"Don't you do ut, my lamb-don't you do ut!" She turned to them both-they had never seen her blue eyes so fiery before. "Suppose you was one av these poor little chilthren that lives round here that's always had harrd wurruds for their meals and hunger for their pillow, wudn't you be afther staling yersilf if ut came aisy-loike and n.o.body was luking?"

Neither Billy nor Maida spoke for a moment.

"I guess Granny's right," Billy said finally.

"I guess she is," Maida said with a sigh.

It was three days before Arthur Duncan came into the shop again. But in the meantime, Maida went one afternoon to play with d.i.c.ky. d.i.c.ky was drawing at a table when Maida came in. She glanced at his work.

He was using a striped pencil with a blue stone in its end, a blank-book with the picture of a little girl on the cover, a rubber of a kind very familiar to her. Maida knew certainly that d.i.c.ky had bought none of these things from her. She knew as certainly that they were the things Arthur Duncan had stolen. What was the explanation of the mystery? She went to bed that night miserably unhappy.

Her heart beat pit-a-pat the next time she saw Arthur open the door.

She folded her hands close together so that he should not see that she was trembling. She began to wish that she had followed Billy's advice. Sitting in the shop all alone-Granny, it happened again, was out-it occurred to her that it was, perhaps, too serious a situation for a little girl to deal with.

She had made up her mind that when Arthur was in the shop, she would not turn her back to him. She was determined not to give him the chance to fall into temptation. But he asked for pencil-sharpeners and pencil-sharpeners were kept in the lower drawer. There was nothing for her to do but to get down on the floor. She remembered with a sense of relief that she had left no stock out on the counter. She knelt upright on the floor, seeking for the box.

Suddenly, reflected in the gla.s.s door, she saw another terrifying picture.

_Arthur Duncan's arm was just closing the money drawer._

For an instant Maida felt so sick at heart that she wanted to run back into the living-room, throw herself into Granny's big chair and cry her eyes out. Then suddenly all this weakness went. A feeling, such as she had never known, came into its place. She was still angry but she was singularly cool. She felt no more afraid of Arthur Duncan than of the bowl of dahlias, blooming on the counter.

She whirled around in a flash and looked him straight in the eye.

"If there is anything in this shop that you want so much that you are willing to steal, tell me what it is and I'll give it to you,"

she said.

"Aw, what are you talking about?" Arthur demanded. He attempted to out-stare her.

But Maida kept her eyes steadily on his. "You know what I'm talking about well enough," she said quietly. "In the last week you've stolen a rubber and a pencil and a blank-book from me and just now you tried to take some money from the money-drawer."

Arthur sneered. "How are you going to prove it?" he asked impudently.

Maida was thoroughly angry. But something inside warned her that she must not give way to temper. For all her life, she had been accustomed to think before she spoke. Indeed, she herself had never been driven or scolded. Her father had always reasoned with her.

Doctors and nurses had always reasoned with her. Even Granny had always reasoned with her. So, now, she thought very carefully before she spoke again. But she kept her eyes fixed on Arthur. His eyes did not move from hers but, in some curious way, she knew that he was uneasy.

"I can't prove it," she said at last, "and I hadn't any idea of trying to. I'm only warning you that you must not come in here if you're not to be trusted. And I told you the truth when I said I would rather give you anything in the shop than have you steal it.

For I think you must need those things very badly to be willing to get them that way. I don't believe anybody _wants_ to steal. Now when you want anything so bad as that, come to me and I'll see if I can get it for you."

Arthur stared at her as if he had not a word on his tongue. "If you think you can frighten me,-" he said. Then, without ending his sentence, he swaggered out of the shop. But to Maida his swagger seemed like something put on to conceal another feeling.

Maida suddenly felt very tired. She wished that Granny Flynn would come back. She wanted Granny to take her into her lap, to cuddle her, to tell her some merry little tale of the Irish fairies. But, instead, the bell rang and another customer came in. While she was waiting on her, Maida noticed somebody come stealthily up to the window, look in and then duck down. She wondered if it might be Billy playing one of his games on her.

