ress.

Although there was a great deal of shouting, not a word was in a
language familiar to Hamilton, and although he questioned every one
around him he could find no one that understood his questions. All that
he could gather was from some one in the front of the crowd who kept on
crying out in English at irregular intervals:

"Our children, we want our children!"

Even if the boy had desired to break through the crowd to return to his
work he could not have done so, and he really did not wish to,--he was
too much interested in following the purposes of the throng. Finally the
people stopped, but the boy was so far back that he could see nothing of
what was going on at the head of the crowd. Being determined, however,
Hamilton elbowed his way by main force and reached the woman who was
still crying:

"Our children, we want our children!"

Hamilton spoke to her, but the woman paid no heed. Finally, seeing that
she would not listen, he shouted at her as harshly as he could. Then she
turned and tried to answer his questions.

"What's all the row about?" he asked.

"They rob us. Steal our children. Make them walk far away, never see our
children any more. Oh, my Mario, oh, my Petronilla. Oh, our children, we
want our children!"

Further information the boy could not get. He worked his way clear to
the front of the mob and saw the police gathering on all sides. Breaking
through the front rank he stepped up to the nearest policeman, who
merely shifted his grip on his night stick.

"That's quite a mob," he said in a conversational tone.

"It is that, sorr," said the policeman, recognizing immediately that the
boy was not one of the rioters.

"I'm a census officer," the boy continued, "and I was doing some
inspection work for the census when I got caught in the crowd. What's
the matter with them?"

"'Tis a bunch of dummies they are," was the reply; "'tis thinkin' they
are that the schools are goin' to steal their children. As if any one
would be wantin' their brats. The most of us has enough of our own to
keep."

"But why should the school want to steal their children? Do you mean
that they don't want them to go to school?"

"'Tis not that, sorr," the Irishman answered, "but 'tis due to some
'fire drill' business. The little ones are taught in the school that
when a bell rings--'tis the fire bell I'm m'anin'--they sh'd all march
out dacintly and in order. 'Tis a good idea, that same, an' I'm favorin'
it. Bu