IV
Well, I didn't lead him exactly. Since he was so set up about it, I let him go ahead, but Ma and me followed close behind and told him the way and everything. When he came to the kitchen door Frits let out a yell "Anarchy! I love Anarchy!" and you aught to of seen the cop stagger in his tracks for a minute. But he came to immediate, and we all stood at attention while he give that bundle the once-over. It was ticking away as strong as ever.
"Hey! get me a pail of water, quick!" says the cop. I did it, and then, I will certainly give him credit for it, he grabbed up the bundle and plunged it in with both hands just as Anna come in at the door.
Believe you me, I never saw anything so funny as what happened then. The cop took his hands out the water and stood there dripping and staring at her.
"Hello, Anna!" he says. "What you doing here?"
"Ay bane working!" says Anna. "How you bane, Mike?"
"Pretty good!" he says. "But kind of busy with a bomb we got here. Stand off while I take a look. It has quit ticking and I guess it's drownded!"
He lifted the wet bundle out, and the minute Anna sees it she set up a yell as good as one of her pet parrot's.
"That bane mine!" she says, making a grab for it. But Mike held her off.
"Yours, eh?" he says, severely. "Yours! Well, we'll just have a look at it, my girl!"
With which he undid the string, unfolded the oilcloth, and there was a big new alarm-clock with the price still on it—2 beans—and a round, heavy cheese!
"Bane youst a present from may feller!" says Anna coyly.
Well, did we feel cheap? We did. And in addition to that Mike, the smart and brave young cop, was disappointed something terrible.
"Who is this Anna?" I asked him soon's I got my breath.
"Oh, a Swede girl—I know her a long time," he says foolishly. "Used to entertain me in the basement when I was on the regular force. She's some cook! You're lucky to have her."
And just then this ex-pro-German Bolshevist cook we was so lucky to have starts to yell again!
"Frits! Oy! Frits!" she says. "He bane gone! Make un yoump back!"
And sure enough, there was Frits on the fire-escape of the flat next to us. He had give one hop and a flutter and got across, where he sat, silent for once in his life and giving us the evil-eye.
"Yoump back," says the cook in passionate entriety. "Yoump back to your Aniky that you love! All day you yell you love may an' now you leave may!"
And as she said them words still another weight was lifted from my shoulders, although not from hers, for instead of jumping back, that radical bird which it seemed was not a radical after all and acting like the most conventional parrot in the world, commenced to climb up the fire-escape of the other apartment house, like he was leaving us forever.
"Yoump!" implored Anna, but he just climbed, instead.
"Here, wait, and I'll get him!" says Mike. "Glad to do it, Anna. I can step across easy enough!"
Anna held his coat, and he swung hisself over to the other side almost as neat as a picture-actor, and commenced following that mean-hearted bird up and up, story after story, until that animal led him in at a open window about three flats above. We waited in silence and, believe you me, I had about commenced to believe that bird and he was never coming out again, when down comes Mike, the bird tucked into his vest, his face simply purple with excitement. I never seen any acrobat work swifter or quieter than he did. He landed on the kitchen floor and closed the window behind him before he even give Anna her bird.
"The telephone!—quick! The telephone—headquarters at once—I've got that guy this time at last! And to think that a damn bird had to find him for me!"
And it was the truth. Frits, far from being an alien, was a good little American parrot and had actually led the cop to the very place he had been looking for all that while, and they arrested two guys and everything!
And after they got through the phone rang and there was Goldringer's voice.
"The aeroplane has come, Miss La Tour," he says. "When will you be over?"
"First thing in the morning!" I says, relieved to think of a quiet day ahead. Ain't it grand to have work you love to do? It's so restful!