They were small, sleek-headed, fair-skinned youngsters, adorably clean and rumpled.
“Chang is their dog, a Pekingese,” explained the mother. “He has been lost for several days.”
“But he isn’t lost, mother. I can hear him crying every now and then. You’ll look again, mother, won’t you?”
“We heard him through the furnace pipe,” shrilled the smaller of the two. “You said you would look.”
“I did look, darlings. He isn’t there. And you promised not to cry about him, Freddie.”
Freddie, thus put on his honor, protested he was not crying for the dog.
“I want to go out and take a walk, that’s why I’m crying,” he wailed. “And I want Mademoiselle, and my buttons are all off. And my ear aches when I lie on it.”
The room was close. I threw up the windows, and turned to find Mrs. Reed at my elbows. She was glancing out apprehensively.
“I suppose the air is necessary,” she said, “and these windows are all right. But—I have a reason for asking it—please do not open the others.”
She went very soon, and I listened as she went out. I had promised to lock the door behind her, and I did so. The bolt outside was not shot.