"Jenny Lind!" she shrieked suddenly. She could not help it. If your pet canary was suddenly snatched from you by some mysterious power, I rather fancy you would shriek, too. "Jenny Lind!"
The crash of the kitchen bowl or Mary Rose's astonished shriek brought Mrs. Bracken from her bed. She stood in the doorway, one hand clutching the kimono she had thrown around her.
"You must be more quiet," she said crossly. "How can I sleep when you are making such a noise? And if you break any more dishes I shall have to charge you for them. It's pure carelessness."
"It's Jenny Lind," gulped Mary Rose, too frightened to think of dishes. And she tried to make Mrs. Bracken understand that Jenny Lind had been there, in that hole in the wall, and that now—Oh, where was she?
Mrs. Bracken shrugged her shoulders. "It's the dumbwaiter," she yawned. "Your bird has gone up to Mr. Wells or possibly higher. If it's Mr. Wells I don't suppose you'll see the bird again. He's a very peculiar man."
Mary Rose did not wait to hear another word. With Aunt Kate's big blue and white checked apron on, the dish mop in her hand, and a great fear in her heart, she dashed up the stairs and pounded on the door of the apartment above. Mr. Wells came himself and if he had looked cross and forbidding the night before he looked a thousand times crosser and more forbidding now. Indeed, he exactly fulfilled Mary Rose's idea of an ogre.
"Please don't hurt Jenny Lind," sobbed Mary Rose, as soon as she could gather breath to speak. "I'll take her right away."
"Hurt who? Who's Jenny Lind?" growled the ogre.
"My bird! my Jenny Lind! She came up to your house with a dumbwaiter." Mary Rose hadn't the faintest idea of what a dumbwaiter was and it sounded horrible to her. "Please, please, give her to me at once!" She fairly danced in her impatience. She would have rushed into the apartment but Mr. Wells stood in the doorway.
"The dumbwaiter?" Mary Rose had never heard a more unfriendly voice. He called to someone behind him and a Japanese man came and peered under Mr. Wells' arm as he held it against the frame of the door.