er the
stubble of his hair, and went out, slamming the door.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE END OF A LONG DAY

A LONG moment of breathless silence--while four pairs of eyes fixed
themselves upon the hall door, and as many pairs of ears strained to
follow the creak and clump of Big Tom's departure. The sound of his
steps died away. Another, and a longer, wait, and the door moved and
rattled, that signal which marked the opening and shutting of the area
door three flights below. The longshoreman was really gone. Cis laid her
forehead against an arm of the wheel chair, and burst into tears,
clinging to old Grandpa, and trembling, and frightening him into
weeping; whereupon Johnnie hurried to them, and alternately patted them
comfortingly, and Father Pat came to stand over the three.

"Dear! dear! dear!" exclaimed the priest. "But ain't I glad that I came,
though! Shure, the big baboon was ugly! Ha-ha-a-a! And when he's like
that, faith, and how he throws the coconuts!"

That fetched the smiles, even from Cis. And, "Oh-ho! Here comes the
sun!" cried the Father, beaming joyously at them all. "Shure, we've had
the thunderstorm, and the air's clear, and so all the kittens dear can
come out o' their corners, and frisk a bit! Faith, I wasn't half as mad
as I sounded. No, I wasn't, old gentleman! (And what's that he's holdin'
on to? Bless me soul, is it a doll?)" Then having taken up Letitia, and
turned her about, and chuckled over her, and given her into Grandpa's
outstretched hands again, "It's only that our rampin' Mr. Barber," he
explained, "wouldn't understand me if I didn't give him a bit o' the
rough edge o' me tongue--no, nor respect me, neither! So I laid it on a
mite thick!--Oh, that man! Say, he'd sell the tears right out o' yer
eye! Yes, he would! He'd sell yer eyelashes t' make a broom for a fly!"

"Big Tom, he makes me awful 'fraid sometimes," confessed Johnnie. "But
he makes Cis lots 'fraider, 'cause she's only a girl."

"A girl!" cried the Father. "And ye think bein' a girl is anny good
reason for bein' afraid? Faith, little friend, have ye not got hold o' a
wrong notion entirely about girls?" Then seeing that here was an
opportunity to take the thoughts of these two harried ones away from
themselves, "Children dear," he went on, "all this about girls who are
afraid reminds me o' a certain story. 'Twas in Belgium it happened, a
few years back, and in the city o' Brussels, which is the capital. Oh,
'tis a grand