew to the 'phone. 
+"Give me 4302 Main," she called and she tried to force back her
+tears.  "Is this Hardy & Company?" she asked.
+
+"Well, this is Mrs.  Hardy," she explained.
+
+"I wish you'd ring me up the moment my husband comes in."  There
+was a slight pause, then she clutched the receiver harder.  "Not
+COMING back?" she gasped.  "Gone!--to Detroit?" A short moan
+escaped her lips.  She let the receiver fall back on the hook and
+her head went forward on her outstretched arms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+When Jimmy came home to luncheon that day, Aggie succeeded in
+getting a general idea of the state of affairs in the Hardy
+household.  Of course Jimmy didn't tell the whole truth.  Oh,
+no--far from it.  In fact, he appeared to be aggravatingly
+ignorant as to the exact cause of the Hardy upheaval.  Of ONE
+thing, however, he was certain.  "Alfred was going to quit
+Chicago and leave Zoie to her own devices."
+
+"Jimmy!" cried Aggie.  "How awful!" and before Jimmy was fairly
+out of the front gate, she had seized her hat and gloves and
+rushed to the rescue of her friend.
+
+Not surprised at finding Zoie in a state of collapse, Aggie
+opened her arms sympathetically to receive the weeping
+confidences that she was sure would soon come.
+
+"Zoie dear," she said as the fragile mite rocked to and fro. 
+"What is it?" She pressed the soft ringlets from the girl's
+throbbing forehead.
+
+"It's Alfred," sobbed Zoie.  "He's gone!"
+
+"Yes, I know," answered Aggie tenderly.  "Isn't it awful? Jimmy
+just told me."
+
+"Jimmy told you WHAT?" questioned Zoie, and she lifted her head
+and regarded Aggie with sudden uneasiness.  Her friend's answer
+raised Jimmy considerably in Zoie's esteem.  Apparently he had
+not breathed a word about the luncheon.
+
+"Why, Jimmy told me," continued Aggie, "that you and Alfred had
+had another tiff, and that Alfred had gone for good."
+
+"For GOOD!" echoed Zoie and her eyes were wide with terror.  "Did
+Alfred tell Jimmy that?"
+
+Aggie nodded.
+
+"Then he MEANS it!" cried Zoie, at last fully convinced of the
+strength of Alfred's resolve.  "But he shan't," she declared
+emphatically."  I won't let him.  I'll go after him.  He has no
+right----" By this time she was running aimlessly about the room.
+
+"What did you do to him?" asked Aggie, feeling sure that Zoie was
+as usual at fault.
+
+"Nothing," answered Zoie with wide innocent eyes.
+
+"Nothing?" echoed Aggie, with little confidence in her friend's
+ability to judge impartially about so personal a matter.
+
+"Absolutely nothing," affirmed Zoie.  And there was no doubting
+that she at least believed it.
+
+"What does he SAY," questioned Aggie diplomatically.
+
+"He SAYS I 'hurt his soul.' Whatever THAT is," answered Zoie, and
+her face wore an injured expression.  "Isn't that a nice excuse,"
+she continued, "for leaving your lawful wedded wife?" It was
+apparent that she expected Aggie to rally strongly to her
+defence.  But at present Aggie was bent upon getting facts.
+
+"HOW did you hurt him?" she persisted.
+
+"I ate lunch," said Zoie with the face of a cherub.
+
+"With whom?" questioned Aggie slyly.  She was beginning to scent
+the probable origin of the misunderstanding.
+
+"It's of no consequence," answered Zoie carelessly; "I wouldn't
+have wiped my feet on the man."  By this time she had entirely
+forgotten Aggie's proprietorship in the source of her trouble.
+
+"But who WAS the man?" urged Aggie, and in her mind, she had
+already condemned him as a low, unprincipled creature.
+
+"What does that matter?" asked Zoie impatiently.  "It's ANY man
+with Alfred--you know that--ANY man! "
+
+Aggie sank in a chair and looked at her friend in despair.  "Why
+DO you do these things," she said wearily, "when you know how
+Alfred feels about them?"
+
+"You talk as though I did nothing else," answered Zoie with an
+aggrieved tone.  "It's the first time since I've been married
+that I've ever eaten lunch with any man but Alfred.  I thought
+you'd have a little sympathy with me," she whimpered, "instead of
+putting me on the gridiron like everyone else does."
+
+"Everyone else?" questioned Aggie, with recurring suspicion.
+
+"I mean Alfred," explained Zoie.  "HE'S 'everyone else' to me." 
+And then with a sudden abandonment of grief, she threw herself
+prostrate at her friend's knees.  "Oh, Aggie, what can I do?" she
+cried.
+
+But Aggie was not satisfied with Zoie's fragmentary account of
+her latest escapade.  "Is that the only thing that Alfred has
+against you?" she asked.
+
+"That's the LATEST," sniffled Zoie, in a heap at Aggie's feet. 
+And then she continued in a much aggrieved tone, "You know he's
+ALWAYS rowing because we haven't as many babies as the cook has
+cats."
+
+"Well, why don't you get him a baby?" asked the practical,
+far-seeing Aggie.
+
+"It's too late NOW," moaned Zoie.
+
+"Not at all," reassured Aggie.  "It's the very thing that would
+bring him back."
+
+"How COULD I get one?" questioned Zoie, and she looked up at
+Aggie with round astonished eyes.
+
+"Adopt it," answered Aggie decisively.
+
+Zoie regarded her friend with mingled disgust and disappointment. 
+"No," she said with a sigh and a shake of her head, "that
+wouldn't do any good.  Alfred's so fussy.  He always wants his
+OWN things around."
+
+"He needn't know," declared Aggie boldly.
+
+"What do you mean?" whispered Zoie.
+
+Drawing herself up with an air of great importance, and regarding
+the wondering young person at her knee with smiling
+condescension, Aggie prepared to make a most interesting
+disclosure.
+
+"There was a long article in the paper only this morning," she
+told Zoie, "saying that three thousand husbands in this VERY CITY
+are fondling babies not their own."
+
+Zoie turned her small head to one side, the better to study
+Aggie's face.  It was apparent to the latter that she must be
+much more explicit.
+
+"Babies adopted in their absence," explained Aggie, "while they
+were on trips around the country."
+
+A dangerous light began to glitter in Zoie's eyes.
+
+"Aggie!" she cried, bringing her small hands together excitedly,
+"do you think I COULD?"
+
+"Why not?" asked Aggie, with a very superior air.  Zoie's
+enthusiasm was increasing her friend's admiration of her own
+scheme.  "This same paper tells of a woman who adopted three sons
+while her husband was in Europe, and he thinks each one of them
+is his."
+
+"Where can we get some?" cried Zoie, now thoroughly enamoured of
+the idea.
+
+"You can always get TONS of them at the Children's Home,"
+answered Aggie confidently.
+
+"I can't endure babies," declared Zoie, "but I'd do ANYTHING to
+get Alfred back.  Can we get one TO-DAY?" she asked.
+
+Aggie looked at her small friend with positive pity.  "You don't
+WANT one TO-DAY," she explained.
+
+Zoie rolled her large eyes inquiringly.
+
+"If you were to get one to-day," continued Aggie, "Alfred would
+know it wasn't yours, wouldn't he?"
+
+A light of understanding began to show on Zoie's small features.
+
+"There was none when he left this morning," added Aggie.
+
+"That's true," acquiesced Zoie.
+
+"You must wait awhile," counselled Aggie, "and then get a
+perfectly new one."
+
+But Zoie had never been taught to wait.
+
+"Now Aggie----" she began.
+
+Aggie continued without heeding her.
+
+"After a few months," she explained, "when Alfred's temper has
+had time to cool, we'll get Jimmy to send him a wire that he has
+an heir."
+
+"A few months!" exclaimed Zoie, as though Aggie had suggested an
+eternity.  "I've never been away from Alfred that long in all my
+life."
+
+Aggie was visibly annoyed.  "Well, of course," she said coldly,
+as she rose to go, "if you can get Alfred back WITHOUT that----"
+
+"But I can't!" cried Zoie, and she clung to her friend as to her
+last remaining hope.
+
+"Then," answered Aggie, somewhat mollified by Zoie's complete
+submission.  "THIS is the only way.  The President of the
+Children's Home is a great friend of Jimmy's," she said proudly.
+
+It was at this point that Zoie made her first practical
+suggestion.  "Then we'll LET JIMMY GET IT," she declared.
+
+"Of course," agreed Aggie enthusiastically, as though they would
+be according the poor soul a rare privilege.  "Jimmy gives a
+hundred dollars to the Home every Christmas,"--additional proof
+why he should be selected for this very important office.
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Zoie with shocked surprise.  "If Alfred
+were to give a hundred dollars to a Baby's Home, I should suspect
+him."
+
+"Don't be silly!" snapped Aggie curtly.  In spite of her firm
+faith in Jimmy's innocence, she was undoubtedly annoyed by Zoie's
+unpleasant suggestion.
+
+There was an instant's pause, then putting disagreeable thoughts
+from her mind, Aggie turned to Zoie with renewed enthusiasm.
+
+"We must get down to business," she said, "we'll begin on the
+baby's outfit at once."
+
+"Its what?" queried Zoie.
+
+"Its clothes," explained Aggie.
+
+"Oh, what fun!" exclaimed Zoie, and she clapped her hands merrily
+like a very small child.  A moment later she stopped with sudden
+misgiving.
+
+"But, Aggie," she said fearfully, "suppose Alfred shouldn't come
+back after I've got the baby? I'd be a widow with a child."
+
+"Oh, he's sure to come back!" answered Aggie, with a confident
+air.  "He'll take the first train, home."
+
+"I believe he will," assented Zoie joyfully.  All her clouds were
+again dispelled.  "Aggie," she cried impulsively, "you are a
+darling.  You have just saved my life."  And she clasped her arms
+so tightly around Aggie's neck that her friend was in danger of
+being suffocated.
+
+Releasing herself Aggie continued with a ruffled collar and
+raised vanity:  "You can write him an insinuating letter now and
+then, just to lead up to the good news gradually."
+
+Zoie tipped her small head to one side and studied her friend
+thoughtfully.  "Do you know, Aggie," she said, with frank
+admiration, "I believe you are a better liar than I am."
+
+"I'm NOT a liar," objected Aggie vehemently, "at least, not
+often," she corrected.  "I've
+
+never lied to Jimmy in all my life."  She drew herself up with
+conscious pride.  "And Jimmy has NEVER LIED TO ME."
+
+"Isn't that nice," sniffed Zoie and she pretended to be searching
+for her pocket-handkerchief.
+
+But Aggie did not see her.  She was glancing at the clock.
+
+"I must go now," she said.  And she started toward the door.
+
+"But, Aggie----" protested Zoie, unwilling to be left alone.
+
+"I'll run in again at tea time," promised Aggie.
+
+"I don't mind the DAYS," whined Zoie, "but when NIGHT comes I
+just MUST have somebody's arms around me."
+
+"Zoie!" gasped Aggie, both shocked and alarmed.
+
+"I can't help it," confessed Zoie; "the moment it gets dark I'm
+just scared stiff."
+
+"That's no way for a MOTHER to talk," reproved Aggie.
+
+"A mother!" exclaimed Zoie, horrified at the sudden realisation
+that this awful appellation would undoubtedly pursue her for the
+rest of her life.  "Oh, don't call me that," she pleaded.  "You
+make me feel a thousand years old."
+
+"Nonsense," laughed Aggie, and before Zoie could again detain her
+she was out of the room.
+
+When the outside door had closed behind her friend, Zoie gazed
+about the room disconsolately, but her depression was
+short-lived.  Remembering Aggie's permission about the letter,
+she ran quickly to the writing table, curled her small self up on
+one foot, placed a brand new pen in the holder, then drew a sheet
+of paper toward her and, with shoulders hunched high and her face
+close to the paper after the manner of a child, she began to pen
+the first of a series of veiled communications that were
+ultimately to fill her young husband with amazement.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+When Jimmy reached his office after his unforeseen call upon
+Zoie, his subsequent encounter with Alfred, and his enforced
+luncheon at home with Aggie, he found his mail, his 'phone calls,
+and his neglected appointments in a state of hopeless congestion,
+and try as he would, he could not concentrate upon their
+disentanglement.  Growing more and more furious with the long
+legged secretary who stood at the corner of his desk, looking
+down upon him expectantly, and waiting for his tardy
+instructions, Jimmy rose and looked out of the window.  He could
+feel Andrew's reproachful eyes following him.
+
+"Shall Miss Perkins take your letters now?" asked Andrew, and he
+wondered how late the office staff would be kept to-night to make
+up for the time that was now being wasted.
+
+Coming after repeated wounds from his nearest and dearest,
+Andrew's implied reproach was too much for Jimmy's overwrought
+nerves.  "Get out!" he answered unceremoniously.  And when Andrew
+could assure himself that he had heard aright, he stalked out of
+the door with his head high in the air.
+
+Jimmy looked after his departing secretary with positive hatred. 
+It was apparent to him that the whole world was against him.  He
+had been too easy he decided.  His family, friends, and business
+associates had undoubtedly lost all respect for him.  From this
+day forth he was determined to show himself to be a man of strong
+mettle.
+
+Having made this important decision and having convinced himself
+that he was about to start on a new life, Jimmy strode to the
+door of the office and, without disturbing the injured Andrew, he
+called sharply to Miss Perkins to come at once and take his
+letters.
+
+Poor Jimmy! Again he tried in vain to concentrate upon the
+details of the "cut-glass" industry.  Invariably his mind would
+wander back to the unexpected incidents of the morning.  Stopping
+suddenly in the middle of a letter to a competing firm, he began
+pacing hurriedly up and down the room.
+
+Had she not feared that her chief might misconstrue any
+suggestion from her as an act of impertinence, Miss Perkins,
+having learned all the company's cut-glass quotations by rote,
+could easily have supplied the remainder of the letter.  As it
+was, she waited impatiently, tapping the corner of the desk with
+her idle pencil.  Jimmy turned at the sound, and glanced at the
+pencil with unmistakable disapproval.  Miss Perkins waited in
+silence.  After one or two more uneasy laps about the room, Jimmy
+went to his 'phone and called his house number.
+
+"It's undoubtedly domestic trouble," decided Miss Perkins, and
+she wondered whether it would be delicate of her, under the
+circumstances, to remain in the room.
+
+From her employer's conversation at the 'phone, it was clear to
+Miss Perkins that Mrs.  Jinks was spending the afternoon with Mrs
+Hardy, but why this should have so annoyed MR.  Jinks was a
+question that Miss Perkins found it difficult to answer.  Was it
+possible that Mr.  Jinks's present state of unrest could be
+traced to the door of the beautiful young wife of his friend?" Oh
+dear," thought Miss Perkins, "how scandalous!"
+
+"That will do," commanded Jimmy, interrupting Miss Perkins's
+interesting speculations, and he nodded toward the door.
+
+"But----" stammered Miss Perkins, as she glanced at the
+unfinished letters.
+
+"I'll call you when I need you," answered Jimmy gruffly.  Miss
+Perkins left the room in high dudgeon.
+
+"I'LL show them," said Jimmy to himself, determined to carry out
+his recent resolve to be firm.
+
+Then his mind wend back to his domestic troubles.  "Suppose, that
+Zoie, after imposing secrecy upon him, should change that thing
+called her 'mind' and confide in Aggie about the luncheon?" Jimmy
+was positively pale.  He decided to telephone to Zoie's house and
+find out how affairs were progressing.  At the 'phone he
+hesitated.  "If Aggie HAS found out about the luncheon," he
+argued, "my 'phoning to Zoie's will increase her suspicions.  If
+Zoie has told her nothing, she'll wonder why I'm 'phoning to
+Zoie's house.  There's only one thing to do," he decided.  "I
+must wait and say nothing.  I can tell from Aggie's face when I
+meet her at dinner whether Zoie has betrayed me."
+
+Having arrived at this conclusion, Jimmy resolved to get home as
+early as possible, and again Miss Perkins was called to his aid.
+
+The flurry with which Jimmy despatched the day's remaining
+business confirmed both Miss Perkins and Andrew in their previous
+opinion that "the boss" had suddenly "gone off his head."  And
+when he at last left the office and banged the door behind him
+there was a general sigh of relief from his usually tranquil
+staff.
+
+Instead of walking, as was his custom, Jimmy took a taxi to his
+home but alas, to his surprise he found no wife.
+
+"Did Mrs.  Jinks leave any word?" he inquired from the butler.
+
+"None at all," answered that unperturbed creature; and Jimmy felt
+sure that the attitude of his office antagonists had communicated
+itself to his household servants.
+
+When Jimmy's anxious ear at last caught the rustle of a woman's
+dress in the hallway, his dinner had been waiting half an hour,
+and he had worked himself into a state of fierce antagonism
+toward everything and everybody.
+
+At the sound of Aggie's voice however, his heart began to pound
+with fear.  "Had she found him out for the weak miserable
+deceiver that he was? Would she tell him that they were going to
+separate forever?"
+
+Aggie's first words were reassuring.  "Awfully sorry to be so
+late, dear," she said.
+
+Jimmy felt her kiss upon his chubby cheek and her dear arms about
+his neck.  He decided forthwith to tell her everything, and
+never, never again to run the risk of deceiving her; but before
+he could open his lips, she continued gaily:
+
+"I've brought Zoie home with me, dear.  There's no sense in her
+eating all alone, and she's going to have ALL her dinners with
+us."  Jimmy groaned.  "After dinner," continued Aggie, "you and I
+can take her to the theatre and all those places and keep her
+cheered until Alfred comes home."
+
+"Home?" repeated Jimmy in alarm.  Was it possible that Alfred had
+already relented?
+
+"Oh, he doesn't know it yet," explained Aggie, "but he's coming. 
+We'll tell you all about it at dinner."  And they did.
+
+While waiting for Aggie, Jimmy had thought himself hungry, but
+once the two women had laid before him their "nefarious
+baby-snatching scheme"--food lost its savour for him, and one
+course after another was taken away from him untouched.
+
+Each time that Jimmy ventured a mild objection to his part in the
+plan, as scheduled by them, he met the threatening eye of Zoie;
+and by the time that the three left the table he was so harassed
+and confused by the chatter of the two excited women, that he was
+not only reconciled but eager to enter into any scheme that might
+bring Alfred back, and free him of the enforced companionship of
+Alfred's nerve-racking wife.  True, he reflected, it was possible
+that Alfred, on his return, might discover him to be the culprit
+who lunched with Zoie and might carry out his murderous threat;
+but even such a fate was certainly preferable to interminable
+evenings spent under the same roof with Zoie.
+
+"All YOU need do, Jimmy," explained Aggie sweetly, when the three
+of them were comfortably settled in the library, "is to see your
+friend the Superintendent of the Babies' Home, and tell him just
+what kind of a baby we shall need, and when we shall need it."
+
+"Can't we see it ourselves?" chimed in Zoie.
+
+"Oh yes, indeed," said Aggie confidently, and she turned to Jimmy
+with a matter-of-fact tone.  "You'd better tell the
+Superintendent to have several for us to look at when the time
+arrives."
+
+"Yes, that's better," agreed Zoie.
+
+As for Jimmy, he had long ceased to make any audible comment, but
+internally he was saying to himself:  "man of strong mettle,
+indeed!"
+
+"We'll attend to all the clothes for the child," said Aggie
+generously to Jimmy.
+
+"I want everything to be hand-made," exclaimed Zoie
+enthusiastically.
+
+"We can make a great many of the things ourselves, evenings,"
+said Aggie, "while we sit here and talk to Jimmy."
+
+"I thought we were going OUT evenings!" objected Zoie.
+
+Jimmy rolled his eyes toward her like a dumb beast of burden.
+
+"MOST evenings," assented Aggie.  "And then toward the last, you
+know, Zoie----" she hesitated to explain further, for Jimmy was
+already becoming visibly embarrassed.
+
+"Oh, yes, that's true," blushed Zoie.
+
+There was an awkward pause, then Aggie turned again toward Jimmy,
+who was pretending to rebuild the fire.  "Oh yes, one more
+thing," she said.  "When everything is quite ready for Alfred's
+return, we'll allow you, Jimmy dear, to wire him the good news."
+
+"Thanks, so much," said Jimmy.
+
+"I wish it were time to wire now," said Zoie pensively, and in
+his mind, Jimmy fervently agreed with that sentiment.
+
+"The next few months will slip by before you know it," declared
+Aggie cheerfully.  "And by the way, Zoie," she added, "why should
+you go back to your lonesome flat to-night?"
+
+Zoie began to feel for her pocket handkerchief --Jimmy sat up to
+receive the next blow.  "Stay here with us," suggested Aggie. 
+"We'll be so glad to have you."  She included Jimmy in her
+glance.  "Won't we, dear?" she asked.
+
+When the two girls went upstairs arm in arm that night, Jimmy
+remained in his chair by the fire, too exhausted to even prepare
+for bed.  "A man of mettle!" he said again to himself.
+
+This had certainly been the longest day of his life.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+WHEN Aggie predicted that the few months of waiting would pass
+quickly for Zoie, she was quite correct.  They passed quickly for
+Aggie as well; but how about Jimmy? When he afterward recalled
+this interval in his life, it was always associated with long
+strands of lace winding around the legs of the library chairs,
+white things lying about in all the places where he had once
+enjoyed sitting or lying, late dinners, lonely breakfasts, and a
+sense of isolation from Aggie.
+
+One evening when he had waited until he was out of all patience
+with Aggie, he was told by his late and apologetical spouse that
+she had been helping Zoie to redecorate her bedroom to fit the
+coming occasion.
+
+"It is all done in pink and white," explained Aggie, and then
+followed detailed accounts of the exquisite bed linens, the soft
+lovely hangings, and even the entire relighting of the room.
+
+"Why pink?" asked Jimmy, objecting to any scheme of Zoie's on
+general principles.
+
+"It's Alfred's favourite colour," explained Aggie.  "Besides,
+it's so becoming," she added.
+
+Jimmy could not help feeling that this lure to Alfred's senses
+was absolutely indecent, and he said so.
+
+"Upon my word," answered Aggie, quite affronted, "you are getting
+as unreasonable as Alfred himself."  Then as Jimmy prepared to
+sulk, she added coaxingly, "I was GOING to tell you about Zoie's
+lovely new negligee, and about the dear little crib that just
+matches it.  Everything is going to be in harmony."
+
+"With Zoie in the house?" asked Jimmy sceptically.
+
+"I can't think why you've taken such a dislike to that helpless
+child," said Aggie.
+
+A few days later, while in the midst of his morning's mail, Jimmy
+was informed that it was now time for him to conduct Aggie and
+Zoie to the Babies' Home to select the last, but most important,
+detail for their coming campaign.  According to instructions,
+Jimmy had been in communication with the amused Superintendent of
+the Home, and he now led the two women forth with the proud
+consciousness that he, at least, had attended properly to his
+part of the business.  By the time they reached the Children's
+Home, several babies were on view for their critical inspection.
+
+Zoie stared into the various cribs containing the wee, red mites
+with puckered faces.  "Oh dear!" she exclaimed, "haven't you any
+white ones?"
+
+"These are supposed to be white," said the Superintendent, with
+an indulgent smile," the black ones are on the other side of the
+room."
+
+"Black ones!" cried Zoie in horror, and she faced about quickly
+as though expecting an attack from their direction.
+
+"Which particular one of these would you recommend?" asked the
+practical Aggie of the Superintendent as she surveyed the first
+lot.
+
+"Well, it's largely a matter of taste, ma'am," he answered. 
+"This seems a healthy little chap," he added, and seizing the
+long white clothes of the nearest infant, he drew him across his
+arm and held him out for Aggie's inspection.
+
+"Let's see," cried Zoie, and she stood on tiptoe to peep over the
+Superintendent's elbow.
+
+As for Jimmy, he stood gloomily apart.  This was an ordeal for
+which he had long been preparing himself, and he was resolved to
+accept it philosophically.
+
+"I don't think much of that one," snipped Zoie.  And in spite of
+himself.  Jimmy felt his temper rising.
+
+Aggie turned to him with a smile.  "Which one do YOU prefer,
+Jimmy?"
+
+"It's not MY affair," answered Jimmy curtly.
+
+"Since when?" asked Zoie.
+
+Aggie perceived trouble brewing, and she turned to pacify Jimmy. 
+"Which one do you think your FRIEND ALFRED would like?" she
+persisted.
+
+"If I were in his place----" began Jimmy hotly.
+
+"Oh, but you AREN'T," interrupted Zoie; then she turned to the
+Superintendent.  "What makes some of them so much larger than
+others?" she asked, glancing at the babies he had CALLED "white."
