"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," a.s.sented 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 a.s.serted.

"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.