"_Who_ can he be? and why should anyone want to leave him?" were the perplexing questions Polly asked of the others.
They all shook their heads and wondered. But the boy had no use for such condolences; he crawled over the divan and when he found not what he was in search of, he screwed up his dimpled face and began a lusty call.
Anne instantly took him up and began to chirp to him. He smiled a cheerful thanks and showed eight little front teeth. That brought all his new friends to his feet--metaphorically speaking.
"_Isn't_ he a dear!" declared Mrs. Stewart to no one in particular.
"Yes, but we have to advertise him at once. It may be that a villain kidnapped him and ran away with him just to get a reward. He may have been seen, or chased by the police, and then dropped the baby in our vestibule," said Mrs. Latimer.
Anne laughed. "Which analysis shows that one of us married a lawyer--Mrs. Latimer gives us good advice."
"Or he may belong to a young mother who cannot longer earn a living for him," added Mrs. Stewart.
"That's not likely, mother," returned Anne. "As the child would look thin and sickly if a mother found it hard to support it. I rather think it is a babe that belongs to some distracted mother in the neighborhood. He has evidently been put to bed for the night. Possibly a vindictive nurse-girl took him from his home to make his parents seek for him and then left him at the most convenient door."
"Anne's reason sounds the most plausible, and we'd better 'phone the police-stations at once. Billy's parents may even now be wild with despair, for we do not know how long he was in the vestibule. All we know is, he was not there when we came in, about eight o'clock," said Mrs. Evans.
So she telephoned the police-stations, near by, and also asked the morning papers to run a short notice under a suitable caption. Before she had finished this work, however, Master Billy began his complaints again, and now he was beginning to look as impatient as such a good-natured baby could.
"Maybe he's hungry?" suddenly suggested Mrs. Stewart.
"That's just what ails him--but we haven't any bottle!" exclaimed Mrs. Evans.
"Perhaps he drinks from a cup--he is old enough to have been weaned, you know," ventured Mrs. Latimer.