+
+"Well, you see they're of different ages," explained the
+Superintendent indulgently.
+
+"We told Mr.  Jinks they must all be of the same age," said Zoie
+with a reproachful look at Jimmy.
+
+"What age is that?" asked the Superintendent.
+
+"I should say a week old," said Aggie.
+
+"Then this is the one for you," decided the Superintendent,
+designating his first choice.
+
+"I think we'd better take the Superintendent's advice," said
+Aggie complacently.
+
+Zoie looked around the room with a dissatisfied air.  Was it
+possible that all babies were as homely as these?
+
+"You know, Zoie," explained Aggie, divining her thought, "they
+get better looking as they grow older."
+
+"They couldn't look worse!" was Zoie's disgusted comment.
+
+"Fetch it home, Jimmy," said Aggie.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Jimmy, who had considered his mission
+completed.
+
+"You don't expect US to carry it, do you?" asked Aggie in a hurt
+voice.
+
+The Superintendent settled the difficulty temporarily by
+informing them that the baby could not possibly leave the home
+until the mother had signed the necessary papers for its release.
+
+"I thought all those details had been attended to," said Aggie,
+and again the two women surveyed Jimmy with grieved
+disappointment.
+
+"I'll get the mother's signature the first thing in the morning,"
+volunteered the Superintendent.
+
+"Very well," said Zoie, "and in the meantime, I'll send some new
+clothes for it," and with a lofty farewell to the Superintendent,
+she and Aggie followed Jimmy down stairs to the taxi.
+
+"Now," said Zoie, when they were properly seated, "let's stop at
+a telegraph office and let Jimmy send a wire to Alfred."
+
+"Wait until we get the baby," cautioned Aggie.
+
+"We'll have it the first thing in the morning," argued Zoie.
+
+"Jimmy can send him a night-letter," compromised Aggie, "that way
+Alfred won't get the news until morning."
+
+A few minutes later, the taxi stopped in front of Jimmy's office
+and with a sigh of thanksgiving he hurried upstairs to his
+unanswered mail.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+When Alfred Hardy found himself on the train bound for Detroit,
+he tried to assure himself that he had done the right thing in
+breaking away from an association that had kept him for months in
+a constant state of ferment.  His business must come first, he
+decided.  Having settled this point to his temporary
+satisfaction, he opened his afternoon paper and leaned back in
+his seat, meaning to divert his mind from personal matters, by
+learning what was going on in the world at large.
+
+No sooner had his eye scanned the first headline than he was
+startled by a boisterous greeting from a fellow traveller, who
+was just passing down the aisle.
+
+"Hello, Hardy!" cried his well meaning acquaintance.  "Where are
+you bound for?"
+
+"Detroit," answered Alfred, annoyed by the sudden interruption.
+
+"Where's the missus?" asked the intruder.
+
+"Chicago," was Alfred's short reply.
+
+"THAT'S a funny thing," declared the convivial spirit, not
+guessing how funny it really was.  "You know," he continued, so
+loud that everyone in the vicinity could not fail to hear him,
+"the last time I met you two, you were on your honeymoon--on THIS
+VERY TRAIN," and with that the fellow sat himself down,
+uninvited, by Alfred's side and started on a long list of
+compliments about "the fine little girl" who had in his opinion
+done Alfred a great favour when she consented to tie herself to a
+"dull, money-grubbing chap" like him.
+
+"So," thought Alfred, "this is the way the world sees us."  And
+he began to frame inaudible but desperate defences of himself. 
+Again he told himself that he was right; but his friend's
+thoughtless words had planted an uncomfortable doubt in his mind,
+and when he left the train to drive to his hotel, he was thinking
+very little about the new business relations upon which he was
+entering in Detroit, and very much about the domestic relations
+which he had just severed in Chicago.
+
+Had he been merely a "dull money-grubber"? Had he left his wife
+too much alone? Was she not a mere child when he married her?
+Could he not, with more consideration, have made of her a more
+understanding companion? These were questions that were still
+unanswered in his mind when he arrived at one of Detroit's most
+enterprising hotels.
+
+But later, having telephoned to his office and found that several
+matters of importance were awaiting his decision, he forced
+himself to enter immediately upon his business obligations.
+
+As might have been expected, Alfred soon won the respect and
+serious consideration of most of his new business associates, and
+this in a measure so mollified his hurt pride, that upon rare
+occasions he was affable enough to accept the hospitality of
+their homes.  But each excursion that he made into the social
+life of these new friends, only served to remind him of the
+unsettled state of his domestic affairs.
+
+"How your wife must miss you!" his hostess would remark before
+they were fairly seated at table.
+
+"They tell me she is so pretty," his vis-a-vis would exclaim.
+
+"When is she going to join you?" the lady on his left would ask.
+
+Then his host would laugh and tell the "dear ladies" that in HIS
+opinion, Alfred was afraid to bring his wife to Detroit, lest he
+might lose her to a handsomer man.
+
+Alfred could never quite understand why remarks such as this
+annoyed him almost to the point of declaring the whole truth. 
+His LEAVING Zoie, and his "losing" her, as these would-be
+comedians expressed it, were two separate and distinct things in
+his mind, and he felt an almost irresistible desire to make this
+plain to all concerned.
+
+But no sooner did he open his lips to do so, than a picture of
+Zoie in all her child-like pleading loveliness, arose to dissuade
+him.  He could imagine his dinner companions all pretending to
+sympathise with him, while they flayed poor Zoie alive.  She
+would never have another chance to be known as a respectable
+woman, and compared to most women of his acquaintance, she WAS a
+respectable woman.  True, according to old- fashioned standards,
+she had been indiscreet, but apparently the present day woman had
+a standard of her own.  Alfred found his eye wandering round the
+table surveying the wives of his friends.  Was there one of them,
+he wondered, who had never fibbed to her husband, or eaten a
+simple luncheon unchaperoned by him? Of one thing he was certain,
+there was not one of them so attractive as Zoie.  Might she not
+be forgiven, to some extent, if her physical charms had made her
+a source of dangerous temptation to unprincipled scoundrels like
+the one with whom she had no doubt lunched? Then, too, had she
+not offered at the moment of his departure to tell him the "real
+truth"? Might this not have been the one occasion upon which she
+would have done so? "She seemed so sincere," he ruminated, "so
+truly penitent."  Then again, how generous it was of her to
+persist in writing to him with never an answer from him to
+encourage her.  If she cared for him so little as he had once
+imagined, why should she wish to keep up even a presence of
+fondness? Her letters indicated an undying devotion.
+
+These were some of the thoughts that were going through Alfred's
+mind just three months after his departure from Chicago, and all
+the while his hostess was mentally dubbing him a "dull person."
+
+"What an abstracted man he is!" she said before he was down the
+front steps.
+
+"Is he really so clever in business?" a woman friend inquired.
+
+"It's hard to believe, isn't it?" commented a third, and his host
+apologised for the absent Alfred by saying that he was no doubt
+worried about a particular business decision that had to be made
+the next morning.
+
+But it was not the responsibility of this business decision that
+was knotting Alfred's brow, as he walked hurriedly toward the
+hotel, where he had told his office boy to leave the last mail. 
+This had been the longest interval that Zoie had ever let slip
+without writing.  He recalled that her last letters had hinted at
+a "slight indisposition."  In fact, she had even mentioned
+"seeing the doctor"--"Good Heavens!" he thought, "Suppose she
+were really ill? Who would look after her?"
+
+When Alfred reached his rooms, the boy had not yet arrived.  He
+crossed to the library table and took from the drawer all the
+letters thus far received from Zoie.  He read them consecutively. 
+"How could he have been so stupid as not to have realised sooner
+that her illness--whatever it was--had been gradually creeping
+upon her from the very first day of his departure?"
+
+The boy arrived with the mail.  It contained no letter from Zoie
+and Alfred went to bed with an uneasy mind.
+
+The next morning he was down at his office early, still no letter
+from Zoie.
+
+Refusing his partner's invitation to lunch, Alfred sat alone in
+his office, glad to be rid of intrusive eyes.  "He would write to
+Jimmy Jinks," he decided, "and find out whether Zoie were in any
+immediate danger."
+
+Not willing to await the return of his stenographer, or to
+acquaint her with his personal affairs, Alfred drew pen and paper
+toward him and sat helplessly before it.  How could he inquire
+about Zoie without appearing to invite a reconciliation with her?
+While he was trying to answer this vexed question, a sharp knock
+came at the door.  He turned to see a uniformed messenger holding
+a telegram toward him.  Intuitively he felt that it contained
+some word about Zoie.  His hand trembled so that he could
+scarcely sign for the message before opening it.
+
+A moment later the messenger boy was startled out of his lethargy
+by a succession of contradictory exclamations.
+
+"No!" cried Alfred incredulously as he gazed in ecstasy at the
+telegram.  "Yes!" he shouted, excitedly, as he rose from his
+chair.  "Where's a time table?" he asked the astonished boy, and
+he began rummaging rapidly through the drawers of his desk.
+
+"Any answer?" inquired the messenger.
+
+"Take this," said Alfred.  And he thrust a bill into the small
+boy's hand.
+
+"Yes, sir," answered the boy and disappeared quickly, lest this
+madman might reconsider his generosity.
+
+Alfred threw down the time table in despair.  "No train for
+Chicago until night," he cried; but his mind was working fast. 
+The next moment he was at the telephone, asking for the Division
+Superintendent of the railway line.
+
+When Alfred's partner returned from luncheon he found a curt note
+informing him that Alfred had left on a special for Chicago and
+would "write."
+
+"I'll bet it's his wife!" said the partner.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+During the evening of the same day that Alfred was enjoying such
+pleasurable emotions, Zoie and Aggie were closeted in the pretty
+pink and white bedroom that the latter had tried to describe to
+Jimmy.  On a rose-coloured couch in front of the fire sat Aggie
+threading ribbons through various bits of soft white linen, and
+in front of her, at the foot of a rose-draped bed, knelt Zoie. 
+She was trying the effect of a large pink bow against the lace
+flounce of an empty but inviting bassinette.
+
+"How's that?" she called to Aggie, as she turned her head to one
+side and surveyed the result of her experiment with a critical
+eye.
+
+Aggie shot a grudging glance at the bassinette.  "I wish you
+wouldn't bother me every moment," she said.  "I'll never get all
+these things finished."
+
+Apparently Zoie decided that the bow was properly placed, for she
+applied herself to sewing it fast to the lining.  In her
+excitement she gave the thread a vicious pull.  "Oh, dear, oh
+dear, my thread is always breaking!" she sighed in vexation.
+
+"You're excited," said Aggie.
+
+"Wouldn't YOU be excited," questioned Zoie' "if you were
+expecting a baby and a husband in the morning?"
+
+"I suppose I should," admitted Aggie.
+
+For a time the two friends sewed in silence, then Zoie looked up
+with sudden anxiety.
+
+"You're SURE Jimmy sent the wire?" she asked.
+
+"I saw him write it," answered Aggie, "while I was in the office
+to-day."
+
+"When will Alfred get it?" demanded Zoie eagerly.
+
+"Oh, he won't GET it until to-morrow morning," said Aggie.  "I
+told you that to-day.  It's a night message."
+
+"I wonder what he'll be doing when he gets it?" mused Zoie. 
+There was a suspicion of a smile around her lips.
+
+"What will he do AFTER he gets it?" questioned Aggie.
+
+Looking up at her friend in alarm, Zoie suddenly ceased sewing. 
+"You don't mean he won't come?" she gasped.
+
+"Of course I don't," answered Aggie.  "He's only HUMAN if he is a
+husband."
+
+There was a sceptical expression around Zoie's mouth, but she did
+not pursue the subject.  "How do you suppose that red baby will
+ever look in this pink basket?" she asked.  And then with a
+regretful little sigh, she declared that she wished she'd "used
+blue."
+
+"I didn't think the baby that we chose was so horribly red," said
+Aggie.
+
+"Red!" cried Zoie, "it's magenta."  And again her thread broke. 
+"Oh, darn!" she exclaimed in annoyance, and once more rethreaded
+her needle.  "I couldn't look at it," she continued with a
+disgusted little pucker of her face.  "I wish they had let us
+take it this afternoon so I could have got used to it before
+Alfred gets here."
+
+"Now don't be silly," scolded Aggie.  "You know very well that
+the Superintendent can't let it leave the home until its mother
+signs the papers.  It will be here the first thing in the
+morning.  You'll have all day to get used to it before Alfred
+gets here."
+
+"ALL DAY," echoed Zoie, and the corners of her mouth began to
+droop.  "Won't Alfred be here before TO-MORROW NIGHT?"
+
+Aggie was becoming exasperated by Zoie's endless questions.  "I
+told you," she explained wearily, "that the wire won't be
+delivered until to-morrow morning, it will take Alfred eight
+hours to get here, and there may not be a train just that
+minute."
+
+"Eight long hours," sighed Zoie dismally.  And Aggie looked at
+her reproachfully, forgetting that it is always the last hour
+that is hardest to bear.  Zoie resumed her sewing resignedly. 
+Aggie was meditating whether she should read her young friend a
+lecture on the value of patience, when the telephone began to
+ring violently.
+
+Zoie looked up from her sewing with a frown.  "You answer it,
+will you, Aggie?" she said.  "I can't let go this thread."
+
+"Hello," called Aggie sweetly over the 'phone; then she added in
+surprise, "Is this you, Jimmy dear?" Apparently it was; and as
+Zoie watched Aggie's face, with its increasing distress she
+surmised that Jimmy's message was anything but "dear."
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Aggie over the telephone, "that's awful!"
+
+"Isn't Alfred coming?" was the first question that burst from
+Zoie's lips.
+
+Aggie motioned to Zoie to be quiet.  "TO- NIGHT!" she exclaimed.
+
+"To-night!" echoed Zoie joyfully; and without waiting for more
+details and with no thought beyond the moment, she flew to her
+dressing table and began arranging her hair, powdering her face,
+perfuming her lips, and making herself particularly alluring for
+the prodigal husband's return.
+
+Now the far-sighted Aggie was experiencing less pleasant
+sensations at the phone.  "A special?" she was saying to Jimmy. 
+"When did Alfred GET the message?" There was a slight pause. 
+Then she asked irritably, "Well, didn't you mark it 'NIGHT
+message'?" From the expression on Aggie's face it was evident
+that he had not done so.  "But, Jimmy," protested Aggie, "this is
+dreadful! We haven't any baby!" Then calling to him to wait a
+minute, and leaving the receiver dangling, she crossed the room
+to Zoie, who was now thoroughly engrossed in the making of a
+fresh toilet.  "Zoie!" she exclaimed excitedly, "Jimmy made a
+mistake."
+
+"Of course he'd do THAT," answered Zoie carelessly.
+
+"But you don't understand," persisted Aggie.  "They sent the
+'NIGHT message' TO-DAY.  Alfred's coming on a special.  He'll be
+here tonight."
+
+"Thank goodness for that!" cried Zoie, and the next instant she
+was waltzing gaily about the room.
+
+"That's all very well," answered Aggie, as she followed Zoie with
+anxious eyes, "but WHERE'S YOUR BABY?"
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Zoie, and for the first time she became
+conscious of their predicament.  She gazed at Aggie in
+consternation.  "I forgot all about it," she said, and then asked
+with growing anxiety, "What can we DO?"
+
+"Do?" echoed Aggie, scarcely knowing herself what answer to make,
+"we've got to GET it-- TO-NIGHT.  That's all!"
+
+"But," protested Zoie, "how CAN we get it when the mother hasn't
+signed the papers yet?"
+
+"Jimmy will have to arrange that with the Superintendent of the
+Home," answered Aggie with decision, and she turned toward the
+'phone to instruct Jimmy accordingly.
+
+"Yes, that's right," assented Zoie, glad to be rid of all further
+responsibility, "we'll let Jimmy fix it."
+
+"Say, Jimmy," called Aggie excitedly, "you'll have to go straight
+to the Children's Home and get that baby just as quickly as you
+can.  There's some red tape about the mother signing papers, but
+don't mind about that.  Make them give it to you to-night. 
+Hurry, Jimmy.  Don't waste a minute."
+
+There was evidently a protest from the other end of the wire, for
+Aggie added impatiently, "Go on, Jimmy, do! You can EAT any
+time."  And with that she hung up the receiver.
+
+"Its clothes," called Zoie frantically.  "Tell him about the
+clothes.  I sent them this evening."
+
+"Never mind about the clothes," answered Aggie.  "We're lucky if
+we get the baby."
+
+"But I have to mind," persisted Zoie.  "I gave all its other
+things to the laundress.  I wanted them to be nice and fresh. 
+And now the horrid old creature hasn't brought them back yet."
+
+"You get into your OWN things," commanded Aggie.
+
+"Where's my dressing gown?" asked Zoie, her elation revived by
+the thought of her fine raiment, and with that she flew to the
+foot of the bed and snatched up two of the prettiest negligees
+ever imported from Paris.  "Which do you like better?" she asked,
+as she held them both aloft, "the pink or the blue?"
+
+"It doesn't matter," answered Aggie wearily.  "Get into
+SOMETHING, that's all."
+
+"Then unhook me," commanded Zoie gaily, as she turned her back to
+Aggie, and continued to admire the two "creations" on her arm. 
+So pleased was she with the picture of herself in either of the
+garments that she began humming a gay waltz and swaying to the
+rhythm.
+
+"Stand still," commanded Aggie, but her warning was unnecessary,
+for at that moment Zoie was transfixed by a horrible fear.
+
+"Suppose," she said in alarm, "that Jimmy can't GET the baby?"
+
+"He's GOT to get it," answered Aggie emphatically, and she undid
+the last stubborn hook of Zoie's gown and put the girl from her. 
+"There, now, you're all unfastened," she said, "hurry and get
+dressed."
+
+"You mean undressed," laughed Zoie, as she let her pretty evening
+gown fall lightly from her shoulders and drew on her pink
+negligee.  "Oh, Aggie!" she exclaimed, as she caught sight of her
+reflection in the mirror, "isn't it a love? And you know," she
+added.  "Alfred just adores pink."
+
+"Silly!" answered Aggie, but in spite of herself, she was quite
+thrilled by the picture of the exquisite young creature before
+her.  Zoie had certainly never looked more irresistible.  "Can't
+you get some of that colour out of your cheeks," asked Aggie in
+despair.  "You look like a washerwoman."
+
+"I'll put on some cold cream and powder," answered Zoie.  She
+flew to her dressing table; and in a moment there was a white
+cloud in her immediate vicinity.  She turned to Aggie to inquire
+the result.  Again the 'phone rang.  "Who's that?" she exclaimed
+in alarm.
+
+"I'll see," answered Aggie.
+
+"It couldn't be Alfred, could it?" asked Zoie with mingled hope
+and dread.
+
+"Of course not," answered Aggie, as she removed the receiver from
+the hook.  "Alfred wouldn't 'phone, he would come right up."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Discovering that it was merely Jimmy "on the wire," Zoie's
+uneasiness abated, but Aggie's anxiety was visibly increasing.
+
+"Where ARE you?" she asked of her spouse.  "The Children's Home!"
+she repeated, then followed further explanations from Jimmy which
+were apparently not satisfactory.  "Oh, Jimmy!" cried his
+disturbed wife, "it can't be! That's horrible!"
+
+"What is it?" shrieked Zoie, trying to get her small ear close
+enough to the receiver to catch a bit of the obviously terrifying
+message.
+
+"Wait a minute," called Aggie into the 'phone.  Then she turned
+to Zoie with a look of despair.  "The mother's changed her mind,"
+she explained; "she won't give up the baby."
+
+"Good Lord!" cried Zoie, and she sank into the nearest chair. 
+For an instant the two women looked at each other with blank
+faces.  "What can we DO," asked Zoie.
+
+Aggie did not answer immediately.  This was indeed a serious
+predicament; but presently Zoie saw her friend's mouth becoming
+very resolute, and she surmised that Aggie had solved the
+problem.  "We'll have to get ANOTHER baby, that's all," decided
+Aggie.  "There must be OTHER babies."
+
+"Where?" asked Zoie.
+
+"There, in the Children's Home," answered Aggie with great
+confidence, and she returned to the 'phone.
+
+Zoie crossed to the bed and knelt at its foot in search of her
+little pink slippers.
+
+"Oh, Aggie," she sighed, "the others were all so red!"
+
+But Aggie did not heed her protest.  "Listen, Jimmy," she called
+in the 'phone, "can't you get another baby?" There was a pause,
+then Aggie commanded hotly, "Well, GET in the business!" Another
+pause and then Aggie continued very firmly, "Tell the
+Superintendent that we JUST MUST have one."
+
+Zoie stopped in the act of putting on her second slipper and
+called a reminder to Aggie.  "Tell him to get a HE one," she
+said, "Alfred wants a boy."
+
+"Take what you can get!" answered Aggie impatiently, and again
+she gave her attention to the 'phone.  "What!" she cried, with
+growing despair, and Zoie waited to hear what had gone wrong now. 
+"Nothing under three months," explained Aggie.
+
+"Won't that do?" asked Zoie innocently.
+
+"Do!" echoed Aggie in disgust.  "A three- months' old baby is as
+big as a whale."
+
+"Well, can't we say it GREW UP?" asked Zoie, priding herself on
+her power of ready resource.
+
+"Overnight, like a mushroom?" sneered Aggie.
+
+Almost vanquished by her friend's new air of cold superiority,
+Zoie was now on the verge of tears.  "Somebody must have a new
+baby," she faltered.  "Somebody ALWAYS has a new baby."
+
+"For their own personal USE, yes," admitted Aggie, "but who has a
+new baby for US?"
+
+"How do I know?" asked Zoie helplessly.  "You're the one who
+ought to know.  You got me into this, and you've GOT to get me
+out of it.  Can you imagine," she asked, growing more and more
+unhappy, "what would happen to me if Alfred were to come home now
+and not find a baby? He wouldn't forgive a LITTLE lie, what would
+he do with a WHOPPER like this?" Then with sudden decision, she
+rushed toward the 'phone.  "Let me talk to Jimmy," she said, and
+the next moment she was chattering so rapidly and incoherently
+over the 'phone that Aggie despaired of hearing one word that she
+said, and retired to the next room to think out a new plan of
+action.
+
+"Say, Jimmy," stammered Zoie into the 'phone, "you've GOT to get
+me a baby.  If you don't, I'll kill myself! I will, Jimmy, I
+will.  You got me into this, Jimmy," she reminded him.  "You've
+GOT to get me out of it."  And then followed pleadings and
+coaxings and cajolings, and at length, a pause, during which
+Jimmy was apparently able to get in a word or so.  His answer was
+not satisfactory to Zoie.  "What!" she shrieked, tiptoeing to get
+her lips closer to the receiver; then she added with conviction,
+"the mother has no business to change her mind."
+
+Apparently Jimmy maintained that the mother had changed it none
+the less.
+
+"Well, take it away from her," commanded Zoie.  "Get it quick,
+while she isn't looking."  Then casting a furtive glance over her
+shoulder to make sure that Aggie was still out of the room, she
+indulged in a few dark threats to Jimmy, also some vehement
+reminders of how he had DRAGGED her into that horrid old
+restaurant and been the immediate cause of all the misfortunes
+that had ever befallen her.
+
+Could Jimmy have been sure that Aggie was out of ear-shot of
+Zoie's conversation, the argument would doubtless have kept up
+indefinitely-- as it was--the result was a quick acquiescence on
+his part and by the time that Aggie returned to the room, Zoie
+was wreathed in smiles.
+
+"It's all right," she said sweetly.  "Jimmy's going to get it."
+
+Aggie looked at her sceptically.  "Goodness knows I hope so," she
+said, then added in despair, "Look at your cheeks.  They're
+flaming."
+
+Once more the powder puff was called into requisition, and Zoie
+turned a temporarily blanched face to Aggie.  "Is that better?"
+she asked.
+
+"Very much," answered Aggie, "but how about your hair?"
+
+"What's the matter with it?" asked Zoie.  Her reflection betrayed
+a coiffure that might have turned Marie Antoinette green with
+envy.
+
+"Would anybody think you'd been in bed for days?" asked Aggie.
+
+"Alfred likes it that way," was Zoie's defence.
+
+"Turn around," said Aggie, without deigning to argue the matter
+further.  And she began to remove handfuls of hairpins from the
+yellow knotted curls.
+
+"What are you doing?" exclaimed Zoie, as she sprayed her white
+neck and arms with her favourite perfume.
+
+Aggie did not answer.
+
+Zoie leaned forward toward the mirror to smooth out her eyebrows
+with the tips of her perfumed fingers.  "Good gracious," she
+cried in horror as she caught sight of her reflection.  "You're
+not going to put my hair in a pigtail!"
