 | CHAPTER XXV Baby Mine |  |
25. CHAPTER XXV
WONDERING what new terrors awaited her, Zoie glanced uncertainly from door to door. So strong had become her habit of taking refuge in the bed, that unconsciously she backed toward it now. Barely had she reached the centre of the room when a terrific crash of breaking glass from the adjoining room sent her shrieking in terror over the footboard, and head first under the covers. Here she would doubtless have remained until suffocated, had not Jimmy in his backward flight from one of the inner rooms overturned a large rocker. This additional shock to Zoie's overstrung nerves forced a wild scream from her lips, and an answering exclamation from the nerve-racked Jimmy made her sit bolt upright. She gazed at him in astonishment. His tie was awry, one end of his collar had taken leave of its anchorage beneath his stout chin, and was now just tickling the edge of his red, perspiring brow. His hair was on end and his feelings were undeniably ruffled. As usual Zoie's greeting did not tend to conciliate him.
"How did you get here?" she asked with an air of reproach.
"The fire-escape," panted Jimmy and he nodded
"Fire-escape?" echoed Zoie. There was only one and that led through the bathroom window.
Jimmy explained no further. He was now peeping cautiously out of the window toward the pavement below.
"Where's the mother?" demanded Zoie.
Jimmy jerked his thumb in the direction of the street. Zoie gazed at him with grave apprehension.
"Jimmy!" she exclaimed. "You haven't killed her?"
Jimmy shook his head and continued to peer cautiously out of the window.
"What did you do with her?" called the now exasperated Zoie.
"What did I do with her?" repeated Jimmy, a flash of his old resentment returning. "What did she do with me?"
For the first time, Zoie became fully conscious of Jimmy's ludicrous appearance. Her overstrained nerves gave way and she began to laugh hysterically.
"Say," shouted Jimmy, towering over the bed and devoutly wishing that she were his wife so that he might strike her with impunity. "Don't you sic any more lunatics onto me."
It is doubtful whether Zoie's continued laughter might not have provoked Jimmy to desperate
"It may be Aggie," suggested Zoie.
For the first time, Jimmy became aware that Aggie was nowhere in the apartment.
"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, as he realised that he was again tête-à-tête with the terror of his dreams. "Where is Aggie?"
"Gone to do what you should have done,"was Zoie's characteristic answer.
"Well," answered Jimmy hotly, "it's about time that somebody besides me did something around this place."
"You," mocked Zoie, "all you've ever done was to hoodoo me from the very beginning."
"If you'd taken my advice," answered Jimmy, "and told your husband the truth about the luncheon, there'd never have been any `beginning.' "
"If, if, if," cried Zoie, in an agony of impatience, "if you'd tipped that horrid old waiter enough, he'd never have told anyway."
"I'm not buying waiters to cover up your crimes," announced Jimmy with his most self-righteous air.
"You'll be buying more than that to cover up
"Before I've finished with you, yes," agreed Jimmy. He wheeled upon her with increasing resentment. "Do you know where I expect to end up?" he asked.
"I know where you ought to end up," snapped Zoie.
"I'll finish in the electric chair," said Jimmy. "I can feel blue lightning chasing up and down my spine right now."
"Well, I wish you had finished in the electric chair," declared Zoie, "before you ever dragged me into that awful old restaurant."
"Oh, you do, do you?" answered Jimmy shaking his fist at her across the foot of the bed. For the want of adequate words to express his further feelings, Jimmy was beginning to jibber, when the outer door was heard to close, and he turned to behold Aggie entering hurriedly with something partly concealed by her long cape.
"It's all right," explained Aggie triumphantly to Zoie. "I've got it." She threw her cape aside and disclosed the fruits of her conquest.
"So," snorted Jimmy in disgust, slightly miffed by the apparent ease with which Aggie had accomplished a task about which he had made so much adoo, "you've gone into the business too, have you?"
Aggie deigned no reply to him. She continued in a businesslike tone to Zoie.
"Where's Alfred?" she asked.
