"You, you!" called the indignant Zoie to the departing mother. "How dare

you lock my husband in the bathroom?" She pointed to the key, which the

woman still unconsciously clasped in her hand. "Give me that key," she

demanded, "give it to me this instant."

"Take your horrid old key," said the mother, and she threw it on the

floor. "If you ever try to get my baby again, I'll lock your husband in

JAIL," and murmuring excited maledictions in her native tongue, she took

her welcome departure.

Zoie stooped for the key, one hand to her giddy head, but Aggie, who had

just returned to the room, reached the key first and volunteered to go

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to the aid of the captive Alfred, who was pounding desperately on the

bathroom door and demanding his instant release.

"I'll let him out," said Aggie. "You get into bed," and she slipped

quickly from the room.

Utterly exhausted and half blind with fatigue Zoie lifted the coverlet

and slipped beneath it. Her first sensation was of touching something

rough and scratchy, then came the awful conviction that the thing

against which she lay was alive.

Without stopping to investigate the identity of her uninvited

bed-fellow, or even daring to look behind her, Zoie fled from the room

emitting a series of screams that made all her previous efforts in that

direction seem mere baby cries. So completely had Jimmy been enveloped

in the coverlets and for so long a time that he had acquired a vague

feeling of aloftness toward the rest of his fellows, and had lost all

knowledge of their goings and comings. But when his unexpected companion

was thrust upon him he was galvanised into sudden action by her scream,

and swathed in a large pink comforter, he rolled ignominiously from the

upper side of the bed, where he lay on the floor panting and enmeshed,

awaiting further developments. Of one thing he was certain, a great deal

had transpired since he had sought the friendly solace of the covers and

he had no mind to lose so good a friend as the pink comforter. By the

time he had summoned sufficient courage to peep from under its edge, a

babel of voices was again drawing near, and he hastily drew back in his

shell and waited.

Not daring to glance at the scene of her fright, Zoie pushed Aggie

before her into the room and demanded that she look in the bed.

Seeing the bed quite empty and noticing nothing unusual in the fact that

the pink comforter, along with other covers, had slipped down behind it,

Aggie hastened to reassure her terrified friend.




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