+
+"That's the way invalids always have their hair," was Aggie's
+laconic reply, and she continued to plait the obstinate curls.
+
+"I won't have it like that!" declared Zoie, and she shook herself
+free from Aggie's unwelcome attentions and proceeded to unplait
+the hateful pigtail.  "Alfred would leave me."
+
+Aggie shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"If you're going to make a perfect fright of me," pouted Zoie, "I
+just won't see him."
+
+"He isn't coming to see YOU," reminded Aggie.  "He's coming to
+see the baby."
+
+"If Jimmy doesn't come soon, I'll not HAVE any baby," answered
+Zoie.
+
+"Get into bed," said Aggie, and she proceeded to turn down the
+soft lace coverlets.
+
+"Where did I put my cap?" asked Zoie.  Her eyes caught the small
+knot of lace and ribbons for which she was looking, and she
+pinned it on top of her saucy little curls.
+
+"In you go," said Aggie, motioning to the bed.
+
+"Wait," said Zoie impressively, "wait till I get my rose lights
+on the pillow."  She pulled the slender gold chain of her night
+lamp; instantly the large white pillows were bathed in a warm
+pink glow--she studied the effect very carefully, then added a
+lingerie pillow to the two more formal ones, kicked off her
+slippers and hopped into bed.  One more glance at the pillows,
+then she arranged the ribbons of her negligee to fall
+"carelessly" outside the coverlet, threw one arm gracefully above
+her head, half-closed her eyes, and sank languidly back against
+her pillows.
+
+"How's that?" she breathed faintly.
+
+Controlling her impulse to smile, Aggie crossed to the
+dressing-table with a business-like air and applied to Zoie's
+pink cheeks a third coating of powder.
+
+Zoie sat bolt upright and began to sneeze.  "Aggie," she said, "I
+just hate you when you act like that."  But suddenly she was
+seized with a new idea.
+
+"I wonder," she mused as she looked across the room at the soft,
+pink sofa bathed in firelight, "I wonder if I shouldn't look
+better on that couch under those roses."
+
+Aggie was very emphatic in her opinion to the contrary. 
+"Certainly not!" she said.
+
+"Then," decided Zoie with a mischievous smile, "I'll get Alfred
+to carry me to the couch.  That way I can get my arms around his
+neck.  And once you get your arms around a man's neck, you can
+MANAGE him."
+
+Aggie looked down at the small person with distinct disapproval. 
+"Now, don't you make too much fuss over Alfred," she continued. 
+"YOU'RE the one who's to do the forgiving.  Don't forget that!
+What's more," she reminded Zoie, "you're very, very weak."  But
+before she had time to instruct Zoie further there was a sharp,
+quick ring at the outer door.
+
+The two women glanced at each other inquiringly.  The next
+instant a man's step was heard in the hallway.
+
+"How is she, Mary?" demanded someone in a voice tense with
+anxiety.
+
+"It's Alfred!" exclaimed Zoie.
+
+"And we haven't any baby!" gasped Aggie.
+
+"What shall I do?" cried Zoie.
+
+"Lie down," commanded Aggie, and Zoie had barely time to fall
+back limply on the pillows when the excited young husband burst
+into the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+When Alfred entered Zoie's bedroom he glanced about him in
+bewilderment.  It appeared that he was in an enchanted chamber. 
+Through the dim rose light he could barely perceive his young
+wife.  She was lying white and apparently lifeless on her
+pillows.  He moved cautiously toward the bed, but Aggie raised a
+warning finger.  Afraid to speak, he grasped Aggie's hand and
+searched her face for reassurance; she nodded toward Zoie, whose
+eyes were closed.  He tiptoed to the bedside, sank on his knees
+and reverently kissed the small hand that hung limply across the
+side of the bed.
+
+To Alfred's intense surprise, his lips had barely touched Zoie's
+fingertips when he felt his head seized in a frantic embrace. 
+"Alfred, Alfred!" cried Zoie in delight; then she smothered his
+face with kisses.  As she lifted her head to survey her
+astonished husband, she caught the reproving eye of Aggie.  With
+a weak little sigh, she relaxed her tenacious hold of Alfred,
+breathed his name very faintly, and sank back, apparently
+exhausted, upon her pillows.
+
+"It's been too much for her," said the terrified young husband,
+and he glanced toward Aggie in anxiety.
+
+Aggie nodded assent.
+
+"How pale she looks," added Alfred, as he surveyed the white face
+on the pillows.
+
+"She's so weak, poor dear," sympathised Aggie, almost in a
+whisper.
+
+Alfred nodded his understanding to Aggie.  It was then that his
+attention was for the first time attracted toward the crib.
+
+"My boy!" he exclaimed.  And again Zoie forgot Aggie's warning
+and sat straight up in bed.  But Alfred did not see her.  He was
+making determinedly for the crib, his heart beating high with the
+pride of possession.
+
+Throwing back the coverlets of the bassinette, Alfred stared at
+the empty bed in silence, then he quickly turned to the two
+anxious women.  "Where is he?" he asked, his eyes wide with
+terror.
+
+Zoie's lips opened to answer, but no words came.
+
+Alfred's eyes turned to Aggie.  The look on her face increased
+his worst fears.  "Don't tell me he's----" he could not bring
+himself to utter the word.  He continued to look helplessly from
+one woman to the other.
+
+In vain Zoie again tried to answer.  Aggie also made an
+unsuccessful attempt to speak.  Then, driven to desperation by
+the strain of the situation, Zoie declared boldly:  "He's out."
+
+"Out?" echoed Alfred in consternation.
+
+"With Jimmy," explained Aggie, coming to Zoie's rescue as well as
+she knew how.
+
+"Jimmy!" repeated Alfred in great astonishment.
+
+"Just for a breath of air," explained Zoie sweetly She had now
+entirely regained her self- possession.
+
+"Isn't he very young to be out at night?" asked Alfred with a
+puzzled frown.
+
+"We told Jimmy that," answered Aggie, amazed at the promptness
+with which each succeeding lie presented itself.  "But you see,"
+she continued, "Jimmy is so crazy about the child that we can't
+do anything with him."
+
+"Jimmy crazy about my baby?" exclaimed Alfred incredulously.  "He
+always said babies were 'little red worms.' "
+
+"Not this one," answered Zoie sweetly.
+
+"No, indeed," chimed in Aggie.  "He acts as though he owned it."
+
+"Oh, DOES he?" exclaimed Alfred hotly.  "I'll soon put a stop to
+that," he declared.  "Where did he take him?"
+
+Again the two women looked at each other inquiringly, then Aggie
+stammered evasively.
+
+"Oh, j-just downstairs--somewhere."
+
+"I'll LOOK j-just downstairs somewhere," decided Alfred, and he
+snatched up his hat and started toward the door.
+
+"Alfred!" cried Zoie in alarm.
+
+Coming back to her bedside to reassure her, Alfred was caught in
+a frantic embrace.  "I'll be back in a minute, dear," he said,
+but Zoie clung to him and pleaded desperately.
+
+"You aren't going to leave me the very first thing?"
+
+Alfred hesitated.  He had no wish to be cruel to Zoie, but the
+thought of Jimmy out in the street with his baby at this hour of
+the night was not to be borne.
+
+Zoie renewed her efforts at persuasion.  "Now, dearie," she said,
+"I wish you'd go get shaved and wash up a bit.  I don't wish baby
+to see you looking so horrid."
+
+"Yes, do, Alfred," insisted Aggie.  "He's sure to be here in a
+minute."
+
+"My boy won't care HOW his father looks," declared Alfred
+proudly, and Zoie told Aggie afterward that his chest had
+momentarily expanded three inches.
+
+"But _I_ care," persisted Zoie.  "First impressions are so
+important."
+
+"Now, Zoie," cautioned Aggie, as she crossed toward the bed with
+affected solicitude.  "You mustn't excite yourself."
+
+Zoie was quick to understand the suggested change in her tactics,
+and again she sank back on her pillows apparently ill and faint.
+
+Utterly vanquished by the dire result of his apparently inhuman
+thoughtlessness, Alfred glanced at Aggie, uncertain as to how to
+repair the injury.
+
+Aggie beckoned to him to come away from the bed.
+
+"Let her have her own way," she whispered with a significant
+glance toward Zoie.
+
+Alfred nodded understandingly and put a finger to his lips to
+signify that he would henceforth speak in hushed tones, then he
+tiptoed back to the bed and gently stroked the curls from Zoie's
+troubled forehead.
+
+"There now, dear," he whispered, "lie still and rest and I'll go
+shave and wash up a bit."
+
+Zoie sighed her acquiescence.
+
+"Mind," he whispered to Aggie, "you are to call me the moment my
+boy comes," and then he slipped quietly into the bedroom.
+
+No sooner had Alfred crossed the threshold, than Zoie sat up in
+bed and called in a sharp whisper to Aggie, "What's keeping
+them?" she asked.
+
+"I can't imagine," answered Aggie, also in whisper.
+
+"If I had Jimmy here," declared Zoie vindictively, "I'd wring his
+little fat neck," and slipping her little pink toes from beneath
+the covers, she was about to get out of bed, when Aggie, who was
+facing Alfred's bedroom door, gave her a warning signal.
+
+Zoie had barely time to get back beneath the covers, when Alfred
+re-entered the room in search of his satchel.  Aggie found it for
+him quickly.
+
+Alfred glanced solicitously at Zoie's closed eyes.  "I'm so
+sorry," he apologised to Aggie, and again he slipped softly out
+of the room.
+
+Aggie and Zoie drew together for consultation.
+
+"Suppose Jimmy can't get the baby," whispered Zoie.
+
+"In that case, he'd have 'phoned," argued Aggie.
+
+"Let's 'phone to the Home," suggested Zoie, "and find----" She
+was interrupted by Alfred's voice.
+
+"Say, Aggie," called Alfred from the next room.
+
+"Yes?" answered Aggie sweetly, and she crossed to the door and
+waited.
+
+"Hasn't he come yet?" called Alfred impatiently.
+
+"Not yet, Alfred," said Aggie, and she closed the door very
+softly, lest Alfred should hear her.
+
+"I never knew Alfred could be so silly!" snapped Zoie.
+
+"Sh! sh!" warned Aggie, and she glanced anxiously toward Alfred's
+door.
+
+"He doesn't care a bit about me!" complained Zoie.  "It's all
+that horrid old baby that he's never seen.,'
+
+"If Jimmy doesn't come soon, he never WILL see it," declared
+Aggie, and she started toward the window to look out.
+
+Just then there was a short quick ring of the bell.  The two
+women glanced at each other with mingled hope and fear.  Then
+their eyes sought the door expectantly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+With the collar of his long ulster pushed high and the brim of
+his derby hat pulled low, Jimmy Jinks crept cautiously into the
+room.  When he at length ceased to glance over his shoulder and
+came to a full stop, Aggie perceived a bit of white flannel
+hanging beneath the hem of his tightly buttoned coat.
+
+"You've GOT it!" she cried.
+
+"Where is it ?" asked Zoie.
+
+"Give it to me," demanded Aggie.
+
+Jimmy stared at them as though stupefied, then glanced uneasily
+over his shoulder, to make sure that no one was pursuing him. 
+Aggie unbuttoned his ulster, seized a wee mite wrapped in a large
+shawl, and clasped it to her bosom with a sigh of relief.  "Thank
+heaven!" she exclaimed, then crossed quickly to the bassinette
+and deposited her charge.
+
+In the meantime, having thrown discretion to the wind, Zoie had
+hopped out of bed.  As usual, her greeting to Jimmy was in the
+nature of a reproach.  "What kept you?" she demanded crossly.
+
+"Yes," chimed in Aggie, who was now bending over the crib.  "What
+made you so long?"
+
+"See here!" answered Jimmy hotly, "if you two think you can do
+any better, you're welcome to the job," and with that he threw
+off his overcoat and sank sullenly on the couch.
+
+"Sh! sh!" exclaimed Zoie and Aggie, simultaneously, and they
+glanced nervously toward Alfred's bedroom door.
+
+Jimmy looked at them without comprehending why he should "sh." 
+They did not bother to explain.  Instead, Zoie turned her back
+upon him.
+
+"Let's see it," she said, peeping into the bassinette.  And then
+with a little cry of disgust she again looked at Jimmy
+reproachfully.  "Isn't it ugly?" she said.  Jimmy's contempt for
+woman's ingratitude was too deep for words, and he only stared at
+her in injured silence.  But his reflections were quickly upset
+when Alfred called from the next room, to inquire again about
+Baby.
+
+"Alfred's here!" whispered Jimmy, beginning to realise the
+meaning of the women's mysterious behaviour.
+
+"Sh! sh!" said Aggie again to Jimmy, and Zoie flew toward the
+bed, almost vaulting over the footboard in her hurry to get
+beneath the covers.
+
+For the present Alfred did not disturb them further.  Apparently
+he was still occupied with his shaving, but just as Jimmy was
+about to ask for particulars, the 'phone rang.  The three
+culprits glanced guiltily at each other.
+
+"Who's that?" whispered Zoie in a frightened voice.
+
+Aggie crossed to the 'phone.  "Hello," she called softly.  "The
+Children's Home?" she exclaimed.
+
+Jimmy paused in the act of sitting and turned his round eyes
+toward the 'phone.
+
+Aggie's facial expression was not reassuring.  "But we can't,"
+she was saying; "that's impossible."
+
+"What is it?" called Zoie across the foot of the bed, unable
+longer to endure the suspense.
+
+Aggie did not answer.  She was growing more and more excited.  "A
+thief!" she cried wildly, over the 'phone.  "How dare you call my
+husband a thief!"
+
+Jimmy was following the conversation with growing interest.
+
+"Wait a minute," said Aggie, then she left the receiver hanging
+by the cord and turned to the expectant pair behind her.  "It's
+the Children's Home," she explained.  "That awful woman says
+Jimmy STOLE her baby!"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Zoie as though such depravity on Jimmy's part
+were unthinkable.  Then she looked at him accusingly, and asked
+in low, measured tones, "DID you STEAL HER BABY, JIMMY?"
+
+"Didn't you tell me to?" asked Jimmy hotly.  "Not literally,"
+corrected Aggie.
+
+"How else COULD I steal a baby?" demanded Jimmy.
+
+Zoie looked at the unfortunate creature as if she could strangle
+him, and Aggie addressed him with a threat in her voice.
+
+"Well, the Superintendent says you've got to bring it straight
+back."
+
+"I'd like to see myself!" said Jimmy.
+
+"He sha'n't bring it back," declared Zoie.  "I'll not let him!"
+
+"What shall I tell the Superintendent?" asked Aggie, "he's
+holding the wire."
+
+"Tell him he can't have it," answered Zoie, as though that were
+the end of the whole matter.
+
+"Well," concluded Aggie, "he says if Jimmy DOESN'T bring it back
+the mother's coming after it."
+
+"Good Lord!" exclaimed Zoie.
+
+As for Jimmy, he bolted for the door.  Aggie caught him by the
+sleeve as he passed.  "Wait, Jimmy," she said peremptorily. 
+There was a moment of awful indecision, then something
+approaching an idea came to Zoie.
+
+"Tell the Superintendent that it isn't here," she whispered to
+Aggie across the footboard.  "Tell him that Jimmy hasn't got here
+yet."
+
+"Yes," agreed Jimmy, "tell him I haven't got here yet."
+
+Aggie nodded wisely and returned to the 'phone.  "Hello," she
+called pleasantly; then proceeded to explain.  "Mr.  Jinks hasn't
+got here yet."  There was a pause, then she added in her most
+conciliatory tone, "I'll tell him what you say when he comes in." 
+Another pause, and she hung up the receiver with a most gracious
+good- bye and turned to the others with increasing misgivings. 
+"He says he won't be responsible for that mother much
+longer--she's half-crazy."
+
+"What right has she to be crazy?" demanded Zoie in an abused
+voice.  "She's a widow.  She doesn't need a baby."
+
+"Well," decided Aggie after careful deliberation, "you'd better
+take it back, Jimmy, before Alfred sees it."
+
+"What?" exclaimed Zoie in protest.  And again Jimmy bolted, but
+again he failed to reach the door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+His face covered with lather, and a shaving brush in one hand,
+Alfred entered the room just as his friend was about to escape.
+
+"Jimmy!" exclaimed the excited young father, "you're back."
+
+"Oh, yes--yes," admitted Jimmy nervously, "I'm back."
+
+"My boy!" cried Alfred, and he glanced toward the crib.  "He's
+here!"
+
+"Yes--yes," agreed Aggie uneasily, as she tried to place herself
+between Alfred and the bassinette.  "He's here, but you mayn't
+have him, Alfred."
+
+"What?" exclaimed Alfred, trying to put her out of the way.
+
+"Not yet," protested Aggie, "not just yet."
+
+"Give him to me," demanded Alfred, and thrusting Aggie aside, he
+took possession of the small mite in the cradle.
+
+"But--but, Alfred," pleaded Aggie, "your face.  You'll get him
+all wet."
+
+Alfred did not heed her.  He was bending over the cradle in an
+ecstasy.  "My boy!" he cried, "my boy!" Lifting the baby in his
+arms he circled the room cooing to him delightedly.
+
+"Was he away from home when his fadder came? Oh, me, oh, my!
+Coochy! Coochy! Coochy!" Suddenly he remembered to whom he owed
+this wondrous treasure and forgetful of the lather on his
+unshaven face he rushed toward Zoie with an overflowing heart. 
+"My precious!" he exclaimed, and he covered her cheek with
+kisses.
+
+"Go away!" cried Zoie in disgust and she pushed Alfred from her
+and brushed the hateful lather from her little pink check.
+
+But Alfred was not to be robbed of his exaltation, and again he
+circled the room, making strange gurgling sounds to Baby.
+
+"Did a horrid old Jimmy take him away from fadder?" he said
+sympathetically, in the small person's ear; and he glanced at
+Jimmy with frowning disapproval.  "I'd just like to see him get
+you away from me again!" he added to Baby, as he tickled the
+mite's ear with the end of his shaving brush.  "Oh, me! oh, my!"
+he exclaimed in trepidation, as he perceived a bit of lather on
+the infant's cheek.  Then lifting the boy high in his arms and
+throwing out his chest with great pride, he looked at Jimmy with
+an air of superiority.  "I guess I'm bad, aye?" he said.
+
+Jimmy positively blushed.  As for Zoie, she was growing more and
+more impatient for a little attention to herself.
+
+"Rock-a-bye, Baby," sang Alfred in strident tones and he swung
+the child high in his arms.
+
+Jimmy and Aggie gazed at Alfred as though hypnotised.  They kept
+time to his lullaby out of sheer nervousness.  Suddenly Alfred
+stopped, held the child from him and gazed at it in horror. 
+"Good heavens!" he exclaimed.  The others waited breathlessly. 
+"Look at that baby's face," commanded Alfred.
+
+Zoie and Aggie exchanged alarmed glances, then Zoie asked in
+trepidation, "What's the matter with his face?"
+
+"He's got a fever," declared Alfred.  And he started toward the
+bed to show the child to its mother.
+
+"Go away!" shrieked Zoie, waving Alfred off in wild alarm.
+
+"What?" asked Alfred, backing from her in surprise.
+
+Aggie crossed quickly to Alfred's side and looked over his
+shoulder at the boy.  "I don't see anything wrong with its face,"
+she said.
+
+"It's scarlet!" persisted Alfred.
+
+"Oh," said Jimmy with a superior air, "they're always like that."
+
+"Nothing of the sort," snorted Alfred, and he glared at Jimmy
+threateningly.  "You've frozen the child parading him around the
+streets."
+
+"Let me have him, Alfred," begged Aggie sweetly; "I'll put him in
+his crib and keep him warm."
+
+Reluctantly Alfred released the boy.  His eyes followed him to
+the crib with anxiety.  "Where's his nurse?" he asked, as he
+glanced first from one to the other.
+
+Zoie and Jimmy stared about the room as though expecting the
+desired person to drop from the ceiling.  Then Zoie turned upon
+her unwary accomplice.
+
+"Jimmy," she called in a threatening tone, "where IS his nurse?"
+
+"Does Jimmy take the nurse out, too?" demanded Alfred, more and
+more annoyed by the privileges Jimmy had apparently been usurping
+in his absence.
+
+"Never mind about the nurse," interposed Aggie.  "Baby likes me
+better anyway.  I'll tuck him in," and she bent fondly over the
+crib, but Alfred was not to be so easily pacified.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," he exclaimed excitedly, "that my boy
+hasn't any nurse?"
+
+"We HAD a nurse," corrected Zoie, "but--but I had to discharge
+her."
+
+Alfred glanced from one to the other for an explanation.
+
+"Discharge her?" he repeated, "for what?"
+
+"She was crazy," stammered Zoie.
+
+Alfred's eyes sought Aggie's for confirmation.  She nodded.  He
+directed his steady gaze toward Jimmy.  The latter jerked his
+head up and down in nervous assent.
+
+"Well," said Alfred, amazed at their apparent lack of resource,
+"why didn't you get ANOTHER nurse?"
+
+"Aggie is going to stay and take care of baby to-night," declared
+Zoie, and then she beamed upon Aggie as only she knew how. 
+"Aren't you, dear?" she asked sweetly.
+
+"Yes, indeed," answered Aggie, studiously avoiding Jimmy's eye.
+
+"Baby is going to sleep in the spare room with Aggie and Jimmy,"
+said Zoie.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Jimmy, too desperate to care what Alfred might
+infer.
+
+Ignoring Jimmy's implied protest, Zoie continued sweetly to
+Alfred:
+
+"Now, don't worry, dear; go back to your room and finish your
+shaving."
+
+"Finish shaving?" repeated Alfred in a puzzled way.  Then his
+hand went mechanically to his cheek and he stared at Zoie in
+astonishment.  "By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I had forgotten all
+about it.  That shows you how excited I am."  And with a
+reluctant glance toward the cradle, he went quickly from the
+room, singing a high- pitched lullaby.
+
+Just as the three conspirators were drawing together for
+consultation, Alfred returned to the room.  It was apparent that
+there was something important on his mind.
+
+"By the way," he said, glancing from one to another, "I forgot to
+ask--what's his name?"
+
+The conspirators looked at each other without answering.  To
+Alfred their delay was annoying.  Of course his son had been
+given his father's name, but he wished to HEAR someone say so.
+
+"Baby's, I mean," he explained impatiently.
+
+Jimmy felt instinctively that Zoie's eyes were upon him.  He
+avoided her gaze.
+
+"Jimmy!" called Zoie, meaning only to appeal to him for a name.
+
+"Jimmy!" thundered the infuriated Alfred.  "You've called my boy
+'Jimmy'? Why 'Jimmy'?"
+
+For once Zoie was without an answer.
+
+After waiting in vain for any response, Alfred advanced upon the
+uncomfortable Jimmy.
+
+"You seem to be very popular around here," he sneered.
+
+Jimmy shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and studied the
+pattern of the rug upon which he was standing.
+
+After what seemed an age to Jimmy, Alfred turned his back upon
+his old friend and started toward his bedroom.  Jimmy peeped out
+uneasily from his long eyelashes.  When Alfred reached the
+threshold, he faced about quickly and stared again at Jimmy for
+an explanation.  It seemed to Jimmy that Alfred's nostrils were
+dilating.  He would not have been surprised to see Alfred snort
+fire.  He let his eyes fall before the awful spectacle of his
+friend's wrath.  Alfred's upper lip began to curl.  He cast a
+last withering look in Jimmy's direction, retired quickly from
+the scene and banged the door.
+
+When Jimmy again had the courage to lift his eyes he was
+confronted by the contemptuous gaze of Zoie, who was sitting up
+in bed and regarding him with undisguised disapproval.
+
+"Why didn't you tell him what the baby's name is?" she demanded.
+
+"How do _I_ know what the baby's name is?" retorted Jimmy
+savagely.
+
+"Sh! sh!" cautioned Aggie as she glanced nervously toward the
+door through which Alfred had just passed.
+
+"What does it matter WHAT the baby's name is so long as we have
+to send it back?"
+
+"I'll NOT send it back," declared Zoie emphatically, "at least
+not until morning.  That will give Jimmy a whole night to get
+another one."
+
+"Another!" shrieked Jimmy.  "See here, you two can't be changing
+babies every five minutes without Alfred knowing it.  Even HE has
+SOME sense."
+
+"Nonsense!" answered Aggie shortly.  "You know perfectly well
+that all young babies look just alike.  Their own mothers
+couldn't tell them apart, if it weren't for their clothes."
