Feeling the red faces of the little strangers in such close proximity to
hers, Zoie drew away from them with abhorrence, but unconscious of her
unmotherly action, Alfred continued his mad career about the room, his
heart overflowing with gratitude toward Zoie in particular and mankind
in general. Finding Aggie in the path of his wild jubilee, he treated
that bewildered young matron to an unwelcome kiss. A proceeding which
Jimmy did not at all approve.
Hardly had Aggie recovered from her surprise when the disgruntled
Jimmy was startled out of his dark mood by the supreme insult of a
loud resounding kiss implanted on his own cheek by his excitable young
friend. Jimmy raised his arm to resist a second assault, and Alfred
veered off in the direction of the officer, who stepped aside just in
time to avoid similar demonstration from the indiscriminating young
father.
Finding a wide circle prescribed about himself and the babies, Alfred
suddenly stopped and gazed about from one astonished face to the other.
"Well," said the officer, regarding Alfred with an injured air,
and feeling much downcast at being so ignominiously deprived of his
short-lived heroism in capturing a supposed criminal, "if this is all a
joke, I'll let the woman go."
"The woman," repeated Alfred; "what woman?"
"I nabbed a woman at the foot of the fire-escape," explained the
officer. Zoie and Aggie glanced at each other inquiringly. "I thought
she might be an accomplice."
"What does she look like, officer?" asked Alfred. His manner was
becoming more paternal, not to say condescending, with the arrival of
each new infant.
"Don't be silly, Alfred," snapped Zoie, really ashamed that Alfred was
making such an idiot of himself. "It's only the nurse."
"Oh, that's it," said Alfred, with a wise nod of comprehension; "the
nurse, then she's in the joke too?" He glanced from one to the other.
They all nodded. "You're all in it," he exclaimed, flattered to think
that they had considered it necessary to combine the efforts of so many
of them to deceive him.
"Yes," assented Jimmy sadly, "we are all 'in it.'"
"Well, she's a great actress," decided Alfred, with the air of a
connoisseur.
"She sure is," admitted Donneghey, more and more disgruntled as he felt
his reputation for detecting fraud slipping from him. "She put up a
phoney story about the kid being hers," he added. "But I could tell she
wasn't on the level. Good-night, sir," he called to Alfred, and ignoring
Jimmy, he passed quickly from the room.