Baby Mine

by Margaret Mayo

  CHAPTER XXVII

  Propelled by a large red fist, attached to the back of his badly wiltedcollar, the writhing form of Jimmy was now thrust through the outerdoor.

  "Let go of me," shouted the hapless Jimmy.

  The answer was a spasmodic shaking administered by the fist; then alarge burly officer, carrying a small babe in his arms, shoved thereluctant Jimmy into the centre of the room and stood guard over him.

  "I got him for you, sir," announced the officer proudly, to theastonished Alfred, who had just managed to untwine Zoie's arms and tostruggle to his feet.

  Alfred's eyes fell first upon the dejected Jimmy, then they travelled tothe bundle of long clothes in the officer's arms.

  "My boy!" he cried. "My boy!" He snatched the infant from the officerand pressed him jealously to his breast. "I don't understand," he said,gazing at the officer in stupefaction. "Where was he?"

  "You mean this one?" asked the officer, nodding toward the unfortunateJimmy. "I caught him slipping down your fire-escape."

  "I KNEW it," exclaimed Zoie in a rage, and she cast a vindictive look atJimmy for his awkwardness.

  "Knew WHAT, dear?" asked Alfred, now thoroughly puzzled.

  Zoie did not answer. Her powers of resource were fast waning. Alfredturned again to the officer, then to Jimmy, who was still flashingdefiance into the officer's threatening eyes.

  "My God!" he exclaimed, "this is awful. What's the matter with you,Jimmy? This is the third time that you have tried to take my baby outinto the night."

  "Then you've had trouble with him before?" remarked the officer. Hestudied Jimmy with new interest, proud in the belief that he had broughta confirmed "baby-snatcher" to justice.

  "I've had a little trouble myself," declared Jimmy hotly, now resolvedto make a clean breast of it.

  "I'm not asking about your troubles," interrupted the officer savagely,and Jimmy felt the huge creature's obnoxious fingers tightening again onhis collar. "Go ahead, sir," said the officer to Alfred.

  "Well," began Alfred, nodding toward the now livid Jimmy, "he was outwith my boy when I arrived. I stopped him from going out with hima second time, and now you, officer, catch him slipping down thefire-escape. I don't know what to say," he finished weakly.

  "_I_ do," exclaimed Jimmy, feeling more and more like a high explosive,"and I'll say it."

  "Cut it," shouted the officer. And before Jimmy could get further,Alfred resumed with fresh vehemence.

  "He's supposed to be a friend of mine," he explained to the officer, ashe nodded toward the wriggling Jimmy. "He was all right when I left hima few months ago."

  "You'll think I'm all right again," shouted Jimmy, trying to get freefrom the officer, "before I've finished telling all I----"

  "That won't help any," interrupted the officer firmly, and with anothertwist of Jimmy's badly wilted collar he turned to Alfred with his mostcivil manner, "What shall I do with him, sir?"

  "I don't know," said Alfred, convinced that his friend was a fit subjectfor a straight jacket. "This is horrible."

  "It's absurd," cried Zoie, on the verge of hysterics, and in utterdespair of ever disentangling the present complication withoutultimately losing Alfred, "you're all absurd," she cried wildly.

  "Absurd?" exclaimed Alfred, turning upon her in amazement, "what do youmean?"

  "It's a joke," said Zoie, without the slightest idea of where the jokelay. "If you had any sense you could see it."

  "I DON'T see it," said Alfred, with hurt dignity.

  "Neither do I," said Jimmy, with boiling resentment.

  "Can you call it a joke," asked Alfred, incredulously, "to have ourboy----" He stopped suddenly, remembering that there was a companionpiece to this youngster. "The other one!" he exclaimed, "our otherboy----" He rushed to the crib, found it empty, and turned a terrifiedface to Zoie. "Where is he?" he demanded.

  "Now, Alfred," pleaded Zoie, "don't get excited; he's all right."

  "How do you know?" asked the distracted father.

  Zoie did not know, but at that moment her eyes fell upon Jimmy, and asusual he was the source of an inspiration for her.

  "Jimmy never cared for the other one," she said, "did you, Jimmy?"

  Alfred turned to the officer, with a tone of command. "Wait," he said,then he started toward the bedroom door to make sure that his otherboy was quite safe. The picture that confronted him brought the hairstraight up on his head. True to her promise, and ignorant of Jimmy'sreturn with the first baby, Aggie had chosen this ill-fated moment toappear on the threshold with one babe on each arm.

  "Here they are," she said graciously, then stopped in amazement at sightof the horrified Alfred, clasping a third infant to his breast.

  "Good God!" exclaimed Alfred, stroking his forehead with his unoccupiedhand, and gazing at what he firmly believed must be an apparition,"THOSE aren't MINE," he pointed to the two red mites in Aggie's arms.

  "Wh--why not, Alfred?" stammered Aggie for the want of something betterto say.

  "What?" shrieked Alfred. Then he turned in appeal to his young wife,whose face had now become utterly expressionless. "Zoie?" he entreated.

  There was an instant's pause, then the blood returned to Zoie's face andshe proved herself the artist that Alfred had once declared her.

  "OURS, dear," she murmured softly, with a bashful droop of her lids.

  "But THIS one?" persisted Alfred, pointing to the baby in his arms, andfeeling sure that his mind was about to give way.

  "Why--why--why," stuttered Zoie, "THAT'S the JOKE."

  "The joke?" echoed Alfred, looking as though he found it anything butsuch.