+
+"But where can we GET another?" asked Zoie.
+
+Before Aggie could answer, Alfred was again heard calling from
+the next room.  Apparently all his anger had subsided, for he
+inquired in the most amiable tone as to what baby might be doing
+and how he might be feeling.  Aggie crossed quickly to the door,
+and sweetly reassured the anxious father, then she closed the
+door softly and turned to Zoie and Jimmy with a new inspiration
+lighting her face.  "I have it," she exclaimed ecstatically.
+
+Jimmy regarded his spouse with grave suspicion.
+
+"Now see here," he objected, "every time YOU 'HAVE IT,' I DO IT. 
+The NEXT time you 'HAVE IT' YOU DO IT!"
+
+The emphasis with which Jimmy made his declaration deserved
+consideration, but to his amazement it was entirely ignored by
+both women.  Hopping quickly out of bed, without even glancing in
+his direction, Zoie gave her entire attention to Aggie.  "What is
+it?" she asked eagerly.
+
+"There must be OTHER babies' Homes," said Aggie, and she glanced
+at Jimmy from her superior height.
+
+"They aren't open all night like corner drug stores," growled
+Jimmy.
+
+"Well, they ought to be," decided Zoie.
+
+"And surely," argued Aggie, "in an extraordinary case--like----"
+
+"This was an 'extraordinary case,' " declared Jimmy, "and you saw
+what happened this time, and the Superintendent is a friend of
+mine--at least he WAS a friend of mine."  And with that Jimmy sat
+himself down on the far corner of the couch and proceeded to
+ruminate on the havoc that these two women had wrought in his
+once tranquil life.
+
+Zoie gazed at Jimmy in deep disgust; her friend Aggie had made an
+excellent suggestion, and instead of acting upon it with
+alacrity, here sat Jimmy sulking like a stubborn child.
+
+"I suppose," said Zoie, as her eyebrows assumed a bored angle,
+"there are SOME babies in the world outside of Children's Homes."
+
+"Of course," was Aggie's enthusiastic rejoinder; "there's one
+born every minute."
+
+"But I was born BETWEEN minutes," protested Jimmy.
+
+"Who's talking about you?" snapped Zoie.
+
+Again Aggie exclaimed that she "had it."
+
+"She's got it twice as bad," groaned Jimmy, and he wondered what
+new form her persecution of him was about to take.
+
+"Where is the morning paper?" asked Aggie, excitedly.
+
+"We can't advertise NOW," protested Zoie.  "It's too late for
+that."
+
+"Sh! Sh!" answered Aggie, as she snatched the paper quickly from
+the table and began running her eyes up and down its third page. 
+"Married-- married," she murmured, and then with delight she
+found the half column for which she was searching.  "Born," she
+exclaimed triumphantly.  "Here we are! Get a pencil, Zoie, and
+we'll take down all the new ones."
+
+"Of course," agreed Zoie, clapping her hands in glee, "and Jimmy
+can get a taxi and look them right up."
+
+"Oh, CAN he?" shouted Jimmy as he rose with clenched fists.  "Now
+you two, see here----"
+
+Before Jimmy could complete his threat, there was a sharp ring of
+the door bell.  He looked at the two women inquiringly.
+
+"It's the mother," cried Zoie in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"The mother!" repeated Jimmy in terror and he glanced uncertainly
+from one door to the other.
+
+"Cover up the baby!" called Zoie, and drawing Jimmy's overcoat
+quickly from his arm, Aggie threw it hurriedly over the cradle.
+
+For an instant Jimmy remained motionless in the centre of the
+room, hatless, coatless, and shorn of ideas.  A loud knock on the
+door decided him and he sank with trembling knees behind the
+nearest armchair, just as Zoie made a flying leap into the bed
+and prepared to draw the cover over her head.
+
+The knock was repeated and Aggie signalled to Zoie to answer it.
+
+"Come in!" called Zoie very faintly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+From his hiding-place Jimmy peeped around the edge of the
+armchair and saw what seemed to be a large clothes basket
+entering the room.  Closer inspection revealed the small figure
+of Maggie, the washerwoman's daughter, propelling the basket,
+which was piled high with freshly laundered clothing.  Jimmy drew
+a long sigh of relief, and unknotted his cramped limbs.
+
+"Shall I lay the things on the sofa, mum?" asked Maggie as she
+placed her basket on the floor and waited for Zoie's
+instructions.
+
+"Yes, please," answered Zoie, too exhausted for further comment.
+
+Taking the laundry piece by piece from the basket, Maggie made
+excuses for its delay, while she placed it on the couch.  Deaf to
+Maggie's chatter, Zoie lay back languidly on her pillows; but she
+soon heard something that lifted her straight up in bed.
+
+"Me mother is sorry she had to kape you waitin' this week," said
+Maggie over her shoulder; "but we've got twins at OUR house."
+
+"Twins!" echoed Zoie and Aggie simultaneously.  Then together
+they stared at Maggie as though she had been dropped from another
+world.
+
+Finding attention temporarily diverted from himself, Jimmy had
+begun to rearrange both his mind and his cravat when he felt
+rather than saw that his two persecutors were regarding him with
+a steady, determined gaze.  In spite of himself, Jimmy raised his
+eyes to theirs.
+
+"Twins!" was their laconic answer.
+
+Now, Jimmy had heard Maggie's announcement about the bountiful
+supply of offspring lately arrived at her house, but not until he
+caught the fanatical gleam in the eyes of his companions did he
+understand the part they meant him to play in their next
+adventure.  He waited for no explanation--he bolted toward the
+door.
+
+"Wait, Jimmy," commanded Aggie.  But it was not until she had
+laid firm hold of him that he waited.
+
+Surprised by such strange behaviour on the part of those whom she
+considered her superiors, Maggie looked first at Aggie, then at
+Jimmy, then at Zoie, uncertain whether to go or to stay.
+
+"Anythin' to go back, mum?" she stammered.
+
+Zoie stared at Maggie solemnly from across the foot of the bed. 
+"Maggie," she asked in a deep, sepulchral tone, "where do you
+live?"
+
+"Just around the corner on High Street, mum," gasped Maggie. 
+Then, keeping her eyes fixed uneasily on Zoie she picked up her
+basket and backed cautiously toward the door.
+
+"Wait!" commanded Zoie; and Maggie paused, one foot in mid-air. 
+"Wait in the hall," said Zoie.
+
+"Yes'um," assented Maggie, almost in a whisper.  Then she nodded
+her head jerkily, cast another furtive glance at the three
+persons who were regarding her so strangely, and slipped quickly
+through the door.
+
+Having crossed the room and stealthily closed the door, Aggie
+returned to Jimmy, who was watching her with the furtive
+expression of a trapped animal.
+
+"It's Providence," she declared, with a grave countenance.
+
+Jimmy looked up at Aggie with affected innocence, then rolled his
+round eyes away from her.  He was confronted by Zoie, who had
+approached from the opposite side of the room.
+
+"It's Fate," declared Zoie, in awe-struck tones.
+
+Jimmy was beginning to wriggle, but he kept up a last desperate
+presence of not understanding them.
+
+"You needn't tell me I'm going to take the wash to the old lady,"
+he said, "for I'm not going to do it."
+
+"It isn't the WASH," said Aggie, and her tone warned him that she
+expected no nonsense from him.
+
+"You know what we are thinking about just as well as we do," said
+Zoie.  "I'll write that washerwoman a note and tell her we must
+have one of those babies right now."  And with that she turned
+toward her desk and began rummaging amongst her papers for a
+pencil and pad.  "The luck of these poor," she murmured.
+
+"The luck of US," corrected Aggie, whose spirits were now
+soaring.  Then she turned to Jimmy with growing enthusiasm. 
+"Just think of it, dear," she said, "Fate has sent us a baby to
+our very door."
+
+"Well," declared Jimmy, again beginning to show signs of fight,
+"if Fate has sent a baby to the door, you don't need me," and
+with that he snatched his coat from the crib.
+
+"Wait, Jimmy," again commanded Aggie, and she took his coat
+gently but firmly from him.
+
+"Now, see here," argued Jimmy, trying to get free from his
+strong-minded spouse, "you know perfectly well that that
+washerwoman isn't going to let us have that baby."
+
+"Nonsense," called Zoie over her shoulder, while she scribbled a
+hurried note to the washerwoman.  "If she won't let us have it
+'for keeps,' I'll just 'rent it.' "
+
+"Good Lord!" exclaimed Jimmy in genuine horror.  "Warm, fresh,
+palpitating babies rented as you would rent a gas stove!"
+
+"That's all a pose," declared Aggie, in a matter-of-fact tone. 
+"You think babies 'little red worms,' you've said so."
+
+Jimmy could not deny it.
+
+"She'll be only too glad to rent it," declared Zoie, as she
+glanced hurriedly through the note just written, and slipped it,
+together with a bill, into an envelope.  "I'll pay her anything. 
+It's only until I can get another one."
+
+"Another!" shouted Jimmy, and his eyes turned heavenward for
+help.  "An endless chain with me to put the links together!"
+
+"Don't be so theatrical," said Aggie, irritably, as she took up
+Jimmy's coat and prepared to get him into it.
+
+"Why DO you make such a fuss about NOTHING," sighed Zoie.
+
+"Nothing?" echoed Jimmy, and he looked at her with wondering
+eyes.  "I crawl about like a thief in the night snatching babies
+from their mother's breasts, and you call THAT nothing?"
+
+"You don't have to 'CRAWL,' " reminded Zoie, "you can take a
+taxi."
+
+"Here's your coat, dear," said Aggie graciously, as she
+endeavoured to slip Jimmy's limp arms into the sleeves of the
+garment.
+
+"You can take Maggie with you," said Zoie, with the air of
+conferring a distinct favour upon him.
+
+"And the wash on my lap," added Jimmy sarcastically.
+
+"No," said Zoie, unruffled by Jimmy's ungracious behaviour. 
+"We'll send the wash later."
+
+"That's very kind of you," sneered Jimmy, as he unconsciously
+allowed his arms to slip into the sleeves of the coat Aggie was
+urging upon him.
+
+"All you need to do," said Aggie complacently, "is to get us the
+baby."
+
+"Yes," said Jimmy, "and what do you suppose my friends would say
+if they were to see me riding around town with the wash-lady's
+daughter and a baby on my lap? What would YOU say?" he asked
+Aggie, "if you didn't know the facts?"
+
+"Nobody's going to see you," answered Aggie impatiently; "it's
+only around the corner.  Go on, Jimmy, be a good boy."
+
+"You mean a good thing," retorted Jimmy without budging from the
+spot.
+
+"How ridiculous!" exclaimed Zoie; "it's as easy as can be."
+
+"Yes, the FIRST one SOUNDED easy, too," said Jimmy.
+
+"All you have to do," explained Zoie, trying to restrain her
+rising intolerance of his stupidity, "is to give this note to
+Maggie's mother.  She'll give you her baby, you bring it back
+here, we'll give you THIS one, and you can take it right back to
+the Home."
+
+"And meet the other mother," concluded Jimmy with a shake of his
+head.
+
+There was a distinct threat in Zoie's voice when she again
+addressed the stubborn Jimmy and the glitter of triumph was in
+her eyes.
+
+"You'd better meet here THERE than HERE," she warned him; "you
+know what the Superintendent said."
+
+"That's true," agreed Aggie with an anxious face.  "Come now,"
+she pleaded, "it will only take a minute; you can do the whole
+thing before you have had time to think."
+
+"Before I have had time to think," repeated Jimmy excitedly. 
+"That's how you get me to do everything.  Well, this time I've
+HAD time to think and I don't think I will!" and with that he
+threw himself upon the couch, unmindful of the damage to the
+freshly laundered clothes.
+
+"Get up," cried Zoie.
+
+"You haven't time to sit down," said Aggie.
+
+"I'll TAKE time," declared Jimmy.  His eyes blinked ominously and
+he remained glued to the couch.
+
+There was a short silence; the two women gazed at Jimmy in
+despair.  Remembering a fresh grievance, Jimmy turned upon them.
+
+"By the way," he said, "do you two know that I haven't had
+anything to eat yet?"
+
+"And do you know," said Zoie, "that Alfred may be back at any
+minute? He can't stay away forever."
+
+"Not unless he has cut his throat," rejoined Jimmy, "and that's
+what I'd do if I had a razor."
+
+Zoie regarded Jimmy as though he were beyond redemption.  "Can't
+you ever think of anybody but yourself?" she asked, with a
+martyred air.
+
+Had Jimmy been half his age, Aggie would have felt sure that she
+saw him make a face at her friend for answer.  As it was, she
+resolved to make one last effort to awaken her unobliging spouse
+to a belated sense of duty.
+
+"You see, dear," she said, "you might better get the
+washerwoman's baby than to go from house to house for one," and
+she glanced again toward the paper.
+
+"Yes," urged Zoie, "and that's just what you'll HAVE to do, if
+you don't get this one."
+
+Jimmy's head hung dejectedly.  It was apparent that his courage
+was slipping from him.  Aggie was quick to realise her
+opportunity, and before Jimmy could protect himself from her
+treacherous wiles, she had slipped one arm coyly about his neck.
+
+"Now, Jimmy," she pleaded as she pressed her soft cheek to his
+throbbing temple, and toyed with the bay curl on his perspiring
+forehead, "wont you do this little teeny-weepy thing just for
+me?"
+
+Jimmy's lips puckered in a pout; he began to blink nervously. 
+Aggie slipped her other arm about his neck.
+
+"You know," she continued with a baby whine, "I got Zoie into
+this, and I've just got to get her out of it.  You're not going
+to desert me, are you, Jimmy? You WILL help me, won't you, dear?"
+Her breath was on Jimmy's cheek; he could feel her lips stealing
+closer to his.  He had not been treated to much affection of
+late.  His head drooped lower--he began to twiddle the fob on his
+watch chain.  "Won't you?" persisted Aggie.
+
+Jimmy studied the toes of his boots.
+
+"Won't you?" she repeated, and her soft eyelashes just brushed
+the tip of his retrousee nose.
+
+Jimmy's head was now wagging from side to side.
+
+"Won't you?" she entreated a fourth time, and she kissed him full
+on the lips.
+
+With a resigned sigh, Jimmy rose mechanically from the heap of
+crushed laundry and held out his fat chubby hand.
+
+"Give me the letter," he groaned.
+
+"Here you are," said Zoie, taking Jimmy's acquiescence as a
+matter of course; and she thrust the letter into the pocket of
+Jimmy's ulster.  "Now, when you get back with the baby," she
+continued, "don't come in all of a sudden; just wait outside and
+whistle.  You CAN WHISTLE, can't you?" she asked with a doubtful
+air.
+
+For answer, Jimmy placed two fingers between his lips and
+produced a shrill whistle that made both Zoie and Aggie glance
+nervously toward Alfred's bedroom door.
+
+"Yes, you can WHISTLE," admitted Zoie, then she continued her
+directions.  "If Alfred is not in the room, I'll raise the shade
+and you can come right up."
+
+"And if he is in the room?" asked Jimmy with a fine shade of
+sarcasm.
+
+"If he IS in the room," explained Zoie, "you must wait outside
+until I can get rid of him."
+
+Jimmy turned his eyes toward Aggie to ask if it were possible
+that she still approved of Zoie's inhuman plan.  For answer Aggie
+stroked his coat collar fondly.
+
+"We'll give you the signal the moment the coast is clear," she
+said, then she hurriedly buttoned Jimmy's large ulster and wound
+a muffler about his neck.  "There now, dear, do go, you're all
+buttoned up," and with that she urged him toward the door.
+
+"Just a minute," protested Jimmy, as he paused on the threshold. 
+"Let me get this right, if the shade is up, I stay down."
+
+"Not at all," corrected Aggie and Zoie in a breath.  "If the
+shade is up, you come up."
+
+Jimmy cast another martyred look in Zoie's direction.
+
+"You won't hurry will you?" he said, "you know it is only
+twenty-three below zero and I haven't had anything to eat
+yet--and----"
+
+"Yes, we know," interrupted the two women in chorus, and then
+Aggie added wearily, "go on, Jimmy; don't be funny."
+
+"Funny?" snorted Jimmy.  "With a baby on my lap and the wash
+lady's daughter, I won't be funny, oh no!"
+
+It is doubtful whether Jimmy would not have worked himself into
+another state of open rebellion had not Aggie put an end to his
+protests by thrusting him firmly out of the room and closing the
+door behind him.  After this act of heroic decision on her part,
+the two women listened intently, fearing that he might return;
+but presently they heard the bang of the outer door, and at last
+they drew a long breath of relief.  For the first time since
+Alfred's arrival, Aggie was preparing to sink into a chair, when
+she was startled by a sharp exclamation from Zoie.
+
+"Good heavens," cried Zoie, "I forgot to ask Maggie."
+
+"Ask her what?" questioned Aggie.
+
+"Boys or girls," said Zoie, with a solemn look toward the door
+through which Jimmy had just disappeared.
+
+"Well," decided Aggie, after a moment's reflection, "it's too
+late now.  Anyway," she concluded philosophically, "we couldn't
+CHANGE it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+With more or less damage to himself consequent on his excitement,
+Alfred completed his shaving and hastened to return to his wife
+and the babe.  Finding the supposedly ill Zoie careering about
+the centre of the room expostulating with Aggie, the young man
+stopped dumbfounded on the threshold.
+
+"Zoie," he cried in astonishment.  "What are you doing out of
+bed?"
+
+For an instant the startled Zoie gazed at him stupefied.
+
+"Why, I--I----" Her eyes sought Aggie's for a suggestion; there
+was no answer there.  It was not until her gaze fell upon the
+cradle that she was seized by the desired inspiration.
+
+"I just got up to see baby," she faltered, then putting one hand
+giddily to her head, she pretended to sway.
+
+In an instant Alfred's arms were about her.  He bore her quickly
+to the bed.  "You stay here, my darling," he said tenderly. 
+"I'll bring baby to you," and after a solicitous caress he turned
+toward baby's crib and bent fondly over the little one.  "Ah,
+there's father's man," he said.  "Was he lonesome baby? Oh,
+goodis g'acious," then followed an incoherent muttering of baby
+talk, as he bore the youngster toward Zoie's bed.  "Come, my
+precious," he called to Zoie, as he sank down on the edge of the
+bed.  "See mother's boy."
+
+"Mother!" shrieked Zoie in horror.  It had suddenly dawned upon
+her that this was the name by which Alfred would no doubt call
+her for the rest of her life.  She almost detested him.
+
+But Alfred did not see the look of disgust on Zoie's face.  He
+was wholly absorbed by baby.
+
+"What a funny face," he cooed as he pinched the youngster's
+cheek.  "Great Scott, what a grip," he cried as the infant's
+fingers closed around his own.  "Will you look at the size of
+those hands," he exclaimed.
+
+Zoie and Aggie exchanged worried glances; the baby had no doubt
+inherited his large hands from his mother.
+
+"Say, Aggie," called Alfred, "what are all of these little specks
+on baby's forehead?" He pointed toward the infant's brow.  "One,
+two, three," he counted.
+
+Zoie was becoming more and more uncomfortable at the close
+proximity of the little stranger.
+
+"Oh," said Aggie, with affected carelessness as she leaned over
+Alfred's shoulder and glanced at baby's forehead.  "That is just
+a little rash."
+
+"A rash!" exclaimed Alfred excitedly, "that's dangerous, isn't
+it? We'd better call up the doctor."  And he rose and started
+hurriedly toward the telephone, baby in arms.
+
+"Don't be silly," called Zoie, filled with vague alarm at the
+thought of the family physician's appearance and the explanations
+that this might entail.
+
+Stepping between Alfred and the 'phone, Aggie protested
+frantically.  "You see, Alfred," she said, "it is better to have
+the rash OUT, it won't do any harm unless it turns IN."
+
+"He's perfectly well," declared Zoie, "if you'll only put him in
+his crib and leave him alone."
+
+Alfred looked down at his charge.  "Is that right, son?" he
+asked, and he tickled the little fellow playfully in the ribs. 
+"I'll tell you what," he called over his shoulder to Zoie, "he's
+a fine looking boy."  And then with a mysterious air, he nodded
+to Aggie to approach.  "Whom does he look like?" he asked.
+
+Again Zoie sat up in anxiety.  Aggie glanced at her, uncertain
+what answer to make.
+
+"I--I hadn't thought," she stammered weakly.
+
+"Go on, go on," exclaimed the proud young father, "you can't tell
+me that you can look at that boy and not see the resemblance."
+
+"To whom?" asked Aggie, half fearfully.
+
+"Why," said Alfred, "he's the image of Zoie."
+
+Zoie gazed at the puckered red face in Alfred's arms.  "What!"
+she shrieked in disgust, then fall back on her pillows and drew
+the lace coverlet over her face.
+
+Mistaking Zoie's feeling for one of embarrassment at being
+over-praised, Alfred bore the infant to her bedside.  "See,
+dear," he persisted, "see for yourself, look at his forehead."
+
+"I'd rather look at you," pouted Zoie, peeping from beneath the
+coverlet, "if you would only put that thing down for a minute."
+
+"Thing?" exclaimed Alfred, as though doubting his own ears.  But
+before he could remonstrate further, Zoie's arms were about his
+neck and she was pleading jealously for his attention.
+
+"Please, Alfred," she begged, "I have scarcely had a look at you,
+yet."
+
+Alfred shook his head and turned to baby with an indulgent smile. 
+It was pleasant to have two such delightful creatures bidding for
+his entire attention.
+
+"Dear me," he said to baby.  "Dear me, tink of mudder wanting to
+look at a big u'gy t'ing like fadder, when she could look at a
+'itty witty t'ing like dis," and he rose and crossed to the crib
+where he deposited the small creature with yet more gurgling and
+endearing.
+
+Zoie's dreams of rapture at Alfred's home coming had not included
+such divided attention as he was now showing her and she was
+growing more and more desperate at the turn affairs had taken. 
+She resolved to put a stop to his nonsense and to make him
+realise that she and no one else was the lode star of his
+existence.  She beckoned to Aggie to get out of the room and to
+leave her a clear field and as soon as her friend had gone
+quietly into the next room, she called impatiently to Alfred who
+was still cooing rapturously over the young stranger.  Finding
+Alfred deaf to her first entreaty, Zoie shut her lips hard,
+rearranged her pretty head-dress, drew one fascinating little
+curl down over her shoulder, reknotted the pink ribbon of her
+negligee, and then issued a final and imperious order for her
+husband to attend her.
+
+"Yes, yes, dear," answered Alfred, with a shade of impatience. 
+"I'm coming, I'm coming."  And bidding a reluctant farewell to
+the small person in the crib, he crossed to her side.
+
+Zoie caught Alfred's hand and drew him down to her; he smiled
+complacently.
+
+"Well," he said in the patronising tone that Zoie always
+resented.  "How is hubby's little girl?"
+
+"It's about time," pouted Zoie, "that you made a little fuss over
+me for a change."
+
+"My own!" murmured Alfred.  He stooped to kiss the eager lips,
+but just as his young wife prepared to lend herself to his long
+delayed embrace, his mind was distracted by an uneasy thought. 
+"Do you think that Baby is----"
+
+He was not permitted to finish the sentence.
+
+Zoie drew him back to her with a sharp exclamation.
+
+"Think of ME for a while," she commanded.
+
+"My darling," expostulated Alfred with a shade of surprise at her
+vehemence.  "How could I think of anyone else?" Again he stooped
+to embrace her and again his mind was directed otherwise.  "I
+wonder if Baby is warm enough," he said and attempted to rise.
+
+"Wonder about ME for a while," snapped Zoie, clinging to him
+determinedly.
+
+Again Alfred looked at her in amazement.  Was it possible there
+was anything besides Baby worth wondering about? Whether there
+was or not, Zoie was no longer to be resisted and with a last
+regretful look at the crib, he resigned himself to giving his
+entire attention to his spoiled young wife.
+
+Gratified by her hard-won conquest, Zoie now settled herself in
+Alfred's arms.
+
+"You haven't told me what you did all the time that you were
+away," she reminded him.
+
+"Oh, there was plenty to do," answered Alfred.
+
+"Did you think of me every minute?" she asked jealously.
+
+"That would be telling," laughed Alfred, as he pinched her small
+pink ear.
+
+"I wish to be 'told,' " declared Zoie; "I don't suppose you
+realise it, but if I were to live a THOUSAND YEARS, I'd never be
+quite sure what you did during those FEW MONTHS."
+
+"It was nothing that you wouldn't have been proud of," answered
+Alfred, with an unconscious expansion of his chest.
+
+"Do you love me as much as ever?" asked Zoie.
