"Oh," wailed Mrs. Murphy, "'twas yisterday, or maybe four hours ago!
I dunno. But it's lost he is, me little boy Mike. He was playin' on the sidewalk only this mornin'--or was it Wednesday? I'm that busy with work, 'tis hard to keep up with dates. But I've looked the house over from top to cellar, and it's gone he is. Oh, for the love av Hiven--"
Silent, grim, colossal, the big city has ever stood against its revilers. They call it hard as iron; they say that no pulse of pity beats in its bosom; they compare its streets with lonely forests and deserts of lava. But beneath the hard crust of the lobster is found a delectable and luscious food. Perhaps a different simile would have been wiser. Still, nobody should take offence. We would call no one a lobster without good and sufficient claws.
No calamity so touches the common heart of humanity as does the straying of a little child. Their feet are so uncertain and feeble; the ways are so steep and strange.
Major Griggs hurried down to the corner, and up the avenue into Billy's place. "Gimme a rye-high," he said to the servitor.
"Haven't seen a bow-legged, dirty-faced little devil of a six-year-old loot kid around here anywhere, have you?"
Mr. Toomey retained Miss Purdy's hand on the steps. "Think of that dear little babe," said Miss Purdy, "lost from his mother's side--perhaps already fallen beneath the iron hoofs of galloping steeds--oh, isn't it dreadful?"
"Ain't that right?" agreed Mr. Toomey, squeezing her hand. "Say I start out and help look for um!"
"Perhaps," said Miss Purdy, "you should. But, oh, Mr. Toomey, you are so dashing--so reckless--suppose in your enthusiasm some accident should befall you, then what--"
Old man Denny read on about the arbitration agreement, with one finger on the lines.
In the second floor front Mr. and Mrs. McCaskey came to the window to recover their second wind. Mr. McCaskey was scooping turnips out of his vest with a crooked forefinger, and his lady was wiping an eye that the salt of the roast pork had not benefited. They heard the outcry below, and thrust their heads out of the window.
"'Tis little Mike is lost," said Mrs. McCaskey, in a hushed voice, "the beautiful, little, trouble-making angel of a gossoon!"
"The bit of a boy mislaid?" said Mr. McCaskey, leaning out of the window. "Why, now, that's bad enough, entirely. The childer, they be different. If 'twas a woman I'd be willin', for they leave peace behind 'em when they go."
Disregarding the thrust, Mrs. McCaskey caught her husband's arm.
"Jawn," she said, sentimentally, "Missis Murphy's little bye is lost.
'Tis a great city for losing little boys. Six years old he was.
Jawn, 'tis the same age our little bye would have been if we had had one six years ago."
"We never did," said Mr. McCaskey, lingering with the fact.
"But if we had, Jawn, think what sorrow would be in our hearts this night, with our little Phelan run away and stolen in the city nowheres at all."
"Ye talk foolishness," said Mr. McCaskey. "'Tis Pat he would be named, after me old father in Cantrim."
"Ye lie!" said Mrs. McCaskey, without anger. "Me brother was worth tin dozen bog-trotting McCaskeys. After him would the bye be named."
She leaned over the window-sill and looked down at the hurrying and bustle below.
"Jawn," said Mrs. McCaskey, softly, "I'm sorry I was hasty wid ye."
"'Twas hasty puddin', as ye say," said her husband, "and hurry-up turnips and get-a-move-on-ye coffee. 'Twas what ye could call a quick lunch, all right, and tell no lie."
Mrs. McCaskey slipped her arm inside her husband's and took his rough hand in hers.
"Listen at the cryin' of poor Mrs. Murphy," she said. "'Tis an awful thing for a bit of a bye to be lost in this great big city. If 'twas our little Phelan, Jawn, I'd be breakin' me heart."
Awkwardly Mr. McCaskey withdrew his hand. But he laid it around the nearing shoulders of his wife.
"'Tis foolishness, of course," said he, roughly, "but I'd be cut up some meself if our little Pat was kidnapped or anything. But there never was any childer for us. Sometimes I've been ugly and hard with ye, Judy. Forget it."
They leaned together, and looked down at the heart-drama being acted below.
Long they sat thus. People surged along the sidewalk, crowding, questioning, filling the air with rumours, and inconsequent surmises.
Mrs. Murphy ploughed back and forth in their midst, like a soft mountain down which plunged an audible cataract of tears. Couriers came and went.
Loud voices and a renewed uproar were raised in front of the boarding-house.
"What's up now, Judy?" asked Mr. McCaskey.
"'Tis Missis Murphy's voice," said Mrs. McCaskey, harking. "She says she's after finding little Mike asleep behind the roll of old linoleum under the bed in her room."
Mr. McCaskey laughed loudly.
"That's yer Phelan," he shouted, sardonically. "Divil a bit would a Pat have done that trick. If the bye we never had is strayed and stole, by the powers, call him Phelan, and see him hide out under the bed like a mangy pup."
Mrs. McCaskey arose heavily, and went toward the dish closet, with the corners of her mouth drawn down.
Policeman Cleary came back around the corner as the crowd dispersed.
Surprised, he upturned an ear toward the McCaskey apartment, where the crash of irons and chinaware and the ring of hurled kitchen utensils seemed as loud as before. Policeman Cleary took out his timepiece.
"By the deported snakes!" he exclaimed, "Jawn McCaskey and his lady have been fightin' for an hour and a quarter by the watch. The missis could give him forty pounds weight. Strength to his arm."
Policeman Cleary strolled back around the corner.
Old man Denny folded his paper and hurried up the steps just as Mrs. Murphy was about to lock the door for the night
