e to her that perhaps Leslie had not made the operator
understand; so she went back to the telephone to try to find out
whether any one had been sent. Suppose those children should try to
face a burglar alone! There might be more than one for aught they
knew. Oh, Leslie _should not_ have gone! A terrible anxiety took
possession of her, and she tried to pray as she worked the telephone
hook up and down and waited for the operator. Then into the quiet of
the night there came the loud clang of the fire-bell, and a moment
later hurried calls and voices in the distance, sounding through the
front door that Julia Cloud had left open. For an instant she was
relieved, and then she reflected that this might be a fire somewhere
else, and not the call for the Johnson house at all; so she kept on
trying to call the operator. At last a snappy voice snarled into her
ear. "We don't tell where the fire is; we're not allowed any more,"
and snap! The operator was gone again.

"But I don't want to know where the fire is!" called Julia Cloud in
dismay. "I want to ask a question."

No answer came, and the dim buzz of the wire sounded emptily back to
her anxious ear. At last she gave it up, and went out to the street to
look up and down. If she only knew which way was Park Avenue! She
could hear the engine now, clattering along with the hook and ladder
behind; and dark, hurrying forms crossed the street just beyond the
next corner, but no one came by. She hurried out to the corner, and
called to a boy who was passing; and he yelled out: "Don't know, lady.
Up Park Avenue somewhere." Then the street grew very quiet again, and
all the noise centred away in the distance. A shot rang out, and
voices shouted, and her heart beat so loud she could hear it. She
hurried back to the house again, and tried to get the telephone
operator; but nothing came of it, and for the next twenty minutes she
vibrated between the street and the telephone, and wondered whether
she ought not to wake up Cherry and do something else.

It seemed perfectly terrible to think of those two children handling a
burglar alone--and yet what could she do?

Pretty soon, however, she heard the fire-engine returning, with the
crowd, and she hurried down to the corner to find out.

"It wasn't no fire at all, lady," answered a boy whom she questioned.
"It was just two men breakin' into a house, but they ketched 'em both
an' are takin' 'em down to the lockup. No, lady, there wasn't