er stewpan, and him and Mother Dillon is
standin' under a green paper bell hung from a hook in the ceiling. I
could spot Tom, the coal cart driver, by the ring of dust under his
eyelashes; and there was no mistakin' lady Kate, the sales person, with
the double row of coronet hair rolls pinned to the top of her head.
Over in the corner, too, was Sadie, talkin' to Father Kelley. But
there wa'n't any great signs of joy.

The whole party sizes up me and Pinckney as if they was disappointed.
I can't say what they was lookin' for from us; but whatever it was, we
didn't seem to fill the bill. And just when the gloom is settlin' down
thickest, Mother Dillon begins to sniffle.

"Now, mother," says Nora, soothin' like, "remember there's company."

"Ah, bad scran to the lot of yez!" says the old lady. "Where's my
Aloysius? Where is he, will ye tell me that?"

"Divvul take such a woman!" says old Larry.

"Tut, tut!" says Father Kelley.

"Will you look at the Bradys now!" whispers Maggie, hoarselike.

It wa'n't easy guessin' which windows in the block was theirs, for
every ledge has a pillow on it, and a couple of pairs of elbows on
every pillow, but I took it that the Bradys was where they was grinnin'
widest. You could tell, though, that the merry laugh was bein' passed
up and down, and it was on the Dillons.

And then, as I was tryin' to give Sadie the get-away sign, we hears a
deep honk outside, and I sees the folks across the way stretchin' their
necks out. In a minute there's a scamperin' in the halls like a
stampede at a synagogue, and we hears the "Ah-h-hs!" coming up from
below. We all makes a rush for the front and rubbers out to see what's
happenin'. By climbin' on a chair and peekin' over the top of the lady
Kate's hair puffs, I catches a glimpse of a big yellow and black bodied
car, with a footman in a bearskin coat holdin' open the door.

"Oh-o-o-oh! look what's here?" squeals eight little Dillons in chorus.

You couldn't blame 'em, either, for the hat that was bein' squeezed out
through the door of the car was one of these Broadway thrillers, four
feet across, and covered with as many green ostrich feathers as you
could carry in a clothes basket. What was under the feather lid we
couldn't see. Followin' it out of the machine comes somethin' cute in
a butter colored overcoat and a brown derby. In a minute more we gets
the report that the procession is headed up the stairs, and by the time
we've g