Maida did not know what to say. The tears came to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Arthur shifted his weight from one foot to the other in intense embarrassment.
“I didn’t know it would make you feel as bad as that,” he said.
“I don’t feel bad,” Maida sobbed—and to prove it she smiled while the tears ran down her cheeks—“I feel glad.”
What he would have answered to this she never knew. For at that moment the door flew open. The little rowdy boys who had been troubling her so much lately, let out a series of blood-curdling yells.
“What’s that?” Arthur asked.
“I don’t know who they are,” Maida said wearily, “but they do that three or four times every night. I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Well, I do,” Arthur said. “You wait!”
He went over to the door and waited, flattening himself against the wall. After a long silence, they could hear footsteps tip-toeing on the bricks outside. The door flew open. Arthur Duncan leaped like a cat through the opening. There came back to Maida the sound of running, then a pause, then another sound very much as if two or three naughty little heads were being vigorously knocked together. She heard Arthur say:
“Let me catch one of you doing that again and I’ll lick you till you can’t stand up. And remember I’ll be watching for you every night now.”
Maida did not see him again then. But just before dinner the bell rang. When Maida opened the door there stood Arthur.