g to her. She had searched the pockets of the gown she wore,
then various other hiding-places in the region of its waist line, then a
large bag of mattress covering which she wore under her skirt. Ever
hurriedly and more hurriedly she repeated this performance two or three
times, and then proceeded to shake and wring the out-door clothing which
she had worn that morning.

"Gott!" she broke out at last, "mine Gott! mine Gott! it don't stands."
And she began to peer about the floor with eyes not yet quite adjusted.
Morris easily recognized the symptoms.

"She's lost her pocket-book," he told Miss Bailey.

"Yes, I lost it," wailed Mrs. Mowgelewsky, and then the whole party
participated in the search. Over and under the furniture, the carpets,
the bed, the stove, over and under everything in the apartment went Mrs.
Mowgelewsky and Morris. All the joy of home-coming and of well-being was
darkened and blotted out by this new calamity. And Mrs. Mowgelewsky beat
her breast and tore her hair, and Constance Bailey almost wept in
sympathy. But the pocket-book was gone, absolutely gone, though Mrs.
Mowgelewsky called Heaven and earth to witness that she had had it in
her hand when she came in.

Another month's rent was due; the money to pay it was in the
pocket-book. Mr. Mowgelewsky had visited his wife on Sunday, and had
given her all his earnings as some salve to the pain of her eyes.
Eviction, starvation, every kind of terror and disaster were thrown into
Mrs. Mowgelewsky's wailing, and Morris proved an able second to his
mother.

Miss Bailey was doing frantic bookkeeping in her charitable mind, and
was wondering how much of the loss she might replace. She was about to
suggest as a last resort that a search should be made of the dark and
crannied stairs, where a purse, if the Fates were very, very kind, might
lie undiscovered for hours when a dull scratching made itself heard
through the general lamentation. It came from a point far down on the
panel of the door, and the same horrible conviction seized upon Morris
and upon Miss Bailey at the same moment.

Mrs. Mowgelewsky in her frantic round had approached the door for the
one-hundredth time, and with eyes and mind far removed from what she was
doing, she turned the handle. And entered Izzie, beautifully erect upon
his hind legs, with a yard or two of rope trailing behind him, and a
pocket-book fast in his teeth.

Blank, pure surprise took Mrs. Mowgelewsky for its own.