Part 34 (1/2)
”Then you've had trouble with him before?” remarked the officer. He studied Jimmy with new interest, proud in the belief that he had brought a confirmed ”baby-s.n.a.t.c.her” to justice.
”I've had a little trouble myself,” declared Jimmy hotly, now resolved to 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 on his collar. ”Go ahead, sir,” said the officer to Alfred.
”Well,” began Alfred, nodding toward the now livid Jimmy, ”he was out with my boy when I arrived. I stopped him from going out with him a second time, and now you, officer, catch him slipping down the fire-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, as he nodded toward the wriggling Jimmy. ”He was all right when I left him a few months ago.”
”You'll think I'm all right again,” shouted Jimmy, trying to get free from the officer, ”before I've finished telling all I----”
”That won't help any,” interrupted the officer firmly, and with another twist of Jimmy's badly wilted collar he turned to Alfred with his most civil manner, ”What shall I do with him, sir?”
”I don't know,” said Alfred, convinced that his friend was a fit subject for a straight jacket. ”This is horrible.”
”It's absurd,” cried Zoie, on the verge of hysterics, and in utter despair of ever disentangling the present complication without ultimately losing Alfred, ”you're all absurd,” she cried wildly.
”Absurd?” exclaimed Alfred, turning upon her in amazement, ”what do you mean?”
”It's a joke,” said Zoie, without the slightest idea of where the joke lay. ”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 our boy----” He stopped suddenly, remembering that there was a companion piece to this youngster. ”The other one!” he exclaimed, ”our other boy----” He rushed to the crib, found it empty, and turned a terrified face 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 as usual 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 other boy was quite safe. The picture that confronted him brought the hair straight up on his head. True to her promise, and ignorant of Jimmy's return with the first baby, Aggie had chosen this ill-fated moment to appear on the threshold with one babe on each arm.
”Here they are,” she said graciously, then stopped in amazement at sight of the horrified Alfred, clasping a third infant to his breast.
”Good G.o.d!” exclaimed Alfred, stroking his forehead with his unoccupied hand, 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 better to 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 and she proved herself the artist that Alfred had once declared her.