"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.

THE END