+
+"Behave yourself," answered Alfred, trying not to appear
+flattered by the discovery that his absence had undoubtedly
+caused her great uneasiness.
+
+"Well, SAY it!" demanded Zoie.
+
+"You know I do," answered Alfred, with the diffidence of a school
+boy.
+
+"Then kiss me," concluded Zoie, with an air of finality that left
+Alfred no alternative.
+
+As a matter of fact, Alfred was no longer seeking an alternative. 
+He was again under the spell of his wife's adorable charms and he
+kissed her not once, but many times.
+
+"Foolish child," he murmured, then he laid her tenderly against
+the large white pillows, remonstrating with her for being so
+spoiled, and cautioning her to be a good little girl while he
+went again to see about Baby.
+
+Zoie clung to his hand and feigned approaching tears.
+
+"You aren't thinking of me at all?" she pouted.  "And kisses are
+no good unless you put your whole mind on them.  Give me a real
+kiss!" she pleaded.
+
+Again Alfred stooped to humour the small importunate person who
+was so jealous of his every thought, but just as his lips touched
+her forehead his ear was arrested by a sound as yet new both to
+him and to Zoie.  He lifted his head and listened.
+
+"What was that?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know," answered Zoie, wondering if the cat could have
+got into the room.
+
+A redoubled effort on the part of the young stranger directed
+their attention in the right direction.
+
+"My God!" exclaimed Alfred tragically, "it's Baby.  He's crying." 
+And with that, he rushed to the crib and clasped the small mite
+close to his breast, leaving Zoie to pummel the pillows in an
+agony of vexation.
+
+After vain cajoling of the angry youngster, Alfred bore him
+excitedly to Zoie's bedside.
+
+"You'd better take him, dear," he said.
+
+To the young husband's astonishment, Zoie waved him from her in
+terror, and called loudly for Aggie.  But no sooner had Aggie
+appeared on the scene, than a sharp whistle was heard from the
+pavement below.
+
+"Pull down the shade!" cried Zoie frantically.
+
+Aggie hastened toward the window.
+
+Attributing Zoie's uneasiness to a caprice of modesty, Alfred
+turned from the cradle to reassure her.
+
+"No one can see in way up here," he said.
+
+To Zoie's distress, the lowering of the shade was answered by a
+yet shriller whistle from the street below.
+
+"Was it 'up' or 'down'?" cried Zoie to Aggie in an agony of
+doubt, as she tried to recall her instructions to Jimmy.
+
+"I don't know," answered Aggie.  "I've forgotten."
+
+Another impatient whistle did not improve their memory.  Alarmed
+by Zoie's increasing excitement, and thinking she was troubled
+merely by a sick woman's fancy that someone might see through the
+window, Alfred placed the babe quickly in its cradle and crossed
+to the young wife's bed.
+
+"It was up, dear," he said.  "You had Aggie put it down."
+
+"Then I want it up," declared the seemingly perverse Zoie.
+
+"But it was up," argued Alfred.
+
+A succession of emotional whistles set Zoie to pounding the
+pillows.
+
+"Put it down!" she commanded.
+
+"But Zoie----" protested Alfred.
+
+"Did I say 'up' or did I say 'down'?" moaned the half-demented
+Zoie, while long whistles and short whistles, appealing whistles
+and impatient whistles followed each other in quick succession.
+
+"You said down, dear," persisted Alfred, now almost as distracted
+as his wife.
+
+Zoie waved him from the room.  "I wish you'd get out of here,"
+she cried; "you make me so nervous that I can't think at all."
+
+"Of course, dear," murmured Alfred, "if you wish it."  And with a
+hurt and perplexed expression on his face he backed quickly from
+the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+When Zoie's letter asking for the O'Flarety twin had reached that
+young lady's astonished mother, Mrs.  O'Flarety felt herself
+suddenly lifted to a position of importance.
+
+"Think of the purty Mrs.  Hardy a wantin' my little Bridget," she
+exclaimed, and she began to dwell upon the romantic possibilities
+of her offspring's future under the care of such a "foine stylish
+lady and concluded by declaring it 'a lucky day entoirely.' "
+
+Jimmy had his misgivings about it being Bridget's "LUCKY day,"
+but it was not for him to delay matters by dwelling upon the
+eccentricities of Zoie's character, and when Mrs.  O'Flarety had
+deposited Bridget in Jimmy's short arms and slipped a well filled
+nursing bottle into his overcoat pocket, he took his leave
+hastily, lest the excited woman add Bridget's twin to her willing
+offering.
+
+Once out of sight of the elated mother, Jimmy thrust the
+defenceless Bridget within the folds of his already snug ulster,
+buttoned the garment in such places as it would meet, and made
+for the taxi which, owing to the upset condition of the street,
+he had been obliged to abandon at the corner.
+
+Whether the driver had obtained a more promising "fare" or been
+run in by the police, Jimmy never knew.  At any rate it was in
+vain that he looked for his vehicle.  So intense was the cold
+that it was impossible to wait for a chance taxi; furthermore,
+the meanness of the district made it extremely unlikely that one
+would appear, and glancing guiltily behind him to make sure that
+no one was taking cognisance of his strange exploit, Jimmy began
+picking his way along dark lanes and avoiding the lighted
+thoroughfare on which the "Sherwood" was situated, until he was
+within a block of his destination.
+
+Panting with haste and excitement, he eventually gained courage
+to dash through a side street that brought him within a few doors
+of the "Sherwood."  Again glancing behind him, he turned the well
+lighted corner and arrived beneath Zoie's window to find one
+shade up and one down.  In his perplexity he emitted a faint
+whistle.  Immediately he saw the other shade lowered.  Uncertain
+as to what arrangement he had actually made with Zoie, he
+ventured a second whistle.  The result was a hysterical running
+up and down of the shade which left him utterly bewildered as to
+what disposition he was supposed to make of the wobbly bit of
+humanity pressed against his shirt front.
+
+Reaching over his artificially curved figure to grasp a bit of
+white that trailed below his coat, he looked up to see a passing
+policeman eyeing him suspiciously.
+
+"Taking the air?" asked the policeman.
+
+"Ye-yes," mumbled Jimmy with affected nonchalence and he knocked
+the heels of his boots together in order to keep his teeth from
+chattering.  "It's a fi-fine ni-night for air," he stuttered.
+
+"Is it?" said the policeman, and to Jimmy's horror, he saw the
+fellow's eyes fix themselves on the bit of white.
+
+"Go-good-night," stammered Jimmy hurriedly, and trying to assume
+an easy stride in spite of the uncomfortable addition to his
+already rotund figure, he slipped into the hotel, where avoiding
+the lighted elevator, he laboured quickly, up the stairs.
+
+At the very moment when Zoie was driving Alfred in consternation
+from the room, Jimmy entered it uninvited.
+
+"Get out," was the inhospitable greeting received simultaneously
+from Zoie and Aggie, and without waiting for further instructions
+he "got."
+
+Fortunately for all concerned, Alfred, who was at the same moment
+departing by way of the bedroom door, did not look behind him;
+but it was some minutes before Aggie who had followed Jimmy into
+the hall could persuade him to return.
+
+After repeated and insistent signals both from Aggie and Zoie,
+Jimmy's round red face appeared cautiously around the frame of
+the door.  It bore unmistakable indications of apoplexy.  But the
+eyes of the women were not upon Jimmy's face, they too had caught
+sight of the bit of white that hung below his coat, and dragging
+him quickly into the room and closing the door, Aggie proceeded
+without inquiry or thanks to unbutton his coat and to take from
+beneath it the small object for which she and Zoie had been
+eagerly waiting.
+
+"Thank Heaven!" sighed Zoie, as she saw Aggie bearing the latest
+acquisition to Alfred's rapidly increasing family safely toward
+the crib.
+
+Suddenly remembering something in his right hand coat pocket,
+Jimmy called to Aggie, who turned to him and waited expectantly. 
+After characteristic fumbling, he produced a well filled nursing
+bottle.
+
+"What's that?" asked Zoie.
+
+"For HER," grunted Jimmy, and he nodded toward the bundle in
+Aggie's arms.
+
+"HER!" cried Zoie and Aggie in chorus.  Zoie shut her lips hard
+and gazed at him with contempt.
+
+"I might have known you'd get the wrong kind," she said.
+
+What Jimmy thought about the ingratitude of woman was not to be
+expressed in language.  He controlled himself as well as he could
+and merely LOOKED the things that he would like to have said.
+
+"Well, it can't be helped now," decided the philosophic Aggie;
+"here, Jimmy," she said, "you hold 'HER' a minute and I'll get
+you the other one."
+
+Placing the small creature in Jimmy's protesting arms, Aggie
+turned toward the cradle to make the proposed exchange when she
+was startled by the unexpected return of Alfred.
+
+Thanks to the ample folds of Jimmy's ulster, he was able to
+effectually conceal his charge and he started quickly toward the
+hall, but in making the necessary detour around the couch he
+failed to reach the door before Alfred, who had chosen a more
+direct way.
+
+"Hold on, Jimmy," exclaimed Alfred good- naturedly, and he laid a
+detaining hand on his friend's shoulder.  "Where are you going?"
+
+"I'll be back," stammered Jimmy weakly, edging his way toward the
+door, and contriving to keep his back toward Alfred.
+
+"Wait a minute," said Alfred jovially, as he let his hand slip
+onto Jimmy's arm, "you haven't told me the news yet."
+
+"I'll tell you later," mumbled Jimmy, still trying to escape. 
+But Alfred's eye had fallen upon a bit of white flannel dangling
+below the bottom of Jimmy's ulster, it travelled upward to
+Jimmy's unusually rotund figure.
+
+"What have you got there?" he demanded to know, as he pointed
+toward the centre button of Jimmy's overcoat.
+
+"Here?" echoed Jimmy vapidly, glancing at the button in question,
+"why, that's just a little----" There was a faint wail from the
+depths of the ulster.  Jimmy began to caper about with
+elephantine tread.  "Oochie, coochie, oochie," he called
+excitedly.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" asked Alfred.  The wail became a
+shriek.  "Good Heavens!" cried the anxious father, "it's my boy." 
+And with that he pounced upon Jimmy, threw wide his ulster and
+snatched from his arms Jimmy's latest contribution to Zoie's
+scheme of things.
+
+As Aggie had previously remarked, all young babies look very much
+alike, and to the inexperienced eye of this new and overwrought
+father, there was no difference between the infant that he now
+pressed to his breast, and the one that, unsuspected by him, lay
+peacefully dozing in the crib, not ten feet from him.  He gazed
+at the face of the newcomer with the same ecstasy that he had
+felt in the possession of her predecessor.  But Zoie and Aggie
+were looking at each other with something quite different from
+ecstasy.
+
+"My boy," exclaimed Alfred, with deep emotion, as he clasped the
+tiny creature to his breast.  Then he turned to Jimmy.  "What
+were you doing with my baby?" he demanded hotly.
+
+"I--I was just taking him out for a little walk!" stammered
+Jimmy.
+
+"You just try," threatened Alfred, and he towered over the
+intimidated Jimmy.  "Are you crazy?"
+
+Jimmy was of the opinion that he must be crazy or he would never
+have found himself in such a predicament as this, but the anxious
+faces of Zoie and Aggie, denied him the luxury of declaring
+himself so.  He sank mutely on the end of the couch and proceeded
+to sulk in silence.
+
+As for Aggie and Zoie, they continued to gaze open-mouthed at
+Alfred, who was waltzing about the room transported into a new
+heaven of delight at having snatched his heir from the danger of
+another night ramble with Jimmy.
+
+"Did a horrid old Jimmy spoil his 'itty nap'?" he gurgled to
+Baby.  Then with a sudden exclamation of alarm, he turned toward
+the anxious women.  "Aggie!" he cried, as he stared intently into
+Baby's face.  "Look--his rash! It's turned IN!"
+
+Aggie pretended to glance over Alfred's shoulder.
+
+"Why so it has," she agreed nervously.
+
+"What shall we do?" cried the distraught Alfred.
+
+"It's all right now," counselled Aggie, "so long as it didn't
+turn in too suddenly."
+
+"We'd better keep him warm, hadn't we?" suggested Alfred,
+remembering Aggie's previous instructions on a similar occasion. 
+"I'll put him in his crib," he decided, and thereupon he made a
+quick move toward the bassinette.
+
+Staggering back from the cradle with the unsteadiness of a
+drunken man Alfred called upon the Diety.  "What is THAT?" he
+demanded as he pointed toward the unexpected object before him.
+
+Neither Zoie, Aggie, nor Jimmy could command words to assist
+Alfred's rapidly waning powers of comprehension, and it was not
+until he had swept each face for the third time with a look of
+inquiry that Zoie found breath to stammer nervously,
+"Why--why--why, that's the OTHER one."
+
+"The other one?" echoed Alfred in a dazed manner; then he turned
+to Aggie for further explanation.
+
+"Yes," affirmed Aggie, with an emphatic nod, "the other one."
+
+An undescribable joy was dawning on Alfred's face.
+
+"You don't mean----" He stared from the infant in his arms to the
+one in the cradle, then back again at Aggie and Zoie.  The women
+solemnly nodded their heads.  Even Jimmy unblushingly acquiesced. 
+Alfred turned toward Zoie for the final confirmation of his
+hopes.
+
+"Yes, dear," assented Zoie sweetly, "that's Alfred."
+
+What Jimmy and the women saw next appeared to be the dance of a
+whirling dervish; as a matter of fact, it was merely a man, mad
+with delight, clasping two infants in long clothes and circling
+the room with them.
+
+When Alfred could again enunciate distinctly, he rushed to Zoie's
+side with the babes in his arms.
+
+"My darling," he exclaimed, "why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"I was ashamed," whispered Zoie, hiding her head to shut out the
+sight of the red faces pressed close to hers.
+
+"My angel!" cried Alfred, struggling to control his complicated
+emotions; then gazing at the precious pair in his arms, he cast
+his eyes devoutly toward heaven, "Was ever a man so blessed?"
+
+Zoie peeped from the covers with affected shyness.
+
+"You love me just as much?" she queried.
+
+"I love you TWICE as much," declared Alfred, and with that he
+sank exhausted on the foot of the bed, vainly trying to teeter
+one son on each knee.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+When Jimmy gained courage to turn his eyes in the direction of
+the family group he had helped to assemble, he was not reassured
+by the reproachful glances that he met from Aggie and Zoie.  It
+was apparent that in their minds, he was again to blame for
+something.  Realising that they dared not openly reproach him
+before Alfred, he decided to make his escape while his friend was
+still in the room.  He reached for his hat and tiptoed gingerly
+toward the door, but just as he was congratulating himself upon
+his decision, Alfred called to him with a mysterious air.
+
+"Jimmy," he said, "just a minute," and he nodded for Jimmy to
+approach.
+
+It must have been Jimmy's guilty conscience that made him
+powerless to disobey Alfred's every command.  Anyway, he slunk
+back to the fond parent's side, where he ultimately allowed
+himself to be inveigled into swinging his new watch before the
+unattentive eyes of the red-faced babes on Alfred's knees.
+
+"Lower, Jimmy, lower," called Alfred as Jimmy absent-mindedly
+allowed the watch to swing out of the prescribed orbit.  "Look at
+the darlings, Jimmy, look at them," he exclaimed as he gazed at
+the small creatures admiringly.
+
+"Yes, look at them, Jimmy," repeated Zoie, and she glared at
+Jimmy behind Alfred's back.
+
+"Don't you wish you had one of them, Jimmy?' " asked Alfred.
+
+"Well, _I_ wish he had," commented Zoie, and she wondered how she
+was ever again to detach either of them from Alfred's breast.
+
+Before she could form any plan, the telephone rang loud and
+persistently.  Jimmy glanced anxiously toward the women for
+instructions.
+
+"I'll answer it," said Aggie with suspicious alacrity, and she
+crossed quickly toward the 'phone.  The scattered bits of
+conversation that Zoie was able to gather from Aggie's end of the
+wire did not tend to soothe her over-excited nerves.  As for
+Alfred, he was fortunately so engrossed with the babies that he
+took little notice of what Aggie was saying.
+
+"What woman?" asked Aggie into the 'phone.  "Where's she from?"
+The answer was evidently not reassuring.  "Certainly not,"
+exclaimed Aggie, "don't let her come up; send her away.  Mrs. 
+Hardy can't see anyone at all."  Then followed a bit of pantomime
+between Zoie and Aggie, from which it appeared that their
+troubles were multiplying, then Aggie again gave her attention to
+the 'phone.  "I don't know anything about her," she fibbed, "that
+woman must have the wrong address."  And with that she hung up
+the receiver and came towards Alfred, anxious to get possession
+of his two small charges and to get them from the room, lest the
+mother who was apparently downstairs should thrust herself into
+their midst.
+
+"What's the trouble, Aggie?" asked Alfred, and he nodded toward
+the telephone.
+
+"Oh, just some woman with the wrong address," answered Aggie with
+affected carelessness.  "You'd better let me take the babies now,
+Alfred."
+
+"Take them where?" asked Alfred with surprise.
+
+"To bed," answered Aggie sweetly, "they are going to sleep in the
+next room with Jimmy and me."  She laid a detaining hand on
+Jimmy's arm.
+
+"What's the hurry?" asked Alfred a bit disgruntled.
+
+"It's very late," argued Aggie.
+
+"Of course it is," insisted Zoie.  "Please, Alfred," she pleaded,
+"do let Aggie take them."
+
+Alfred rose reluctantly.  "Mother knows best," he sighed, but
+ignoring Aggie's outstretched arms, he refused to relinquish the
+joy of himself carrying the small mites to their room, and he
+disappeared with the two of them, singing his now favourite
+lullaby.
+
+When Alfred had left the room, Jimmy, who was now seated
+comfortably in the rocker, was rudely startled by a sharp voice
+at either side of him.
+
+"Well!" shrieked Zoie, with all the disapproval that could be got
+into the one small word.
+
+"You're very clever, aren't you?" sneered Aggie at Jimmy's other
+elbow.
+
+Jimmy stared from one to the other.
+
+"A nice fix you've got me into NOW," reproved Zoie.
+
+"Why didn't you get out when you had the chance?" demanded Aggie.
+
+"You would take your own sweet time, wouldn't you," said Zoie.
+
+"What did I tell you?" asked Aggie.
+
+"What does he care?" exclaimed Zoie, and she walked up and down
+the room excitedly, oblivious of the disarrangement of her flying
+negligee.  "He's perfectly comfortable."
+
+"Oh yes," assented Jimmy, as he sank back into the rocker and
+began propelling himself to and fro.  "I never felt better," but
+a disinterested observer would have seen in him the picture of
+discomfort.
+
+"You're going to feel a great deal WORSE," he was warned by
+Aggie.  "Do you know who that was on the telephone?" she asked.
+
+Jimmy looked at her mutely.
+
+"The mother!" said Aggie emphatically
+
+"What!" exclaimed Jimmy.
+
+"She's down stairs," explained Aggie.
+
+Jimmy had stopped rocking--his face now wore an uneasy
+expression.
+
+"It's time you showed a little human intelligence," taunted Zoie,
+then she turned her back upon him and continued to Aggie, "what
+did she say?"
+
+"She says," answered Aggie, with a threatening glance toward
+Jimmy, "that she won't leave this place until Jimmy gives her
+baby back."
+
+"Let her have her old baby," said Jimmy.  "I don't want it."
+
+"You don't want it?" snapped Zoie indignantly, "what have YOU got
+to do with it?"
+
+"Oh nothing, nothing," acquiesced Jimmy meekly, "I'm a mere
+detail."
+
+"A lot you care what becomes of me," exclaimed Zoie
+reproachfully; then she turned to Aggie with a decided nod. 
+"Well, I want it," she asserted.
+
+"But Zoie," protested Aggie in astonishment, "you can't mean to
+keep BOTH of them?"
+
+"I certainly DO," said Zoie.
+
+"What?" cried Aggie and Jimmy in concert.
+
+"Jimmy has presented Alfred with twins," continued Zoie testily,
+"and now, he has to HAVE twins."
+
+Jimmy's eyes were growing rounder and rounder.
+
+"Do you know," continued Zoie, with a growing sense of
+indignation, "what would happen to me if I told Alfred NOW that
+he WASN'T the father of twins? He'd fly straight out of that door
+and I'd never see him again."
+
+Aggie admitted that Zoie was no doubt speaking the truth.
+
+"Jimmy has awakened Alfred's paternal instinct for twins,"
+declared Zoie, with another emphatic nod of her head, "and now
+Jimmy must take the consequences."
+
+Jimmy tried to frame a few faint objections, but Zoie waved him
+aside, with a positive air.  "It's no use arguing.  If it were
+only ONE, it wouldn't be so bad, but to tell Alfred that he's
+lost twins, he couldn't live through it."
+
+"But Zoie," argued Aggie, "we can't have that mother hanging
+around down stairs until that baby is an old man.  She'll have us
+arrested, the next thing."
+
+"Why arrest US?" asked Zoie, with wide baby eyes.  "WE didn't
+take it.  Old slow-poke took it."  And she nodded toward the now
+utterly vanquished Jimmy.
+
+"That's right," murmured Jimmy, with a weak attempt at sarcasm,
+"don't leave me out of anything good."
+
+"It doesn't matter WHICH one she arrests," decided the practical
+Aggie.
+
+"Well, it matters to me," objected Zoie.
+
+"And to me too, if it's all the same to you," protested Jimmy.
+
+"Whoever it is," continued Aggie, "the truth is bound to come
+out.  Alfred will have to know sooner or later, so we might as
+well make a clean breast of it, first as last."
+
+"That's the first sensible thing you've said in three months,"
+declared Jimmy with reviving hope.
+
+"Oh, is that so?" sneered Zoie, and she levelled her most
+malicious look at Jimmy.  "What do you think Alfred would do to
+YOU, Mr.  Jimmy, if he knew the truth? YOU'RE the one who sent
+him the telegram; you are the one who told him that he was a
+FATHER."
+
+"That's true," admitted Aggie, with a wrinkled forehead.
+
+Zoie was quick to see her advantage.  She followed it up.  "And
+Alfred hasn't any sense of humour, you know."
+
+"How could he have?" groaned Jimmy; "he's married."  And with
+that he sank into his habitual state of dumps.
+
+"Your sarcasm will do a great deal of good," flashed Zoie.  Then
+she dismissed him with a nod, and crossed to her dressing table.
+
+"But Zoie," persisted Aggie, as she followed her young friend in
+trepidation, "don't you realise that if you persist in keeping
+this baby, that mother will dog Jimmy's footsteps for the rest of
+his life?"
+
+"That will be nice," murmured Jimmy.
+
+Zoie busied herself with her toilet, and turned a deaf ear to
+Aggie.  There was a touch of genuine emotion in Aggie's voice
+when she continued.
+
+"Just think of it, Zoie, Jimmy will never be able to come and go
+like a free man again."
+
+"What do I care how he comes and goes?" exclaimed Zoie
+impatiently.  "If Jimmy had gone when we told him to go, that
+woman would have had her old baby by now; but he didn't, oh no!
+All he ever does is to sit around and talk about his dinner."
+
+"Yes," cried Jimmy hotly, "and that's about as far as I ever GET
+with it."
+
+"You'll never get anywhere with anything," was Zoie's
+exasperating answer.  "You're too slow."
+
+"Well, there's nothing slow about you," retorted Jimmy, stung to
+a frenzy by her insolence.
+
+"Oh please, please," interposed Aggie, desperately determined to
+keep these two irascible persons to the main issue.  "What are we
+going to tell that mother?"
+
+"You can tell her whatever you like," answered Zoie, with an
+impudent toss of her head, "but I'll NOT give up that baby until
+I get ANOTHER one.'
+
+"Another?" almost shrieked Jimmy.  It was apparent that he must
+needs increase the number of his brain cells if he were to follow
+this extraordinary young woman's line of thought much further. 
+"You don't expect to go on multiplying them forever, do you?" he
+asked.
+
+"YOU are the one who has been multiplying them," was Zoie's
+disconcerting reply.
+
+It was evident to Jimmy that he could not think fast enough nor
+clearly enough to save himself from a mental disaster if he
+continued to argue with the shameless young woman, so he
+contented himself by rocking to and fro and murmuring dismally
+that he had "known from the first that it was to be an endless
+chain."
+
+While Zoie and Jimmy had been wrangling, Aggie had been weighing
+the pros and cons of the case.  She now turned to Jimmy with a
+tone of firm but motherly decision.  "Zoie is quite right," she
+said.
+
+Jimmy rolled his large eyes up at his spouse with a "you too,
+Brutus," expression.
+
+Aggie continued mercilessly, "It's the only way, Jimmy."
