led 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 excitemen