Morris remained at home to greet his mother, received her encomiums, cooked the dinner, and set out for afternoon school with a heavy heart and a heavier conscience. Nothing had occurred in those first hours to show any change in Mrs. Mowgelewsky's opinion of home pets; rather she seemed, in contrast to the mild and sympathetic Miss Bailey, more than ever dictatorial and dogmatic.
At a quarter after three, the gold fish having received perfunctory attention, and the Board of Monitors being left again to do their worst, unguarded, Morris and Teacher set out to prepare Mrs. Mowgelewsky's mind for the adoption of Izzie. They found it very difficult. Mrs. Mowgelewsky, restored of vision, was so hospitable, so festive in her elephantine manner, so loquacious and so self-congratulatory, that it was difficult to insert even the tiniest conversational wedge into the structure of her monologue.
Finally Miss Bailey managed to catch her attention upon financial matters. "You gave me," she said, "two dollars and ten cents, and Morris has managed so beautifully that he has not used it all, and has five cents to return to you. He's a very wonderful little boy, Mrs. Mowgelewsky," she added, smiling at her favorite to give him courage.
"He iss a good boy," Mrs. Mowgelewsky admitted. "Don't you get lonesome sometimes by yourself here, huh?"
"Well," said Miss Bailey, "he wasn't always alone."
"No?" queried the matron with a divided attention. She was looking for her purse, in which she wished to stow Morris's surplus.
"No," said Teacher; "I was here once or twice. And then a little friend of his----"
"Friend!" the mother repeated with a glare; "was friends here in mine house?"
Miss Bailey began a purposely vague reply, but Mrs. Mowgelewsky was not listening to her. She had searched the pockets of the gown she wore, then various other hiding-places in the region of its waist line, then a large bag of mattress covering which she wore under her skirt. Ever hurriedly and more hurriedly she repeated this performance two or three times, and then proceeded to shake and wring the out-door clothing which she had worn that morning.
"Gott!" she broke out at last, "mine Gott! mine Gott! it don't stands." And she began to peer about the floor with eyes not yet quite adjusted. Morris easily recognized the symptoms.