+
+No sooner had Aggie arrived at her decision than Zoie upset her
+tranquillity by a triumphant expression of "I have it."
+
+Jimmy and Aggie gazed at Zoie's radiant face in consternation. 
+They were accustomed to see only reproach there.  Her sudden
+enthusiasm increased Jimmy's uneasiness.
+
+"YOU have it," he grunted without attempting to conceal his
+disgust.  "SHE'S the one who generally has it."  And he nodded
+toward Aggie.
+
+Inflamed by her young friend's enthusiasm, Aggie rushed to her
+eagerly.
+
+"What is it, Zoie?" she asked.
+
+"The washerwoman!" exclaimed Zoie, as though the revelation had
+come straight from heaven.  "SHE HAD TWINS," and with that, two
+pairs of eyes turned expectantly toward the only man in the room.
+
+Tracing the pattern of the rug with his toe, Jimmy remained
+stubbornly oblivious of their attentions.  He rearranged the
+pillows on the couch, and finally, for want of a better
+occupation, he wound his watch.  All to no avail.  He could feel
+Zoie's cat-like gaze upon him.
+
+"Jimmy can get the other one," she said.
+
+"The hell I can," exclaimed Jimmy, starting to his feet and no
+longer considering time or place.
+
+The two women gazed at him reproachfully.
+
+"Jimmy!" cried Aggie, in a shocked, hurt voice.  "That's the
+first time I've ever heard you swear."
+
+"Well, it won't be the LAST time," declared Jimmy hotly, "if THIS
+keeps up."  His eyes were blazing.  He paced to and fro like an
+infuriated lion.
+
+"Dearest," said Aggie, "you look almost imposing."
+
+"Nonsense," interrupted Zoie.  who found Jimmy unusually
+ridiculous.  "If I'd known that Jimmy was going to put such an
+idea into Alfred's head, I'd have got the two in the first
+place."
+
+"Will she let us HAVE the other?" asked Aggie with some
+misgiving.
+
+"Of course she will," answered Zoie, leaving Jimmy entirely out
+of the conversation.  "She's as poor as a church mouse.  I'll pay
+her well.  She'll never miss it.  What could she do with one
+twin, anyway?"
+
+A snort of rage from Jimmy did not disturb Zoie's enthusiasm. 
+She proceeded to elaborate her plan.
+
+"I'll adopt them," she declared, "I'll leave them all Alfred's
+money.  Think of Alfred having real live twins for keeps."
+
+"It would be nice, wouldn't it?" commented Jimmy sarcastically.
+
+Zoie turned to Jimmy, as though they were on the best of terms.
+
+"How much money have you?" she asked.
+
+Before Jimmy could declare himself penniless, Aggie answered for
+him with the greatest enthusiasm, "He has a whole lot; he drew
+some today."
+
+"Good!" exclaimed Zoie to the abashed Jimmy, and then she
+continued in a matter-of- fact tone, "Now, Jimmy," she said, "you
+go give the washwoman what money you have on account, then tell
+her to come around here in the morning when Alfred has gone out
+and I'll settle all the details with her.  Go on now, Jimmy," she
+continued, "you don't need another letter."
+
+"No," chimed in Aggie sweetly; "you know her now, dear."
+
+"Oh, yes," corroborated Jimmy, with a sarcastic smile and without
+budging from the spot on which he stood, "we are great pals now."
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Zoie, astonished that Jimmy was not
+starting on his mission with alacrity.  "What are you waiting
+for?"
+
+Jimmy merely continued to smile enigmatically.
+
+"You know what happened the last time you hesitated," warned
+Aggie.
+
+"I know what happened when I DIDN'T hesitate," ruminated Jimmy,
+still holding his ground.
+
+Zoie's eyes were wide with surprise.  "You don't} mean to say,"
+she exclaimed incredulously, "that you aren't GOING--after we
+have thought all this out just to SAVE you?"
+
+"Say," answered Jimmy, with a confidential air, "do me a favour,
+will you? Stop thinking out things to 'save me.' "
+
+"But, Jimmy----" protested both women simultaneously; but before
+they could get further Alfred's distressed voice reached them
+from the next room.
+
+"Aggie!" he called frantically.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+What seemed to be a streak of pink through the room was in
+reality Zoie bolting for the bed.
+
+While Zoie hastened to snuggle comfortably under the covers,
+Aggie tried without avail to get Jimmy started on his errand.
+
+Getting no response from Aggie, Alfred, bearing one infant in his
+arms, came in search of her.  Apparently he was having difficulty
+with the unfastening of baby's collar.
+
+"Aggie," he called sharply, "how on earth do you get this fool
+pin out?"
+
+"Take him back, Alfred," answered Aggie impatiently; "I'll be
+there in a minute."
+
+But Alfred had apparently made up his mind that he was not a
+success as a nurse.
+
+"You'd better take him now, Aggie," he decided, as he offered the
+small person to the reluctant Aggie.  "I'll stay here and talk to
+Jimmy."
+
+"Oh, but Jimmy was just going out," answered Aggie; then she
+turned to her obdurate spouse with mock sweetness, "Weren't you,
+dear?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," affirmed Zoie, with a threatening glance toward Jimmy. 
+"He was going, just now."
+
+Still Jimmy remained rooted to the spot.
+
+"Out?" questioned Alfred.  "What for?"
+
+"Just for a little air," explained Aggie blandly.
+
+"Yes," growled Jimmy, "another little heir."
+
+"Air?" repeated Alfred in surprise.  "He had air a while ago with
+my son.  He is going to stay here and tell me the news.  Sit
+down, Jimmy," he commanded, and to the intense annoyance of Aggie
+and Zoie, Jimmy sank resignedly on the couch.
+
+Alfred was about to seat himself beside his friend, when the
+'phone rang violently.  Being nearest to the instrument, Alfred
+reached it first and Zoie and Aggie awaited the consequences in
+dread.  What they heard did not reassure them nor Jimmy.
+
+"Still down there?" exclaimed Alfred into the 'phone.
+
+Jimmy began to wriggle with a vague uneasiness.
+
+"Well," continued Alfred at the 'phone, "that woman has the wrong
+number."  Then with a peremptory "Wait a minute," he turned to
+Zoie, "The hall boy says that woman who called a while ago is
+still down stairs and she won't go away until she has seen you,
+Zoie.  She has some kind of an idiotic idea that you know where
+her baby is."
+
+"How absurd," sneered Zoie.
+
+"How silly," added Aggie.
+
+"How foolish," grunted Jimmy.
+
+"Well," decided Alfred, "I'd better go down stairs and see what's
+the matter with her," and he turned toward the door to carry out
+his intention.
+
+"Alfred!" called Zoie sharply.  She was half out of bed in her
+anxiety.  "You'll do no such thing.  'Phone down to the boy to
+send her away.  She's crazy."
+
+"Oh," said Alfred, "then she's been here before? Who is she?"
+
+"Who is she?" answered Zoie, trying to gain time for a new
+inspiration.  "Why, she's-- she's----" her face lit up with
+satisfaction--the idea had arrived.  "She's the nurse," she
+concluded emphatically.
+
+"The nurse?" repeated Alfred, a bit confused.
+
+"Yes," answered Zoie, pretending to be annoyed with his dull
+memory.  "She's the one I told you about, the one I had to
+discharge."
+
+"Oh," said Alfred, with the relief of sudden comprehension; "the
+crazy one?"
+
+Aggie and Zoie nodded their heads and smiled at him tolerantly,
+then Zoie continued to elaborate.  "You see," she said, "the poor
+creature was so insane about little Jimmy that I couldn't go near
+the child."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Alfred in a mighty rage.  "I'll soon tell the
+boy what to do with her," he declared, and he rushed to the
+'phone.  Barely had Alfred taken the receiver from the hook when
+the outer door was heard to bang.  Before he could speak a
+distracted young woman, whose excitable manner bespoke her
+foreign origin, swept through the door without seeing him and
+hurled herself at the unsuspecting Zoie.  The woman's black hair
+was dishevelled, and her large shawl had fallen from her
+shoulders.  To Jimmy, who was crouching behind an armchair, she
+seemed a giantess.
+
+"My baby!" cried the frenzied mother, with what was unmistakably
+an Italian accent.  "Where is he?" There was no answer; her eyes
+sought the cradle.  "Ah!" she shrieked, then upon finding the
+cradle empty, she redoubled her lamentations and again she bore
+down upon the terrified Zoie.
+
+"You," she cried, "you know where my baby is!"
+
+For answer, Zoie sank back amongst her pillows and drew the bed
+covers completely over her head.  Alfred approached the bed to
+protect his young wife; the Italian woman wheeled about and
+perceived a small child in his arms.  She threw herself upon him.
+
+"I knew it," she cried; "I knew it!"
+
+Managing to disengage himself from what he considered a mad
+woman, and elevating one elbow between her and the child, Alfred
+prevented the mother from snatching the small creature from his
+arms.
+
+"Calm yourself, madam," he commanded with a superior air.  "We
+are very sorry for you, of course, but we can't have you coming
+here and going on like this.  He's OUR baby and----"
+
+"He's NOT your baby!" cried the infuriated mother; "he's MY baby. 
+Give him to me.  Give him to me," and with that she sprang upon
+the uncomfortable Alfred like a tigress.  Throwing her whole
+weight on his uplifted elbow, she managed to pull down his arm
+until she could look into the face of the washerwoman's promising
+young offspring.  The air was rent by a scream that made each
+individual hair of Jimmy's head stand up in its own defence.  He
+could feel a sickly sensation at the top of his short thick neck.
+
+"He's NOT my baby," wailed the now demented mother, little
+dreaming that the infant for which she was searching was now
+reposing comfortably on a soft pillow in the adjoining room.
+
+As for Alfred, all of this was merely confirmation of Zoie's
+statement that this poor soul was crazy, and he was tempted to
+dismiss her with worthy forbearance.
+
+"I am glad, madam," he said, "that you are coming to your
+senses."
+
+Now, all would have gone well and the bewildered mother would no
+doubt have left the room convinced of her mistake, had not
+Jimmy's nerves got the better of his judgment.  Having slipped
+cautiously from his position behind the armchair he was tiptoeing
+toward the door, and was flattering himself on his escape, when
+suddenly, as his forward foot cautiously touched the threshold,
+he heard the cry of the captor in his wake, and before he could
+possibly command the action of his other foot, he felt himself
+being forcibly drawn backward by what appeared to be his too
+tenacious coat-tails.
+
+"If only they would tear," thought Jimmy, but thanks to the
+excellence of the tailor that Aggie had selected for him, they
+did NOT "tear."
+
+Not until she had anchored Jimmy safely to the centre of the rug
+did the irate mother pour out the full venom of her resentment
+toward him.  From the mixture of English and Italian that
+followed, it was apparent that she was accusing Jimmy of having
+stolen her baby.
+
+"Take me to him," she demanded tragically; "my baby--take me to
+him!"
+
+Jimmy appealed to Aggie and Zoie.  Their faces were as blank as
+his own.  He glanced at Alfred.
+
+"Humour her," whispered Alfred, much elated by the evidence of
+his own self-control as compared to Jimmy's utter demoralisation
+under the apparently same circumstances.
+
+Still Jimmy did not budge.
+
+Alfred was becoming vexed; he pointed first to his own forehead,
+then to that of Jimmy's hysterical captor.  He even illustrated
+his meaning by making a rotary motion with his forefinger,
+intended to remind Jimmy that the woman was a lunatic.
+
+Still Jimmy only stared at him and all the while the woman was
+becoming more and more emphatic in her declaration that Jimmy
+knew where her baby was.
+
+"Sure, Jimmy," said Alfred, out of all patience with Jimmy's
+stupidity and tiring of the strain of the woman's presence.  "You
+know where her baby is."
+
+"Ah!" cried the mother, and she towered over Jimmy with a wild
+light in her eyes.  "Take me to him," she demanded; "take me to
+him."
+
+Jimmy rolled his large eyes first toward Aggie, then toward Zoie
+and at last toward Alfred.  There was no mercy to be found
+anywhere.
+
+"Take her to him, Jimmy," commanded a concert of voices; and
+pursued by a bundle of waving colours and a medley of discordant
+sounds, Jimmy shot from the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The departure of Jimmy and the crazed mother was the occasion for
+a general relaxing among the remaining occupants of the room. 
+Exhausted by what had passed Zoie had ceased to interest herself
+in the future.  It was enough for the present that she could sink
+back upon her pillows and draw a long breath without an evil face
+bending over her, and without the air being rent by screams.
+
+As for Aggie, she fell back upon the window seat and closed her
+eyes.  The horrors into which Jimmy might be rushing had not yet
+presented themselves to her imagination.
+
+Of the three, Alfred was the only one who had apparently received
+exhilaration from the encounter.  He was strutting about the room
+with the babe in his arms, undoubtedly enjoying the sensations of
+a hero.  When he could sufficiently control his feeling of
+elation, he looked down at the small person with an air of
+condescension and again lent himself to the garbled sort of
+language with which defenceless infants are inevitably
+persecuted.
+
+"Tink of dat horrid old woman wanting to steal our own little
+oppsie, woppsie, toppsie babykins," he said.  Then he turned to
+Zoie with an air of great decision.  "That woman ought to be
+locked up," he declared, "she's dangerous," and with that he
+crossed to Aggie and hurriedly placed the infant in her
+unsuspecting arms.  "Here, Aggie," he said, "you take Alfred and
+get him into bed."
+
+Glad of an excuse to escape to the next room and recover her self
+control, Aggie quickly disappeared with the child.
+
+For some moments Alfred continued to pace up and down the room;
+then he came to a full stop before Zoie.
+
+"I'll have to have something done to that woman," he declared
+emphatically.
+
+"Jimmy will do enough to her," sighed Zoie, weakly.
+
+"She's no business to be at large," continued Alfred; then, with
+a business-like air, he started toward the telephone.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Zoie.
+
+Alfred did not answer.  He was now calling into the 'phone, "Give
+me information."
+
+"What on earth are you doing?" demanded Zoie, more and more
+disturbed by his mysterious manner.
+
+"One can't be too careful," retorted Alfred in his most paternal
+fashion; "there's an awful lot of kidnapping going on these
+days."
+
+"Well, you don't suspect information, do you?" asked Zoie.
+
+Again Alfred ignored her; he was intent upon things of more
+importance.
+
+"Hello," he called into the 'phone, "is this information?"
+Apparently it was for he continued, with a satisfied air, "Well,
+give me the Fullerton Street Police Station."
+
+"The Police?" cried Zoie, sitting up in bed and looking about the
+room with a new sense of alarm.
+
+Alfred did not answer.
+
+"Aggie!" shrieked the over-wrought young wife.
+
+Alfred attempted to reassure her.  "Now, now, dear, don't get
+nervous," he said, "I am only taking the necessary precautions." 
+And again he turned to the 'phone.
+
+Alarmed by Zoie's summons, Aggie entered the room hastily.  She
+was not reassured upon hearing Alfred's further conversation at
+the 'phone.
+
+"Is this the Fullerton Street Police Station?" asked Alfred.
+
+"The Police!" echoed Aggie, and her eyes sought Zoie's
+inquiringly.
+
+"Sh! Sh!" called Alfred over his shoulder to the excited Aggie,
+then he continued into the 'phone.  "Is Donneghey there?" There
+was a pause.  Alfred laughed jovialiy.  "It is? Well, hello,
+Donneghey, this is your old friend Hardy, Alfred Hardy at the
+Sherwood.  I've just got back," then he broke the happy news to
+the no doubt appreciative Donneghey.  "What do you think?" he
+said, "I'm a happy father."
+
+Zoie puckered her small face in disgust.
+
+Alfred continued to elucidate joyfully at the 'phone.
+
+"Doubles," he said, "yes--sure--on the level."
+
+"I don't know why you have to tell the whole neighbourhood,"
+snapped Zoie.  Her colour was visibly rising.
+
+But Alfred was now in the full glow of his genial account to his
+friend.  "Set 'em up?" he repeated in answer to an evident
+suggestion from the other end of the line, "I should say I would. 
+The drinks are on me.  Tell the boys I'll be right over.  And
+say, Donneghey," he added, in a more confidential tone, "I want
+to bring one of the men home with me.  I want him to keep an eye
+on the house to-night"; then after a pause, he concluded
+confidentially, "I'll tell you all about it when I get there.  It
+looks like a kidnapping scheme to me," and with that he hung up
+the receiver, unmistakably pleased with himself, and turned his
+beaming face toward Zoie.
+
+"It's all right, dear," he said, rubbing his hands together with
+evident satisfaction, "Donneghey is going to let us have a
+Special Officer to watch the house to-night."
+
+"I won't HAVE a special officer," declared Zoie vehemently; then
+becoming aware of Alfred's great surprise, she explained
+half-tearfully, "I'm not going to have the police hanging around
+our very door.  I would feel as though I were in prison."
+
+"You ARE in prison, my dear," returned the now irrepressible
+Alfred.  "A prison of love-- you and our precious boys."  He
+stooped and implanted a gracious kiss on her forehead, then
+turned toward the table for his hat.  "Now," he said, "I'll just
+run around the corner, set up the drinks for the boys, and bring
+the officer home with me," and drawing himself up proudly, he
+cried gaily in parting, "I'll bet there's not another man in
+Chicago who has what I have to- night."
+
+"I hope not," groaned Zoie.  as the door closed behind him. 
+Then, thrusting her two small feet from beneath the coverlet and
+perching on the side of the bed, she declared to Aggie that
+"Alfred was getting more idiotic every minute."
+
+"He's worse than idiotic," corrected Aggie.  "He's getting
+dangerous.  If he gets the police around here before we give that
+baby back, they'll get the mother.  She'll tell all she knows and
+that will be the end of Jimmy!"
+
+"End of Jimmy?" exclaimed Zoie, "it'll be the end of ALL of us."
+
+"I can see our pictures in the papers, right now," groaned Aggie. 
+"Jimmy will be the villain."
+
+"Jimmy IS a villain," declared Zoie.  "Where is he? Why doesn't
+he come back? How am I ever going to get that other twin?"
+
+"There is only one thing to do," decided Aggie, "I must go for it
+myself."  And she snatched up her cape from the couch and started
+toward the door.
+
+"You?" cried Zoie, in alarm, "and leave me alone?"
+
+"It's our only chance," argued Aggie.  "I'll have to do it now,
+before Alfred gets back."
+
+"But Aggie," protested Zoie, clinging to her departing friend,
+"suppose that crazy mother should come back?"
+
+"Nonsense," replied Aggie, and before Zoie could actually realise
+what was happening the bang of the outside door told her that she
+was alone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Wondering what new terrors awaited her, Zoie glanced uncertainly
+from door to door.  So strong had become her habit of taking
+refuge in the bed, that unconsciously she backed toward it now. 
+Barely had she reached the centre of the room when a terrific
+crash of breaking glass from the adjoining room sent her
+shrieking in terror over the footboard, and head first under the
+covers.  Here she would doubtless have remained until suffocated,
+had not Jimmy in his backward flight from one of the inner rooms
+overturned a large rocker.  This additional shock to Zoie's
+overstrung nerves forced a wild scream from her lips, and an
+answering exclamation from the nerve-racked Jimmy made her sit
+bolt upright.  She gazed at him in astonishment.  His tie was
+awry, one end of his collar had taken leave of its anchorage
+beneath his stout chin, and was now just tickling the edge of his
+red, perspiring brow.  His hair was on end and his feelings were
+undeniably ruffled.  As usual Zoie's greeting did not tend to
+conciliate him.
+
+"How did YOU get here?" she asked with an air of reproach.
+
+"The fire-escape," panted Jimmy and he nodded mysteriously toward
+the inner rooms of the apartment.
+
+"Fire-escape?" echoed Zoie.  There was only one and that led
+through the bathroom window.
+
+Jimmy explained no further.  He was now peeping cautiously out of
+the window toward the pavement below.
+
+"Where's the mother?" demanded Zoie.
+
+Jimmy jerked his thumb in the direction of the street.  Zoie
+gazed at him with grave apprehension.
+
+"Jimmy!" she exclaimed.  "You haven't killed her?"
+
+Jimmy shook his head and continued to peer cautiously out of the
+window.
+
+"What did you do with her?" called the now exasperated Zoie.
+
+"What did _I_ do with her?" repeated Jimmy, a flash of his old
+resentment returning.  "What did SHE do with ME?"
+
+For the first time, Zoie became fully conscious of Jimmy's
+ludicrous appearance.  Her overstrained nerves gave way and she
+began to laugh hysterically.
+
+"Say," shouted Jimmy, towering over the bed and devoutly wishing
+that she were his wife so that he might strike her with impunity. 
+"Don't you sic any more lunatics onto me."
+
+It is doubtful whether Zoie's continued laughter might not have
+provoked Jimmy to desperate measures, had not the 'phone at that
+moment directed their thoughts toward worse possibilities.  After
+the instrument had continued to ring persistently for what seemed
+to Zoie an age, she motioned to Jimmy to answer it.  He responded
+by retreating to the other side of the room.
+
+"It may be Aggie," suggested Zoie.
+
+For the first time, Jimmy became aware that Aggie was nowhere in
+the apartment.
+
+"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, as he realised that he was again
+tete-a-tete with the terror of his dreams.  "Where IS Aggie?"
+
+"Gone to do what YOU should have done," was Zoie's characteristic
+answer.
+
+"Well," answered Jimmy hotly, "it's about time that somebody
+besides me did something around this place."
+
+"YOU," mocked Zoie, "all YOU'VE ever done was to hoodoo me from
+the very beginning."
+
+"If you'd taken my advice," answered Jimmy, "and told your
+husband the truth about the luncheon, there'd never have been any
+'beginning.' "
+
+"If, if, if," cried Zoie, in an agony of impatience, "if you'd
+tipped that horrid old waiter enough, he'd never have told
+anyway."
+
+"I'm not buying waiters to cover up your crimes," announced Jimmy
+with his most self- righteous air.
+
+"You'll be buying more than that to cover up your OWN crimes
+before you've finished," retorted Zoie.
+
+"Before I've finished with YOU, yes," agreed Jimmy.  He wheeled
+upon her with increasing resentment.  "Do you know where I expect
+to end up?" he asked.
+
+"I know where you OUGHT to end up," snapped Zoie.
+
+"I'll finish in the electric chair," said Jimmy.  "I can feel
+blue lightning chasing up and down my spine right now."
+
+"Well, I wish you HAD finished in the electric chair," declared
+Zoie, "before you ever dragged me into that awful old
+restaurant."
+
+"Oh, you do, do you?" answered Jimmy shaking his fist at her
+across the foot of the bed.  For the want of adequate words to
+express his further feelings, Jimmy was beginning to jibber, when
+the outer door was heard to close, and he turned to behold Aggie
+entering hurriedly with something partly concealed by her long
+cape.
+
+"It's all right," explained Aggie triumphantly to Zoie.  "I've
+got it."  She threw her cape aside and disclosed the fruits of
+her conquest.
+
+"So," snorted Jimmy in disgust, slightly miffed by the apparent
+ease with which Aggie had accomplished a task about which he had
+made so much ado, "you've gone into the business too, have you?"
+
+Aggie deigned no reply to him.  She continued in a businesslike
+tone to Zoie.
+
+"Where's Alfred?" she asked.
+
+"Still out," answered Zoie.
+
+"Thank Heaven," sighed Aggie, then she turned to Jimmy and
+addressed him in rapid, decided tones.  "Now, dear," she said,
+"I'll just put the new baby to bed, then I'll give you the other
+one and you can take it right down to the mother."
+
+Jimmy made a vain start in the direction of the fire-escape. 
+Four detaining hands were laid upon him.
+
+"Don't try anything like that," warned Aggie; "you can't get out
+of this house without that baby.  The mother is down stairs now. 
+She's guarding the door.  I saw her."  And Aggie sailed
+triumphantly out of the room to make the proposed exchange of
+babies.
+
+Before Jimmy was able to suggest to himself an escape from
+Aggie's last plan of action, the telephone again began to cry for
+attention.
+
+Neither Jimmy nor Zoie could summon courage to approach the
+impatient instrument, and as usual Zoie cried frantically for
+Aggie.
+
+Aggie was not long in returning to the room and this time she
+bore in her arms the infant so strenuously demanded by its mad
+mother.
+
+"Here you are, Jimmy," she said; "here's the  other one.  Now
+take him down stairs quickly before Alfred gets back."  She
+attempted to place the unresisting babe in Jimmy's chubby arms,
+but Jimmy's freedom was not to be so easily disposed of.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed, backing away from the small creature in
+fear and abhorrence, "take that bundle of rags down to the hotel
+office and have that woman hystericing all over me.  No, thanks."
