Jimmy made a vain start in the direction of the fire-escape. Four
detaining hands were laid upon him.
"Don't try anything like that," warned Aggie; "you can't get out of this
house without that baby. The mother is down stairs now. She's guarding
the door. I saw her." And Aggie sailed triumphantly out of the room to
make the proposed exchange of babies.
Before Jimmy was able to suggest to himself an escape from Aggie's last
plan of action, the telephone again began to cry for attention.
Neither Jimmy nor Zoie could summon courage to approach the impatient
instrument, and as usual Zoie cried frantically for Aggie.
Aggie was not long in returning to the room and this time she bore in
her arms the infant so strenuously demanded by its mad mother.
"Here you are, Jimmy," she said; "here's the other one. Now take him
down stairs quickly before Alfred gets back." She attempted to place the
unresisting babe in Jimmy's chubby arms, but Jimmy's freedom was not to
be so easily disposed of.
"What!" he exclaimed, backing away from the small creature in fear and
abhorrence, "take that bundle of rags down to the hotel office and have
that woman hystericing all over me. No, thanks."
"Oh well," answered Aggie, distracted by the persistent ringing of the
'phone, "then hold him a minute until I answer the 'phone."
This at least was a compromise, and reluctantly Jimmy allowed the now
wailing infant to be placed in his arms.
"Jig it, Jimmy, jig it," cried Zoie. Jimmy looked down helplessly at
the baby's angry red face, but before he had made much headway with the
"jigging," Aggie returned to them, much excited by the message which she
had just received over the telephone.
"That mother is making a scene down stairs in the office," she said.
"You hear," chided Zoie, in a fury at Jimmy, "what did Aggie tell you?"
"If she wants this thing," maintained Jimmy, looking down at the bundle
in his arms, "she can come after it."
"We can't have her up here," objected Aggie.
"Alfred may be back at any minute. He'd catch her. You know what
happened the last time we tried to change them."
"You can send it down the chimney, for all I care," concluded Jimmy.
"I have it!" exclaimed Aggie, her face suddenly illumined.
"Oh Lord," groaned Jimmy, who had come to regard any elation on Zoie's
or Aggie's part as a sure forewarner of ultimate discomfort for him.