"What does this little ragamuffin say?" she asked.
"I want my photographs," said Jacob, doggedly, as the coachman shoved him aside. He ran after Mrs. Arnold, the tears in his eyes, and clung to her dress. A scene was imminent. The policeman approached, doubtless to render assistance to the lady in distress. But Mrs. Arnold did not desire his assistance just then. With a quick motion she removed a parcel from her pocket and placed it in Jacob's hands.
"Take back your things, then, and don't bother me," she said, with a flushed face.
Jacob gloated on his recovered treasures. Then his hands likewise sought his trousers pocket, and he jingled a handful of silver into Mrs. Arnold's hand.
"Take the money, Joseph," she said to the coachman. "These small storekeepers are so ill-mannered."
The policeman gave Jacob a hard look as he passed him, but the office boy was obliviously counting his pictures.
When he returned to the office the gamins were gone and Aronson was there alone. To Aronson's question where he had been, Jacob, not being an imaginative boy, gave an answer which was strictly truthful, whereupon Aronson, not being a humorous young man (for such are always grave), laughed immoderately, and proposed that the fire escape henceforth be known as Jacob's ladder.