"THE MAID STOOD LOOKING IDLY ABOUT"
Kathleen, for very vacuity of mind, turned to look. Neither potatoes nor squash pie were to be seen careering through the skies; nor, in fact, were there any crows.
"I'll have yez arrested for sarse and slander!" cried Kathleen vigorously.
But the negro boy had disappeared. So had the man in the yellow jersey.
"Where's me dog?" muttered Kathleen. It was dipping dusk; it was deepening to dark. She called. Loveliness was an obedient little fellow always; but he did not reply. The maid called again; she examined the front yard and the premises,—slowly, for she was afraid to go in and tell. With the imbecility of the timid and the erring, she took too much time in a fruitless and unintelligent search before she went, trembling, into the house. Kathleen felt that this was the greatest emergency that had occurred since the baby was burned. She went straight to the master's door.
"God have mercy on me, but I've lost the little dog, sir!"
The professor wheeled around in his study chair.
"There was a nigger and a squashed crow—but indeed I never left the little dog, as you bid me, sir—I never left him for the space of me breath between me lips—and when I draws it in the little dog warn't nowhere.... Oh, whatever'll she say? Whatever'll she do? Mother of God, forgive me soul! Who'll tell her?"
Who indeed?