+
+"Oh well," answered Aggie, distracted by the persistent ringing
+of the 'phone, "then hold him a minute until I answer the
+'phone."
+
+This at least was a compromise, and reluctantly Jimmy allowed the
+now wailing infant to be placed in his arms.
+
+"Jig it, Jimmy, jig it," cried Zoie.  Jimmy looked down
+helplessly at the baby's angry red face, but before he had made
+much headway with the "jigging," Aggie returned to them, much
+excited by the message which she had just received over the
+telephone.
+
+"That mother is making a scene down stairs in the office," she
+said.
+
+"You hear," chided Zoie, in a fury at Jimmy, "what did Aggie tell
+you?"
+
+"If she wants this thing," maintained Jimmy, looking down at the
+bundle in his arms, "she can come after it."
+
+"We can't have her up here," objected Aggie.
+
+"Alfred may be back at any minute.  He'd catch her.  You know
+what happened the last time we tried to change them."
+
+"You can send it down the chimney, for all I care," concluded
+Jimmy.
+
+"I have it!" exclaimed Aggie, her face suddenly illumined.
+
+"Oh Lord," groaned Jimmy, who had come to regard any elation on
+Zoie's or Aggie's part as a sure forewarner of ultimate
+discomfort for him.
+
+Again Aggie had recourse to the 'phone.
+
+"Hello," she called to the office boy, "tell that woman to go
+around to the back door, and we'll send something down to her." 
+There was a slight pause, then Aggie added sweetly, "Yes, tell
+her to wait at the foot of the fire-escape."
+
+Zoie had already caught the drift of Aggie's intention and she
+now fixed her glittering eyes upon Jimmy, who was already
+shifting about uneasily and glancing at Aggie, who approached him
+with a business-like air.
+
+"Now, dear," said Aggie, "come with me.  I'll hand Baby out
+through the bathroom window and you can run right down the
+fire-escape with him."
+
+"If I do run down the fire-escape," exclaimed Jimmy, wagging his
+large head from side to side, "I'll keep right on RUNNING. 
+That's the last you'll ever see of me."
+
+"But, Jimmy," protested Aggie, slightly hurt by his threat, "once
+that woman gets her baby you'll have no more trouble."
+
+"With you two still alive?" asked Jimmy, looking from one to the
+other.
+
+"She'll be up here if you don't hurry," urged Aggie impatiently,
+and with that she pulled Jimmy toward the bedroom door.
+
+"Let her come," said Jimmy, planting his feet so as to resist
+Aggie's repeated tugs, "I'm going to South America."
+
+"Why will you act like this," cried Aggie, in utter desperation,
+"when we have so little time?"
+
+"Say," said Jimmy irrelevantly, "do you know that I haven't had
+any----"
+
+" Yes," interrupted Aggie and Zoie in chorus, "we know."
+
+"How long," continued Zoie impatiently, "is it going to take you
+to slip down that fire-escape?"
+
+"That depends on how fast I 'slip,' " answered Jimmy doggedly.
+
+"You'll 'slip' all right," sneered Zoie.
+
+Further exchange of pleasantries between these two antagonists
+was cut short by the banging of the outside door.
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Aggie, glancing nervously over her
+shoulder, "there's Alfred now.  Hurry, Jimmy, hurry," she cried,
+and with that she fairly forced Jimmy out through the bedroom
+door, and followed in his wake to see him safely down the
+fire-escape.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Zoie had barely time to arrange herself after the manner of an
+interesting invalid, when Alfred entered the room in the gayest
+of spirits.
+
+"Hello, dearie," he cried as he crossed quickly to her side.
+
+"Already?" asked Zoie faintly and she glanced uneasily toward the
+door, through which Jimmy and Aggie had just disappeared.
+
+"I told you I shouldn't be long," said Alfred jovially, and he
+implanted a condescending kiss on her forehead.  "How is the
+little mother, eh?" he asked, rubbing his hands together in
+satisfaction.
+
+"You're all cold," pouted Zoie, edging away, "and you've been
+drinking."
+
+"I had to have one or two with the boys," said Alfred, throwing
+out his chest and strutting about the room, "but never again. 
+From now on I cut out all drinks and cigars.  This is where I
+begin to live my life for our sons."
+
+"How about your life for me?" asked Zoie, as she began to see
+long years of boredom stretching before her.
+
+"You and our boys are one and the same, dear," answered Alfred,
+coming back to her side.
+
+"You mean you couldn't go on loving ME if it weren't for the
+BOYS?" asked Zoie, with anxiety.  She was beginning to realise
+how completely her hold upon him depended upon her hideous
+deception.
+
+"Of course I could, Zoie," answered Alfred, flattered by what he
+considered her desire for his complete devotion, "but----"
+
+"But not so MUCH," pouted Zoie.
+
+"Well, of course, dear," admitted Alfred evasively, as he sank
+down upon the edge of the bed by her side--
+
+"You needn't say another word," interrupted Zoie, and then with a
+shade of genuine repentance, she declared shame-facedly that she
+hadn't been "much of a wife" to Alfred.
+
+"Nonsense!" contradicted the proud young father, "you've given me
+the ONE thing that I wanted most in the world."
+
+"But you see, dear," said Zoie, as she wound her little white
+arms about his neck, and looked up into his face adoringly,
+"YOU'VE been the 'ONE' thing that I wanted 'MOST' and I never
+realised until to-night how--how crazy you are about things."
+
+"What things?" asked Alfred, a bit puzzled.
+
+"Well," said Zoie, letting her eyes fall before his and picking
+at a bit of imaginary lint on the coverlet, "babies and things."
+
+"Oh," said Alfred, and he was about to proceed when she again
+interrupted him.
+
+"But now that I DO realise it," continued Zoie, earnestly, her
+fingers on his lips, lest he again interrupt, "if you'll only
+have a little patience with me, I'll--I'll----" again her eyes
+fell bashfully to the coverlet, as she considered the possibility
+of being ultimately obliged to replace the bogus twins with real
+ones.
+
+"All the patience in the world," answered Alfred, little dreaming
+of the problem that confronted the contrite Zoie.
+
+"That's all I ask," declared Zoie, her assurance completely
+restored, "and in case anything SHOULD happen to THESE----" she
+glanced anxiously toward the door through which Aggie had borne
+the twins.
+
+"But nothing is going to happen to these, dear," interrupted
+Alfred, rising and again assuming an air of fatherly protection. 
+"I'll attend to that.  There, there," he added, patting her small
+shoulder and nodding his head wisely.  "That crazy woman has got
+on your nerves, but you needn't worry, I've got everything fixed. 
+Donneghey sent a special officer over with me.  He's outside
+watching the house, now."
+
+"Now!" shrieked Zoie, fixing her eyes on the bedroom door,
+through which Jimmy had lately disappeared and wondering whether
+he had yet "slipped" down the fire-escape.
+
+"Yes," continued Alfred, walking up and down the floor with a
+masterly stride.  "If that woman is caught hanging around here
+again, she'll get a little surprise.  My boys are safe now, God
+bless them!" Then reminded of the fact that he had not seen them
+since his return, he started quickly toward the bedroom door. 
+"I'll just have a look at the little rascals," he decided.
+
+"No, dear," cried Zoie.  She caught Alfred's arm as he passed the
+side of her bed, and clung to him in desperation.  "Wait a
+minute."
+
+Alfred looked down at her in surprise.
+
+She turned her face toward the door, and called lustily, "Aggie!
+Aggie!"
+
+"What is it, dear?" questioned Alfred, thinking Zoie suddenly
+ill, "can I get you something?"
+
+Before Zoie was obliged to reply, Aggie answered her summons.
+
+"Did you call?" she asked, glancing inquiringly into Zoie's
+distressed face.
+
+"Alfred's here," said Zoie, with a sickly smile as she stroked
+his hand and glanced meaningly at Aggie.  "He's GOT the OFFICER!"
+
+"The OFFICER?" cried Aggie, and involuntarily she took a step
+backward, as though to guard the bedroom door.
+
+"Yes," said Alfred, mistaking Aggie's surprise for a compliment
+to his resource; "and now, Aggie, if you'll just stay with Zoie
+for a minute I'll have a look at my boys."
+
+"No, no!" exclaimed Aggie, nervously, and she placed herself
+again in front of the bedroom door.
+
+Alfred was plainly annoyed by her proprietory air.
+
+"They're asleep," explained Aggie.
+
+"I'll not WAKE them," persisted Alfred, "I just wish to have a
+LOOK at them," and with that he again made a move toward the
+door.
+
+"But Alfred," protested Zoie, still clinging to his hand, "you're
+not going to leave me again-- so soon."
+
+Alfred was becoming more and more restive under the seeming
+absurdity of their persistent opposition, but before he could
+think of a polite way of over-ruling them, Aggie continued
+persuasively.
+
+"You stay with Zoie," she said.  "I'll bring the boys in here and
+you can both have a look at them."
+
+"But Aggie," argued Alfred, puzzled by her illogical behaviour,
+"would it be wise to wake them?"
+
+"Just this once," said Aggie.  "Now you stay here and I'll get
+them."  Before Alfred could protest further she was out of the
+room and the door had closed behind her, so he resigned himself
+to her decision, banished his temporary annoyance at her
+obstinacy, and glanced about the room with a new air of
+proprietorship.
+
+"This is certainly a great night, Zoie," he said.
+
+"It certainly is," acquiesced Zoie, with an over emphasis that
+made Alfred turn to her with new concern.
+
+"I'm afraid that mad woman made you very nervous, dear," he said.
+
+"She certainly did," said Zoie.
+
+Zoie's nerves were destined to bear still further strain, for at
+that moment, there came a sharp ring at the door.
+
+Beside herself with anxiety Zoie threw her arms about Alfred, who
+had advanced to soothe her, drew him down by her side and buried
+her head on his breast.
+
+"You ARE jumpy," said Alfred, and at that instant a wrangle of
+loud voices, and a general commotion was heard in the outer hall. 
+"What's that?" asked Alfred, endeavouring to disentangle himself
+from Zoie's frantic embrace.
+
+Zoie clung to him so tightly that he was unable to rise, but his
+alert ear caught the sound of a familiar voice rising above the
+din of dispute in the hallway.
+
+"That sounds like the officer," he exclaimed.
+
+"The officer?" cried Zoie, and she wound her arms more tightly
+about him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+Propelled by a large red fist, attached to the back of his badly
+wilted collar, the writhing form of Jimmy was now thrust through
+the outer door.
+
+"Let go of me," shouted the hapless Jimmy.
+
+The answer was a spasmodic shaking administered by the fist; then
+a large burly officer, carrying a small babe in his arms, shoved
+the reluctant Jimmy into the centre of the room and stood guard
+over him.
+
+"I got him for you, sir," announced the officer proudly, to the
+astonished Alfred, who had just managed to untwine Zoie's arms
+and to struggle to his feet.
+
+Alfred's eyes fell first upon the dejected Jimmy, then they
+travelled to the bundle of long clothes in the officer's arms.
+
+"My boy!" he cried.  "My boy!" He snatched the infant from the
+officer and pressed him jealously to his breast.  "I don't
+understand," he said, gazing at the officer in stupefaction. 
+"Where was he?"
+
+"You mean this one?" asked the officer, nodding toward the
+unfortunate Jimmy.  "I caught him slipping down your
+fire-escape."
+
+"I KNEW it," exclaimed Zoie in a rage, and she cast a vindictive
+look at Jimmy for his awkwardness.
+
+"Knew WHAT, dear?" asked Alfred, now thoroughly puzzled.
+
+Zoie did not answer.  Her powers of resource were fast waning. 
+Alfred turned again to the officer, then to Jimmy, who was still
+flashing defiance into the officer's threatening eyes.
+
+"My God!" he exclaimed, "this is awful.  What's the matter with
+you, Jimmy? This is the third time that you have tried to take my
+baby out into the night."
+
+"Then you've had trouble with him before?" remarked the officer. 
+He studied Jimmy with new interest, proud in the belief that he
+had brought a confirmed "baby-snatcher" to justice.
+
+"I've had a little trouble myself," declared Jimmy hotly, now
+resolved to make a clean breast of it.
+
+"I'm not asking about your troubles," interrupted the officer
+savagely, and Jimmy felt the huge creature's obnoxious fingers
+tightening again on his collar.  "Go ahead, sir," said the
+officer to Alfred.
+
+"Well," began Alfred, nodding toward the now livid Jimmy, "he was
+out with my boy when I arrived.  I stopped him from going out
+with him a second time, and now you, officer, catch him slipping
+down the fire-escape.  I don't know what to say," he finished
+weakly.
+
+"_I_ do," exclaimed Jimmy, feeling more and more like a high
+explosive, "and I'll say it."
+
+"Cut it," shouted the officer.  And before Jimmy could get
+further, Alfred resumed with fresh vehemence.
+
+"He's supposed to be a friend of mine," he explained to the
+officer, as he nodded toward the wriggling Jimmy.  "He was all
+right when I left him a few months ago."
+
+"You'll think I'm all right again," shouted Jimmy, trying to get
+free from the officer, "before I've finished telling all I----"
+
+"That won't help any," interrupted the officer firmly, and with
+another twist of Jimmy's badly wilted collar he turned to Alfred
+with his most civil manner, "What shall I do with him, sir?"
+
+"I don't know," said Alfred, convinced that his friend was a fit
+subject for a straight jacket.  "This is horrible."
+
+"It's absurd," cried Zoie, on the verge of hysterics, and in
+utter despair of ever disentangling the present complication
+without ultimately losing Alfred, "you're all absurd," she cried
+wildly.
+
+"Absurd?" exclaimed Alfred, turning upon her in amazement, "what
+do you mean?"
+
+"It's a joke," said Zoie, without the slightest idea of where the
+joke lay.  "If you had any sense you could see it."
+
+"I DON'T see it," said Alfred, with hurt dignity.
+
+"Neither do I," said Jimmy, with boiling resentment.
+
+"Can you call it a joke," asked Alfred, incredulously, "to have
+our boy----" He stopped suddenly, remembering that there was a
+companion piece to this youngster.  "The other one!" he
+exclaimed, "our other boy----" He rushed to the crib, found it
+empty, and turned a terrified face to Zoie.  "Where is he?" he
+demanded.
+
+"Now, Alfred," pleaded Zoie, "don't get excited; he's all right."
+
+"How do you know?" asked the distracted father.
+
+Zoie did not know, but at that moment her eyes fell upon Jimmy,
+and as usual he was the source of an inspiration for her.
+
+"Jimmy never cared for the other one," she said, "did you,
+Jimmy?"
+
+Alfred turned to the officer, with a tone of command.  "Wait," he
+said, then he started toward the bedroom door to make sure that
+his other boy was quite safe.  The picture that confronted him
+brought the hair straight up on his head.  True to her promise,
+and ignorant of Jimmy's return with the first baby, Aggie had
+chosen this ill-fated moment to appear on the threshold with one
+babe on each arm.
+
+"Here they are," she said graciously, then stopped in amazement
+at sight of the horrified Alfred, clasping a third infant to his
+breast.
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed Alfred, stroking his forehead with his
+unoccupied hand, and gazing at what he firmly believed must be an
+apparition, "THOSE aren't MINE," he pointed to the two red mites
+in Aggie's arms.
+
+"Wh--why not, Alfred?" stammered Aggie for the want of something
+better to say.
+
+"What?" shrieked Alfred.  Then he turned in appeal to his young
+wife, whose face had now become utterly expressionless.  "Zoie?"
+he entreated.
+
+There was an instant's pause, then the blood returned to Zoie's
+face and she proved herself the artist that Alfred had once
+declared her.
+
+"OURS, dear," she murmured softly, with a bashful droop of her
+lids.
+
+"But THIS one?" persisted Alfred, pointing to the baby in his
+arms, and feeling sure that his mind was about to give way.
+
+"Why--why--why," stuttered Zoie, "THAT'S the JOKE."
+
+"The joke?" echoed Alfred, looking as though he found it anything
+but such.
+
+"Yes," added Aggie, sharing Zoie's desperation to get out of
+their temporary difficulty, no matter at what cost in the future. 
+"Didn't Jimmy tell you?"
+
+"Tell me WHAT?" stammered Alfred, "what IS there to tell?"
+
+"Why, you see," said Aggie, growing more enthusiastic with each
+elaboration of Zoie's lie, "we didn't dare to break it to you too
+suddenly."
+
+"Break it to me?" gasped Alfred; a new light was beginning to
+dawn on his face.
+
+"So," concluded Zoie, now thoroughly at home in the new
+situation, "we asked Jimmy to take THAT one OUT."
+
+Jimmy cast an inscrutable glance in Zoie's direction.  Was it
+possible that she was at last assisting him out of a difficulty?
+
+"You 'ASKED Jimmy'?" repeated Alfred.
+
+"Yes," confirmed Aggie, with easy confidence, "we wanted you to
+get used to the idea gradually."
+
+"The idea," echoed Alfred.  He was afraid to allow his mind to
+accept too suddenly the whole significance of their disclosure,
+lest his joy over- power him.  "You--you--do--don't mean----" he
+stuttered.
+
+"Yes, dear," sighed Zoie, with the face of an angel, and then
+with a languid sigh, she sank back contentedly on her pillows.
+
+"My boys! My boys!" cried Alfred, now delirious with delight. 
+"Give them to me," he called to Aggie, and he snatched the
+surprised infants savagely from her arms.  "Give me ALL of them,
+ALL of them."  He clasped the three babes to his breast, then
+dashed to the bedside of the unsuspecting Zoie and covered her
+small face with rapturous kisses.
+
+Feeling the red faces of the little strangers in such close
+proximity to hers, Zoie drew away from them with abhorrence, but
+unconscious of her unmotherly action, Alfred continued his mad
+career about the room, his heart overflowing with gratitude
+toward Zoie in particular and mankind in general.  Finding Aggie
+in the path of his wild jubilee, he treated that bewildered young
+matron to an unwelcome kiss.  A proceeding which Jimmy did not at
+all approve.
+
+Hardly had Aggie recovered from her surprise when the disgruntled
+Jimmy was startled out of his dark mood by the supreme insult of
+a loud resounding kiss implanted on his own cheek by his
+excitable young friend.  Jimmy raised his arm to resist a second
+assault, and Alfred veered off in the direction of the officer,
+who stepped aside just in time to avoid similar demonstration
+from the indiscriminating young father.
+
+Finding a wide circle prescribed about himself and the babies,
+Alfred suddenly stopped and gazed about from one astonished face
+to the other.
+
+"Well," said the officer, regarding Alfred with an injured air,
+and feeling much downcast at being so ignominiously deprived of
+his short-lived heroism in capturing a supposed criminal, "if
+this is all a joke, I'll let the woman go."
+
+"The woman," repeated Alfred; "what woman?"
+
+"I nabbed a woman at the foot of the fire-escape," explained the
+officer.  Zoie and Aggie glanced at each other inquiringly.  "I
+thought she might be an accomplice."
+
+"What does she look like, officer?" asked Alfred.  His manner was
+becoming more paternal, not to say condescending, with the
+arrival of each new infant.
+
+"Don't be silly, Alfred," snapped Zoie, really ashamed that
+Alfred was making such an idiot of himself.  "It's only the
+nurse."
+
+"Oh, that's it," said Alfred, with a wise nod of comprehension;
+"the nurse, then she's in the joke too?" He glanced from one to
+the other.  They all nodded.  "You're all in it," he exclaimed,
+flattered to think that they had considered it necessary to
+combine the efforts of so many of them to deceive him.
+
+"Yes," assented Jimmy sadly, "we are all 'in it.' "
+
+"Well, she's a great actress," decided Alfred, with the air of a
+connoisseur.
+
+"She sure is," admitted Donneghey, more and more disgruntled as
+he felt his reputation for detecting fraud slipping from him. 
+"She put up a phoney story about the kid being hers," he added. 
+"But I could tell she wasn't on the level.  Good-night, sir," he
+called to Alfred, and ignoring Jimmy, he passed quickly from the
+room.
+
+"Oh, officer," Alfred called after him.  "Hang around downstairs. 
+I'll be down later and fix things up with you."  Again Alfred
+gave his whole attention to his new-found family.  He leaned over
+the cradle and gazed ecstatically into the three small faces
+below his.  "This is too much," he murmured.
+
+"Much too much," agreed Jimmy, who was now sitting hunched up on
+the couch in his customary attitude of gloom.
+
+"You were right not to break it to me too suddenly," said Alfred,
+and with his arms encircling three infants he settled himself on
+the couch by Jimmy's side.  "You're a cute one," he continued to
+Jimmy, who was edging away from the three mites with aversion. 
+In the absence of any answer from Jimmy, Alfred appealed to Zoie,
+"Isn't he a cute one, dear?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, yes, VERY," answered Zoie, sarcastically.
+
+Shutting his lips tight and glancing at Zoie with a determined
+effort at self restraint, Jimmy rose from the couch and started
+toward the door.
+
+"If you women are done with me," he said, "I'll clear out."
+
+"Clear out?" exclaimed Alfred, rising quickly and placing himself
+between his old friend and the door.  "What a chance," and he
+laughed boisterously.  "You're not going to get out of my sight
+this night," he declared.  "I'm just beginning to appreciate all
+you've done for me."
+
+"So am I," assented Jimmy, and unconsciously his hand sought the
+spot where his dinner should have been, but Alfred was not to be
+resisted.
+
+"A man needs someone around," he declared, "when he's going
+through a thing like this.  I need all of you, all of you," and
+with his eyes he embraced the weary circle of faces about him. 
+"I feel as though I could go out of my head," he explained and
+with that he began tucking the three small mites in the pink and
+white crib designed for but one.
+
+Zoie regarded him with a bored expression'
+
+"You act as though you WERE out of your head," she commented, but
+Alfred did not heed her.  He was now engaged in the unhoped for
+bliss of singing three babies to sleep with one lullaby.
+
+The other occupants of the room were just beginning to relax and
+to show some resemblance to their natural selves, when their
+features were again simultaneously frozen by a ring at the
+outside door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+Annoyed at being interrupted in the midst of his lullaby, to
+three, Alfred looked up to see Maggie, hatless and out of breath,
+bursting into the room, and destroying what was to him an ideally
+tranquil home scene.  But Maggie paid no heed to Alfred's look of
+inquiry.  She made directly for the side of Zoie's bed.
+
+"If you plaze, mum," she panted, looking down at Zoie, and
+wringing her hands.
+
+"What is it?" asked Aggie, who had now reached the side of the
+bed.
+
+" 'Scuse me for comin' right in"--Maggie was breathing hard--"but
+me mother sint me to tell you that me father is jus afther comin'
+home from work, and he's fightin' mad about the babies, mum."
+
+"Sh! Sh!" cautioned Aggie and Zoie, as they glanced nervously
+toward Alfred who was rising from his place beside the cradle
+with increasing interest in Maggie's conversation.
+
+"Babies?" he repeated, "your father is mad about babies?"
+
+"It's all right, dear," interrupted Zoie nervously; "you see,"
+she went on to explain, pointing toward the trembling Maggie,
+"this is our washerwoman's little girl.  Our washerwoman has had
+twins, too, and it made the wash late, and her husband is angry
+about it."
+
+"Oh," said Alfred, with a comprehensive nod, but Maggie was not
+to be so easily disposed of.
+
+"If you please, mum," she objected, "it ain't about the wash. 
+It's about our baby girls."
+
+"Girls?" exclaimed Zoie involuntarily.
+
+"Girls?" repeated Alfred, drawing himself up in the fond
+conviction that all his heirs were boys, "No wonder your pa's
+angry.  I'd be angry too.  Come now," he said to Maggie, patting
+the child on the shoulder and regarding her indulgently, "you go
+straight home and tell your father that what HE needs is BOYS."
+
+"Well, of course, sir," answered the bewildered Maggie, thinking
+that Alfred meant to reflect upon the gender of the offspring
+donated by her parents, "if you ain't afther likin' girls, me
+mother sint the money back," and with that she began to feel for
+the pocket in her red flannel petticoat.
+
+"The money?" repeated Alfred, in a puzzled way, "what money?"
+
+It was again Zoie's time to think quickly.
+
+"The money for the wash, dear," she explained.
+
+"Nonsense!" retorted Alfred, positively beaming generosity, "who
+talks of money at such a time as this?" And taking a ten dollar
+bill from his pocket, he thrust it in Maggie's outstretched hand,
+while she was trying to return to him the original purchase
+money.  "Here," he said to the astonished girl, "you take this to
+your father.  Tell him I sent it to him for his babies.  Tell him
+to start a bank account with it."
