“I nabbed a woman at the foot of the fire-escape,” explained the officer. Zoie and Aggie glanced at each other inquiringly. “I thought she might be an accomplice.”
“What does she look like, officer?” asked Alfred. His manner was becoming more paternal, not to say condescending, with the arrival of each new infant.
“Don't be silly, Alfred,” snapped Zoie, really ashamed that Alfred was making such an idiot of himself. “It's only the nurse.”
“Oh, that's it,” said Alfred, with a wise nod of comprehension; “the nurse, then she's in the joke too?” He glanced from one to the other. They all nodded. “You're all in it,” he exclaimed, flattered to think that they had considered it necessary to combine the efforts of so many of them to deceive him.
“Yes,” assented Jimmy sadly, “we are all 'in it.'”
“Well, she's a great actress,” decided Alfred, with the air of a connoisseur.
“She sure is,” admitted Donneghey, more and more disgruntled as he felt his reputation for detecting fraud slipping from him. “She put up a phoney story about the kid being hers,” he added. “But I could tell she wasn't on the level. Good-night, sir,” he called to Alfred, and ignoring Jimmy, he passed quickly from the room.
“Oh, officer,” Alfred called after him. “Hang around downstairs. I'll be down later and fix things up with you.” Again Alfred gave his whole attention to his new-found family. He leaned over the cradle and gazed ecstatically into the three small faces below his. “This is too much,” he murmured.
“Much too much,” agreed Jimmy, who was now sitting hunched up on the couch in his customary attitude of gloom.
“You were right not to break it to me too suddenly,” said Alfred, and with his arms encircling three infants he settled himself on the couch by Jimmy's side. “You're a cute one,” he continued to Jimmy, who was edging away from the three mites with aversion. In the absence of any answer from Jimmy, Alfred appealed to Zoie, “Isn't he a cute one, dear?” he asked.