at the strings,
dire amazement, and alarm, and dismay in her every jerk.

Big Tom, holding firmly to the basket, leaned out to call. "Hey, there!"
he said angrily.

"Vot?"

"I say, what y' sendin' books down _here_ for?"

An exclamation--in that strange tongue which she spoke--smothered and
indistinct, but fervent! Then more jerks.

"Oh, yes!" called out Cis. "Now abuse her! Insult that poor little
thing! She's only a woman!"

Barber had no time to answer this. He was pulling at the strings, too,
trying to break them. "Let go up there!" he shouted.

"It wass my basket!"

With a curse, "I don't care _whose_ basket it is! Let _go_!" he ordered,
and gave such a wrench at the strings that all parted, suddenly, and the
basket was his. "Y' think y're pretty smart, don't y'?" he demanded,
head out of the window again; "helpin' this kid t' neglect his work!"

"I pay you always, Mister Barber," she answered, "if so he makes his
work oder not!"

"Yes, and he knows it, Mrs. Kukor!" Cis called out.

"Don't you ever set foot in this here flat again!" ordered Big Tom.

"That's right!" retorted Cis, as fearless as ever. "Drive her away!--the
best friend we've ever had!"

"You been hidin' these here books for him!" Barber went on, his head
still out of the window, so that much of what Cis was saying was lost
upon him.

"_Ja! Ja! Ja! Ja!_"

"Don't y' yaw _me_!"

But Mrs. Kukor's window had gone down.

Now every other window in the neighborhood was up, though the dwellers
round about were hidden from sight. However, they launched at him a
chorus of hisses.

"A-a-a-a!" triumphed Cis. "You see what people think of you? Good! Good!
Why don't you go out and get hold of _them_? why don't you throw _them_
around?--Oh, you're safe in here, with the children!"

Still Barber did not notice her. Leaning farther out across the window
sill, he shook a fist into space. "Bah!" he shouted. "Ain't one o' y'
dares t' show y'r face! Jus' y' let me see who's hissin', and I'll give
y' what for! Geese hiss, and snakes! Come and do y'r hissin' where I can
look at y'!"

More hisses--and cat calls, yowls, meows, and a spirited spitting;
raucous laughter, too, and a mingling of voices in several tongues.

"Wops!" cried Big Tom again. "Wops, and Kikes, and Micks! Not a decent
American in the whole lot--you low-down bunch o' foreigners!"

Cis laughed again. She was like one possessed. It was as if she did not
care what he did to her,