+
+This was clearly not a case with which one small addled mind
+could deal, or at least, so Maggie decided.  She had a hazy idea
+that Alfred was adding something to the original purchase price
+of her young sisters, but she was quite at a loss to know how to
+refuse the offer of such a "grand 'hoigh" gentleman, even though
+her failure to do so would no doubt result in a beating when she
+reached home.  She stared at Alfred undecided what to do, the
+money still lay in her outstretched hand.
+
+"I'm afraid Pa'll niver loike it, sir," she said.
+
+"Like it?" exclaimed Alfred in high feather, and he himself
+closed her red little fingers over the bill, "he's GOT to like
+it.  He'll GROW to like it.  Now you run along," he concluded to
+Maggie, as he urged her toward the door, "and tell him what I
+say."
+
+"Yes, sir," murmured Maggie, far from sharing Alfred's
+enthusiasm.
+
+Feeling no desire to renew his acquaintance with Maggie,
+particularly under Alfred's watchful eye, Jimmy had sought his
+old refuge, the high backed chair.  As affairs progressed and
+there seemed no doubt of Zoie's being able to handle the
+situation to the satisfaction of all concerned, Jimmy allowed
+exhaustion and the warmth of the firelight to have their way with
+him.  His mind wandered toward other things and finally into
+space.  His head dropped lower and lower on his chest; his
+breathing became laboured-- so laboured in fact that it attracted
+the attention of Maggie, who was about to pass him on her way to
+the door.
+
+"Sure an it's Mr.  Jinks!" exclaimed Maggie.  Then coming close
+to the side of the unsuspecting sleeper, she hissed a startling
+message in his ear.  "Me mother said to tell you that me fadder's
+hoppin' mad at you, sir."
+
+Jimmy sat up and rubbed his eyes.  He studied the young person at
+his elbow, then he glanced at Alfred, utterly befuddled as to
+what had happened while he had been on a journey to happier
+scenes.  Apparently Maggie was waiting for an answer to
+something, but to what? Jimmy thought he detected an ominous look
+in Alfred's eyes.  Letting his hand fall over the arm of the
+chair so that Alfred could not see it, Jimmy began to make
+frantic signals to Maggie to depart; she stared at him the
+harder.
+
+"Go away," whispered Jimmy, but Maggie did not move.  "Shoo,
+shoo!" he said, and waved her off with his hand.
+
+Puzzled by Jimmy's sudden aversion to this apparently harmless
+child, Alfred turned to Maggie with a puckered brow.
+
+"Your father's mad at Jimmy?" he repeated.  "What about?"
+
+For once Jimmy found it in his heart to be grateful to Zoie for
+the prompt answer that came from her direction.
+
+"The wash, dear," said Zoie to Alfred; "Jimmy had to go after the
+wash," and then with a look which Maggie could not mistake for an
+invitation to stop longer, Zoie called to her haughtily, "You
+needn't wait, Maggie; we understand."
+
+"Sure, an' it's more 'an I do," answered Maggie, and shaking her
+head sadly, she slipped from the room.
+
+But Alfred could not immediately dismiss from his mind the
+picture of Maggie's inhuman parent.
+
+"Just fancy," he said, turning his head to one side meditatively,
+"fancy any man not liking to be the father of twins," and with
+that he again bent over the cradle and surveyed its contents. 
+"Think, Jimmy," he said, when he had managed to get the three
+youngsters in his arms, "just think of the way THAT father feels,
+and then think of the way _I_ feel."
+
+"And then think of the way _I_ feel," grumbled Jimmy.
+
+"You!" exclaimed Alfred; "what have you to feel about?"
+
+Before Jimmy could answer, the air was rent by a piercing scream
+and a crash of glass from the direction of the inner rooms.
+
+"What's that?" whispered Aggie, with an anxious glance toward
+Zoie.
+
+"Sounded like breaking glass," said Alfred.
+
+"Burglars!" exclaimed Zoie, for want of anything better to
+suggest.
+
+"Burglars?" repeated Alfred with a superior air; "nonsense!
+Nonsense! Here," he said, turning to Jimmy, "you hold the boys
+and I'll go see----" and before Jimmy was aware of the honour
+about to be thrust upon him, he felt three red, spineless
+morsels, wriggling about in his arms.  He made what lap he could
+for the armful, and sat up in a stiff, strained attitude on the
+edge of the couch.  In the meantime, Alfred had strode into the
+adjoining room with the air of a conqueror.  Aggie looked at
+Zoie, with dreadful foreboding.
+
+"You don't suppose it could be?" she paused.
+
+"My baby!" shrieked the voice of the Italian mother from the
+adjoining room.  "Where IS he?"
+
+Regardless of the discomfort of his three disgruntled charges,
+Jimmy began to circle the room.  So agitated was his mind that he
+could scarcely hear Aggie, who was reporting proceedings from her
+place at the bedroom door.
+
+"She's come up the fire-escape," cried Aggie; "she's beating
+Alfred to death."
+
+"What?" shrieked Zoie, making a flying leap from her coverlets.
+
+"She's locking him in the bathroom," declared Aggie, and with
+that she disappeared from the room, bent on rescue.
+
+"My Alfred!" cried Zoie, tragically, and she started in pursuit
+of Aggie.
+
+"Wait a minute," called Jimmy, who had not yet been able to find
+a satisfactory place in which to deposit his armful of clothes
+and humanity.  "What shall I do with these things?"
+
+"Eat 'em," was Zoie's helpful retort, as the trailing end of her
+negligee disappeared from the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+Now, had Jimmy been less perturbed during the latter part of this
+commotion, he might have heard the bell of the outside door,
+which had been ringing violently for some minutes.  As it was, he
+was wholly unprepared for the flying advent of Maggie.
+
+"Oh, plaze, sir," she cried, pointing with trembling fingers
+toward the babes in Jimmy's arms, "me fadder's coming right
+behind me.  He's a-lookin' for you sir."
+
+"For me," murmured Jimmy, wondering vaguely why everybody on
+earth seemed to be looking for HIM.
+
+"Put 'em down, sir," cried Maggie, still pointing to the three
+babies, "put 'em down.  He's liable to wallop you."
+
+"Put 'em where?" asked Jimmy, now utterly confused as to which
+way to turn.
+
+"There," said Maggie, and she pointed to the cradle beneath his
+very eyes.
+
+"Of course," said Jimmy vapidly, and he sank on his knees and
+strove to let the wobbly creatures down easily.
+
+Bang went the outside door.
+
+"That's Pa now," cried Maggie.  "Oh hide, sir, hide."  And with
+that disconcerting warning, she too deserted him.
+
+"Hide where?" gasped Jimmy.
+
+There was a moment's awful silence.  Jimmy rose very cautiously
+from the cradle, his eyes sought the armchair.  It had always
+betrayed him.  He glanced toward the window.  It was twelve
+stories to the pavement.  He looked towards the opposite door;
+beyond that was the mad Italian woman.  His one chance lay in
+slipping unnoticed through the hallway; he made a determined dash
+in that direction, but no sooner had he put his head through the
+door, than he drew it back quickly.  The conversation between
+O'Flarety and the maid in the hallway was not reassuring.  Jimmy
+decided to take a chance with the Italian mother, and as fast as
+he could, he streaked it toward the opposite door.  The shrieks
+and denunciations that he met from this direction were more
+disconcerting than those of the Irish father.  For an instant he
+stood in the centre of the room, wavering as to which side to
+surrender himself.
+
+The thunderous tones of the enraged father drew nearer; he threw
+himself on the floor and attempted to roll under the bed; the
+space between the railing and the floor was far too narrow.  Why
+had he disregarded Aggie's advice as to diet? The knob of the
+door handle was turning--he vaulted into the bed and drew the
+covers over his head just as O'Flarety, trembling with
+excitement, and pursued by Maggie, burst into the room.
+
+"Lave go of me," cried O'Flarety to Maggie, who clung to his arm
+in a vain effort to soothe him, and flinging her off, he made
+straight for the bed.
+
+"Ah," he cried, gazing with dilated nostrils at the trembling
+object beneath the covers, "there you are, mum," and he shook his
+fist above what he believed to be the cowardly Mrs.  Hardy.  "
+'Tis well ye may cover up your head," said he, "for shame on yez!
+Me wife may take in washing, but when I comes home at night I
+wants me kids, and I'll be after havin' 'em too.  Where ar'
+they?" he demanded.  Then getting no response from the agitated
+covers, he glanced wildly about the room.  "Glory be to God!" he
+exclaimed as his eyes fell on the crib; but he stopped short in
+astonishment, when upon peering into it, he found not one, or
+two, but three "barren."
+
+"They're child stalers, that's what they are," he declared to
+Maggie, as he snatched Bridget and Norah to his no doubt
+comforting breast.  "Me little Biddy," he crooned over his much
+coveted possession.  "Me little Norah," he added fondly, looking
+down at his second.  The thought of his narrow escape from losing
+these irreplaceable treasures rekindled his wrath.  Again he
+strode toward the bed and looked down at the now semi-quiet
+comforter.
+
+"The black heart of ye, mum," he roared, then ordering Maggie to
+give back "every penny of that shameless creetur's money" he
+turned toward the door.
+
+So intense had been O'Flarety's excitement and so engrossed was
+he in his denunciation that he had failed to see the wild-eyed
+Italian woman rushing toward him from the opposite door.
+
+"You, you!" cried the frenzied woman and, to O'Flarety's
+astonishment, she laid two strong hands upon his arm and drew him
+round until he faced her.  "Where are you going with my baby?"
+she asked, then peering into the face of the infant nearest to
+her, she uttered a disappointed moan.  " 'Tis not my baby!" she
+cried.  She scanned the face of the second infant--again she
+moaned.
+
+Having begun to identify this hysterical creature as the possible
+mother of the third infant, O'Flarety jerked his head in the
+direction of the cradle.
+
+"I guess you'll find what you're lookin' for in there," he said. 
+Then bidding Maggie to "git along out o' this" and shrugging his
+shoulders to convey his contempt for the fugitive beneath the
+coverlet, he swept quickly from the room.
+
+Clasping her long-sought darling to her heart and weeping with
+delight, the Italian mother was about to follow O'Flarety through
+the door when Zoie staggered into the room, weak and exhausted.
+
+"You, you!" called the indignant Zoie to the departing mother. 
+"How dare you lock my husband in the bathroom?" She pointed to
+the key, which the woman still unconsciously clasped in her hand. 
+"Give me that key," she demanded, "give it to me this instant."
+
+"Take your horrid old key," said the mother, and she threw it on
+the floor.  "If you ever try to get my baby again, I'll lock your
+husband in JAIL," and murmuring excited maledictions in her
+native tongue, she took her welcome departure.
+
+Zoie stooped for the key, one hand to her giddy head, but Aggie,
+who had just returned to the room, reached the key first and
+volunteered to go to the aid of the captive Alfred, who was
+pounding desperately on the bathroom door and demanding his
+instant release.
+
+"I'll let him out," said Aggie.  "You get into bed," and she
+slipped quickly from the room.
+
+Utterly exhausted and half blind with fatigue Zoie lifted the
+coverlet and slipped beneath it.  Her first sensation was of
+touching something rough and scratchy, then came the awful
+conviction that the thing against which she lay was alive.
+
+Without stopping to investigate the identity of her uninvited
+bed-fellow, or even daring to look behind her, Zoie fled from the
+room emitting a series of screams that made all her previous
+efforts in that direction seem mere baby cries.  So completely
+had Jimmy been enveloped in the coverlets and for so long a time
+that he had acquired a vague feeling of aloftness toward the rest
+of his fellows, and had lost all knowledge of their goings and
+comings.  But when his unexpected companion was thrust upon him
+he was galvanised into sudden action by her scream, and swathed
+in a large pink comforter, he rolled ignominiously from the upper
+side of the bed, where he lay on the floor panting and enmeshed,
+awaiting further developments.  Of one thing he was certain, a
+great deal had transpired since he had sought the friendly solace
+of the covers and he had no mind to lose so good a friend as the
+pink comforter.  By the time he had summoned sufficient courage
+to peep from under its edge, a babel of voices was again drawing
+near, and he hastily drew back in his shell and waited.
+
+Not daring to glance at the scene of her fright, Zoie pushed
+Aggie before her into the room and demanded that she look in the
+bed.
+
+Seeing the bed quite empty and noticing nothing unusual in the
+fact that the pink comforter, along with other covers, had
+slipped down behind it, Aggie hastened to reassure her terrified
+friend.
+
+"You imagined it, Zoie," she declared, "look for yourself."
+
+Zoie's small face peeped cautiously around the edge of the
+doorway.
+
+"Well, perhaps I did," she admitted; then she slipped gingerly
+into the room, "my nerves are jumping like fizzy water."
+
+They were soon to "jump" more, for at this instant, Alfred,
+burning with anger at the indignity of having been locked in the
+bathroom, entered the room, demanding to know the whereabouts of
+the lunatic mother, who had dared to make him a captive in his
+own house.
+
+"Where is she?" he called to Zoie and Aggie, and his eye roved
+wildly about the room.  Then his mind reverted with anxiety to
+his newly acquired offspring.  "My boys!" he cried, and he rushed
+toward the crib.  "They're gone!" he declared tragically.
+
+"Gone?" echoed Aggie.
+
+"Not ALL of them," said Zoie.
+
+"All," insisted Alfred, and his hands went distractedly toward
+his head.  "She's taken them all."
+
+Zoie and Aggie looked at each other in a dazed way.  They had a
+hazy recollection of having seen one babe disappear with the
+Italian woman, but what had become of the other two?
+
+"Where did they go?" asked Aggie.
+
+"I don't know," said Zoie, with the first truth she had spoken
+that night, "I left them with Jimmy."
+
+"Jimmy!" shrieked Alfred, and a diabolical light lit his
+features.  "Jimmy!" he snorted, with sudden comprehension, "then
+he's at it again.  He's crazy as she is.  This is inhuman.  This
+joke has got to stop!" And with that decision he started toward
+the outer door.
+
+"But Allie!" protested Zoie, really alarmed by the look that she
+saw on his face.
+
+Alfred turned to his trembling wife with suppressed excitement,
+and patted her shoulder condescendingly.
+
+"Control yourself, my dear," he said.  "Control yourself; I'll
+get your babies for you--trust me, I'll get them.  And then," he
+added with parting emphasis from the doorway, "I'll SETTLE WITH
+JIMMY!"
+
+By uncovering one eye, Jimmy could now perceive that Zoie and
+Aggie were engaged in a heated argument at the opposite side of
+the room.  By uncovering one ear he learned that they were
+arranging a line of action for him immediately upon his
+reappearance.  He determined not to wait for the details.
+
+Fixing himself cautiously on all fours, and making sure that he
+was well covered by the pink comforter, he began to crawl slowly
+toward the bedroom door.
+
+Turning away from Aggie with an impatient exclamation, Zoie
+suddenly beheld what seemed to her a large pink monster with
+protruding claws wriggling its way hurriedly toward the inner
+room.
+
+"Look!" she screamed, and pointing in horror toward the dreadful
+creature now dragging itself across the threshold, she sank
+fainting into Aggie's outstretched arms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+Having dragged the limp form of her friend to the near-by couch,
+Aggie was bending over her to apply the necessary restoratives,
+when Alfred returned in triumph.  He was followed by the officer
+in whose arms were three infants, and behind whom was the irate
+O'Flarety, the hysterical Italian woman, and last of all, Maggie.
+
+"Bring them all in here, officer," called Alfred over his
+shoulder.  "I'll soon prove to you whose babies those are."  Then
+turning to Aggie, who stood between him and the fainting Zoie he
+cried triumphantly, "I've got them Aggie, I've got them."  He
+glanced toward the empty bed.  "Where's Zoie?" he asked.
+
+"She's fainted," said Aggie, and stepping from in front of the
+young wife, she pointed toward the couch.
+
+"Oh, my darling!" cried Alfred, with deep concern as he rushed to
+Zoie and began frantically patting her hands.  "My poor
+frightened darling!" Then he turned to the officer, his sense of
+injury welling high within him, "You see what these people have
+done to my wife? She's fainted."  Ignoring the uncomplimentary
+remarks of O'Flarety, he again bent over Zoie.
+
+"Rouse yourself, my dear," he begged of her.  "Look at me," he
+pleaded.  "Your babies are safe."
+
+"HER babies!" snorted O'Flarety, unable longer to control his
+pent up indignation.
+
+"I'll let you know when I want to hear from you," snarled the
+officer to O'Flarety.
+
+"But they're NOT her babies," protested the Italian woman
+desperately.
+
+"Cut it," shouted the officer, and with low mutterings, the
+outraged parents were obliged to bide their time.
+
+Lifting Zoie to a sitting posture Alfred fanned her gently until
+she regained her senses.  "Your babies are all right," he assured
+her.  "I've brought them all back to you."
+
+"All?" gasped Zoie weakly, and she wondered what curious fate had
+been intervening to assist Alfred in such a prodigious
+undertaking.
+
+"Yes, dear," said Alfred, "every one," and he pointed toward the
+three infants in the officer's arms.  "See, dear, see."
+
+Zoie turned her eyes upon what SEEMED to her numberless red
+faces.  "Oh!" she moaned and again she swooned.
+
+"I told you she'd be afraid to face us," shouted the now
+triumphant O'Flarety.
+
+"You brute!" retorted the still credulous Alfred, "how dare you
+persecute this poor demented mother?"
+
+Alfred's persistent solicitude for Zoie was too much for the
+resentful Italian woman.
+
+"She didn't persecute me, oh no!" she exclaimed sarcastically.
+
+"Keep still, you!" commanded the officer.
+
+Again Zoie was reviving and again Alfred lifted her in his arms
+and begged her to assure the officer that the babies in question
+were hers.
+
+"Let's hear her SAY it," demanded O'Flarety.
+
+"You SHALL hear her," answered Alfred, with confidence.  Then he
+beckoned to the officer to approach, explaining that Zoie was
+very weak.
+
+"Sure," said the officer; then planting himself directly in front
+of Zoie's half closed eyes, he thrust the babies upon her
+attention.
+
+"Look, Zoie!" pleaded Alfred.  "Look!"
+
+Zoie opened her eyes to see three small red faces immediately
+opposite her own.
+
+"Take them away!" she cried, with a frantic wave of her arm,
+"take them away!"
+
+"What?" exclaimed Alfred in astonishment.
+
+"What did I tell you?" shouted O'Flarety.  This hateful reminder
+brought Alfred again to the protection of his young and
+defenceless wife.
+
+"The excitement has unnerved her," he said to the officer.
+
+"Ain't you about done with my kids?" asked O'Flarety, marvelling
+how any man with so little penetration as the officer, managed to
+hold down a "good payin' job."
+
+"What do you want for your proof anyway?" asked the mother.  But
+Alfred's faith in the validity of his new parenthood was not to
+be so easily shaken.
+
+"My wife is in no condition to be questioned," he declared. 
+"She's out of her head, and if you don't----"
+
+He stepped suddenly, for without warning, the door was thrown
+open and a second officer strode into their midst dragging by the
+arm the reluctant Jimmy.
+
+"I guess I've got somethin' here that you folks need in your
+business," he called, nodding toward the now utterly demoralised
+Jimmy.
+
+"Jimmy!" exclaimed Aggie, having at last got her breath.
+
+"The Joker!" cried Alfred, bearing down upon the panting Jimmy
+with a ferocious expression.
+
+"I caught him slipping down the fire-escape," explained the
+officer.
+
+"Again?" exclaimed Aggie and Alfred in tones of deep reproach.
+
+"Jimmy," said Alfred, coming close to his friend, and fixing his
+eyes upon him in a determined effort to control the poor
+creature's fast failing faculties, "you know the truth of this
+thing.  You are the one who sent me that telegram, you are the
+one who told me that I was a father."
+
+"Well, aren't you a father?" asked Aggie, trying to protect her
+dejected spouse.
+
+"Of course I am," replied Alfred, with every confidence, "but I
+have to prove it to the officer.  Jimmy knows," he concluded. 
+Then turning to the uncomfortable man at his side, he demanded
+imperatively, "Tell the officer the truth, you idiot.  No more of
+your jokes.  Am I a father or am I not?"
+
+"If you're depending on ME for your future offspring," answered
+Jimmy, wagging his head with the air of a man reckless of
+consequences, "you are NOT a father."
+
+"Depending on YOU?" gasped Alfred, and he stared at his friend in
+bewilderment.  "What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Ask them," answered Jimmy, and he nodded toward Zoie and Aggie.
+
+Alfred appealed to Aggie.
+
+"Ask Zoie," said Aggie.
+
+Alfred bent over the form of the again prostrate Zoie.  "My
+darling," he entreated, "rouse yourself."  Slowly she opened her
+eyes.  "Now," said Alfred, with enforced self-control, "you must
+look the officer squarely in the eye and tell him whose babies
+those are," and he nodded toward the officer, who was now
+beginning to entertain grave doubts on the subject.
+
+"How should _I_ know?" cried Zoie, too exhausted for further
+lying.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Alfred, his hand on his forehead.
+
+"I only borrowed them," said Zoie, "to get you home," and with
+that she sank back on the couch and closed her eyes.
+
+"What did I tell you?" cried the triumphant O'Flarety.
+
+"I guess they're your'n all right," admitted the officer
+doggedly, and he grudgingly released the three infants to their
+rightful parents.
+
+"I guess they'd better be," shouted O'Flarety; then he and the
+Italian woman made for the door with their babes pressed close to
+their hearts.
+
+"Wait a minute," cried Alfred.  "I want an understanding."
+
+O'Flarety turned in the doorway and raised a warning fist.
+
+"If you don't leave my kids alone, you'll GIT 'an understanding.'
+"
+
+"Me too," added the mother.
+
+"On your way," commanded the officer to the pair of them, and
+together with Maggie and the officer, they disappeared forever
+from the Hardy household.
+
+Alfred gazed about the room.  "My God!" he exclaimed; then he
+turned to Jimmy who was still in the custody of the second
+officer:  "If I'm not a father, what am I?"
+
+"I'd hate to tell you," was Jimmy's unsympathetic reply, and in
+utter dejection Alfred sank on the foot of the bed and buried his
+head in his hands.
+
+"What shall I do with this one, sir?" asked the officer,
+undecided as to Jimmy's exact standing in the household.
+
+"Shoot him, for all I care," groaned Alfred, and he rocked to and
+fro.
+
+"How ungrateful!" exclaimed Aggie, then she signalled to the
+officer to go.
+
+"No more of your funny business," said the officer with a parting
+nod at Jimmy and a vindictive light in his eyes when he
+remembered the bruises that Jimmy had left on his shins.
+
+"Oh, Jimmy!" said Aggie sympathetically, and she pressed her hot
+face against his round apoplectic cheek.  "You poor dear! And
+after all you have done for us!"
+
+"Yes," sneered Zoie, having regained sufficient strength to
+stagger to her feet, "he's done a lot, hasn't he?" And then
+forgetting that her original adventure with Jimmy which had
+brought about such disastrous results was still unknown to Aggie
+and Alfred, she concluded bitterly, "All this would never have
+happened, if it hadn't been for Jimmy and his horrid old
+luncheon."
+
+Jimmy was startled.  This was too much, and just as he had seemed
+to be well out of complications for the remainder of his no doubt
+short life.  He turned to bolt for the door but Aggie's eyes were
+upon him.
+
+"Luncheon?" exclaimed Aggie and she regarded him with a puzzled
+frown.
+
+Zoie's hand was already over her lips, but too late.
+
+Recovering from his somewhat bewildering sense of loss, Alfred,
+too, was now beginning to sit up and take notice.
+
+"What luncheon?" he demanded.
+
+Zoie gazed from Alfred to Aggie, then at Jimmy, then resolving to
+make a clean breast of the matter, she sidled toward Alfred with
+her most ingratiating manner.
+
+"Now, Alfred," she purred, as she endeavoured to act one arm
+about his unsuspecting neck, "if you'll only listen, I'll tell
+you the REAL TRUTH."
+
+A wild despairing cry from Alfred, a dash toward the door by
+Jimmy, and a determined effort on Aggie's part to detain her
+spouse, temporarily interrupted Zoie's narrative.
+
+But in spite of these discouragements, Zoie did eventually tell
+Alfred the real truth, and before the sun had risen on the
+beginning of another day, she had added to her confession,
+promises whose happy fulfillment was evidenced for many years
+after by the chatter of glad young voices, up and down the
+stairway of Alfred's new suburban home, and the flutter of golden
+curls in and out amongst the sunlight and shadows of his ample,
+well kept grounds.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Baby Mine, by Margaret Mayo
+
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