"But vy ask me?" complained Ikey. "Let him lie! Let him!" And he started churchward.
"Wait!" Balcome was bellowing now. "Where is my daughter?"
"Didn't she stay with her father?" repeated Mrs. Balcome.
"Didn't she stay with her mother?" cried Balcome.
Ikey did not need to reply. For one question had answered the other. With an "Oh! Oh!" of apprehension, Mrs. Balcome sank, a dead weight, to a bench.
"Where is she, I say? Where is she?" Now Balcome had the unfortunate Ikey by a faded blue sleeve. He shook him so that all the curls on his head bobbed madly. "Open your mouth!"
"I don't know!" denied Ikey, desperately.
"Good Heavens!" Balcome let him go, and paced the grass, clutching off his hat and pounding at a knee with it.
"Oh, what has happened! What has happened!" Mrs. Balcome rocked in her misery. "Oh, and we had words last night—bitter words! Oh!"
At this juncture, out from between the drawing-room curtains Henry appeared, balancing himself on his middle, and handed down still another package. Ikey ran to receive it, and as if to silence the mourning with which the Close resounded, hastened to thrust the package into the lap of the unhappy lady on the bench.