Poor Billie—on the night our Mary had her adventure with what she thought was a prowler she was in a dogs’ hospital. They had been having lobster à la Newburg at the boarding house, and the remains in the trash can were too attractive for Billie, and she had to go away to be dosed. How she reproached herself afterward, and vowed she would never go near a trash can again!
It had been a very dark afternoon, and was a very black night. A thunderstorm was brooding over the city, and our Mary, though not at all nervous, for she is a very brave girl, had said to please her mother that she would sleep upstairs.
“I will undress down in my own room, though,” she said, “then put on my dressing-gown and come up.”
About ten o’clock she was just going to turn out the electric light when she heard something moving softly on the veranda outside her window. Turning out the light, she picked up a good-sized bell she kept on the table at the head of her bed and approached the window.
“Are you a tramp?” she said cautiously.
There was a kind of groan in reply to this, but no one spoke.
“I want you to go away,” she said sternly, “or I shall ring this bell and my father will come down and turn you away pretty quickly. Do you hear?”
The thing groaned again, and she heard a beseeching murmur, “Jus’ a crumb—jus’ a crumb.”
“A crumb!” she said indignantly. “I suppose you have been drinking too much. Go away, you scamp.”
The thing gave a kind of flop and she saw two red eyes gleaming at her. Dropping the bell, she fled from the room, calling wildly, “Daddy! Daddy!”