“Not at all,” reassured Aggie. “It's the very thing that would bring him back.”
“How COULD I get one?” questioned Zoie, and she looked up at Aggie with round astonished eyes.
“Adopt it,” answered Aggie decisively.
Zoie regarded her friend with mingled disgust and disappointment. “No,” she said with a sigh and a shake of her head, “that wouldn't do any good. Alfred's so fussy. He always wants his OWN things around.”
“He needn't know,” declared Aggie boldly.
“What do you mean?” whispered Zoie.
Drawing herself up with an air of great importance, and regarding the wondering young person at her knee with smiling condescension, Aggie prepared to make a most interesting disclosure.
“There was a long article in the paper only this morning,” she told Zoie, “saying that three thousand husbands in this VERY CITY are fondling babies not their own.”
Zoie turned her small head to one side, the better to study Aggie's face. It was apparent to the latter that she must be much more explicit.
“Babies adopted in their absence,” explained Aggie, “while they were on trips around the country.”