“Perhaps her dolls.”
“I don't see any dolls.” His lustrous eyes brooded on the lonely little hostess. “Dominie, do you think she'd like it if I came?”
“Are you thinking of storming the house?” I asked, amused.
“That's our roof there.” He pointed to a shabby structure overtopping the squat Varick domicile by some ten feet, and separated from it by a well, four or five feet broad. “I could lean over and speak to her, couldn't I?”
“I hardly think her family would approve.”
“Her family are mean,” declared Carlo heatedly, “to shut her up in a cage.”
“Come back from the realms of romance,” I bade him sternly, “and attend to the lesson.”
Before it was over the black-and-white-banded nurse had retrieved her charge and taken her below.
Three days later I beheld two small figures on the Varick roof. One was inside the cage; one outside. They appeared to be engaged in amicable discourse. The caged figure was little Paula. As to the free one, I could scarcely believe my eyes which tried to assure me that it was Carlo Trentano. It had come about in this way: For two days rain had kept the little prisoner from the roof. She was swaying to and fro on a rocking-horse, crooning to herself, and this was the burden of her improvised chant:—
“I wi-ish I had some one to play-ay-ay wif!
Oh, I wi-ish I had some one to play-ay-ay wif!
Oh, I wi-ish I had somebuddy to play-ay wif!
I don't like to play all alone!”