The customer went out. In a few moments the bell tinkled again.

Maida had been leaning against the counter, her tired head on her outstretched arms. She looked up. It was Arthur Duncan.

He strode straight over to her.

"Here's three cents for your rubber," he said, "and five for your pencil, five for the blank book and there's two dimes I took out of the money-drawer."

Maida did not know what to say. The tears came to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Arthur shifted his weight from one foot to the other in intense embarra.s.sment.

"I didn't know it would make you feel as bad as that," he said.

"I don't feel bad," Maida sobbed-and to prove it she smiled while the tears ran down her cheeks-"I feel glad."

What he would have answered to this she never knew. For at that moment the door flew open. The little rowdy boys who had been troubling her so much lately, let out a series of blood-curdling yells.

"What's that?" Arthur asked.

"I don't know who they are," Maida said wearily, "but they do that three or four times every night. I don't know what to do about it."

"Well, I do," Arthur said. "You wait!"

He went over to the door and waited, flattening himself against the wall. After a long silence, they could hear footsteps tip-toeing on the bricks outside. The door flew open. Arthur Duncan leaped like a cat through the opening. There came back to Maida the sound of running, then a pause, then another sound very much as if two or three naughty little heads were being vigorously knocked together.

She heard Arthur say:

"Let me catch one of you doing that again and I'll lick you till you can't stand up. And remember I'll be watching for you every night now."

Maida did not see him again then. But just before dinner the bell rang. When Maida opened the door there stood Arthur.

"I had this kitten and I thought you might like him," he said awkwardly, holding out a little bundle of gray fluff.

"Want it!" Maida said. She seized it eagerly. "Oh, thank you, Arthur, ever so much. Oh, Granny, look at this darling kit-kat. What a ball of fluff he is! I'll call him Fluff. And he isn't an Angora or a prize kitty of any kind-just a beautiful plain everyday cat-the kind I've always wanted!"

Even this was not all. After dinner the shop bell rang again. This time it was Arthur and Rosie. Rosie's lips were very tight as if she had made up her mind to some bold deed but her flashing eyes showed her excitement.

"Can we see you alone for a moment, Maida?" she asked in her most business-like tones.

Wondering, Maida shut the door to the living-room and came back to them.

"Maida," Rosie began, "Arthur told me all about the rubber and the pencil and the blank book and the dimes. Of course, I felt pretty bad when I heard about it. But I wanted Arthur to come right over here and explain the whole thing to you. You see Arthur took those things to give away to d.i.c.ky because d.i.c.ky has such a hard time getting anything he wants."

"Yes, I saw them over at d.i.c.ky's," Maida said.

"And then, there was a great deal more to it that Arthur's just told me and I thought you ought to know it at once. You see Arthur's father belongs to a club that meets once a month and Arthur goes there a lot with him. And those men think that plenty of people have things that they have no right to-oh, like automobiles-I mean, things that they haven't earned. And the men in Mr. Duncan's club say that it's perfectly right to take things away from people who have too much and give them to people who have too little. But I say that may be all right for grown people but when children do it, it's just plain _stealing_. And that's all there is to it! But I wanted you to know that Arthur thought it was right-well sort of right, you understand-when he took those things. You don't think so now, do you, after the talking-to I've given you?" She turned severely on Arthur.

Arthur shuffled and looked embarra.s.sed. "No," he said sheepishly, "not until you're grown up."

"But what I wanted to say next, Maida," Rosie continued, "is, please not to tell d.i.c.ky. He would be so surprised-and then he wouldn't keep the things that Arthur gave him. And of course now that Arthur has paid for them-they're all right for him to have."

"Of course I wouldn't tell anybody," Maida said in a shocked voice, "not even Granny or Billy-not even my father."

"Then that's settled," Rosie said with a sigh. "Good night."

The next day the following note reached Maida:

You are cordully invited to join the W.M.N.T. Club which meets three times a week at the house of Miss Rosie Brine, or Mr.

Richard Dore or Mr. Arthur Duncan.