"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 gla.s.s from the direction of the inner rooms.

"What's that?" whispered Aggie, with an anxious glance toward Zoie.

"Sounded like breaking gla.s.s," 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 att.i.tude 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 rea.s.suring. 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 s.p.a.ce between the railing and the floor was far too narrow. Why had he disregarded Aggie's advice as to diet? The k.n.o.b 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 G.o.d!"

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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 ident.i.ty 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 sh.e.l.l 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 rea.s.sure her terrified friend.