Matters grew worse, and now the wind and the sky took a hand. The great trees outside began to battle fiercely together, and the sky frowned, darker and darker.
Suddenly Louise—looking out of the window—saw Perkins, the janitor, hauling down the flag! Was the Houston Street School surrendering to the Germans?
For one unworthy moment Louise suspected Rudolph Kreisler again. But she instantly afterward reminded herself that he had told her with his own lips he wished to be American.
Then the heavens opened and the floods came. It was a terrible, terrible afternoon, but children and substitute managed somehow to live through it, and after so long a time the gong sounded for the dismissal of school.
The children of the other grades marched out. Tramp—tramp—it sounded terribly like a host in retreat!
Then quiet!—with the third-graders sitting silent in their seats, trying to calculate how many thousand years it would take for that long clock-hand to move half-way round the dial again.
Louise began wondering at just what point Rudolph Kreisler would steal out of his hiding and break for home. The rain had stopped, and she hoped and believed that the little German would make good his escape before the third grade had finished serving sentence.
Suddenly Luke, raising his hand, asked of the substitute:
"May I speak to Billy Hastings on business?"
The substitute was writing something and assented without looking up. Louise could not help hearing the hoarsely whispered "business."