"Still out," answered Zoie.
"Thank Heaven," sighed Aggie, then she turned to Jimmy and addressed him in rapid, decided tones. "Now, dear," she said, "I'll just put the new baby to bed, then I'll give you the other one and you can take it right down to the mother."
Jimmy made a vain start in the direction of the fire-escape. Four detaining hands were laid upon him.
"Don't try anything like that," warned Aggie; "you can't get out of this house without that baby. The mother is down stairs now. She's guarding the door. I saw her." And Aggie sailed triumphantly out of the room to make the proposed exchange of babies.
Before Jimmy was able to suggest to himself an escape from Aggie's last plan of action, the telephone again began to cry for attention.
Neither Jimmy nor Zoie could summon courage to approach the impatient instrument, and as usual Zoie cried frantically for Aggie.
Aggie was not long in returning to the room and this time she bore in her arms the infant so strenuously demanded by its mad mother.
"Here you are, Jimmy," she said; "here's the
"What!" he exclaimed, backing away from the small creature in fear and abhorrence, "take that bundle of rags down to the hotel office and have that woman hystericing all over me. No, thanks."
"Oh well," answered Aggie, distracted by the persistent ringing of the 'phone, "then hold him a minute until I answer the 'phone."
This at least was a compromise, and reluctantly Jimmy allowed the now wailing infant to be placed in his arms.
"Jig it, Jimmy, jig it," cried Zoie. Jimmy looked down helplessly at the baby's angry red face, but before he had made much headway with the "jigging," Aggie returned to them, much excited by the message which she had just received over the telephone.
"That mother is making a scene down stairs in the office," she said.
"You hear," chided Zoie, in a fury at Jimmy, "what did Aggie tell you?"
"If she wants this thing," maintained Jimmy, looking down at the bundle in his arms, "she can come after it."
"We can't have her up here," objected Aggie.
"Alfred may be back at any minute. He'd catch her. You know what happened the last time we tried to change them."
"You can send it down the chimney, for all I care," concluded Jimmy.
"I have it!" exclaimed Aggie, her face suddenly illumined.
"Oh Lord," groaned Jimmy, who had come to regard any elation on Zoie's or Aggie's part as a sure forewarner of ultimate discomfort for him.
Again Aggie had recourse to the 'phone.
"Hello," she called to the office boy, "tell that woman to go around to the back door, and we'll send something down to her." There was a slight pause, then Aggie added sweetly, "Yes, tell her to wait at the foot of the fire-escape."
Zoie had already caught the drift of Aggie's intention and she now fixed her glittering eyes upon Jimmy, who was already shifting about uneasily and glancing at Aggie, who approached him with a business-like air.
"Now, dear," said Aggie, "come with me. I'll hand Baby out through the bathroom window and you can run right down the fire-escape with him."
"If I do run down the fire-escape," exclaimed Jimmy, wagging his large head from side to side, "I'll keep right on running. That's the last you'll ever see of me."
"But, Jimmy," protested Aggie, slightly hurt by his threat, "once that woman gets her baby you'll have no more trouble."
"With you two still alive?" asked Jimmy, looking from one to the other.
"She'll be up here if you don't hurry," urged Aggie impatiently, and with that she pulled Jimmy toward the bedroom door.
"Let her come," said Jimmy, planting his feet so as to resist Aggie's repeated tugs, "I'm going to South America."
"Why will you act like this," cried Aggie, in utter desperation, "when we have so little time?"
"Say," said Jimmy irrelevantly, "do you know that I haven't had any—"
`' Yes," interrupted Aggie and Zoie in chorus, "we know."
"How long," continued Zoie impatiently, "is it going to take you to slip down that fire-escape?"
"That depends on how fast I `slip,' " answered Jimmy doggedly.
"You'll `slip' all right," sneered Zoie.
Further exchange of pleasantries between these two antagonists was cut short by the banging of the outside door.
"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Aggie, glancing nervously over her shoulder, "there's Alfred now.
| CHAPTER XXV Baby Mine | |