  "Yes," added Aggie, sharing Zoie's desperation to get out of theirtemporary difficulty, no matter at what cost in the future. "Didn'tJimmy tell you?"

  "Tell me WHAT?" stammered Alfred, "what IS there to tell?"

  "Why, you see," said Aggie, growing more enthusiastic with eachelaboration of Zoie's lie, "we didn't dare to break it to you toosuddenly."

  "Break it to me?" gasped Alfred; a new light was beginning to dawn onhis face.

  "So," concluded Zoie, now thoroughly at home in the new situation, "weasked Jimmy to take THAT one OUT."

  Jimmy cast an inscrutable glance in Zoie's direction. Was it possiblethat she was at last assisting him out of a difficulty?

  "You 'ASKED Jimmy'?" repeated Alfred.

  "Yes," confirmed Aggie, with easy confidence, "we wanted you to get usedto the idea gradually."

  "The idea," echoed Alfred. He was afraid to allow his mind to accepttoo suddenly the whole significance of their disclosure, lest his joyover-power him. "You--you--do--don't mean----" he stuttered.

  "Yes, dear," sighed Zoie, with the face of an angel, and then with alanguid sigh, she sank back contentedly on her pillows.

  "My boys! My boys!" cried Alfred, now delirious with delight. "Givethem to me," he called to Aggie, and he snatched the surprised infantssavagely from her arms. "Give me ALL of them, ALL of them." He claspedthe three babes to his breast, then dashed to the bedside of theunsuspecting Zoie and covered her small face with rapturous kisses.

  Feeling the red faces of the little strangers in such close proximity tohers, Zoie drew away from them with abhorrence, but unconscious of herunmotherly action, Alfred continued his mad career about the room, hisheart overflowing with gratitude toward Zoie in particular and mankindin general. Finding Aggie in the path of his wild jubilee, he treatedthat bewildered young matron to an unwelcome kiss. A proceeding whichJimmy did not at all approve.

  Hardly had Aggie recovered from her surprise when the disgruntledJimmy was startled out of his dark mood by the supreme insult of aloud resounding kiss implanted on his own cheek by his excitable youngfriend. Jimmy raised his arm to resist a second assault, and Alfredveered off in the direction of the officer, who stepped aside just intime to avoid similar demonstration from the indiscriminating youngfather.

  Finding a wide circle prescribed about himself and the babies, Alfredsuddenly 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 hisshort-lived heroism in capturing a supposed criminal, "if this is all ajoke, I'll let the woman go."

  "The woman," repeated Alfred; "what woman?"

  "I nabbed a woman at the foot of the fire-escape," explained theofficer. Zoie and Aggie glanced at each other inquiringly. "I thoughtshe might be an accomplice."

  "What does she look like, officer?" asked Alfred. His manner wasbecoming more paternal, not to say condescending, with the arrival ofeach new infant.

  "Don't be silly, Alfred," snapped Zoie, really ashamed that Alfred wasmaking such an idiot of himself. "It's only the nurse."

  "Oh, that's it," said Alfred, with a wise nod of comprehension; "thenurse, 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 thinkthat they had considered it necessary to combine the efforts of so manyof 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 aconnoisseur.

  "She sure is," admitted Donneghey, more and more disgruntled as he felthis reputation for detecting fraud slipping from him. "She put up aphoney story about the kid being hers," he added. "But I could tell shewasn't on the level. Good-night, sir," he called to Alfred, and ignoringJimmy, he passed quickly from the room.

  "Oh, officer," Alfred called after him. "Hang around downstairs. I'llbe down later and fix things up with you." Again Alfred gave his wholeattention to his new-found family. He leaned over the cradle and gazedecstatically into the three small faces below his. "This is too much,"he murmured.

  "Much too much," agreed Jimmy, who was now sitting hunched up on thecouch in his customary attitude of gloom.

  "You were right not to break it to me too suddenly," said Alfred, andwith his arms encircling three infants he settled himself on the couchby Jimmy's side. "You're a cute one," he continued to Jimmy, who wasedging away from the three mites with aversion. In the absence of anyanswer from Jimmy, Alfred appealed to Zoie, "Isn't he a cute one, dear?"he asked.

  "Oh, yes, VERY," answered Zoie, sarcastically.

  Shutting his lips tight and glancing at Zoie with a determined effort atself restraint, Jimmy rose from the couch and started toward the door.

  "If you women are done with me," he said, "I'll clear out."

  "Clear out?" exclaimed Alfred, rising quickly and placing himselfbetween his old friend and the door. "What a chance," and he laughedboisterously. "You're not going to get out of my sight this night," hedeclared. "I'm just beginning to appreciate all you've done for me."

  "So am I," assented Jimmy, and unconsciously his hand sought the spotwhere his dinner should have been, but Alfred was not to be resisted.

  "A man needs someone around," he declared, "when he's going through athing like this. I need all of you, all of you," and with his eyes heembraced the weary circle of faces about him. "I feel as though I couldgo out of my head," he explained and with that he began tucking thethree small mites in the pink and white crib designed for but one.

  Zoie regarded him with a bored expression'

  "You act as though you WERE out of your head," she commented, but Alfreddid not heed her. He was now engaged in the unhoped for bliss of singingthree babies to sleep with one lullaby.

  The other occupants of the room were just beginning to relax and to showsome resemblance to their natural selves, when their features were againsimultaneously frozen by a ring at the outside door.