"Send for the janitor," he commanded, and then, "Miss Bailey, may I speak to you in the hall?"
Teacher invested Morris Mogilewsky in the chair and the position of authority, sent Patrick for the janitor, and, strangely shaken, followed the Principal.
"What is it?" she asked, miserably, when the door was closed. "What is the matter with that baby?"
"Well," said the Principal kindly, "if you were more experienced you would be less shocked than I fear you are going to be. The child is simply and most abominably drunk."
"Drunk!" gasped Miss Bailey. "Drunk! and not seven years old!"
"Drunk," echoed the Principal. "Poor little chap! Did Miss Blake tell you the history?—The mother dead, the father away all day, no woman's care. Of course, the end will be the reformatory, but I wonder if we can do anything before that end is reached?"
"Oh, it can't be quite hopeless!" cried Miss Bailey. "Please give him to me. But I want to see that father."
"So you shall," the Principal assured her. "I shall send for him to-morrow to explain this. But he will be entirely at sea. I have him here every two or three weeks about one or other of his children—there are two boys in the upper grades—and the poor devil never can explain. However, I shall let you know when he is here."
The morrow proved the Principal's surmise to have been correct. Mr. Lazarus Diamantstein stood in helpless and hopeless misery before a court of inquiry comprising the Principal, Miss Bailey, the physician of the Board of Health, a representative of the Gerry Society, the truant officer, the indignant janitor, and a policeman who had come to the school in reference to the florid language of his own small son, and, for scenic effect, was pressed into service. Mr. Diamantstein turned from one to another of these stern-faced officials and to each in turn he made his unaltered plea:
"Mine leetle Izzie was a goot leetle boy. He don't never make like you says. Ach! never, never!"