"I'm not altogether sure," says Woodie, "whether it's I or not," and he made a dive to get below.
Well, say, that was a yacht and a half, that Dixie Girl! The inside of her was slicker'n any parlor car you ever saw. While they was gettin' up steam, and all the way down to the East river, Mrs. Cubbs had the hired hands luggin' up everything eatable they could find, from chicken salad to ice-cream, and we all took a hand passin' it out to that Incubator bunch.
They knew what grub was, yes, yes! There wasn't any holdin' back for an imitation cop to give the signal. The way they did stow in good things that they'd probably never dreamed about before was enough to make a man wish he had John D.'s pile and Jake Riis's heart. I forgot all about bein' wet, and so did Woodie. To see him jugglin' stacks of loaded plates you'd think he'd graduated from a ham-and factory. He seemed to like it, too, and he was wearin' what passes for a grin among the English aristocracy. By the time we got to the dock at East 34th-st. there was more solid comfort and stomach-ache in that cabin than it'll hold again in a thousand years.
Sadie had me go ashore and telephone for two of them big rubber-neck wagons. That gave us time to get the sleepers woke up and arrange 'em on the dock. Just as we was gettin' the last of the kids loaded in for their ride up to the Home, a roundsman shows up with two cops.
"Where do you kids belong?" he sings out.
With that there comes a howl, and the whole bunch yells:
Hot pertater—cold termater—alligater—Rome!
We're the girls from the Incubator Home!
"Caught with the goods!" says he, turnin' to the Cap'n and me. "You're arrested for wholesale kidnappin'. There's a general alarm out for youse."
"Ah, back to the goats!" says I. "You don't think we look nutty enough to steal a whole orphan asylum, do you, Rounds?"
"I wouldn't trust either of you alone with a brick block," says he. "And your side partner with the Salvation Army coat on looks like a yegg man to me."