Part 2 (1/2)

”I ain't Demetrius! I'm Pythagoras.”

”It makes no difference. Go and get it and don't speak to me again tonight.”

The boy had already s.n.a.t.c.hed the coin, and he now started for the exit, but his outgoing way was instantly blocked by a promiscuous pack of pugilistic Polydores, and an ardent and general onslaught followed.

I endeavored to untangle the arms and legs of the attackers and the attacked in a desire to rescue the youngest, a child of two, but I soon beat a retreat, having no mind to become a punching bag for Polydores.

The concentrator at the writing table, looking up vaguely, perceived the general joust.

”How provoking!” she exclaimed indignantly. ”I was in search of an antonym and now they've driven it out of my memory.”

I politely offered my sympathy for her loss.

”Did you ever see such misbehaved children?” she asked casually and impersonally as she calmly surveyed the free-for-all fight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dr. Felix Polydore]

”Children always misbehave before company,” I remarked propitiatingly.

”Of course they know better.”

”Why no, they don't!” she declared, looking at me in surprise, ”they----”

At this instant the errant antonym evidently flashed upon her mental vision and her pencil hastened to record it and then flew on at lightning speed.

I was about to try to make an escape when a momentary cessation of hostilities was caused by the entrance of a moth-eaten, abstracted-looking man. As the _two-year-old_ hailed him as ”fadder”, I gathered that he was the person responsible for the family now fighting at his feet.

”What's the trouble?” he asked helplessly.

”She gave Thag a nickel,” explained the eldest boy, ”and we want it.”

The man drew a sigh of relief. The solution of this family problem was instantly and satisfactorily met by an impartial distribution of nickels.

With demoniac whoops of delight, the contestants fled from the room.

I introduced myself to the man of the house, who seemed to realize that some sort of compulsory conventionalities must be observed. He looked hopelessly at his wife, and seeing that she was beyond response to an S O S call to things mundane, he frankly but impressively informed me that I must expect nothing of them socially as their lives were devoted to research and study. The children, however, he a.s.sured me, could run over frequently to see us.

I instinctively felt that my call was considered ended, so I took my departure. I related the details of my neighborly visit to Silvia, but her sense of humor was not stirred. It was entirely dominated by her dread of the young Polydores.

”How many children are there?” she asked faintly. ”More than the five you said you counted that first day?”

”They seemed not so many as much. That is, though I suppose in round numbers there are but five, yet each of those five is equal to at least three ordinary children.”

”Are they all boys? Huldah says the youngest wears dresses.”

”Nevertheless he is a boy. They are all unmistakably boys. I think they must have been born with boots on and,” conscious of the imprints of my s.h.i.+ns, ”hobnail boots at that. Even the youngest, a two-year old, seems to have been graduated from Home Rule.”

”I can't bear to think of their going to bed hungry,” she said wistfully. ”Think of that unnatural mother expecting them to satisfy their hunger by popcorn.”

”They didn't though,” I a.s.sured her. ”I saw them stop a street vender below here and invest their nickels in hot dogs.”