“Moonss?—moonss? What does he mean by moonss?”
Before the lady had time to make sure of her own knowledge on the subject, Ogla-Moga began a wild and mysterious pantomime, which caused Bridget, who had her eye steadily on the strange monster, and kept close to the window as an avenue of desperate retreat, to exclaim: “Mither of Moses! what’s the baste going to do?” Ogla-Moga was throwing his arm up in the air with a fierce swing, suddenly crooking his elbow, and bringing his closed hand to his mouth, while he rolled his eyes around the room with a melodramatic ferocity, evidently intended to convey the idea of extreme rapture.
“Poor Ogla-Moga!” said Miss Slopham; “he wants something to drink. Give him a glass of ice-water, Bridget, and have it perfectly clear. It may remind him of the water he used to drink from the brooks of his far-off forest home;” and here Miss Slopham, in her turn, wiped a tear from her eye. Indeed, the crystal particle was apparently so surprised to find itself on the good lady’s cheek that it seemed to disappear of its own accord.
Ogla-Moga looked at the innocent glass of Croton that was handed him with undisguised disdain; but he swallowed his thoughts, whatever they were, with the water, and signified that his meal was ended.
And now for the first time the extent of the task she had undertaken became apparent to Miss Slopham. What was to be done with this terrible infant from the prairies during the week of seclusion that her plan made necessary? She lived alone, except for the companionship of Bridget, and it was asking a good deal of a timid and shrinking nature like Miss Slopham’s to take into her little household a gentleman who rolled his eyes in such an alarming manner. Then, too, there were the proprieties, against which sins could not be committed even in the name of reform. Yet what else was there to be done? He could not be sent to a hotel: that meant publicity, and perhaps recapture by the emissaries of a cruel and unsympathetic government. She could not ask a friend to take him in. He could not be sent anywhere without danger. Finally a brilliant thought struck her just as she was on the verge of distraction, with Ogla-Moga’s big eyes fastened on her all the while. There was the janitor of the apartment-house. He might easily be induced to take a boarder, and he would be discreet. Ogla-Moga could be kept in retirement in his rooms. She would act at once upon the idea. And yet what was she to say? How was she to account for the presence of this stranger in her little household? Ah! he needed clothes. His present costume was an impossible one. She would begin with this subject with the janitor’s wife, and feel her way gradually. So she made her way to the top of the house.
It would be hard to say who was in the greatest flutter when the janitor’s door was opened upon her, Miss Slopham, whose maiden bosom was agitated with strange embarrassments, or Mrs. Doherty, who was not accustomed to receive calls from the ladies of the house. The former was so confused that she walked against a chair and knocked it over, gave a little scream, and stepped on the baby, which was sprawling on the floor, whereat the baby screamed, and she screamed, and Mrs. Doherty screamed—all of which did not tend to diminish the mental excitement of either of the ladies, especially as Mrs. Doherty had up to that moment been trying to dust off a chair with one hand while she held another baby with the other arm, and motioned with her head to a little girl—or perhaps she ought to be called a baby—who had charge of still two other babies, to take them out of the room. Poor Miss Slopham thought she had never seen so many babies in her life before, and the spectacle somehow only increased her bewilderment. So perhaps it was not to be wondered at that when she had sunk into a chair she should begin the conversation with the extraordinary and utterly unprecedented question:
“Oh, Mrs. Doherty, could you—a—could you—a—lend me—a—a pair of pantaloons?”
“A pair of what, Miss Slopham?” said the astounded Mrs. Doherty, in a low voice which expressed both the proper deference of the janitor’s wife and the natural amazement of the woman.
“Oh, of course, I—I didn’t mean to say that,” poor Miss Slopham stammered, in hopeless embarrassment. “The fact is, there’s a gentleman down-stairs—a friend of mine, you know—he has no home, and very few clothes—and I want to get you to help me. He’s down-stairs now, and he’s going to stay—I don’t see how I am going to help it—and I must get a suit of clothes for him this afternoon. I suppose you think this is all very queer,” said the poor lady in breathless confusion, with a little nervous laugh, thinking to herself at the same time that it certainly was very queer.
“I’m not at all sure that I understand ye, ma’am,” said the bewildered woman, looking about her in an alarmed sort of way, as if she wondered whether Miss Slopham was quite a safe woman to be alone with.